:smack: I actually put all this in the wrong thread…was supposed to go in the Wait, that’s NOT real thread. Ah well…
-XT
Oh, “Mystery Date” sure did have the names of the guys!
As far as Erich VonDaniken, I think we all have gone through our periods of ancient astronaut fascination. I think it’s part of our personal discovery of spirituality. Ouija boards and seances fall into the same sort of category, IMHO.
In our house, though, I went through my ancient astronauts and communicating with ghosts during high school and college–late Sixties, early Seventies. Unfortunately, my husband is going through HIS supernatural phase NOW. The History channel and its “woo-woo” offerings just exacerbate it.
~VOW
This afternoon my 11yo daughter was reading a book of historical fiction set in the Middle Ages. She brought the book to me and said “This can’t possibly be real! They made that up, right?” A character was claiming to be proficient in all sorts of magical arts, such as aeromancy and spatulamancy. We looked it up, and sure enough, spatulamancy is totally real; it’s the art of divining with a scorched shoulderblade bone.
[troll]Yes, good example, not all of Britain is part of the Commonwealth[/troll]
For me too, but just like **xtisme **I found then science.
As for the subject at hand, I should link to an early thread I made on the subject as it is full with examples the OP is looking for:
Had to quote and modify a little of my OP from then as it is relevant now because of the new Tintin movie:
"Quentin Tarantino’s movies sometimes make references to a Roscoe’s Chicken and waffles restaurant; there is a real Roscoe’s Chicken and waffles restaurant in L.A.!
From the Adventures of Tintin I was surprised to find that Tchang was a real person! He was a dear friend of Herge!
And in that old cartoon series Roger Ramjet, the hometown of the hero was Lompoc. Driving trough California, I did a double take when I found it was a real place.
A former coworker sat through *Schindler’s List, *assuming it was entirely fictitious.
I was on my PC while the TV was playing in the other room and I overheard a commercial for a show called Extreme Couponing. I assumed it was a fake commercial for something ridiculous and then it would turn into a real ad for something (like those parody Energizer ads from years back). I literally yelled, “What?!” when I learned it was a real show.
The particular story of Oskar Schindler, or the entire Holocaust?
Here are the cards from the Barbie game.
I never played Mystery Date so I don’t know if the dates had cards or not but I couldn’t find any pictures of them. I did find some discussion of it here and they seem to refer to the guys as “the dream,”“the dud,” and “the bum.” There IS a lot of confusion about which game had Poindexter.
Not sure why you had trouble finding the Red Ryder BB gun.
I’ve never heard of the Barbie game, but I did play a lot of Mystery Date (that’s the one with the door in the middle of the board that opened up to reveal your date, depending on which way you turned the knob, right?) when I was a kid. I would swear there were no names on the dates.
this page has an image of the available dates from at least one edition of Mystery Date. (you’ll have to scroll down a bit) Until today I would have sworn I played Mystery Date, but when I look at the cards it was definitely the Barbie Queen of the Prom Game because those are the cards I recognize. I secretly wanted Poindexter!
Good thing, too. Did you want to shoot your eye out?
As a kid I always thought Cardinal Richelieu was a fictional character in the cartoon series Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds. Was only in my late teens I noticed a history book in the house with an account of Richelieu’s time.
Sheboygan was said a lot in some cartoon series, Animaniacs? Anyway I only found out about a month or two ago it was a real town.
(straightening my tie and posture) You did? 
The Michelangelo/Pope sketch Monty Python performed for some benefits actually happened! Okay, not quite, but the sketch was based on a historical incident. The painter Paolo Veronese really did paint a Last Supper with extraneous figures. The Inquisition investigated, Veronese basically claimed artistic license, and he was advised to paint those figures out. Instead, he really did just rename it. Paolo Veronese - Wikipedia
When I first heard the song “Kilkelly, Ireland” (in the US as it happens) I thought the place name was either a vanishingly insignificant townland or made up to sound like an Irish place name. Years later I was on an intercity coach that went through the village of Kilkelly. :smack:
I don’t watch South Park but I saw an ad one time where Cartman was saying “Hella” before everything. I thought it was just made up for the show and was surprised a few years later when I learned people actually talk like that.
Or WWII ?
The Cracked.com article is about the Spanish basketball team cheating in the Paralympics, not the Special Olympics. I know a lot of people who don’t realize that they’re different things.
The Special Olympics is for children and adults with intellectual disabilities. There are over 50,000 local/regional/national “Special Olympics” competitions held every year, and a Special Olympics World Games every two years. The Special Olympics is mostly about encouraging participation, being your personal best, overcoming negative stereotypes about intellectual disabilities, building communities, etc…
The Paralympics is an international event held in conjunction with the regular Olympics every four years. It’s for elite athletes mostly with physical disabilities, but there is a category for intellectual disabilities. There have been Paralympians who have also competed in the regular Olympics.
There have been athletes caught doping at the Paralympics (mostly in powerlifting), and the Spanish Paralympic team from 2000 in the intellectually disabled basketball tournament was found to have 10 of 12 members who were not really disabled.
This reminds me of my boss laughing when I told him I was hoping to go to Torquay one year for the Agatha Christie festival. He thought that Torquay was a fictional town where Basil Fawlty ran a hotel.