Popular Culture References To Dwarf Tossing
In The Lord of the Rings film trilogy at the broken bridge in the Mines of Moria, Gimli tells Aragorn, "Nobody tosses a dwarf!" before jumping over a large gap himself. Later, at the Battle of Helm's Deep, Gimli allows Aragorn to throw him over a narrow defile to battle Saruman's armies after making Aragorn promise to never mention the act to Legolas. The director's commentary in the special extended DVD edition of The Fellowship of the Ring debates whether the sport originated in the United Kingdom or Australia. The director's commentary goes on to say that the writing team did not realize that dwarf tossing is not as common in the United States and other regions as it is in New Zealand, and thus did not anticipate that many fans ultimately did not know what the joke was referring to. Neither incident, nor anything like it, appears in the actual book of Lord of the Rings.
Author Hugh Cook includes a dwarf-tossing scene in his 1992 fantasy novel The Witchlord and the Weaponmaster.
In the 2004 comedic film Dodgeball, a magazine titled Obscure Sports Quarterly features midget tossing.
American legal drama "L.A. Law" featured a legal dispute revolving around dwarf tossing in an episode aired on 11/23/1989.
In the Steve Jackson Games card game Munchkin, there is a card called "Dwarf Tossing".
Ronfar from Lunar Eternal Blue mentions dwarf tossing.
In Brett Easton Ellis' Novel American Psycho main character Patrick Bateman watches a TV show called "The Patty Winters Show". One of the episodes is referred to being "about a new sport called Dwarf Tossing"
Hornswoggle (AKA "Little Bastard"), a character on WWE's SmackDown!, is regularly dragged out from under the ring (where he "lives") and is tossed by Finlay into his opponents.
The music album Midget Tossing by Yellowcard.
Wall Street firms (according to a 2005 Wall Street Journal article) furnished private jets and paid female escorts for attendees to a bachelor party for a Fidelity Funds trader Dennis Bruderman who was to marry the daughter of the disgraced Tyco International Ltd. boss L. Dennis Kozlowski. The party featured dwarf-tossing.
The group Bouquet Of Veal released the song "Dwarf Tossin'" which is available on The Obscurity File and Dr. Demento's Basement Tapes 2.
The Oblongs, an animated television show, featured an episode with a run down bar showcasing dwarf tossing.
In episode three of the third season of American Dad, Stan and his new friend Brett Morris are seen to be competing in the fictional "Dwarf Toss '07".
In Matthew Harrison's 1992 feature film Spare Me, the heroes father runs an underground dwarf bowling operation.
In episode 5 of season 5 of Squidbillies Early Cuyler wears a hat advising "VOTE YES RE-LEGALIZE MIDGET TOSSING".
In Married... with Children Season 6, Episode 16 Rites of Passage, Al takes Bud to a gentleman's club for his 18th birthday, and the sign with the "House Rules" states "NO DWARF TOSSING"
In Eeny Teeny Maya Moe, the sixteenth episode of the The Simpsons' twentieth season, Moe removes a banner in his bar advertising dwarf tossing, to avoid offending a dwarf woman he is dating.
Also in the TV show HellCats they refer in an episode to cheerleading as "dwarf tossing"
In the TV series Life's Too Short with Warwick Davis at the beginning of episode 3 a variety of dwarf tossing, dwarf bowling is shown using a greased up little person, a slip-and-slide mat and over sized bowling pins.
As Peter Dinklage accepted his Golden Globe award on January 15th, 2012, he ended his acceptance speech saying he was thinking about Martin Henderson and told the audience to Google the name. Henderson, a 37-year-old dwarf and aspiring actor in the UK, was badly injured after being tossed by a drunk man outside a pub in Somerset, England.
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Famous quotes containing the words popular, culture, dwarf and/or tossing:
“You seem to think that I am adapted to nothing but the sugar-plums of intellect and had better not try to digest anything stronger.... a writer of popular sketches in magazines; a lecturer before Lyceums and College societies; a dabbler in metaphysics, poetry, and art, than which I would rather die, for if it has come to that, alas! verily, as you say, mediocrity has fallen on the name of Adams.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
“Education must, then, be not only a transmission of culture but also a provider of alternative views of the world and a strengthener of the will to explore them.”
—Jerome S. Bruner (20th century)
“A dwarf who brings a standard along with him to measure his own size—take my word, is a dwarf in more articles than one.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)
“Violence upon the roads: violence of horses;
Some few have handsome riders, are garlanded
On delicate sensitive ear or tossing mane,
But wearied running round and round in their courses
All break and vanish, and evil gathers head:
Herodias’ daughters have returned again.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)