AH Cultural Descriptions

[sampleswift]

Title of Rudolf Diesel's biography by his grandson Helmut, detailing the engineer's life from poverty to the creation of the world-spanning Diesel Enterprises. At first starting with just car engines, Diesel's activities expanded to basically everywhere, including the German Empire's space program.

Bud Spencer vs Chuck Norris-The match of the century

A Martial Arts movie featuring the two martial artists shown above. This was produced in 1979. Movie critics panned it as an example of the cheesy martial arts flicks of that time period where Hollywood often produced martial arts films of dubious quality and authenticity. Nevertheless, the film performed well in the box office mainly due to the fame values of Bud Spencer and Chuck Norris. While a fun diversion, this film had little in the way of accuracy, and its plotline seemed heavily borrowed from the wuxia genre in China and Hong Kong, with only a few changes to make it more "American".

Prepare yourselves, for Taylor Bowl!

 

[The Professor]

Prepare yourselves, for Taylor Bowl

Episode 2.13 of comic children's show Tinker / Taylor, about 2 adopted kids who turn out to be brothers. Like the other episodes this features a weird gadget they've created, this one converting tv shows into real life featuring their friends, neighbours, etc.

Reknit?

 

[Mort the Reaper]

Episode 2.13 of comic children's show Tinker / Taylor, about 2 adopted kids who turn out to be brothers. Like the other episodes this features a weird gadget they've created, this one converting tv shows into real life featuring their friends, neighbours, etc.

Reknit?

A famous one-word question asked after the Reunification of Canada, asking whether the country was truly one again.

Shanghai Sheik

 

[brunohusker]

Shanghai Sheik

The third installment of the Owen Wilson/Jackie Chan series of films, this time following the two misfits to Istanbul to protect a bumbling sheik from being assassinated by people looking to start a world war. The film was one of the biggest bombs of the 2000s and some say led to Owen Wilson’s slide into addiction and death by overdose in 2009.

Chuck “Franken” Berry and his Delicious All Stars.

 

[brunohusker]

The third installment of the Owen Wilson/Jackie Chan series of films, this time following the two misfits to Istanbul to protect a bumbling sheik from being assassinated by people looking to start a world war. The film was one of the biggest bombs of the 2000s and some say led to Owen Wilson’s slide into addiction and death by overdose in 2009.

Chuck “Franken” Berry and his Delicious All Stars.

 

[Whitewings]

The third installment of the Owen Wilson/Jackie Chan series of films, this time following the two misfits to Istanbul to protect a bumbling sheik from being assassinated by people looking to start a world war. The film was one of the biggest bombs of the 2000s and some say led to Owen Wilson’s slide into addiction and death by overdose in 2009.

Chuck “Franken” Berry and his Delicious All Stars.

The working name used by Chuck Berry and his backing band for the release of their Halloween comedy album, Marshmallow Pumpkins. Expected to be only a publicity exercise, the album was successful enough to turn a small profit. Contrary to popular belief, General Mills did not licence its mascots to Capitol Records for the album cover, as the various musicians' outfits were only loosely derived from their appearances, if at all.

Dinner Music For a Pack of Hungry Cannibals

 

[brunohusker]

Dinner Music For a Pack of Hungry Cannibals

A 1979 Album released by Declan McManus, an English musician who escaped occupied Britain after nearly being killed by local SS-GB guards for being an “unlicensed” street musician as well as for his underground socialist activities.

The young McManus made his way first to Ireland, then New York, where he was a part of the 70s punk scene, often criticising the British fascist puppet regime led by Max Moseley, though really controlled by the aging Reinhard Heydrich.

The album itself often pokes at the “cannibals” who are a stand in for the British fascists and their rank and file supporters. It’s most notable song is “Oswald’s Army” about how Moseley used his supporters to quell riots against their friends and neighbors and even used his army to try to reunite Ireland, though this failed when the IRA realized the fascists in Europe didn’t care about their freedom and turned against them.

The Autumn Buttercups

 

[Mort the Reaper]

A 1979 Album released by Declan McManus, an English musician who escaped occupied Britain after nearly being killed by local SS-GB guards for being an “unlicensed” street musician as well as for his underground socialist activities.

