Why did Charles Schulz name his Charlie Brown comic strip Peanuts?

Charlie Brown first appeared as a character in a syndicated cartoon in September of 1950, which was named Li’l Folks. The most popular children’s television show at the time was Howdy Doody, and the syndicator insisted that the strip be renamed for the kids in Doody’s cordonedoff area for his live children’s audience, which was called the “peanut gallery.” And so the most popular comic strip in history became known as Peanuts.

Why is the energy from a car’s engine referred to as “horsepower"?

When Scottish inventor James Watt received a patent on his steam engine in 1755, horses were being used to draw coal to a mine’s surface. After calculating that one horse had the power to haul 330 pounds 100 feet in one minute, he proved that one steam engine could replace an entire herd of horses. This made Watt wealthy and gave us a formula to interpret engine capacity in horsepower.

Why is hair trimmed straight across the forehead called “bangs”?

Since the beginning of the nineteenth century, a bobtail has described a horse with a tail cut very short, while a long but neatly trimmed tail has been called a bangtail. The “bang” refers to the quickness of the cut. The Americans abbreviated bangtail to bangs in 1878 when hair cut straight across the human forehead became popular. Like the ponytail, bangs is a hairstyle borrowed from the business end of a horse.

Why does Tonto call the Lone Ranger “Kemo Sabe”?

In 1933, during the Great Depression, radio station WXYZ in Detroit introduced The Lone Ranger. His faithful Native companion, Tonto, was supposed to have been from the Potawatomi tribe, but linguistic scholars were stumped by his reference to the Lone Ranger as Kemo Sabe. Co-creator Jim Jewell eventually confessed that he had made up the expression from the name of his father-in-law’s summer camp, Ke- Mo-Sah-Bee.

Where did the yellow smiley face come from?

The yellow smiley face, with its dotted black eyes, first appeared with a slightly crooked smile as a promotion for the deejays of radio station WMCA in New York in 1962. However, in 1963, commercial artist Harvey Ball introduced the version that’s still with us when he curved the smile as a promotion for a major insurance company. Unable to copyright his smiley face, Ball received forty-five dollars for its creation.

What are the origins of the Tony and the Emmy awards?

The Tony Awards are named in honor of the prominent Broadway personality Antoinette Perry, whose nickname was Tony. The Tony Awards began in 1947, the year after her death. When the Emmy Awards were introduced in the 1940s they were called Immies, after the word image in “Image Orthocon Tube,” an important part of a television camera. Over time the Immy became an Emmy.

What is the origin of the word jazz?

Jazz may be an American art form, but the word predates any application to music or sex. It first appeared in print in 1831 as jazzing, meaning the telling of fun stories. The first American use of jazz was in baseball as slang for enthusiasm in 1913. Its first musical use was a year later, to describe the vigor of West Coast band leader Art Hickman. The word jazz wasn’t used to describe black music until 1918.

Why is something pleasing said to be “cool”?

Cool, like groovy, was a very popular expression of satisfaction during the 1960s and early ‘70s, but only the former lives on. Cool surfaced in the early nineteenth century and, like groovy, which meant “in the groove,” as in a smoothly played vinyl record, it was popularized in the modern era by bebop jazz musicians in the 1940s. Cool means unfazed and under control, like being on ice, which is real cool.

Why are shopping centres called “malls”?

Shopping centres mushroomed in the 1950s but weren’t called malls until 1967. Mall comes from the popular sixteenth-century Italian ball and mallet game palamaglio, which came to England as pall-mall (pronounced “pell mell”). By the eighteenth century the game had been forgotten, except on the name of a London street where it had been played and on a parallel ritzy avenue named the Mall, where fashionable aristocrats strolled and shopped.

How did the Singing Chipmunks get their names, and who are the namesakes of Rocky and Bullwinkle?

The Singing Chipmunks were inspired by a near accident when their creator, Ross Bagdasarian, had to swerve sharply to miss hitting a chipmunk while driving on a country road. He named the trio Alvin, Simon, and Theodore after three record company executives. As for Rocky and Bullwinkle, their creator, Jay Ward, named them after fighter Rocky Graziano and used car salesman Clarence Bullwinkle.

What is the origin of the name of the popular ice cream Haagen-Daazs?

