Did you know – South African ‘Human Brands’ trivia

Posted on 27. Aug, 2010 by Graham in Did you Know

Riaan Cruywagen

Riaan Cruywagen of the “how old is he really?” fame was born on October 5, 1945 which makes him 65!

The perennially “youthful” Cruywagen was one of SABC’s longest serving employees having started as a newsreader and voice artist since its first broadcasts in 1975.

In June 2003, following an outcry over reports that Cruywagen’s contract with the SABC would not be renewed, the band “Zinkplaat” recorded a song titled “Waar is Riaan?” referring to the presenter’s absence from the news team. It also led to e-mail and internet jokes originally referring to Chuck Norris and David Hasselhoff and other jokes in a similar vein were also circulated, mostly related to his perennially youthful appearance and intellectual prowess.

Cruywagen was also the voice artist for the character “Haas Das“ on the popular Afrikaans children’s news

program- Haas Das se Nuuskas“ in 1976 and voiced numerous characters in “Liewe Heksie”

Ruda Landman After matric Ruda Landman entered the Civil Defense College in George, where she undertook voluntary military service for a year in one of the first women’s army camps in South Africa. Before joining Carte Blanche and becoming one of SA’s best known investigative reporters, she worked as an arts and entertainment journalist from 1977 to 1985 for Die Burger and Sarie.
Hugh Masekela Hugh Masekela was given his first trumpet in 1954 by Archbishop Trevor Huddleston and later played in the Huddleston Jazz Band, led by the famous anti-apartheid crusader. In 1968 Masekela became one of the first African artists to find success in America’s pop music world when his song “Grazing in the Grass” topped Billboard’s single’s chart for two weeks. His sister Barbara Masekela who was part of the ANC’s National Executive Committee in 1991; was later appointed official Ambassador to UNESCO in 1995 and Ambassador to France in 1995.
Naas Botha His full name is Hendrik Egnatius Botha. Naas Botha is the only rugby player to have a rose named after him called the Rosa Naas Botha. Nicknamed “Nasty Booter” by the British press, this South African rugby player was the highest points scorer in springbok rugby history, until July 2004
Johnny Clegg At the height of the band’s success in 1988, Michael Jackson had to cancel his show in Lyon, France, as he attracted a smaller audience than Johnny Clegg and Savuka. A newspaper headline in France read “white man singing black music out sells black man singing white music.” Clegg was born in Lancashire an English father and Rhodesian mother. He had a secular Jewish upbringing living in the UK, Israel, Rhodesia (present-day Zimbabwe), Zambia, and then South Africa. His love of Zulu street music led to his participation in traditional Zulu dance competitions and the study of anthropology, a subject which he also taught for a while at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg,
Lucas Radebe In 1991 Radebe was shot while walking down the street. The motive for the shooting never became clear, but Radebe himself believes that someone had been hired to shoot him in order to prevent him from moving to another club. Radebe born in Diepkloof Soweto is one of eleven children. He became a star player for Leeds United and was nicknamed “The Chief” by its fans. He was also given the freedom of the city by Leeds. According to a poll of 1000 Leeds United supporters – Radebe was ranked 3rd as the greatest Leeds player ever after Eric Cantona 1st and Billy Bremner 2nd. The rock band Kaiser Chiefs originally formed in 1997, under the name ‘Parva’ changed their name to The Kaiser Chiefs in 2003. Several members of the band are huge Leeds United football club fans, and renamed the band after Captain Lucas Radebe’s South African team.
Miriam Makeba Miriam Makeba ‘s mother, a domestic worker, was imprisoned for six months for illegally brewing beer to help make ends meet, and Miriam went to prison with her as she was just 18 days old. She was the first black musician to leave South Africa on account of apartheid, and over the years many others would follow her. In 1963, she testified about apartheid at the United Nations and her South African citizenship was taken away from her. In 1966, she won a Grammy award for An Evening with Harry Belafonte in 1965. She was also the first black woman to have a Top-Ten worldwide hit with Pata Pata in 1967 Probably her most famous song, Qogothwane (The “Click” Song) was also recorded in the US. The city of Berkeley proclaimed the 16 June to be Miriam Makeba Day and she received a number of honorary degrees and decorations including the Presidential Award bestowed on her by Nelson Mandela in 1991.

