A significant Canadian constitutional law case involved a case of Johnny Walker whiskey, bought by a provincial cabinet minister.
The 1964 animated TV movie “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” was filmed in Japan, but the entire soundtrack was recorded in a studio in Toronto, Ontario. Most of the singing and speaking cast were Canadian. Billie Mae Richards (“Rudolph”) and Paul Soles (“Hermey”) are neighbours in an Ontario retirement community.
Arthur Rankin, Jr. (of Rankin/Bass Productions [Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer]), died Jan 30, 2014, in Bermuda, at age 89.
Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer had a very tiny nose. And if you ever saw it, you would even say it glows.
The logo of the Danville (Illinois) Dashers of the lowest-minor Federal Hockey League is a reindeer. Other current teams (look fast, the league is probably doomed) are the Dayton Demonz, the Watertown (NY) Privateers, and the Danbury (CT) Whalers.
The New England Whalers had the WHA’s best regular-season record in the 1972–73 WHA season and won the inaugural Avco World Trophy, the WHA championship.
WHA teams that joined the NHL, besides the Hartford Whalers, are the Edmonton Oilers, the Quebec Nordiques, and the Winnipeg Jets. Only the Oilers play in their original city. The Whalers now play as the Carolina Hurricanes, the Nordiques are the Colorado Avalanche, and the Jets are the Phoenix Coyotes.
Wayne Gretzky began his professional hockey career with the Indianapolis Racers of the WHA, before being traded to the Edmonton Oilers, at that time also in the WHA.
The NHL had stringent rules regarding the age of players they could sign while the WHA regularly signed underage players. In 1978, Indianapolis Racers’ owner Nelson Skalbania signed the then-17-year-old future super-star Wayne Gretzky to a personal contract worth between 1.125 and 1.75 million dollars over 4 to 7 years, which was at the time one of the largest contracts offered a hockey player.
Janet Jones, Wayne Gretzky’s wife, starred in the movie “American Anthem”, opposite US Olympic gymnast Mitch Gaylord.
Nelson Skalbania, who signed Wayne Gretzky to Indianapolis, took over the Montréal Alouettes in the mid-80s, as they entered a death spiral, leading to the team eventually folding. In trying to shift blame, Skalbania famously said: “It’s not like I raped a nun.” His comment did not endear him to Als fans.
In 1978, Mark Messier also began his pro hockey career with the Indianapolis Racers and Nelson Skalbania. At the time, Messier, like Gretzky, was also 17 years old.
King Mark was a legendary King of Cornwall, said to be cuckolded by his nephew Tristan with his wife Iseult.
When Matilda, the daughter of King Henry the first of England, returned to her father after the death of her first husband, the holy Roman Emperor Henry V*, she brought with her an extremely valuable jeweled crown and a sword said to belong to Tristan, both of which the Holy Roman emperors would demand back for years. Neither was ever returned: the jewels from the crown were added to the royal collection, and the sword disappeared into history.
*They married when she was a child and he was in his 30s and in a longterm relationship with a mistress who was his wife in all but law; the marriage was probably never consummated due to his bad health and his devotion to his mistress by the time Matilda was of age.
Matilda is a children’s novel by British author Roald Dahl. It is a story about Matilda Wormwood, an extraordinary child with ordinary and rather unpleasant parents, who are contemptuous of their daughter’s talents and her discovery of her telekinetic abilities.
Adding to this, from Wikipedia:
When Itzhak Perlman was appearing at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center in the 1990s, a string on his guitar broke during the first movement of the Beethoven Violin Concerto. Undaunted . . . .
Perlman turned to the concertmaster, asked to borrow his violin, and continued with the movement. His performance on an instrument he was unfamiliar with rated a rare ovation between movements. His own guitar was restrung and handed back to him during the applause.
(Itzhak Perlman is pretty damn familiar with violins, one might say - are you sure you didn’t switch the instrument names?)
According to tradition, potato chips were invented in Saratoga Springs, NY by African/Native American chef George Crum, who was so annoyed at a customer’s claim that his potatoes were undercooked that he vastly overcooked them in spite. Some stories claim the customer was Cornelius Vanderbilt.
Cornelius Vanderbilt’s second wife was named Frank Armstrong Crawford–a cousin from Mobile, Alabama.
Yukon Cornelius is one of the characters in the claymation Christmas classic, Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer.