Statistics Saturday: 15 Things You Can’t Believe Happened Earlier In 2021

• Bean Dad
• Sea shanties on TikTok
• Like three probes orbited or landed on Mars and one of them had a helicopter
• Balloon Boy
• The Kellogg’s strike
• That morning we all found a box of Peak Freans on our counter even though they haven’t made Peak Freans since like 1989 and nobody could explain where all these Peaks Freans came from
• That guy did that really good impression of Robin Williams learning of John Belushi’s death
• Culture Club released the hit song “Karma Chameleon”
• The imperatives of state bureaucracy drove European governments to impose family names on all their inhabitants, without regard to local culture or the lack of community need for such things
• The controversial “Rashomon” episode of Scooby and Scrappy Doo aired
• Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins died
• Ken Russell’s film adaptation of The Who’s Tommy uses rather a lot of beans, is unconnected to “Bean Dad”
• End of the Recombination era of the universe, when electrons and atomic nucleuses finally became cool enough to bind together into atoms, allowing photons to travel great distances, causing space to no longer be opaque for the first time
• Boss Baby 2 came out
• Audiences were enchanted by that “so good … but no lumps!” commercial but can’t remember, was it for gravy? For Alka-Seltzer? But Alka-Seltzer was that “Mama Mia, that’s a spicy meatball” commercial, right? That was like four years ago?

Reference: American-Made: The Enduring Legacy of the WPA, Nick Taylor.

Statistics Saturday: Even More Promotions For The Coming Month

• Wicktober. A public-safety month in which we go around to all the candles in our house and make sure each of them still works when lit.
• Slicktober. Finally our most elaborate scheme comes off without a hitch and it looks effortless.
• Talktober. “Talk Talk”, by Talk Talk, spends 31 days playing in your head.
• Yaktober. Don’t let the name fool you; it’s a chance to celebrate all the Warner Siblings.
• Marktober. Spending all this time getting worried that the spell checker allowed “Marktober” through as a word that it thinks somehow is spelled correctly even though it refuses to help me any with the spelling of Cincinn .. Cinci … Cincinat … that big city in southwestern Ohio where WKRP broadcast from.
• Smocktober. Unleash the artist within without getting it all over your nice t-shirt!
• Hawktober. A whole month to try selling other people your wares, perhaps foodstuffs of some manner! Good luck!
• Woktober. We enjoy great pots of melted cheese that we dip bread into. The name is because “Fonduetober” doesn’t scan.
• Bricktober. Unleash the chimney-repairman within without getting it all over your nice smock!
• Socktober. A month that feels as good to take off as it does to put on!
• Marktober. Trying a second time to spend the month — oh, look, “Marktober” has the same cadence as “Hot Blooded” and now that song’s competing with “Talk Talk”. Sorry.
• Stoptober. Persons close to you have leave to say what they’re tired of, which is mostly persons close to me, and this whole October promotions thing.

Reference: Enslaved By Ducks, Bob Tarte.

Statistics Saturday: Some More Promotions For The Coming Month

• Roctober. Once more, you’d think self-explanatory: we’re all great birds the size of an island. Gets crowded.
• Snacktober. So many potato sticks. Just soooo maaaaannnny.
• Jocktober. We all get to use our silliest fake French accent. (Should be Jacquestober.)
• Mawktober. The month where we most don’t respond to emotional manipulation.
• Voxtober. The voice of the month!
• Brachtober. Finally we get to enjoy some hard candies.
• Oc-tube-er. The month when you finally finish that project with all the cathode-ray-tube television sets.
• Oc-tube-er. The rival month when you finally finish that project with all the potatoes.
• Sticktober. Our month for appreciating adhesives of all kind. May last through the 5th of November if the drop cloth doesn’t work.
• Stacktober. A chance to put things on top of many other things.
• Barktober. We ensconce ourselves in a pleasant, cozy skin of growing wood.
• Tictactober. We’re not getting out until we’ve played all the tic-tac-toe.

Reference: Gilded City: Scandal and Sensation In Turn-Of-The-Century New York, M H Dunlop.

