Stephen Foster - in Popular Culture

In Popular Culture

• Journalist Nellie Bly took her pseudonym from the title character of Foster's song Nelly Bly.
• "Stephen Foster Super Saturday" is a day of thoroughbred racing during the Spring/Summer meet at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky. During the call to the post, selections of Stephen Foster songs are played by the track bugler, Steve Buttleman. The day is headlined by the Stephen Foster Handicap a Grade I dirt race for older horses at 9 furlongs.
• Two television shows about the life of Stephen Foster and his childhood friend (and later wife) Jeanie MacDowell were produced in Japan, the first in 1979 with 13 episodes, and the second from 1992 to 1993 with 52 episodes, and both were called Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair after the song of the same name.
• In the Honeymooners episode, The $99,000 Answer, Ed Norton warms up on the piano by playing the opening to Swanee River. Later, when Ralph returns to the game show, the first question asked is, "Who is the composer of "Swanee River?" Ralph nervously responds with "Ed Norton," and loses the game.
• In the film Tombstone, Billy Clanton (played by Thomas Hayden Church) tries to bait Doc Holiday (Val Kilmer), who is playing a Chopin nocturne on the piano, by saying "Is that 'Old Dog Tray?' That sounds like 'Old Dog Tray' to me." When the goad fails, Clanton asks whether Doc knows any other songs, like "'Camptown Races?' 'Oh Susanna?' "You know, Stephen stinkin' Foster?!?"
• Erika M Anderson of the band EMA says in reference to Foster's Camptown Races, "I bet my money on the bobtail nag/somebody bet on the bay" in the song California from her 2011 release Past Life Martyred Saints.
• David Berman of the Silver Jews sings the lyric "Her doorbell plays a bar of Stephen Foster" in the song Tennessee, which appeared on the 2001 album Bright Flight.
• In a Fractured Fairy Tales segment of The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show Aladdin finds a lamp with a female Genie with Light Brown Hair who immediately asks "Are you Stephen Foster?"