Appearances in Popular Culture
Snyder appeared in a cameo in the 1981 comedy film The Cannonball Run as a bookie. In the movie he offered 50–1 odds against Formula One driver Jamie Blake (played by Dean Martin) and gambler Morris Fenderbaum (played by Sammy Davis Jr.) winning the Cannonball coast-to-coast endurance race. Jimmy the Greek and Dean Martin were childhood acquaintances in Steubenville, Ohio.
On November 10, 2009, ESPN aired a show in their 30 for 30 series titled The Legend of Jimmy the Greek, which was produced by Fritz Mitchell. Commentary was provided by, among others, Brent Musburger, Irv Cross and Phyllis George from The NFL Today, plus Anthony Snyder Jimmy's son, as well as his brother Johnny and sister Angie. The show also acknowledges his role in the first sportcasts of poker tournaments.
Although Jimmy was largely unknown outside of the United States, in 1974 his name achieved international renown. After beating George Foreman to regain the world heavyweight championship, Muhammad Ali, in the midst of an interview with David Frost, looked into the camera and addressed his doubters. "All of you bow" he said. "All of my critics crawl...All of you suckers bow... If you wanna know any damn thing about boxing, don't go to no boxing experts in Las Vegas, don't go to no Jimmy The Greek. Come to Muhammad Ali."
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Famous quotes containing the words appearances, popular and/or culture:
“The appearances of goodness and merit often meet with a greater reward from the world than goodness and merit themselves.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)
“That popular fable of the sot who was picked up dead-drunk in the street, carried to the duke’s house, washed and dressed and laid in the duke’s bed, and, on his waking, treated with all obsequious ceremony like the duke, and assured that he had been insane, owes its popularity to the fact that it symbolizes so well the state of man, who is in the world a sort of sot, but now and then wakes up, exercises his reason and finds himself a true prince.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“... there are some who, believing that all is for the best in the best of possible worlds, and that to-morrow is necessarily better than to-day, may think that if culture is a good thing we shall infallibly be found to have more of it that we had a generation since; and that if we can be shown not to have more of it, it can be shown not to be worth seeking.”
—Katharine Fullerton Gerould (1879–1944)