Statistics Saturday: Some Promotions For The Coming Month

• Rocktober. Self-explanatory, you’d think, but all right. Everybody’s into geology.
• Shocktober. A whole month spent distinguishing between behing shocked and merely being startled.
• Mocktober. The month for spoofs (good-natured).
• Locktober. Three weeks we waste trying to remember the combination. It is 11-4-69.
• Blocktober. The floor is covered in Legos.
• Clocktober. We all engage in clock- and watch-themed crimes to overwhelm the Caped Crusader!
• Spocktober. 31 days of serious inquiry into Dr Benjamin Spock’s program and how it differed from what the people trying to follow his guidance differed, with the final question about whether he was a net positive or negative force answered once and for all on the 29th, by a paintball fight. 9 pm Eastern/6 pm Pacific.
• Hard Mocktober. The month for spoofs (nasty and a touch bitter).
• Octoctober. You have eight arms! Finally! I mean that you can show.
• Stocktober. You lay in enough durable supplies for the winter ahead, as it’s a bit late to lay them in for hte summer behind.
• Docktober. We finally get all these breakbulk goods off these cargo ships.
• Socktober. Finally something warm and comfortable on our feet.

Reference: Greetings, Carbon-Based Bipeds!, Arthur C Clarke.

Statistics Saturday: Some Cartoons In Which Popeye Does Not Each Spinach

• Goonland (Fleischer Studios, 1938)
• Spree Lunch (Famous Studios, 1957)
• Bimbo’s Initiation (Fleischer Studios, 1931)
• Sleepy Time Donald (Disney Studios, 1947)
• The Woody Woodpecker Polka (Walter Lantz Studios, 1951)
• The Ruff and Reddy Show: The Mad Monster of Muni-Mula (Hanna-Barbera Studios, 1957)
• Poppa Popeye (Paramount Cartoon Studios, 1960)
• Rickey Rocket: The Count Draculon Caper (Ruby-Spears Productions, 1979)
• Gilligan’s Planet: Too Many Gilligans (Filmation, 1982)
• 2 Stupid Dogs: Let’s Make A Right Price (Hanna-Barbera Studios, 1993)
• Dave the Barbarian: Night of the Living Plush (Walt Disney Television Animation, 2004)
• Loonatics Unleashed: Planet Blanc: In Search of Tweetums (Part II) (Warner Brothers Animation, 2007)

Reference: The Incorporation of America: Culture and Society in the Gilded Age, Alan Trachtenberg.

Statistics Saturday: Even More Counting Numbers

Beyond even July’s counting

• Fifteenteenteen
• Sixteenteenteen
• Seventeenteenteen
• Eighteenteenteen
• Nineteenteenteen
• Teenteenteenteen
• Eleventeenteenteen
• Twelveteenteenteen
• Thirteenteenteenteen
• Fourtenteenteenteen
• Fifteenteenteenteen
• Sixteenteenteenteen
• Seventeenteenteenteen
• Eighteenteenteenteen
• Nineteenteenteenteen
• Teenteenteenteenteen

Reference: Conan Doyle: Portrait of an Artist, Julian Symons.

Statistics Saturday: Trivia about The Facts Of Life I’ve been having a hard time dealing with this week

• Dana Plato was not a regular on The Facts Of Life. She was on Diff’rent Strokes.
• There were many more episodes made after the gang was at the Academy (122) than there were when the Academy was the premise of the show (79).
• In fact, Dana Plato wasn’t on The Facts Of Life at all, except for the stealth-pilot episode that aired as part of Diff’rent Strokes‘s original run and the first episode of the first season.
• Molly Ringwald played one of the characters first season, until the show decided they had too many characters and she was one of the ones that got cut.
• Heck, Dana Plato played her character Kimberly Drummond on more episodes of Hello, Larry (three) than The Facts Of Life (one or maybe two depending how you count the stealth pilot).
• Had Soviet Air Defece Force officer Stanislav Petrov not kept his cool during the 1983 false nuclear alarm incident, and had allowed the mistaken reports of a sneak attack by the United States to escalate into a nuclear “retaliation”, the first episode of The Facts Of Life which would have been preempted for nuclear war was #80, titled “Gamma Gamma or Bust”.
• There are five episodes of Diff’rent Strokes that Gary Coleman was not in. This has nothing to do with The Facts Of Life, but it is hard to accept.
• The Facts Of Life has been mentioned in more host sketches, through season twelve, of Mystery Science Theater 3000 (one) than have any works of science fiction legend Ray Bradbury (zero).

Not listed: the first Diff’rent Strokes episode that would have been preempted had the world destroyed itself in nuclear war in 1983 was the one where they’re filming an episode of The A-Team in the Drummonds’ apartment for some reason and so Arnold (Gary Coleman) makes himself up as a miniature Mister T.

