TV DINNERS
On a 2009 episode of the Nickelodeon kids’ sitcom iCarly, Spencer (Jerry Trainor) had no idea what to make for dinner for his family. So he invented spaghetti tacos, hard taco shells filled with noodles and marinara sauce. After that episode aired, the food became a cultural phenomenon both in the world of the show (the main characters make a popular Internet show) and in real life. In one episode, characters oversee a spaghetti-taco-making contest on a cable show, and in the real world, spaghetti tacos were the most-requested food item at American school cafeterias in 2010. “Spaghetti tacos make it possible to eat spaghetti in your car,” Syracuse University pop-culture professor Robert Thompson told The New York Times. “It’s a very important technological development.”
The winning acts on The Gong Show received $712.
CATCHPHRASES
“And that’s the way it is.”
CBS Evening News anchor Walter Cronkite never intended for this sign-off to become his signature line repeated nightly for decades. When he began anchoring the news in 1962, he’d planned to end each broadcast with a human interest story, followed by a brief off-the-cuff commentary or final thought. But producers told him there wouldn’t be enough time to do all that, so he quickly came up with “And that’s the way it is.” Years later, he still thought it sounded “too authoritative.”
In its 9-year run. The Facts of Life received only one Emmy nomination: for hairstyling. (It lost.)
THANKS, TELEVISION!
Over the past 20 years, the saxophone has been the instrument that girls most want to play in school bands. Why? According to The New York Times, it’s because Lisa Simpson plays it on The Simpsons. The Times cited band teachers who say they have way too many female sax players. But Tim Timmons, a music dean at the University of Missouri, theorized that the sax boom may have been caused by other influences—like when Bill Clinton performed “Heartbreak Hotel” on the saxophone on a 1992 episode of The Arsenio Hall Show.
Monkees star Davy Jones was drafted by the army, but fasted for three weeks to fail the physical.
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