References to Duluth in Film/TV or Other Media
A Texan from out near Duluth, Minnesota
The World War II film A Walk in the Sun premiered Dec. 25, 1945 — 80 years ago today. A song early in the movie mentions Duluth. (more…)
Duluth: Dull is right there in the name
The animated adventure comedy In Your Dreams, which premiered on Netflix in November, references Duluth six times. The four relevant scenes are in the pirated video embedded above.
Plot: The family life of 12-year-old Stevie and her younger brother Elliot is threatened when their mother announces her desire to move the family to Duluth.
How Julann Griffin invented Jeopardy! on a flight out of Duluth
A trip to Duluth led to the development of the television game show Jeopardy! A recent episode of the podcast Twenty Thousand Hertz recounts the music and sound effects of the show and includes the historic tidbit about the role Duluth played in its creation story.
The mention comes around the 2-minute mark of the episode titled “The Music of Jeopardy! From a Lullaby to $100,000,000,” which is embedded above. (more…)
When Snoopy asked, “How about Duluth?”
This Peanuts comic referencing Duluth originally ran on July 29, 1975 — 50 years ago today.
It’s one of at least two times Snoopy referenced Duluth. The second was in a 1976 strip.
Duluth in the novel ‘The Horn’
John Clellon Holmes’ 1953 beat jazz novel The Horn contains a couple references to Duluth. In the 1988 edition by Thunder’s Mouth Press, the first mention occurs on page 131. I cite it below with a couple paragraphs for context, which make it clear “Duluth” is used synonymously with “some out-of-the-way city on the road.” (more…)
Lana Del Rey gives Duluth cold props
Last summer Lana Del Rey received the National Music Publishers’ Association Songwriter Icon award in Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center in New York City. Her acceptance speech included a brief mention of Duluth. (more…)
Duluth on Chalamet’s lips
Duluth keeps getting mentioned in the publicity tour for the Bob Dylan movie A Complete Unknown. At the 6:53 mark in the clip above Timothée Chalamet says, regarding singing live-to-camera in the film, “The worst thing we could have done with a Bob Dylan biopic is sanitize it, to make it sound clean … This is a man from iron ore country, Minneapolis, Minnesota; Hibbing, Duluth.” Not that Minneapolis is so dirty, but OK.
Chalamet in Minnesota on Dylan Film
Duluth comes up throughout.
If a dog farts in Duluth …
[This post originally contained an embedded video that is no longer available at its source.]
The television miniseries Category 6: Day of Destruction premiered on the CBS network on Nov. 14, 2004. Part one includes a reference to Duluth at the 21-minute mark. (more…)
Chalamet utters the word Duluth in recent interview
Around the 43-minute mark, Timothée Chalamet talks for a couple minutes about visiting the region, specifically the Duluth-Hibbing axis. He made the trip alone while preparing to play Bob Dylan in the current biopic. The Bob Dylan house gets a mention around the 47-minute mark.
Tug Duluth Adventures
The DreamWorks animated television series Trolls: The Beat Goes On!, which aired from 2018 to 2019, featured a recurring character named Tug Duluth. Whether the orange-skinned, purple-nosed troll has anything to do with the city of Duluth, Minnesota, is not known, but nonetheless we present this recently released compilation reel.
Wildrose: 1984 film shot on the Iron Range
https://ok.ru/video/3790211713702
It’s been 40 years since Wildrose, a feature film shot on Minnesota’s Iron Range, premiered in theaters. The full movie is available to stream in the video section of the Russian social media website Odnoklassniki, or ok.ru, and is embedded above. (more…)
Harley Race proposed to third wife on a drive to Duluth
[This post originally contained an embedded video that is no longer available at its source.]
Season five, episode five, of the Vice-TV documentary series The Dark Side of the Ring delves into “The Life and Legends of Harley Race,” a world champion professional wrestler whose early career included a run in the Minneapolis-based American Wrestling Association. At the 13-minute mark in the episode, Race’s third wife, Evonna Hedbávný, tells the story of Race proposing marriage on a trip from Minneapolis to Duluth in the early 1960s.
Apparently, even the toughest guy in the rasslin’ business can’t resist the romance of Duluth.
“Stalked by My Stepsister” shot in Duluth
[This post originally contained an embedded video that is no longer available at its source.]
Local author Phil Sher sent me a note asking me to share that the Lifetime cable channel original movie Stalked by My Stepsister was shot in Duluth. It was released in October.