Reference: Naming Infinity: A True Story Of Religious Mysticism and Mathematical Creativity, Loren Graham, Jean-Michel Kantor.

Statistics Saturday: Some August Holidays

• Feast of the Assertion
• The New Jersey Big Sea Day
• August Bonk Holiday
• The Big Jersey New Sea Day
• Queen Elizabeth’s Birthday (Unobserved, New South Wales)
• Halloween in May in August
• Satellite Echo 1A Launch Anniversary
• The Big Sea New Jersey Day
• Elephant World Day (Alberta and Seal World only)
• Pompous Symbolic Gestures Day
• The Big Day New Sea Jersey
• September Eve

Reference: Euphemania: Our Love Affair With Euphemisms, Ralph Keyes.

Statistics Saturday: Ten Most Amazing Facts Of The Week

• Despite the name no so-called “universal remote” has ever in fact been remote from the universe.
• No United States president has ever been born in the future.
• The 100 pleats in a chef’s hat represent the 100 times that the guy who bought the hat-pleating mechanism insisted on showing this was too a good purchase and would pay for itself in time.
• In the Star Trek episode “Court Martial” Spock discusses what would happen “if I let go of a hammer on a planet that has a positive gravity”, implying there are enough zero- and negative-gravity planets around he needs to shut talk about them down before it even starts.
• There must always exist at least one breadbox that cannot be put inside another breadbox. However, if the universe were infinitely large, we could not count on this being true.
• No episode of the 1980s animated series of The Smurfs establishes that Gargamel knows of the Snorks.
• Those coworkers whose names you aren’t sure you have yet, and it’s too awkward now to ask about? Sara and Mike. If there’s a third, it’s Darryl or maybe Darren. Go confident on the “Darr” part and underplay the second syllable and you’ll get away with it.
• D is known as “the sunshine vitamin” because it was first discovered by spectral analysis of the sun. It would not be seen on Earth for nearly a generation after its detection.
• Not only could they make Blazing Saddles today, they did, which is where everybody was all day and why they’re all tuckered out. You should have come over and helped, you’d have had a great time. Maybe you can catch them next month when they hope to make Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One.
• Despite every advance in the technology to write songs, they are likely to be outnumbered by unwritten songs through 2024 at the soonest.

Reference: A Diplomatic History Of Europe Since The Congress Of Vienna, René Albrecht-Carié.

Statistics Saturday: Most Commonly Used Words When I Write Cursive, Apparently

• rmffmnmrmoffmomifms (?)
• striiisng (?)
• Skareneslm (?)
• adflemnoriiis (?)
• thent (?)
• Argranis’t (?)
• snozzigigqq (?)
• Gesorningblatz (?)
• pank (?)
• Fernowerz (?)
• enfloorowore (?)
• w’tna (?)

Reference: Second Founding: New York City, Reconstruction, and the Making of American Democracy, David Quigley.

Statistics Saturday: Apollo 15 By The Numbers (corrected)

Editorial note. Due to an editing error last week’s chart included the number “1”, representing the number of deep-space spacewalks (as opposed to moonwalks) during Apollo 15. Although that statistic had been considered, the intention was to instead present the number of parachutes which failed to open during the (safe) splashdown. I regret the mistake and include the corrected chart here. Thank you for your understanding.

Still not depicted: 26.975, 560.389, or 4.687.

Reference: European History 1648 to 1789, R M Rayner.

Statistics Saturday: Apollo 15 By The Numbers

Not depicted: 360, 33:07, or 7744.

Reference: Close To Shore: The Terrifying Shark Attacks of 1916, Michael Capuzzo.

