Four Horsemen of the Apopcalypse – Pop culture references in The Colbert Report: April 6-9, 2009

Welcome to No Fact Zone’s weekly roundup of cultural references on The Colbert Report. From Darcy to Dangermouse, String Theory to Shakespeare, we’ve got the keys to this week’s obscure, oddball, and occasionally obscene cultural shout-outs (hey!).

Hey Zoners!  I had a lot of fun with our apopcalyptic tidbits this week, including a math lesson even – don’t be scared!  On the other hand, you perhaps should be scared of the weirdly trippy children’s programs featured. What about you?  What bits made you laugh out loud this week?

Monday: Body Loss

“For safety’s sake, I cannot let my employees see this. Especially not my key grip, 12-fingered Pete.  Toughest part is converting his paycheck to base-12.  Can do chisam bop like nobody’s business though.”

Those of you without geeky math tendencies, move along, nothing to see here.  Ok, are they gone?  Good.  If you ever thought that counting in something other than base-10 was a way to impress people, this one is for you (and doubly so if you had the sort of friends who actually were impressed).  Base-12 (or duodecimal) is a numerical system which uses 12 as its base (in contrast to the familiar base-10 decimal, or base-2 binary systems).  Because 12 is divisible by 2, 3, 4, and 6, the base-12 system is particularly useful for representing fractional quantities (think of the 12 months in a year, 12 items in a dozen, 12 inches in a foot, etc.).

Chisan bop (variant names: Chisholm-, chisam-, chisen- bop) is a method of finger counting, somewhat analogous to the use of an abacus. Each finger on the right hand has a value of 1, while the thumb has a value of 5 (so one thumb + two fingers = 5 + 2 = 7).  The left hand is similar, with fingers representing 10, and the thumb 50.  Here’s a neat interactive tutorial.

Tuesday:  Better Know A District – New York’s Dan Maffei

“The district contains the town of Palmyra, where in 1827, Joseph Smith discovered the source of the Book of  Mormon, the Golden Plates.  The Golden Plates also won him a free tour of Jesus’ chocolate factory.”

That image of Jesus as Willy Wonka surrounded by Oompa-Loompas is just… stunningly weird.  The 1971 film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory starred Gene Wilder as candy magnate Willy Wonka, who sponsors a contest in which children who find a golden ticket in their candy bars win a personal tour of the famous chocolate factory.  Like a bizarre child’s version of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None (or the hilarious Neil Simon spoof Murder By Death), naughty children come to unpleasant ends one by one in the course of the tour.  A classic, the film somehow manages to be simultaneously quite charming and supremely creepy.

Wednesday: Alpha Dog of the Week – Ted Stevens

“He did have an escape plan.  As long as the prison had internet, he could always crawl out through ‘a series of tubes.’ “

Politicians + the internet = funny.  Al Gore was lambasted for allegedly claiming he invented it, George W. Bush famously uses “the internets” and “the Google”, and Senator Ted Stevens demonstrated his technical expertise by saying “the internet is not something that you just dump something on.  It’s not a big truck. It’s, it’s a series of tubes.” (See the great Daily Show send-up of this quote!)

I feel we also need a small shout out to Katy Perry, for all the times Stephen has talked recently about looking for naked pictures of her on the internet!  Naughty boy!

Thursday: Threatdown – Centegenarian Pushers

“Old people are always complaining about their joints. Now we know they all get baked and watch Eddie Cantor movies.  It was the Yo Gabba Gabba of its day.”

That excessively peppy tune was the title song from the 1948 film If You Knew Susie.  The film starred famed actor and comedian Eddie Cantor, beloved to early 20th century audiences for his roles in vaudeville, Broadway, radio, and television.  But Cantor is out-pepped (and out-bizarred) by the children’s show Yo Gabba Gabba, a brightly colored televised dance party for kids populated by talking vegetables and guys in big monster suits.  Its over-the-top oddity has made Yo Gabba Gabba a hit with preschoolers and college students alike.