Amazing Things I Learned Today!

[Nate the Great]

For TV Tropes reasons I was wandering around Memory Alpha looking at guest stars who portrayed both human and alien characters. What did I discover? Phil Morris (Thopok ("Looking for Par'mach"), Third Remata'Klan ("Rocks and Shoals"), and John Kelley "One Small Step")) also played one of the Onlies in "Miri"!

[Nate the Great]

Characters from the Land of Make Believe (Mister Rogers) cameoed on Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego!


So if Mister Rogers coexist with Carmen Sandiego and Sesame Street and Captain Kangaroo...that's one weird shared universe.

[Nate the Great]

The Blackberry range of cellphones was named because the keys looked like the drupelets of a blackberry.



And the second amazing thing that I learned today is the word "drupelet", meaning a small fruit surrounding a seed, found in clusters.



Amazing thing #3 is that the technical difference between a blackberry and raspberry is that when you pick the berry off the stem the torus (the part of the stem that the drupelets surround) sticks with the plant leaving a hollow berry (raspberries) or breaks off with the berry (blackberries).


I had remembered that the term "drupe" was attached to peaches, but it was deep in my memory. Drupelets are smaller than drupes.



Amazing thing #4 is the technical definition of "berry", a fruit that doesn't have a stone or pit. We would consider this definition too broad, as it also includes stuff like grapes, tomatoes, and eggplants that we don't consider berries.

[Nate the Great]

Frank Drake of The Drake Equation only died a few days ago!


The Drake Equation calculates the number of interstellar civilizations in the galaxy. The real version is






When writing the pitch for Star Trek Gene didn't remember the real equation, so he created the completely nonsensical





Whatever Gene's talents, mathematics wasn't one of them. Why raise things to the first power?

[Nate the Great]

Weird Al picked Daniel Radcliffe to play him in the biopic because of Radcliffe's performance of "The Elements Song."



Tom Lehrer was an inspiration to later generations of humorous musicians, and he's still alive at 94.


I'm willing to give Radcliffe a chance, but he just doesn't seem wacky enough to play Yankovic.

[Nate the Great]

Kai Winn was only in 14 episodes!


That was a shock to me. Furthermore, she wasn't in a single Season 4 episode.

[Nate the Great]

I didn't know that Year Without A Santa Claus was originally a poem. Well, it was, and one time Boris Karloff narrated it.


It's also amazing how much of the poem Rankin and Bass managed to fit into the special. And to answer your first question, the Miser Brothers weren't in the poem.

[Nate the Great]

As a Rankin-Bass fan I was shocked to learn that Bass only died this year! (Rankin died in 2014).

[NAHTMMM]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunshower

A lot of cultures have a lot of inventive ways to refer to a sunny rainfall.

[Nate the Great]

Glynis Johns is not only alive but she turned 100 yesterday!

You will of course remember her as Mrs. Banks in Mary Poppins.

[Nate the Great]

TOS costume designer William Ware Theiss invented the "Cochrane Delta" Starfleet emblem!

Amazing. If you had asked me before I would've guessed that Matt Jeffries invented it.

[Nate the Great]

Ron Dante is still alive!

Who's Ron Dante? He's the songwriter and lead singer for The Archies!

YouTube playlist


When it comes to Archies music far too many people focus on "Sugar, Sugar" and ignore the rest. Well, there are a lot of songs in there that are worth remembering, at least to me.

That being said, here are some "Sugar, Sugar" covers:

The Workout Mix. Dubstep and techno combine to make a version of the song that certainly demands your attention if nothing else.

The Sixties Mix. Interesting idea, but the sound mixing is terrible. The drums and clapping are too loud.

The Riverdale Cast. It must be heard to be disbelieved.

Ron Dante performing it last summer.

So in 1990 there was this TV movie called "Return to Riverdale". And in it the actor playing Jughead tries doing a hip-hop version.

[Nate the Great]

"DeForest" is Kelly's middle name, his real first name is Jackson!

[Nate the Great]

Jim Henson performed "Mahna Mahna" on the Ed Sullivan Show!


I've also never seen Bip Bippadotta (no seriously, that's his name) wink before.


It's nothing special, The Muppet Show version is better.



I also never realized that a completely different Bip Bippadotta puppet was used for the Sesame Street version.



I also learned that Sandra Bullock performed the song with the Snowths on Muppets Tonight.

[Nate the Great]

In the Pokemon manga Ash named his Pikachu "Jean Luc Pikachu"!


This might be a massive troll, but it still amused me. Who knew the Japanese were so willing to make puns using Western characters?

[Nate the Great]

I'm older than Prince William!


Only by a few months, but still...

[Nate the Great]

Adam Savage is only 15 years older than me! I would've sworn it was a lot more...

[NAHTMMM]

All that eyebrow burning makes him look older.

[Nate the Great]

Today I learned about a new word and geometric shape: scutoid.


I'll let ViHart explain.

[Nate the Great]

Apparently there was a scene cut from Generations where Data would finally mourn Lal. Frankly I think this would've been a great scene for the novelization, but not the movie. You have to cast a wide net for movie viewers, and while little fanservice bits in the background (like the Kurlan Naiskos) is okay, having actual dialogue to recap "The Offspring" and let Data mourn would've been too much.


In any case, someone on Facebook made fanart of this scene.