That there's a UK Dennis the Menace in addition to our US Dennis the Menace... he seems more willfully naughty than the U.S. version.
The weird part is that they were both first published on March 12th, 1951; apparently just a coincidence.
― Andy the Grasshopper, Thursday, 3 February 2022 17:33 (two years ago) link
Yeah, we got the US Dennis over here as an animated series, but he was just “Dennis”
― Mark G, Thursday, 3 February 2022 17:51 (two years ago) link
And I think the UK version is titled "Dennis and Gnasher" outside the UK
― Andy the Grasshopper, Thursday, 3 February 2022 17:54 (two years ago) link
the notoriously litigious DC Thomson must have been really fucked off. I joined the Dennis The Menace fan club and all I got was two badges and a membership card. The furry Gnasher badge was not very well made iirc.
― calzino, Thursday, 3 February 2022 18:06 (two years ago) link
Until recently I thought "consumption" (as it often appeared in old literature and movies, as in "she died of consumption") was a euphemism for alcohol-related illness, as opposed to it being just another name for tuberculosis
― Paul Ponzi, Saturday, 5 February 2022 21:44 (two years ago) link
It might make up for learning just last month that the lyric is "Split up on a dark, sad night" not "Split up on the docks that night".
I just now learned that from reading your post.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Saturday, 5 February 2022 21:51 (two years ago) link
I'm not an expert on rock festival history, but I was surprised to learn that Lou Rawls was one of the performers at the Monterey Pop Festival.
― Halfway there but for you, Sunday, 6 February 2022 00:38 (two years ago) link
Liam is short for William
― Hideous Lump, Monday, 7 February 2022 02:49 (two years ago) link
Ope! I did not know that!
I learned something today and thought of this thread but I forgot what it was.
― Ima Gardener (in orbit), Monday, 7 February 2022 02:56 (two years ago) link
Billy Gallagher.
― pplains, Monday, 7 February 2022 03:04 (two years ago) link
Liam and Topher Hemsworth
― Hideous Lump, Monday, 7 February 2022 06:36 (two years ago) link
The Muppet's Statler and Waldorf are named after the New York hotels.
I knew Waldorf is a hotel, but didn't know of Statler, so just thought it was a random name they chose.
― Dan Worsley, Monday, 7 February 2022 15:30 (two years ago) link
One could also say The Statler Brothers were indirectly named after the Statler hotel chain, since they were named after a brand of facial tissue that was named after the Statler Hotel in Boston.
― Josefa, Monday, 7 February 2022 15:40 (two years ago) link
That wildebeests are the same thing as gnus
― Ward Fowler, Monday, 14 February 2022 10:47 (two years ago) link
Things you never gnu
― Alba, Monday, 14 February 2022 10:57 (two years ago) link
...and things you never wil
(debeest)
― Halfway there but for you, Monday, 14 February 2022 13:02 (two years ago) link
I thought that was a blunderbuss.
― peace, man, Monday, 14 February 2022 13:22 (two years ago) link
"no gnus is good gnus"--gary gnu
― andrew m., Monday, 14 February 2022 15:21 (two years ago) link
I'm a sucker for a solid Great Space Coaster reference
― Muad'Doob (Moodles), Monday, 14 February 2022 15:55 (two years ago) link
You gotta be shockingly old to know that show.
― pplains, Monday, 14 February 2022 16:32 (two years ago) link
:(
― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Monday, 14 February 2022 16:52 (two years ago) link
all i'll say is it will soon be legal for me to open the ilxors in their 50s thread.
― andrew m., Monday, 14 February 2022 19:48 (two years ago) link
welcome to the bracket
― Andy the Grasshopper, Monday, 14 February 2022 20:33 (two years ago) link
Yesterday I learned that in American football offensive and defensive "lines" have totally different players who take and leave the field in turn, and have no overlap of people. I thought it was like soccer where you have the same players and a bench of alternates.
― Ima Gardener (in orbit), Tuesday, 15 February 2022 00:07 (two years ago) link
I went to every high school home game for 5 years in the '90s and I just never...noticed?
A lot of high school teams used to have "two-way" players. I understand that it's less common nowadays, but not unheard of.
― Josefa, Tuesday, 15 February 2022 00:22 (two years ago) link
Arena Football actually did the two-way thing for years before they started allowing limited substitutions, to become more like traditional american football.
― sorry Mario, but our princess is in another butthole (Neanderthal), Tuesday, 15 February 2022 00:23 (two years ago) link
it also sucked
I was like "Who are those players looking sweaty on the sidelines, is that in real time? Shouldn't they be...playing?"
― Ima Gardener (in orbit), Tuesday, 15 February 2022 00:26 (two years ago) link
get on board for the great space coaster to your sixties
― i cannot help if you made yourself not funny (forksclovetofu), Wednesday, 16 February 2022 04:08 (two years ago) link
Hey I loved Great Space Coaster! And Krofft Superstars as well. Both in constant after-school syndication rotation circa 1981. Gary Gnu melds seamlessly into Sigmund the Sea Monster in my head.
Stations programmed shows in complementary pairs, and these pairings became irrelevant after cable and subsequently streaming. I feel these pairings should be documented before all us Olds lose our brains to dementia.
