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Friend-of-the-website Karl Eisenhauer got in touch with us the other day, with a VERY INTERESTING OBSERVATION. Would you like to hear it, boys and girls?
Well you’re getting it anyway, so fuck you. Take this dialogue from Better Than Life:
HOLLY: Strike a light, it’s Gordon.
RIMMER: Who’s Gordon?
HOLLY: He’s the eleventh generation AI computer aboard the Scott Fitzgerald. He’s got an IQ of eight thousand.
So, who does that Scott Fitzgerald refer to? Well, take a look at The Red Dwarf References List (TV):
Fitzgerald, (Francis) Scott: (1896-1940) American writer, author of the novel “The Great Gatsby” (1925).
Straightforward enough, you might think. Until you take into account the recording date of Better Than Life - which was the 29th May 1988. Now, the UK entry for the Eurovision Song Contest in 1988 was a certain Scott Fitzgerald, with Go (written by one Julie Forsyth - daughter of Brucie). And A Song For Europe that year was held on the 25th March, with Eurovision itself was held on the 30th April.
The question is - who does the Scott Fitzgerald refer to? The famous writer, or the Eurovision entrant? The latter certainly seems in the spirit of the show. For instance:
LISTER: Philistines. I mean how can you re-make Casablanca? The one starring Myra Dinglebat and Peter Beardsley was definitive.
Of course, there’a always the chance that it’s a subtle joke, and it’s left deliberately ambiguous which of the two the ship was named after. But I honestly don’t know for sure what the correct interpretation is. Weird how things like this get lost in the mists of time, isn’t it?
For the record, you can see Scott Fitzgerald’s entry here (DEAR GOD MAKE IT GO AWAY), and you can see how Scott loses by the narrowest of narrow margins here.
Yeeeah, nice one, Queeg. Erm, Karl.
Comments
You’re probably right. The first bit I noticed by entirely by chance and did some quick checking of dates to see if there was anything in it. The youtube links came when I was telling someone and stuck the words in the search function on the off chance.
I’m going for the writer, rather than the Eurovision entrant.
Found a RD reference last night, actually.
The book “101 Philosophy Problems” by Martin Cohen (worth a look if you’re interested in such matters), contains a reference to the King of the Potato People.
It’s not impossible that it’s named after the Eurovision entrant. After all, it’s not like the ships in the Red Dwarf universe are all named after American authors or anything…I can quite easily see them nabbing a quick joke rather than paying homage to some author with no connection to the show whatsoever, AND getting his name wrong in the process…
If they thought it was so important that they shoehorn a reference to F. Scott Fitzgerald into the show, why leave off the F.?
If they used the re-mastered stuff, then it’s likely to be an old show… But having said that, I’ve not seen this show before. One for UkNova, I reckon.
Antipodean / Mon, 2007-03-12 08:01 / #
This seems like over-analysing to me.
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