The young McManus made his way first to Ireland, then New York, where he was a part of the 70s punk scene, often criticising the British fascist puppet regime led by Max Moseley, though really controlled by the aging Reinhard Heydrich.

The album itself often pokes at the “cannibals” who are a stand in for the British fascists and their rank and file supporters. It’s most notable song is “Oswald’s Army” about how Moseley used his supporters to quell riots against their friends and neighbors and even used his army to try to reunite Ireland, though this failed when the IRA realized the fascists in Europe didn’t care about their freedom and turned against them.

The Autumn Buttercups

A humorous painting by Joseph Wasserman, depicting buttercups as cups of butter.

Aqua Buddha

 

[brunohusker]

Aqua Buddha

A 2008 Adult Swim Show known for its cult following in spite of lasting only one season. The show is about a fat Japanese-Hawaiian surfing instructor known as Aqua Buddha played by Billy West, who with his buddy Mojo ( an anthropomorphic pineapple) and his pet dog Donnie lives the life of a surf bum on the fictional Hawaiian island of Imakinakuki (I’m a kind of kooky) where they hang out catching waves, kicking back and scamming tourists.

Moaning Myrtle plays her Squeezebox

 

[John Spangler]

Moaning Myrtle plays her Squeezebox

Title of a newspaper article about French defense minister Marianne Guillon (nicknamed 'Moaning Myrtle' for her striking resemblance to the fictional character) throwing her Squeezebox music player to a German journalist who she thought had insulted her.

Whatever happened to the She-Devil With a Sword?

 

[Victoria]

Whatever happened to the She-Devil With a Sword?

The She-Devil With a Sword was a pulp comic from the thirties about the adventures of Cecily Crowley, a half-demon woman who owned a magical sword and fought human criminals, evil monsters and even the occasional alien. The comic was moderately successful but never incredibly popular and it stopped being published in 1939. There were a few unsuccessful attempts to revive the She-Devil With a Sword but none that worked until 2008.
In 2008, Whatever happened to the She-Devil With a Sword? was published. It was a 12 issue independent comic that attempted to tell the story of Cecily Crowley from the thirties, when most of her adventures had taken place, to the present day and has her pass the mantel of She-Devil With a Sword to her granddaughter Catherine. It mostly focuses on Catherine having to take the sword and become the new She-Devil due to the rise of new villains but there is a lot about the original She-Devil in flashbacks that show her, among other things, fighting in World War II, being a single mother and joining the feminist movement.
The comic was controversial due to making the She-Devil With a Sword bisexual and her successful a lesbian, with some feeling that it was perverting a beloved childhood icon but the controversy only helped it become more successful. Whatever happened to the She-Devil With a Sword? had two sequels, one a limited series and one ongoing, and a prequel detailing Cecily's adventures in World War II. And a show based on the comic, called only She-Devil premiered on Netflix in 2017.

The King and the Hunter

 

[Alias_The_J]

The King and the Hunter

Folk tale told throughout Europe, generally about a king who gives a huntsman a task, but is tricked into giving the huntsmen his crown. The origin of this tale was later traced to ~6000 BC, similar to The Devil and the Smith, and so is considered one of the earliest-known stories. If a certain Sumerian tablet is to go by, this story may have been based on an actual event.

Sedentary Rocks

 

[brunohusker]

Folk tale told throughout Europe, generally about a king who gives a huntsman a task, but is tricked into giving the huntsmen his crown. The origin of this tale was later traced to ~6000 BC, similar to The Devil and the Smith, and so is considered one of the earliest-known stories. If a certain Sumerian tablet is to go by, this story may have been based on an actual event.

Sedentary Rocks

The name for the greatest hits by the band Sedentary, a 2000's hard rock superband founded by Kurt Cobain along with Eddie Vedder, Lars Ulrich, and Tom Morello. As a band, Sedentary would make a few albums as a supergroup, creating hits such as "Forces of Evil", "Death to the Status Quo", "Like a B-Movie" and "Stop the Steel." The band itself tries to get together intermittently, though as a side project, Cobain has stated that it gets harder and harder to keep such a group going.

Mr. Wagstaff lives up to his name.

 

[Just Another Night]

Mr. Wagstaff lives up to his name.

