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Things that went over your head...

Started by ming, 09 January, 2012, 11:00:01 AM

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Frank

Quote from: M.I.K. on 19 July, 2019, 03:42:54 PM
I'm sure I knew of Donald (and Ivana) Trump by the late 80s, and made the connection with Otto Sump around the same time. I definitely first heard of Ivana when she was still married to Donald, so that's pre-1991

Like this guy, I've been familiar with Donald Trump since at least 1992:


He's always looked and dressed like shit. He's exactly as bald in this image as he is today, although he no longer draws his eyebrows with a sharpie.

I first became aware of him as a punchline on Saturday Night Clive, a year or more earlier, when his affair and impending divorce had US tabloids salivating so much at the prospect of his spouse taking him to the cleaners that the story made it over the Atlantic.

The publicity from that made him and Maples a sort of low rent celebrity couple for a while - the kind that got their pictures in UK tabloids but needed a caption to tell you who they were - but I can't remember reading or knowing much else about him until they divorced.

I heard nothing else about him* until the You've Been Trumped documentary about him playing the Scottish Government like Elmer Gantry and The Daily Show's coverage of the Birther movement. I had no idea he'd become a game show host until then.

So then I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time.


* I remember my brother telling me about the billboards all over Atlantic City - TRUMP: THE BIG NAME IN ATLANTIC CITY and laughing at the tawdriness of it, but I think I assumed that was just an extension of his failed property development empire, rather than the beginning of his failed gambling empire

The Amstor Computer

Quote from: GordonR on 18 July, 2019, 07:56:32 AM
Trump Tower was completed in 1983.  I doubt anyone in the UK had really heard of just another New York property developer Donald Trump when that story appeared years earlier.

When I lived in NY in 1987, he was definitely becoming A Thing by then, at least in the US.  By 1990, he and Trump Tower were well enough known to be majorly lampooned in Gremlins 2

Likely correct - Sump first appeared in 1979, and none of the early stories featuring him seem to have any connection to Trump beyond the similar-sounding name.

The only counterargument I can think of would be that (if I remember correctly) Wagner and Grant have said in a few interviews that they used to devour newspapers to help come up with ideas for Dredd, so it's possible that by the time "Otto Sump's Ugly Clinic" rolled around the ongoing construction of Trump Tower had been mentioned in at least some of the more international-minded newspapers (or possibly mentioned on TV) and when it came to naming the tower Sump had bought, the Trump/Sump Tower conceit was fun enough for them to run with.

Funt Solo

I don't think a few pesky facts should get in the way of a good theory!

See also: flat earth (gaining popularity these days as what were once isolated idiots are connected by the power of the Infobahn), faked moon landings (in which basically every other resident of the planet is in on the conspiracy except for those persecuted few that believe it) and the utterly splendid "right-angled contrails mean we're being drugged by the government" (introduced to me on this very board by a true believer).

It'll be child's play to get this Sump/Trump thing off the ground.  (Honestly, I'd believe it's equally likely to be a coincidence or an actual factual homage based on knowing a bit about what's going on in the New York business community circa the late 70s / early 80s.)
++ A-Z ++  coma ++

Frank

Quote from: The Amstor Computer on 19 July, 2019, 06:42:30 PM
Wagner and Grant have said in a few interviews that they used to devour newspapers to help come up with ideas for Dredd, so it's possible that by the time "Otto Sump's Ugly Clinic" rolled around the ongoing construction of Trump Tower had been mentioned in at least some of the more international-minded newspapers (or possibly mentioned on TV)

Wagner's a US citizen. Although he was probably too skint to visit family in 1980 and I'm not sure Trump's NYC minor celebrity status would have meant much in Pennsylvania.

I don't think it's a DJT reference, but I'm not sure the OP does either. Sometimes coincidences are just so interesting you want to share them and it's a shame to pass up any opportunity to take the piss out of Trump for how weird he's always looked:


One strong gust and that wispy fringe is a goner. Note the head-to-shoulder-width ratio - and that's with padding



JayzusB.Christ

They used to speak about his 'Robert Redford good looks' back then.  Gold-tinted glasses, it would seem.

