In Popular Culture
- The slangy nature of the term "blockbuster" made it a frequent popular culture reference during World War II, for example the Bugs Bunny cartoon Falling Hare, about a gremlin trying to detonate a blockbuster bomb with a mallet.
- The term "blockbuster", as applied to film or theatre, denotes a very popular and/or successful production, perhaps derived from the term's use meaning simply "biggest". The entertainment industry use was originally theatrical slang referring to a particularly successful play but is now used primarily by the film industry.
- "Block Buster!" was a 1973 chart-topping song by British rock band Sweet, featuring the wailing sound of air raid sirens.
- In the pharmaceutical industry, blockbuster drug refers to a drug generating more than $1 billion of revenue for its owner each year.
- In the Tom and Jerry cartoon Mouse Trouble, cat Tom uses a "Block Buster" Bomb and many others to try to get rid of mouse Jerry, but miserably fails and ends up killing himself.
- In the 1980s there was a game show called Blockbusters in both the US and the UK.
Read more about this topic: Blockbuster Bomb
Famous quotes containing the words popular and/or culture:
“What is saved in the cinema when it achieves art is a spontaneous continuity with all mankind. It is not an art of the princes or the bourgeoisie. It is popular and vagrant. In the sky of the cinema people learn what they might have been and discover what belongs to them apart from their single lives.”
—John Berger (b. 1926)
“The problem of culture is seldom grasped correctly. The goal of a culture is not the greatest possible happiness of a people, nor is it the unhindered development of all their talents; instead, culture shows itself in the correct proportion of these developments. Its aim points beyond earthly happiness: the production of great works is the aim of culture.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)