Did you Know – Celebrity Endorsements Fails

Posted on 28. Jul, 2010 by Graham in Did you Know

Bob Hope peddled Pepsodent toothpaste, Bill Cosby sold Jello and Ronald Reagan smoked Chesterfield…

Stars have all jostled to align their names with famous brands in filthy-rich endorsement deals. But what may start like a marriage made in heaven can often go badly wrong. Like celebrity marriages, celebrity endorsements gone wrong can be pretty expensive and painful.

Yet, 74% of Americans say when a celebrity endorser gets involved in a scandal, it doesn’t impact the way they feel about the brand or brands they endorse. Just over one in five (22%) say they feel worse about the endorsed brands and 5% say they feel better about them. These are some of the findings of a new Adweek Media/Harris Poll, survey of 2,140 U.S. adults surveyed online between April 23 and 27, 2010 by Harris Interactive.

In 1987, the US Beef Industry Council paid Cybill Shepherd lots of money to tell everyone how much she loved beef in their “Real food for real people” campaign. It wasn’t so good when Shepherd admitted in public that she didn’t eat meat.
Hertz could not get enough of big handsome football hero OJ. Simpson’s mass appeal and aired dozens of Hertz ads from 1975. Now it’s stuck with the iconic image of OJ’s high speed freeway chase after which Simpson was charged with a double homicide, then tried and acquitted on national TV. Not the kind of Hertz driving experience it wanted!
The “Got milk?” campaign pulled ads with twins Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen in 2004 when Mary-Kate checked into a treatment facility for a “health-related issue” that publications reported as an eating disorder. Definitely not drinking her milk!
When a J&M announced that David Duchovny would front their ads on their venerable men’s shoe and leather brand, a spokesman said: “We are thrilled. David embodies success and confidence, along with a great sense of style, communicating the ideal image for the Johnston & Murphy brand.” Just as the ads began appearing, it was announced that Duchovny had checked himself into a rehab center for sex addiction! Oops.
Woods has been presented as the embodiment of bourgeois virtues: dedication, hard work, single-mindedness. When the scandal broke, his sponsors like Nike, Gillette, Accenture and Gatorade were quick to support him and then it got worse, a lot worse. Now Woods is without wife, mistresses and the dollars that made him the most highly paid sportsman in the world.
Less than a week after his dagga smoking pics hit the press, swimming sensation Michael Phelps found himself literally adrift in the deep end sans his lucrative sponsorship deals with Kellogg’s and Subway. He definitely can’t indulge his munchies now!
Kirstie Alley has always been a big boned gal and when she lost a large part of her bulk, she gained a very respectable endorsement deal with Jenny Craig, the weight control empire guru. And then she piled it on again – 75 pounds! She lost more than her waistline when she got the axe !
Chanel, Burberry and H&M cut model Kate Moss from their ad campaigns after photos appeared of her and then-boyfriend Pete Doherty snorting cocaine. Ironically, Moss had the last laugh or snort after a slew of other luxury brands later signed deals with Moss and even Burberry re-inked.
In 2001, Pepsi signed Britney Spears for tens of millions of dollars to be the face of their brand, but had to drop her after she was photographed drinking Coke on a regular basis. Perhaps the wrong brand match – may be cigarettes and vodka would be a little more appropriate?
Madonna by name and not by deed! 1989, Pepsi reneged on a $5 million deal they’d made with the singer Madonna after her racy video for “Like A Prayer” sparked an international controversy with the Catholic church and Catholics all over the world who threatened to boycott the drink for eternity!