For me: Happy Days with Laverne & Shirley. I Dream of Jeannie with Bewitched. Flipper with Gidget. Green Acres with Beverly Hillbillies. Jeffersons with Good Times. What's Happening, Diff'rent Strokes, and Sanford & Son are also in this mix. (Fuck you, Cosby, you didn't pioneer shit.)
Alice with One Day at a Time, plus Facts of Life and Family Ties. Knight Rider with Magnum PI. Sometimes Kojak or Hawaii 5-0 or Matlock are in this mix. Then there's Greatest American Hero, Wonder Woman, etc.
Then the cartoon shows like He-Man and She-Ra (usually paired). Speed Racer and Jonny Quest.
A vanished world of lying on a terrible carpet eating something indefensible, every afternoon, all afternoon. Saturday morning was worse.
And we're now the parents who are supposed to limit "screen time"?
― Ye Mad, Putin? (Ye Mad Puffin), Thursday, 17 February 2022 17:03 (two years ago) link
The "Soul Train" intro was the signal that Saturday morning cartoons were over.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Thursday, 17 February 2022 17:12 (two years ago) link
Re: Al Capp from the 'Great Assholes' thread...
Frank Frazetta drew a whole bunch of Lil' Abner comic strips... like thousands of them. News to me.
― Andy the Grasshopper, Thursday, 17 February 2022 17:13 (two years ago) link
I also have vague memories of these pairings. In Boston, Diff'rent Strokes was paired with Silver Spoons, and then there was the amazing pairing of Star Blazers with "Force Five", which was a show that featured a different mecha anime on each of the five weekdays:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_Five
― Muad'Doob (Moodles), Thursday, 17 February 2022 17:20 (two years ago) link
wow, those last two were simply not on my radar screen. Clearly I missed out on televised awesomeness galore. But it inspires me to add Transformers / GI Joe to my list of pairings.
Anyway. Maybe this is more of a "Things you were shockingly old before you thought very much about," but this review
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/feb/10/metaphysical-animals-review-four-women-who-changed-philosophy
points out that during WWII a whole heck of a lot of college-age British men were someplace else, doing something else. One of the results was an efflorescence of women in philosophy.
I have long been a fan of Iris Murdoch's fiction. I like her philosophical dialogues and writing on Platonic aesthetics (Acastos, The Fire Behind the Sun). I find her book on metaphysics kinda opaque, though. I got some exposure to Philippa Foot in college but don't remember much.
Anyway, I had not considered how much their careers were advanced by the absence of the people who would likely have told them to sit down and be quiet.
― Ye Mad, Putin? (Ye Mad Puffin), Thursday, 17 February 2022 17:39 (two years ago) link
It was that or "The ABC Weekend Special" that was always some boring ass drama like its cousin, "The ABC Afternoon Special".
That book would open up in the intro and once I saw those two baseball kids pointing at each other, I realized that the fun was over.
― pplains, Thursday, 17 February 2022 17:42 (two years ago) link
Would get so upset when a Cubs afternoon game would preempt Transformers! Which was often, before Wrigley Field had lights.
― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Thursday, 17 February 2022 18:24 (two years ago) link
one thing that happened every day during the Star Blazers/Force Five block, that I was obsessed with even though I never actually got to do it myself, was that they'd have this asteroids-style video game during one of the commercial breaks. It was like targeting crosshairs with asteroids floating around the screen. Kids could call in to a particular phone number, and one lucky kid would get to shout "Fire! Fire!" live on tv in order to shoot the asteroids, and if they shot enough they'd win some sort of prize.
― Muad'Doob (Moodles), Thursday, 17 February 2022 20:05 (two years ago) link
I've heard about that before! That's wild.
― peace, man, Thursday, 17 February 2022 20:14 (two years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3RtR2JVHEA
― Piven After Midnight (The Yellow Kid), Thursday, 17 February 2022 20:15 (two years ago) link
^ - the NYC WPIX version
― Piven After Midnight (The Yellow Kid), Thursday, 17 February 2022 20:16 (two years ago) link
this is supposedly the only one he drew solo
― bad luck banging, or Lorna Doone (sic), Thursday, 17 February 2022 21:20 (two years ago) link
We had this one in Tasmania but it was never presented quite as entertainingly as this:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CIodhrCvg0
― assert (matttkkkk), Thursday, 17 February 2022 22:10 (two years ago) link
that second one may well be the exact same game that I saw
― Muad'Doob (Moodles), Thursday, 17 February 2022 23:47 (two years ago) link
― i cannot help if you made yourself not funny (forksclovetofu), Saturday, 19 February 2022 23:10 (two years ago) link
I always just assumed that Annabeth Gish was descended from the Gish sisters of Old Hollywood. But I just learned that they are not related.
― Hans Holbein (Chinchilla Volapük), Monday, 21 February 2022 04:58 (two years ago) link
As the lone voter for Desert Bloom in Grim Scene, Baby, Grim Scene: The Allen Garfield Poll I would have said the same.
― Solaris Ocean Blue (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 21 February 2022 12:15 (two years ago) link
Making gravy is easy
― Chuck_Tatum, Monday, 21 February 2022 14:59 (two years ago) link
had no idea Warren Beaty and Shirley MacLaine were siblings.
― Western® with Bacon Flavor, Sunday, 27 February 2022 03:51 (two years ago) link
Not me, but my wife swears she has a co-worker who up until thought the "use by" date on food meant when you were supposed to start using it.
― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, 27 February 2022 04:29 (two years ago) link