Statistics Saturday: What Some Cooking Terms Mean

• Brazened Apples. To take apples or any other fruit with edible skin and subject them to a display of outrageous behavior.
• Deglaze. To take food off the window.
• Reassembled Eggs. Scrambled or stirred eggs which have been placed back into a shell or similar hard container. It is not necessary to unstir them; if one does, the result is called “Delmonico Eggs”.
• Oignon Brute. A half-peeled onion placed on a skillet in a manner characteristic of 1960s and 70s architecture, generally reliant on concrete, with the working structure implied by the shapes of the visible exterior or of elements within the living interior space.
• Adumbrate. To set a relish or other briny material on the shelf in the pantry by mistake until you remember it maybe should be refrigerated, but you’re not sure if that’s really necessary or just cautious.
• Roast Jeté. To set something in the oven while jumping.
• Discoursing the Meat. To remove the edible part of an artichoke from a golf course or other public walkway.
• Naked Spaghetti. The most dangerous pasta.
• Icing. To make any kind of food wait for you.
• Serendipity Sauce. Any process which moistens your cooking surface without your effort, including the automatic sprinklers going off.
• Blornching. To over-stir the meat, meat substitute, or thick pudding, to the point you neglect everything else, and you end up not even liking the meat either.
• Escanaba. (Localism.) To have or serve food in Michigan’s upper peninsula.
• Scowling Cheese. Any hard or semi-soft cheese which has been made to disapprove.
• Western-Fried (as in steak). To southern-fry something while lost.
• Chunked Wheat. To sort into four or fewer categories a pile of flour or other wheat product.

Reference: Defining NASA: The Historical Debate Over The Agency’s Mission, W D Kay.

Statistics Saturday: What Your Most Common Misspelling Of “Parmesan” Says About You

• Parmesean. Your family had the joke pronunciation of “par-mee-see-anne” and now you are willing to fight for it.
• Parmisan. You understand vowels are flexible things but darn it, you have to call it as you hear it.
• Parrrmesan. You think Talk Like A Pirate Day should last longer.
• Parmejean. You wish to encourage Italian, as a language, to do more with the letter ‘j’.
• Parrmeesianne. You have a hard time stopping once you’ve really got started on something.
• Parmsan. You are in a hurry and don’t have time for this.
• Sherbert. You misunderstand questions.
• Parmasan. Your ability to spell this was ruined forever by learning the cheese comes from Parma.
• The Green Bottle Of Cheese. You are so afraid of typos that you forget it’s not kept in a bottle but rather a canister.
• Parm. You hope to acquire prestige by posing as closer to cheese than you are.

Reference: Wedding of the Waters: The Erie Canal and the Making of a Great Nation, Peter L Bernstein.

Statistics Saturday: Some Fictional Spices

• Paragon
• Oleomangels
• Antitheseed
• Dingo peppers
• Melankonkus
• Qualia
• Mega-vanilla
• Oregoo-no-look-out-it’s-loose
• Sysop
• Manganese
• Vermillion Sands
• Hypochondria
• False Coriander
• Balsam and Soapbark, Radio’s Smile-A-While Boys
• Cassio

Reference: Amelia Earhart: A Biography, Doris L Rich.

Statistics Saturday: More Counting Numbers

• Fifteen
• Sixteen
• Seventeen
• Eighteen
• Nineteen
• Teenteen
• Eleventeen
• Twelveteen
• Thirteenteen
• Fourtenteen
• Fifteenteen
• Sixteenteen
• Seventeenteen
• Eighteenteen
• Nineteenteen
• Teenteenteen

Reference: Conan Doyle: Portrait of an Artist, Julian Symons.

Statistics Saturday: Some Song Sequels

• Two Is The Loneliest Number
• Love Potion Number 10
• Theme to 78 Sunset Strip
• It Ain’t 1919
• Revolution Ten
• Also Sprach Zarathustra, Also (Theme to 2002: Also A Space Odyssey)
• In The Year 2626
• Three Out Of Four Ain’t Bad
• 867-5319 (Jenny’s Neighbor)
• Land of 1,001 Dances
• 4th of September, Asbury Park
• 910

Reference: Mythematics: Solving The 12 Labors Of Hercules, Michael Huber.

Statistics Saturday: Some Safety Procedures

• Look, but don’t touch.
• Smell, but don’t taste.
• Touch, but don’t trip.
• Listen, but don’t squeeze.
• Taste, but don’t meddle.
• Observe, but don’t wolf down.
• Shake, but don’t lick.
• Bend, but don’t slap heartily on the back.
• Hug, but don’t break.
• Lick, but don’t shake.
• Encourage, but don’t promise to help set up the show.
• Measure, but don’t cut.

Reference: Sunday: A History Of The First Day From Babylonia To The Super Bowl, Craig Harline.