Did you know these interesting World Cup facts?

Posted on 24. Jun, 2010 by admin in Did you Know

 
 
 
 
 
• More than 11 million South African television viewers watched the Soccer World Cup opening match between South Africa and Mexico on Friday 11 June 2010.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

• 42-year-old Roger Milla in 1994 became the oldest goal scorer and the oldest player in World Cup history. He is also famous for being the first footballer to celebrate a goal by dancing: sparking a whole trend that has seen some very strange on-field gyrations.

• Sir Viv Richards is the only person to have played both World Cup Football and World Cup Cricket.

• Sri Lanka was the first country to withdraw from the World Cup due to the inability to pay the entrance fee for the 1978 World Cup.

• Shirt swapping was once officially prohibited in 1986 because FIFA did not want players to ‘bare their chests’ on the field.

• No European team has won a World Cup played outside of Europe. Sorry Netherlands and Spain.

• Yugoslavia’s Rajko Mitic failed to make the kick-off of their 1950 match against hosts Brazil in Rio because he had run into an iron girder in the players’ tunnel. He emerged 20 minutes later, his head bandaged, with his team already a goal down.

• The Japanese squad list goes from 3 to 5 as the number 4 is considered unlucky in the country. Four is pronounced “shi” which is the same as “death.”

• A bag snatcher who stole Eva Standmann’s handbag before the Brazil-Australia game in Munich four years ago found her ticket inside and decided to attend the game with her ticket. Unfortunately, he sat in Eva’s seat right next to her husband Berndt, who had him arrested. Talk about the “hot” seat!”

• The Socceroos’ nickname was coined by Sydney Daily Mirror editor Tony Horstead in 1967. These days Australians now want to ditch it and reclaim the name ‘football’. Meanwhile, Australia’s U-17 team is known as The Joeys.

• During Germany’s 2009 Wembley friendly with England, Germany’s team coach Joachim Loew was caught on camera vigorously rubbing his armpit and then sniffing his hand. He was also spotted picking his nose and then chewing the bogey during the qualifier against Wales. Eek!

• Shunsuke Nakamura, Japan’s midfielder has an asteroid, “Asteroid 29986 Shunsuke”, named after him.

Did u know

Posted on 28. May, 2010 by admin in Did you Know

 
 
Generation Y-ers, defined as those born from 1982-2000 are a many named group. Also known as “Echo Boomers” (offspring of the Baby Boomers), the “Millennials”, the “Net Generation”, the “GenTech”,  the “Dot-com” generation, “Trophy kids”, and, very aptly “Generation Y Not”, they are the first native online population and it’s defines how they think, live and work.

 

• According to an NGO mobileyouth, there are currently 1.2 billion youth with cell-phones worldwide, spending rising in 2009 to $250 billion in the mobile market.
• Mixit has an international user base spanning 15 million plus* and, more than 12 million are South African. It’s also three times more popular than Facebook in South Africa.
• In Feb 2010, Facebook had over 400 million active users with 100 million accessing FB via their mobiles; approximately 45% of users are under 18.
• 75% of all teenagers in the US now have a mobile phone, while almost 35% of teenagers send over 100 text messages per day, one in three people text while driving and one in two talks on a mobile phone while driving!
• Charlie McDonnell is a 19 year old video blogger on YouTube – with 200,000 subscribers and more than 20 million hits overall, he is the third most subscribed to on the site.

Parents and educators bemoan this obsession with media technology believing they contribute to poor social skills and the degradation of both written and spoken language. You can be sure they won’t understand what the following texting language means at all!

Interesting facts about some of the oldest and youngest rulers. (And some other bizarre acts)

Posted on 29. Apr, 2010 by admin in Did you Know

• Albert Einstein was once offered the Presidency of Israel. He declined saying he had no head for problems.

• The youngest US president to be inaugurated was Theodore Roosevelt at age 42 and the oldest was Ronald Reagan at 69 years. (Barack Obama was 47).

