Mark Twain in popular culture
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mark Twain has appeared in popular culture as a character in books, films and comics:
- The 1944 biographical film of his life, The Adventures of Mark Twain, featured Fredric March as Clemens and Alexis Smith as his wife Olivia.
- Broadway, television & cinema actor Hal Holbrook has been performing his one-man show Mark Twain Tonight! annually since 1959, with each show somewhat different in Twain content. During the 60th Tony Awards, Holbrook reported that he was purported to be buried near Twain in Woodlawn Cemetery. Holbrook then repeated one of Twain's famous quotes: "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated."
- Mark Twain is one of the main characters of the Riverworld series by Philip José Farmer (1971-1983).
- Mark Twain appears in To Sail Beyond the Sunset (1987), part of Robert A. Heinlein's Lazarus Long cycle, as a family friend of the protagonist.
- The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Time's Arrow" (1992) featured a fictionalized version of Mark Twain.
- Twain appeared in a comic strip story featuring The Phantom. The story featured the 16th Phantom meeting Twain in the wild west.
- Singer/songwriter Jimmy Buffett has written three songs based on Twain's travelog, Following the Equator ("That's What Livin' is to Me", "Take Another Road", "Remittance Man") and has paraphrased Twain in other songs. He also gives Twain a nod in his own literature, most notably by naming a main character's horse Mr. Twain.
- Samuel Clemens appears in the book How Few Remain (1997) by Harry Turtledove. In this work of alternate history he works as a newspaper editor in San Francisco and writes many a scathing editorial against an ongoing war.
- The webcomic series Achewood features Mark Twain as a character in one of the strip's story arcs. This arc features a narrative written in an imitation of Mark Twain's style, as Twain journals his encounter with two of the strip's central characters, who time-traveled from the modern day to the late 19th century.
- Another webcomic, Thinkin' Lincoln, features a zombified Mark Twain as a frequent character.
- Wonder of the Worlds is a 2005 novel depicting Twain joining Harry Houdini and Nikola Tesla on a journey to Mars in 1893.
- In The Five Fists of Science (2006) Twain teams up with Nikola Tesla to defeat the evil plans of Thomas Edison.
- In 2006 Twain appears in The Transformers: Evolutions "Hearts of Steel" comic series set in the United States during the Industrial Revolution. Mr. Twain is attacked by a steam powered Puma.
- Twain appears briefly along with Joshua Norton in a story arc of Neil Gaiman's comic series The Sandman.
- Band Belle & Sebastian make a reference in "This is Just A Modern Rock Song": "I'm not as clever as Mark Twain/I'll only buy a book for the way it looks/And then I stick it on the shelf again"
- An audio-animatronic of Mark Twain acts as co-host of a show named The American Adventure at Epcot, Walt Disney World.
- A casino in Missouri takes its name from Twain.
- The Late Show with David Letterman occasionally features a segment titled "Mark Twain Tonight", in which a man dressed as Mark Twain does a short comedy solo while sitting on a rocking chair.
- The song Afterglow 61, by Son Volt, from Okemah and the Melody of Riot (2005), makes reference to 'Hannibal's son' (Twain) in addition to other American culture icons Leadbelly and Bob Dylan.
- An episode of The Super Mario Bros. Super Show, titled "Rolling Down the River", had Mario and Luigi helping a caricature named Mark Twang win a riverboat race against Bowser.
- The Histeria! episode "Super Writers" featured a sketch about Samuel Clements taking on the Mark Twain identity on suggestion from Chit Chatterson. Twain also appears in the same episode as a member of the Legion of Super Writers.