Statistics Saturday: Some Rules of Baseball

• 5.01. Starting the Game (“Play Ball!”).
• 6.01(g). Interference With Squeeze Play or Steal of Home.
• 8.03. Umpire position.
• 5.06(a). Occupying the Base.
• 9.23. Guidelines for Cumulative Performance Records.
• 5.07(a)(1). The Windup Position.
• 3.05. First baseman’s gloves.
• 5.07(f). Ambidextrous Pitchers.
• 6.01(i). Collisions at Home Plate.
• 9.06. Determining Values of Base Hits.
• 5.09(d). Effect of Preceding Runner’s Failure to Touch a Base.
• 3.09. Undue Commercialization.
• 4.03. Exchange of Lineup Cards.
• 1.00. Objectives of the Game.
• 2.05. Benches.

Reference: Empires Of Food: Feast, Famine, And The Rise And Fall Of Civilizations, Evan D G Fraser, Andrew Rimas.

Statistics Saturday: Some Forecast Weather

• Sunny and warmer, chance of evening showers.
• Sunny and cooler, chance of overnight storms.
• Partly cloudy, breezy. Hardly needing that study session.
• Overcast and windy or rainy.
• Imaginary hailstones the size of hypothetical golf balls.
• Overcast and windy xor rainy.
• Snow with trace accumulations.
• Not rainy and not cloudy if and only if sunny and clear.
• Snow, two to three odds.
• Freezing rain giving way to heavy fog after a protracted court fight.
• Distant sound of a train that hasn’t run on that line since the Penn Central bankruptcy.
• Unfair and warmer.

Reference: The Teapot Dome Scandal: How Big Oil Bought the Harding White House and Tried to Steal the Country, Laton McCartney.

Statistics Saturday: Some Failed Ways To Reheat Pizza

• Set it in the microwave without turning the microwave on.
• Transfer the pizza repeatedly from one thermos bottle to another.
• Get people on social media talking about it a lot.
• Give the pizza a stern lecture about the importance of conserving its heat.
• Set the pizza in a hot bath.
• Ask your neighborhood’s ice elemental to never cold your pizza up. This may involve a Bugs Bunny/Daffy Duck-like argument about “you will” “I won’t” “you will” “I won’t” “You won’t” “I will” “Have it your way, Doc.”
• Set the pizza on top of a coffee mug that, on inspection, turns out to hold iced tea.
• Hypnotize the pizza.
• Shine a laser on it, but it’s one of those keychain lasers you get as a gift when the department wants you to not actually feel better about working there.
• Engage the pizza in a heated debate.
• Embarrass your pizza by reminding it of that one time it had a Tweet go a little viral and it misspelled “public” and it was twenty responses in before someone pointed it out.
• Wrap the pizza in some cute sweaters.

Reference: Airborne Trailblazer: Two Decades with NASA Langley’s 737 Flying Laboratory, Lane E Wallace.

(I didn’t plan to pair this with Popeye’s Pizza Palace, but what the heck.)

Statistics Saturday: Comic Strips That _Starlog_ Thought Were Being Made Into Movies in 1987

• Ben Templeton and Tom Forman’s Motley’s Crew
• Mort Walker’s Beetle Bailey
• Pat Sullivan and Otto Messmer’s Felix the Cat
• Bill Griffith’s Zippy the Pinhead
• Grim Natwick and Max Fleischer et al’s Betty Boop
• Gary Larson’s The Far Side
• Harold Gray’s Little Orphan Annie
• Brant Parker and Johnny Hart’s The Wizard of Id (with David Zucker and Jerry Zucker of Airplane! directing)

Not listed: that time Ralph Bakshi thought he was making a primetime TV cartoon version of Blade Runner.

Wait, an only partly-animated Ralph Bakshi project? How could that ever happen?

Also not mentioned: that Tintin project because I don’t think Tintin was ever a comic strip and, like, Betty Boop had a short-lived comic even if it wasn’t good.

Also, coming back to the mentioned: Motley’s Crew? Really? Huh. I mean, I guess that’s a comic strip that existed all right, but … Really. Huh. I mean … huh. You’re passing on Bill Schorr’s The Grizzwells for this, then.

Reference: Nathaniel’s Nutmeg: How One Man’s Courage Changed The Course of History, Giles Milton.

Episodes of _Alice_ I still remember for some reason

Special thanks-I-guess to Thomas K Dye of Projection Edge and Newshounds web comic fame for getting me on this topic.