• The Dalai Lama was found by Tibetan monks when he was two years old. The monks tested the boy to see if he was the reincarnation of the 13th Dalai Lama. He passed the tests and had physical traits that the monks were looking for such as moles in certain places and long ears. At two, he was renamed Tenzin Gyatso, took the throne at age four and became a monk at age six.

• The crown Prince Luis Filipe of Portugal was technically King of Portugal (Dom Luis III) for about 20 minutes. He was killed at the same time as his father by a bullet which severed his carotid artery in the streets of Lisbon on 1 February 1908.

• The youngest monarch in modern times was King Mswati III of Swaziland who was crowned on 25 April 1986 aged 18 years six days.

• England’s Queen Anne (1665-1714) outlived all 17 of her children during her reign…

• Morarji Ranchhodji Desai of India was the oldest Prime Minister to be appointed at 81 in 1977.

• To deter unwanted flies, King Pepi II of Egypt always kept a supply of naked slaves handy, their bodies smeared with honey.

• King Solomon of Israel had about 700 wives as well as hundreds of mistresses.

• Louis XIV of France has the longest reign recorded in Europe: 72 years, three months, 18 days. He also hated washing and took only three baths in his entire adult life. But he loved beds and owned 413 of them as well as more than 1000 wigs

• Henry VIII went for a game of tennis while his wife, Anne Boleyn, was being beheaded.

• Murad IV, who ruled Turkey in the 17th century, found a highly effective way of demonstrating that smoking can seriously damage your health. He ordered that anyone caught smoking be executed on the spot as a deterrent to others. He once had a party of female picnickers drowned because they were making too much noise.

• Ivan the Terrible of Russia was so pleased with the newly built Moscow church of St Basil that he blinded the two architects so that they would never be able to come up with anything better.

Funny Newspaper headlines, stories and ads

Posted on 25. Mar, 2010 by admin in Did you Know

Newspapers pride themselves on getting the facts straight, creating attention-grabbing headlines and content that educates, informs and entertains. But occasionally things fall through the crack, a picture wrongly captioned, a missing word or two or an ambiguous phrase and see what happens!

Oscar Trivia: Did you know?

Posted on 25. Feb, 2010 by admin in Did you Know

 
 
 
• Only three films have ever won all top five Oscars – Best Film, Actor, Actress, Director and Writing. They are: It Happened One Night, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and The Silence of the Lambs

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 • Walt Disney won more Oscars than anyone else. He was nominated for 64, and won 26!

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 • Bob Hope has hosted the Oscars 18 times; Billy Crystal is in second place with 8 times.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 • The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is the only film ever to have won every single Oscar it was nominated for.

 
 
 
 
 

 • The shortest-ever Best Actor Oscar-winning performance was awarded to Anthony Hopkins in 1992, having appeared for less than 16 minutes of screen time as Dr Hannibal “The Cannibal” Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs

 
 
 

 • The oldest actress to win an Oscar is Jessica Tandy – at 81 she won the Best Actress Oscar in 1990 for her performance in Driving Miss Daisy. Tom Hanks is the youngest recipient of the Academy’s Lifetime Achievement Award, which he received in 2002 at age 45.

 
 
 
 

 • The first ceremony took place on May 16, 1929 in the Blossom Room of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. The first televised Academy Awards show was the 25th annual, held on March 19, 1953.

 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 • The longest Oscar awards ceremony was in 2000, running for 4 hours and 16 minutes – beating a previous record by 16 minutes.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 • The first actor to receive an Oscar posthumously was Peter Finch who died of a heart attack while leaving the Beverly Hills Hotel to do a pre-Oscar ceremony TV interview with Good Morning America.

 
 
 
 
 
 
• George C. Scott refused his award for his portrayal of the title role in Patton in 1970. He said that “the whole thing is a goddamn meat parade. I don’t want any part of it.” Marlon Brando refused to accept his award personally, because of the way Native Americans are discriminated against by the US and Hollywood. Instead, he sent a woman named Sacheen Littlefeather to receive his prize, and gave her a fifteen page acceptance speech.

