Another Totally Frivolous Pop Culture Post

So a week or so ago on my post on “Jay Leno For President,” I noticed that frequent Power Line commenter David Hill’s FB identification reads: “Works at Veridian Dynamics.”  No way!  This is almost as good as spotting the Fred Hirsch Social Limits to Growth reference on The Big Bang Theory.  Better Off Ted (the home of Veridian Dynamics) was one of my favorite short-lived shows (not as short-lived as Firefly, grump, grump), partly for its straight up satire of conglomerates like GE, as shown in this first 30-second video of their riff on the environment (sorry for the poor quality—it’s the only version out there on YouTube):

But there was also the fact that the show’s lead, Jay Harrington, was a doppelganger for my then boss, Arthur Brooks of AEI, including even their voices.  If I ever get round to writing a sitcom about Washington think tanks, Harrington will obviously have to play Brooks.  Check out 30 seconds of Harrington (“Ted”) in this promo video, and then check out Arthur Brooks, and you’ll see what I mean:

But wait!  There’s more.  Hill said I was the first person ever to notice his Better Off Ted reference.  But then another commenter, Philip Goerling, upped the game with a much more obscure pop culture reference, saying he’d thought about seeking a job at Yoyodyne Propulsion.  Now, you have to get up pretty early in the morning to sneak a Buckaroo Bonzai reference past me.  If you want to know how early in the morning, check out the green bumper sticker on my Volkswagen Eurovan:

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