• The one where the waitresses go out on strike and they explain that to be a legal picket line the people in it have to stay in motion at all times, although it’s probably okay if Vera gets on roller skates so she can just slide around, even though she doesn’t know how to stop or steer and she goes rolling off into … traffic, I guess? It seemed bad for her, anyway. I think her injuries shamed Mel into settling the strike. Anyway it’s a good lesson to not learn US labor law by watching Alice.
• Flo leaves so she can start her own spinoff series, and she gets replaced with … uh … her cousin or maybe sister or someone who’s a lot like her except she doesn’t have that great “Kiss my grits” catchphrase to fall back on.
• There’s definitely one where a wrecking ball smashes through the diner, right? I couldn’t be imagining that of all things?
• There’s probably one where Alice’s kid gets to say No to having a Drug even though his bestest best friend forever who we never saw before or after is having them.
• Mel sells the diner for the last episode so everybody has to go and achieve their lifelong dreams now and what do you know but they do.
• I’m just guessing that there was one where a major character discovers like six seasons in that they never learned to read, so they learn now. But I don’t know for sure.

Not listed: the Saturday-morning cartoon spinoff of Alice which pop culture theory tells us ought to have existed. The most generally accepted hypotheses suppose that they would all be working their way around the world selling stuff from a funny Wienermobile-like contraption with astounding powers, possibly including flight and the ability to operate as a submarine, and meanwhile there’s spies after them for some reason. They might have a zany pet or it might just be Alice’s flying submersible Wienermobile has a talking computer.

And if I may bring things down with a little harsh reality here: how is it that every season of Alice has been released on DVD while only three-fifths of The Muppet Show have? Well? Huh? You know?

Reference: The Unknown Dominion: Canada and her People, Bruce Hutchison.

Statistics Saturday: The Official Ordering of the Star Wars Movies

1. Star Wars: A Star Wars Story
2. Star Wars: A Wars Star Story
3. Star Wars: A Star Stories War
4. Wars Star: A Stars War Story
5. Star Wars Stars: A Story
6. A Wars War: Star A Star Story
7. Star Star: A Wars Star Stories
8. Star Wars Star: A Wars Star War Starry Story
9. Star Wars: Star Wars Story A
10. Star Star War Star Wars: A War Stars Story Wars Star Story
11. A Star Wars Story: Star Wars

Honorable mention: Star Wars: Sraw Rats, the secret movie for people who know Star Wars forwards and backwards.

Reference: Who’s Who In Mythology: A Classic Guide To The Ancient World, Alexander S. Murray.

Statistics Saturday: How Much States Are Messing With You by When They Observe Arbor Day

State	Observance	Messing With You Level
Ohio	Last Friday in April	Not at all
Kentucky	First Friday in April	Not much
Nevada	Last Friday in April	Considerably, as Nevada has only 16 palm trees, and they’re all on a golf course that consumes two-thirds the volume of the Colorado River to maintain
South Dakota	Last Friday in April	Messing with North Dakota, not you
North Dakota	First Friday in April	Messing with South Dakota, not you
Washington	Second Friday in April	Only a little
Georgia	Third Friday in February	What
New Hampshire	Last Friday in April	Not particularly
Vermont	First Friday in May	Just picking a fight with New Hampshire
Nebraska	Last Friday in April	Thank you for getting things back in order
Maryland	First Wednesday in April	Just checking if you’re paying attention
Maine	Third full week in May	Up to moderate mischief here
California	7th – 14th of March	Up to even more mischief here
Alabama	Last full week of February	Now cut that out
Wyoming	Last Monday in April	Adorable attempt to pretend there’s trees in Wyoming
Oregon	First full week of April	This is refugee Californians messing things up, right?
Colorado	Third Friday in April	Why not
Pennsylvania	Last Friday in April	Not at all
North Carolina	First Friday following March 15	Ugh, this again?
Texas	First Friday in November	What the heck?

Reference: Stan And Ollie: The Roots Of Comedy: The Double Life Of Laurel And Hardy, Simon Louvish. With special thanks to my love without whom I’d never have realized Arbor Day isn’t the same day in every state and that some of them put a whole week to Arbor Day.

Statistics Saturday: Some Needless Parts of my Brain

Not depicted: the part that wants to offer as a “fun fact” that for a short while the cities of Cincinatti and Detroit belonged to the same Hamilton County, Ohio Territory, even though while a fact this is not fun.

Reference: The Game Makers: The Story Of Parker Brothers From Tiddledy Winks To Trivial Pursuit, Philip E Orbanes.