An adult film made by British Sex Films in 2020, where a parody of Boris Johnson has sex with parodies of Angela Merkel and Sanna Merin at 10 Downing Street. Johnson had received the nickname "Mr. Wagstaff" from The Sun after rumors of sexual misconduct began floating around Parliament. Johnson attempted to sue British Sex Films to have the film taken down, but the suit was thrown out of court, leading to the Telegraph headline "Wagstaff Gets Wagged".

The Ocean Men

 

[Reflection]

The Ocean Men

A painting of George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and others, as they sail to London to arrange the Treaty of Victoria. It's there where the North American Union was formed as a peaceful agreement between the American colony and the British crown.

The Twin Royalties of Britain and Spain

 

[Whitewings]

A painting of George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and others, as they sail to London to arrange the Treaty of Victoria. It's there where the North American Union was formed as a peaceful agreement between the American colony and the British crown.

The Twin Royalties of Britain and Spain

The term applied to Queen Elizabeth I of England’s marriage to Prince Carlos, the younger brother (by about 20 minutes) of King Phillip II of Spain, and King Phillip’s marriage to Princess Juliana, Elizabeth’s similarly younger sister. The unusual arrangement benefited both countries, improving Spain’s financial position and England’s military position. The two royal couples’ actually liking each other, as proved by their being highly fruitful, did not hurt. One amusing side note was a poorly worded announcement in one London broadsheet giving some people the impression that somehow, the impending nuptials were intended to be both homosexual and incestuous.

Locke the Superman

 

[The_Persian_Cat]

Locke the Superman

A 1908 philosophical tract by Belgian statesman and businessman Count Felix Jens van der Els, in which he attempts to reconcile the liberal philosophy of John Locke with the nihilist philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. In it, Count van der Els disputes much of Nietzsche's social and political thought, arguing that the concept of the übermensch can only be achieved within the context of the Lockean social contract, as the ultimate individual liberation is power over others, but paradoxically, those with power can only achieve the status of übermensch through the just application of power (since justice is the most rational and liberating way to exercise power). Thus, the imposition of totalitarian power is a moral, social, and political virtue. The book was widely criticised by the Count's contemporaries as a gross misinterpretation of both Locke and Nietzsche, as well as a flimsy justification for the Count's activities in the Congo Free State. However, in the 1930s and 1940s, it would become popular among fascist thinkers, especially among the jurists and legal authorities within the Nazi Party.

Dancing With The Stars

 

[Screwhorn77]

Dancing With The Stars

A Soviet animated film directed by Mikhail Tsekhanovsky in 1938, inspired by the ideas of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and co-written by Yakov Perelman. The film tells the story of a team of interstellar explorers from all around the Solar System in the faraway future looking for a star system that might be home to another civilizations. Only evidence that currently survives of the film are several articles and a book that uses the animated film's designs in its illustrations, as the film itself was destroyed in a fire in 1943.

Starlyte Home Video

 

[sampleswift]

A Soviet animated film directed by Mikhail Tsekhanovsky in 1938, inspired by the ideas of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and co-written by Yakov Perelman. The film tells the story of a team of interstellar explorers from all around the Solar System in the faraway future looking for a star system that might be home to another civilizations. Only evidence that currently survives of the film are several articles and a book that uses the animated film's designs in its illustrations, as the film itself was destroyed in a fire in 1943.

Starlyte Home Video

A company called Starlyte Home Video was one of the largest producers of VCR tapes in America when VCR tapes were relevant. Sadly, as soon as VCR tapes became obsolescent, this company started falling into financial issues. It attempted to diversify into record players, CDs, and later internet formats, but its era of dominance would be broken and it would be a shell of its former self by the year 2002.

Not a Coup, but a Whimper

 

[Kylia]

Not a Coup, but a Whimper

A historical fiction Novel about Louis Napoleon's (Napoleon III) coup of the Second French Republic, focusing on how the Second Republic had basically killed itself with it's own mistakes and issues, and that fact that at first, Napoleon III's coup was, broadly speaking, quite popular. The book, published in 2005, ended up becoming the basis for a small Netflix Original series in 2015 that did really well, and the series got renewed to cover more of Napoleon III's reign and his eventual fall during the Franco-Prussian War. This also led to Netflix picking up more historical fictions and turning them into Original series, including Colleen McCoullough's Rome series, and a series about the English Civil Wars, focusing on the wives and daughters of some of the prominent men of the period.

The Prince of Prance