I think I can see the Lakewalk and Leif Erikson Park. I think I can see the interior of Glensheen. IMDB confirms the Duluth shooting sites.
Has anyone watched it, or know anyone involved in the shooting?
Duluth Van and Storage Company
The Looney Tunes animated short Design for Leaving was released on March 27, 1954 — 70 years ago today. One-minute into it, door-to-door salesman Daffy Duck shoves Elmer Fudd onto a nonstop bus headed to Duluth. Fudd returns moments later on a Duluth Van and Storage Company truck after Daffy has updated his home with futuristic appliances. (more…)
The Daily Show: Is Duluth a climate change safe haven?
If climate change soon renders parts of the United States uninhabitable, then where are all the coastal elites supposed to go? The Daily Show‘s Michael Kosta took a trip to Duluth to investigate how Californian climate refugees and displaced New Yorkers might fare in this snowy sanctuary city.
A Show Stopper for Debbie in Duluth
Duluth is mentioned on the Hulu comedy mystery series Only Murders in the Building. In season 3, episode 3 — titled “Grab Your Hankies” — actress Linda Emond plays the role of Donna DeMeo, an investor in a Broadway musical who believes strongly in the importance of show-stopping songs that will draw in people like “Debbie from Duluth.”
Longtime PDD readers will recall that Steve Martin, co-creator of Only Murders in the Building, posted a clever Duluth tweet in 2012 after playing a concert at Bayfront Park.
Twain’s coldest winter revisited
the coldest winter ... San Francisco — Wordorigins.org
2 October 2023 The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco. —Mark Twain Open up just about any guidebook or web site about San Francisco and you’ll find this quote. The trouble is, Twain never said it, or at least it doesn’t appear in any of his published works or extant lette
wordorigins.org
Dave Wilton at wordorigins.org delves into a famous-though-probably-inaccurate Mark Twain quote in his latest article. “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco,” has of course also been spun as “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in Duluth.” Wilton covers it all in detail, as did Tony Dierckins some years ago on zenithcity.com. Lake Superior Magazine also covered the subject in 2003. (more…)
Mystery Science Theater 3000 Cast – “What a Pleasant Journey”
Thirty years ago today — Sept. 18, 1993 — the sci-fi comedy series Mystery Science Theater 3000 mentioned Duluth in “The Train Song” a.k.a. “What a Pleasant Journey.” Specifically referenced in the lyrics is the 1992 benzine spill in Superior known as “Toxic Tuesday.” (more…)
Duluth Runway Fashion
Comedian and sitcom actor Tim Allen referenced Duluth in a scene on the ABC-TV sitcom Last Man Standing in 2015. The scene appears in season 4, episode 19, titled “Summer Internship.” (more…)
Oh. That Duluth.
The 2004 film The Life and Death of Peter Sellers contains a brief mention of Duluth. Geoffrey Rush plays the role of the famous actor/comedian Sellers, whose agent Dennis Selinger, played by Henry Goodman, encourages him to broaden his audience in the scene embedded above. (more…)
If you’re ever up in Duluth, remember to look me up
The 1981 comedy/action film The Cannonball Run includes a mention of Duluth. Lamborghini Girls #1 and #2, played by Adrienne Barbeau and Tara Buckman, respectively, are pulled over for speeding. In a successful effort to sweettalk the highway patrol, the girls supply him with a phone number.
“If you’re ever up in Duluth, remember to look me up,” Buckman says.
Duluth Photos Featured on Twitter’s “Cars Destroyed Our Cities”
A friend let me know that Duluth recently appeared on Twitter’s Cars.Destroyed.Our.Cities (you might need to log in to see the Tweet; Twitter is undergoing some changes), an account that shows how the addition or removal of car infrastructure can dramatically change the urban environment. (more…)
Sleepless in Duluth, N.D.
The romantic comedy Sleepless in Seattle premiered in theaters 30 years ago today — June 25, 1993. The film includes a scene in which the character Annie Reed, played by Meg Ryan, tells her fiancé Walter Jackson, played by Bill Pullman, about a guy on a radio show who lived in Duluth … which is in North Dakota according to Walter.
Duluth kids use miniature nuclear reactor for stickball backstop
Duluth is name-dropped in the new Netflix action/comedy series FUBAR, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, which premiered last week. In episode 4, titled “Armed & Dane-gerous,” the regional Central Intelligence Agency director informs a team of operatives that a medical glass manufacturer in Duluth went bankrupt and left a miniature nuclear reactor in the basement, where kids used it as a backstop for their stickball game.