Statistics Saturday: The Episode Title Trajectory of your Favorite _Cheers_ Podcast

• Episode 1: Where Everybody Knows Your Name
• Episode 3: Two American Kids Growin’ Up in the Heartland
• Episode 6: Crane Spotting
• Episode 8: That Harry Anderson, he’s going to be Dave Barry someday
• Episode 12: Janeway or Saavik or Pulaski or Whatever Star Trek Dame Sam’s Dating THIS TIME
• Episode 15: Can a Cat Be Said to Have “Slept In”?
• Episode 18: Wait, Have We All Lost a Fiancee to a Freak Zamboni Accident?
• Episode 20: That’s a Good Price for Adequate Bread
• Episode 24: Speedrunning Dutch
• Episode 27: Glorple Globble Globble Gleeple
• Episode 31: Officially the Internet’s Third-Best The Art Of Being Nick Podcast
• Episode 36: Snorses! Snorses Everywhere!
• Episode 40: No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.
• Episode 48: The Important Thing Is YEEAARRAARRRRAAUUGH
• Episode 52: Our Episode 50 Superspectacular

Reference: Bottom of the Ninth: Branch Rickey, Casey Stengel, and the Daring Scheme to Save Baseball From Itself, Michael Shapiro.

Statistics Saturday: The Duration of 15 Things as Measured by the Runtime Of Turbo (2013)

Thing	Durations in Runtimes of Turbo (2013)
Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address	0.05938
Apollo 14	135
Bambi	0.7292
Construction of the Empire State Building	244.375
First non-exhibition/spring-training baseball game of the Houston Colt.45s, 10 April 1962	1.583
“The Gates of Delirium”, by Yes	0.2274
The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan’s Island (including commercials)	1.250
The Hundred Years’ War	637,711.71
One second	0.000 173 6
Robert Altman’s Popeye	1.1875
The 1960 Summer Olympics	262.5
Thunderhawk roller coaster (one ride cycle only), Dorney Park, Allentown, Pennsylvania	0.01354
Turbo (2013)	1
Turbo Teen (complete series, including commercials)	4.0625
We’re Back! A Dinosaur’s Story	0.7396

Reference: Roughing It, Mark Twain.

Statistics Saturday: 15 Famous Movie Mis-Quotes

• “Yowza yowza, that’s a real thin man!” — Not said by Nick or Nora Charles, The Thin Man.
• “Yowza yowza, that’s a real treasure of the Sierra Madre!” — Not said by Fred C Dobbs, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.
• “Yowza yowza, that’s a real love story!” — Not said by Jennifer Cavalleri, Love Story.
• “Yowza yowza, that’s a real wizard of Oz!” — Not said by Dorothy Gale, The Wizard of Oz.
• “Yowza yowza, that’s a real Goldfinger!” — Not said by Goldfinger, Goldfinger.
• “Yowza yowza, that’s a real cool hand, Luke!” — Not said by Dragline, Cool Hand Luke.
• “Yowza yowza, that’s a real space odyssey!” — Not said by Dave Bowman, 2001: A Space Odyssey.
• “Yowza yowza, that’s a real Scrooge!” — Not said by Mr Snedrig, Scrooge.
• “Yowza yowza, that’s a real shape of water!” — Not signed by Elisa Esposito, The Shape of Water.
• “Yowza yowza, that’s a real Casablanca!” — Not said by Rick Blaine, Casablanca.
• “Yowza yowza, that’s a real space jam!” — Not said by Lola Bunny, Space Jam.
• “Yowza yowza, that’s a real planet of the apes!” — Not said by Dr Galen, Planet of the Apes.
• “Yowza yowza, that’s a real Wall Street!” — Not said by Gordon Gecko, Wall Street.
• “Yowza yowza, that’s a real Turbo!” — Not said by Turbo, Turbo.
• “Yowza yowza, that’s a real Chinatown!” — Not said by Lawrence Walsh, Chinatown.

Reference: Inside Nick Rocks: The Complete Story of the Music Video Show You Remember Being On Between Mr Wizard’s World and You Can’t Do That On Television, and How it Changed the World — and Whatever Happened To “Joe From Chicago”, Dr Will Miller.

Statistics Saturday: Star Wars Movies versus Star Trek Movies

Not pictured: that special 75-minute extended cut of The Omega Glory that Gene Roddenberry adapted from the original Star Trek to play in theaters in Italy and France in 1969 alongside the View-Master reel, nor The Ewok Adventures and Ewoks: The Battle For Endor, made for TV and aired in 1984 and 1985.

Reference: Anxious Decades: America in Prosperity and Depression, 1920-1941, Michael E Parrish.