In the 1960s, Reuben Mattas, a Polish-born American from the Bronx, was struggling to sell his quality ice cream when he took note of the popularity of all things Danish modern. He decided to tap into the fad by putting a map of Denmark on his cartons and calling it Haagen-Daazs. Of course, there’s no such Danish word as Haagen-Daazs, but this inspiration of marketing genius became a billion-dollar idea.

How did the Barbie doll get its name?

Barbie was designed by Ruth Handler and named after her daughter. However, she didn’t realize that the original moulds came from an existing German doll named Lili, a popular cartoon prostitute of the time. At first stores refused to stock the anatomically correct doll, until it was neutralized in 1959. By the way, Barbie’s measurements if she were life-sized are 39-23-33 ... still pretty sexy.

What was the original meaning of “rock and roll”?

American slaves communicated secret codes past their white masters with music, and in 1951, when Alan Freed coined the phrase “rock and roll,” he was doing the same thing. In blues and jazz, the words mean “having great sex” (Good Rockin’ Tonight, 1948, and My Man Rocks Me With One Steady Roll, 1922). These coded lyrics were unfamiliar to the white broadcasters and gave Freed a way to cross the colour barrier and introduce white kids to rhythm and blues, where they soon learned how to Rock Around The Clock.

Why is a citrus soft drink called 7-Up?

In 1929, Charles L. Grigg of St Louis began selling a lemon-lime soft drink under the slogan “Takes the Ouch out of Grouch,” and it became a sensation. One of the soft drink’s key ingredients was lithium, a powerful anti-depressant, which was removed in the 1940s. The “7” in the name means seven ounces, while the “Up” is a reference to the carbonated bubbles rising to the surface.

Why is Batman’s hometown called Gotham City?

“Gotham City” is a nickname for New York and was introduced by Washington Irving in 1807 as the home of fast-talking know-it-alls. Irving took the name from a legend about King John, who wanted to build a regal estate near the actual Gotham in England but was discouraged when the citizens, not wanting to pay the added taxes, enacted a plan of feigning madness (like real New Yorkers), which caused the king to change his mind in a “Gotham minute.”

What were the origins of vaudeville?

Tony Pastor introduced vaudeville in New York in 1861. The word vaudeville is an Americanization of Vau de Vire, the valley of the Vau River in Normandy, which became famous in the fifteenth century for the comedic songs of Olivier Basselin. An 1883 vaudeville bill from Boston’s Gaiety Museum featured a midget named Baby Alice, a stuffed mermaid, two comedians, and a chicken with a human face. From these humble beginnings would emerge the great American theatre.

Who were detective Sherrinford Holmes and Ormand Sacker?

When Arthur Conan Doyle began writing mystery novels, he chose one of his medical school instructors, Dr. Joseph Bell, as his sleuth’s model and named him Sherrinford Holmes. His assistant, Watson, took his name from one of Bell’s assistants, but not before being briefly named Ormand Sacker. Incidentally, in none of the stories does Holmes ever say, “Elementary, my dear Watson.” That was used only in the movies.

Who was Pansy O’Hara in Gone With The Wind?

Margaret Mitchell was a first-time writer when in 1936 she submitted a manuscript of Civil War stories told to her by her grandfather under the title Tomorrow Is Another Day, featuring a Southern belle named Pansy O’Hara. The publisher convinced her to change the book’s name to Gone With The Wind, a line from a nineteenth-century poem by Ernest Dowson, and, after a bitter argument, to change “Pansy” to “Scarlett.”

How did dude become a greeting between buddies?

The word dude originated as a Victorian slang word for a man who was effeminate. It’s a variation of dud or duds, from the Arabic word for cloak (dudde), and was a reference to fancy or foppish clothes. When vain, fashion-conscious city slickers wanted a taste of the West, they went to a Dude Ranch. Dude was kept alive by California surfers and took on its current fellowship meaning from a generation weaned on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

In movie credits, what are the actual jobs of the gaffer, the key grip, and the best boy?

Filmmaking requires precision teamwork, and each credit is well earned. In movie language, a gaffer is the chief electrician; it evolved from the German word granfer, meaning “grandfather.” A grip requires strength, because he or she builds and dismantles scenery and handles other physical chores that require a strong grip. A best boy is the gaffer’s or grip’s assistant.