An American actor known for his roles as B. A. Baracus in the 1980s TV series The A-Team, as boxer Clubber Lang in the 1982 film Rocky III and for his appearances as a professional wrestler. He is also known for his trademark African Mandinka warrior hairstyle and his gold jewelry. This dude has been pitying fools for 30 years now.
Larry Bird is one of the greatest NBA players of all time. He started at forward for 13 seasons with the Boston Celtics, spearheading one of the NBA’s most formidable frontcourts that won three NBA championships during the 1980s. His friendship and rivalry with Magic Johnson, whom he faced in the 1979 NCAA finals and three NBA championship series, is widely celebrated.
Note: This is 8-bit character #2 of the 13 greatest NBA players of all time.
A fictional superhero created by Hanna-Barbera in the 1960s. In his original incarnation, he fought supervillains in outer space. In the 1990s, he was the host of the animated parody talk show Space Ghost Coast to Coast on Cartoon Network and Adult Swim, which I quite enjoyed. In the 2000s, he was revamped as a serious superhero by DC Comics.
A 40-foot-tall purple gorilla and star of The Great Grape Ape Show, which was a late-1970s Saturday morning Hanna-Barbera cartoon. His catchphrase is repeating his name twice (“Grape Ape, Grape Ape”) after anything anyone says, usually as a form of agreement or acknowledgment. He travels the countryside with his canine pal Beegle Beagle.
Grape Ape is also one of my favorite items from Oregon’s Voodoo Doughnut. It’s a raised yeast doughnut with vanilla frosting, grape dust and lavender sprinkles.
After the enormous success of King Kong (1933), Merian C. Cooper and the same Hollywood creative team responsible for Kong made another film about a giant ape, this time named Joe. Mighty Joe Young was a 1949 RKO Radio Pictures film about a girl from Africa who brings an oversized ape (10-12 feet tall) to Hollywood to become a nightclub performer.
A fictional gorilla monster created by Merian C. Cooper that has appeared in several remakes and sequels since his 1933 movie debut. The original stop-motion animated film, in which Kong battles an airplane on top of the Empire State Building, is the most significant work featuring this 50-foot-tall gorilla who kidnaps and lusts for a human woman.
George Herman Ruth, Jr. (AKA “the Bambino” and “the Sultan of Swat”) was a Major League Baseball player from 1914-1935. He is one of the most famous sports heroes in American culture and is considered the greatest baseball player ever. He spent his career with the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox and set numerous MLB records.
The first athlete to be named an All-Star in two major American sports (baseball and football). He won the Heisman Trophy in 1985 and became a household name in 1989-90 through Nike’s “Bo Knows” advertising campaign. He was also the most unstoppable athlete in video game history (see “Tecmo Bo” in Tecmo Super Bowl for Nintendo).
A comic fictional character created and portrayed by American comedian Paul Reubens. He is best known for his television series and movies (including Pee-wee’s Big Adventure) during the 1980s. On this day in 1991 (it’s the 20th anniversary!), Reubens was arrested for public masturbation in an adult theater in Florida. Oh, the childhood memories.
Born Samuel Langhorne Clemens, he worked as a typesetter and a master riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River before turning to journalism. He found his calling in the 1860s as an American humorist. He is most celebrated for his novels, including The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885).
A noted American aviation pioneer. Born on this day in 1897, she was the first woman to receive the U.S. Distinguished Flying Cross, awarded for becoming the first aviatrix to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. She disappeared over the central Pacific Ocean on July 2, 1937 while attempting an around-the-world flight.
A fictional character in the Star Trek media franchise. Captain Kirk was born and raised in Riverside, Iowa in the year 2233. He was the youngest individual to become a Starfleet captain and served as the commanding officer of the USS Enterprise. He was first played by William Shatner as the principal lead character in the original Star Trek series.
An American aviator and former NASA astronaut best known as the first person to set foot on the Moon. The first Moon walk occurred exactly 42 years ago today. Armstrong served as commander of the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing mission, which fulfilled U.S. President John F. Kennedy’s goal of reaching the Moon before the Soviet Union by the end of the 1960s.
A Hong Kong American actor, martial arts instructor and founder of the Jeet Kune Do movement. He is widely considered the most influential martial artist, and a cultural icon. While doing work for the movie Enter the Dragon, he suffered a cerebral edema. Two months later, on this day in 1973, he died at age 32 from a mysterious allergic reaction to medication.
In addition to being a derogatory term traditionally associated with African Americans, Rastus is also the name of the Cream of Wheat cereal mascot. The character first appeared in 1893 and is reportedly based on a photograph of Chicago chef Frank L. White. Over 100 years later, his face still appears on the cereal box.
Uncle Ben’s rice was first marketed in 1943 and was the top-selling rice in the U.S. from 1950 until the 1990s. In March 2007, after 61 years as a domestic servant/maitre d’hotel, the image of Uncle Ben was “promoted” to chairman by a new advertising campaign designed to distance the brand from its iconography depicting a servant in the Aunt Jemima tradition.
Aunt Jemima was a prominent character in minstrel shows in the late 19th century who was commercially appropriated to market pancake mix in late 1889. She was meant to embody the idealized domesticity of old Southern hospitality. In 1926, the Quaker Oats Company bought the brand and later attempted to minimize its expression of the “mammy” archetype.
The Noid was a villainous advertising character for Domino’s Pizza created in 1986 by Group 243 advertising agency. This red-suited character attempted to ruin Domino’s pizza but was constantly thwarted. Commercials that featured the character used the slogan “Avoid the Noid.” Domino’s was founded in 1960 and is the second-largest pizza chain in the U.S.
Little Caesars pizza chain was founded in 1959 with Little Caesar, a diminutive toga-clad Roman wearing sandals and a laurel wreath, as its corporate mascot. It is the fourth-largest pizza chain (after Pizza Hut, Domino’s and Papa John’s). The franchise name is an allusion to Julius Caesar, former ruler of the Roman Empire.
Hulk – No. 165
A fictional superhero in the Marvel Comics universe who first appeared in 1962. Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, the Incredible Hulk is the emotional and impulsive alter ego of physicist Dr. Bruce Banner. The Hulk appears shortly after Banner is accidentally exposed to the blast of a test detonation of a gamma bomb he invented. Hulk smash!
Like many kids in the 1980s, I recall happily jumping across furniture to avoid my house’s lava floor while wearing Hulk-themed Underoos.