{"id":622,"date":"2007-01-17T00:00:37","date_gmt":"2007-01-17T06:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/slidingconstant.net\/?p=622"},"modified":"2025-09-20T16:21:27","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T21:21:27","slug":"entry-101","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/slidingconstant.net\/?p=622","title":{"rendered":"60’s References"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

One of my very favorite movies is That Thing You Do<\/a>. I\u2019m not exactly sure why, but I never get tired of watching it. I could go into a whole other post about why I like it, but I suspect that it just put together exactly the right mix of fun music, (mostly) clever dialogue, compelling story line, and well-chosen actors to hook me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

An interesting thing, though, is how much of the movie is concerned with period references. The movie is set in the mid-60s, about 10 years before I was born. So, I don\u2019t have original memories of a lot of the little bones that they throw us in the movie. Some are fairly obvious (references to The Ed Sullivan Show<\/a> and The Beatles<\/a>, the TV interview with Gus Grissom<\/a>, etc.). Others are ones that I figured out but were not quite so obvious. For instance, \u201cRick and Anita\u201d in the beach movie are almost certainly thinly-veiled stand-ins for Frankie and Annette<\/a>. One of the really obscure ones that I actually picked up on is that Guy\u2019s father is using a Zenith Space Command remote control for their TV (see this web page<\/a> for more info). Pushing a button on the remote caused a mechanically-produced (no batteries) ultrasonic tone that the TV \u201clistened\u201d for. There are a few that I actually had to look up. Guy\u2019s \u201cpercussionist Foster Grant\u201d line, I learned, is a reference to a famous ad campaign that sunglass maker Foster Grant<\/a> ran back in the 60\u2019s in which they asked, \u201cWho\u2019s that behind those Foster Grants?.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One reference that eluded me for years, though, was Guy\u2019s comment late in the movie that \u201cIf Jimmy\u2019s a genius, then I\u2019m (something that sounded like “ooh-TONT”).\u201d I tried Google, but since I didn\u2019t know how to spell the mystery word, I had no luck. I was talking to someone about it last night, and I decided to give it another shot. Thanks to this page<\/a>, I finally found it. The line is actually, \u201cIf Jimmy\u2019s a genius, then I\u2019m U Thant.\u201d U Thant<\/a> (archived copy on archive.org<\/em>) was the 3rd Secretary General of the United Nations and would have been the current one during the time the movie was set. Thus, it makes sense that Guy\u2019s response to \u201cWho\u2019s U Thant?\u201d started with \u201cHe\u2019s the Sec\u2026\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think it\u2019s interesting that Tom Hanks and company were able to make a movie that was appealing to younger moviegoers yet chock full of so many references that were so obviously intended for people who actually grew up in the 60\u2019s. Bravo. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of my very favorite movies is That Thing You Do. I\u2019m not exactly sure why, but I never get tired of watching it. I could go into a whole other post about why I like it, but I suspect that it just put together exactly the right mix of fun music, (mostly) clever dialogue, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[7],"class_list":["post-622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-geekiness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/slidingconstant.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/slidingconstant.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/slidingconstant.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slidingconstant.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slidingconstant.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=622"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/slidingconstant.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1647,"href":"https:\/\/slidingconstant.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622\/revisions\/1647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/slidingconstant.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slidingconstant.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slidingconstant.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}