Did you know – Weird Fads that swept the world

Posted on 28. Jan, 2010 by admin in Did you Know

 
 
 
The Ask Doctor Spock Fad
Simple sells. In 1946, Spock wrote Baby and Child Care that outlined his revolutionary child-rearing advice. And what was that? Just relax. Americans lapped up the laissez faire methodology and in 10 years, Spock’s book became the second-best selling tome in the United States (after the Bible).

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Telephone-Booth Stuffing
In 1959, 25 South African students climbed into a telephone booth announcing they’d set the world record for a non-existent event! Within weeks, college students across England, America, and Canada immediately set to work to outdo the South Africans from using physics to starving themselves. Arguments and accusations of cheating followed but later that year they all seemed to reach a truce when everyone abandoned phone booths in favor of Volkswagens, the latest people-stuffing container of choice!

 
 


 
 
 
Conical Bras
Movie producer and ladies man deluxe Howard Hughes touched off a decade-long fashion fad in 1943 when he designed a state-of-the-art cantilevered bra for actress Jane Russell – thus allowing women to stride confidently into the 1950s lifted, separated and pointed toward the future.

 
 
 
 
 
 

Ant Farms
Inspired by the events at an outdoor barbecue, “Uncle Milton” Levine modified a clear plastic tissue box into a prototype for an ant farm. Between 1956 and 1966, he sold almost 12 million of them (ants originally not included), thanks in part to creative product placement. Levine gave away fancy, mahogany ant farms to Dick Clark and other TV personalities who kept the trinkets on their on-screen desks and, thus, in the public eye.

For more weird and wonderful fads go to www.neatorama.com

Did you know – Christmas Marketing Trivia

Posted on 09. Dec, 2009 by admin in Did you Know

 
 
 
 
 • “Rudolph the Reindeer” was actually created by Montgomery Ward in the late 1930’s for an in store holiday promotion. The rest is history.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 • Coca Cola was the first beverage company to use Santa for a winter promotion.

 
 
 
 
 

 
 • Hallmark introduced its first Christmas cards in 1915, five years after the founding of the company.

 
 
 
 
 

 
 • More diamonds are sold around Christmas than any other time of the year.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 • According to a 1995 survey, 7 out of 10 British dogs get Christmas gifts from their doting owners.

 
 
 
 
 

 
 • During the Christmas buying season, Visa cards alone are used an average of 5,340 times every minute in the United States

 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 • During the Christmas/Hanukkah season, more than 1.76 billion candy canes will be made.

 
 
 

 
 • Frustrated at the lack of interest in his new toy invention, Charles Pajeau hired several midgets, dressed them in elf costumes, and had them play with “Tinker Toys” in a display window at a Chicago department store during the Christmas season in 1914. This publicity stunt made the construction toy an instant hit. A year later, over a million sets of Tinker Toys had been sold.

Did you know these sensational tabloid facts?

Posted on 26. Nov, 2009 by admin in Did you Know

 
 
 • That Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the last president of the Soviet Union is currently part of a Louis Vuitton ad? A decade ago, Mr. Gorbachev’s appearance in a Pizza Hut commercial was generally greeted as a low point in his career.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ;
 

 
 
 • The Sun was the first tabloid ever to print a picture of a topless model on Page 3

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ;
 

 
 
 • More than 1.6 million people read the National Enquirer compared to the 1.1 million that read the New York Times

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 • Matt Drudge is the internet’s hottest scoopster and the one-man news bureau that broke the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Now, his website gets 6 million visitors a month, making him the largest known online tabloid journalist. He has more readers than Time Magazine

 
 
 
 
 
• Think only tabloids create sensationalistic headlines? Consider these from CNN.com

And MSNBC.com outré news headlines:

And Foxnews.com home page