At least Otto was only ugly on the outside.
"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"

sheridan

The first time I saw a parody of Trump was probably Back to the Future II - and, along with loads of other people in this country, I'd have had no idea who it was a parody of (even though I may have heard of Ivana on the afore-mentioned Clive James show).  I'd also have seen Elijah Wood in the same film, but nobody on either side of the Atlantic would have known who he was at the time :-)


Trout

Ah well. I'm happy to accept it as a coincidence and not a reference.

Mayor Jim Grubb, however, was based on a man who had a newsagents shop in a village near Dundee. I know this for a factor because John Wagner told me.  :D

Leigh S

Strontium DOG Johnny Alpha(got that one)'s partner WULF Sternhammer

And we slate GFD....

Dandontdare

Quote from: Trout on 20 July, 2019, 02:30:30 PMMayor Jim Grubb, however, was based on a man who had a newsagents shop in a village near Dundee. I know this for a factor because John Wagner told me.  :D

My old mate from Peebles who I was at Dundee Uni with always drags out the anecdote of how he met "the real Fergee" - ie some guy he met in a pub who claimed that the character had been based on him - I've always been skeptical, but has John ever mentioned the inspiration for the king of the Big Smelly?

Frank




BBC Archive have made their Oscar-winning documentary The War Game available on iPlayer. It wasn't broadcast until 1985, but it'd be interesting to know whether bolshy Trot TB Grover saw it at the pictures:

https://youtu.be/6KQMwpTZStY



Tjm86

Quote from: Frank on 31 July, 2019, 05:44:52 PM
It wasn't broadcast until 1985, but it'd be interesting to know whether bolshy Trot TB Grover saw it at the pictures:

Especially since, IIRC, it was not originally released in cinemas, in fact the BBC chose to restrict access to a highly select audience so for a looooong time its reputation was largely anecdotal.  Worth bearing in mind the level of nuclear hysteria that was prevalent around the time of the Apocalypse War, though. 

Frank

Quote from: Tjm86 on 31 July, 2019, 09:02:19 PM
Quote from: Frank on 31 July, 2019, 05:44:52 PM
It wasn't broadcast until 1985, but it'd be interesting to know whether bolshy Trot TB Grover saw it at the pictures:

Especially since, IIRC, it was not originally released in cinemas

The War Game was given an X-rating by the BBFC and released in UK cinemas in November 1965.

It sounds like it probably only played on the arthouse and university circuit here, but like I say, it won an Academy Award. The director, Peter Watkins, was the same cat who made the Culloden documentary in the style of Vietnam newsreel.



Dash Decent

Quote from: Leigh S on 26 July, 2019, 05:30:13 PM
Strontium DOG Johnny Alpha(got that one)'s partner WULF Sternhammer

And we slate GFD....

Don't forget that Wulf is big, making him a 'Great Dane'. Alpha's helmet has a dog-nose appearance to it, and the SD badge looks like the tag on Scooby-Doo's collar!

I won't skate them for puns or dog references. I loved all those bits - "Next prog: Dog-gone!" etc.
- By Appointment -
Hero to Michael Carroll

"... rank amateurism and bad jokes." - JohnW.

Tjm86

Quote from: Frank on 31 July, 2019, 09:32:13 PM

The War Game was given an X-rating by the BBFC and released in UK cinemas in November 1965.


Thank you for clarifying my ignorance.  I'd based my understanding in part on Watkins' own recollections which omitted the subsequent, apparently limited, general release by the BFI.  He was slightly more than a little put out by the way in which the BBC handled the matter at the time, it seems.

TordelBack

Quote from: Leigh S on 26 July, 2019, 05:30:13 PM
Strontium DOG Johnny Alpha(got that one)'s partner WULF Sternhammer

Oh FFS.