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Birthplace of Latka and Simka?
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mmel...@wam.umd.edu
Oct 29, 1992, 10:40:26 PM10/29/92
to
In article <1992Oct29.2...@spectrum.xerox.com>
mcca...@raquette.Xerox.COM (Bob McCarthy) writes:
:-> Regarding "Taxi", does anybody remember what country Latka and Simka
are from?
:-> Any answers would be appreciated. Thanks.
:->
mcca...@raquette.Xerox.COM (Bob McCarthy) writes:
:-> Regarding "Taxi", does anybody remember what country Latka and Simka
are from?
:-> Any answers would be appreciated. Thanks.
:->
Could it be a little island off of Greece???
---------------------------------------------------------------------
mmel...@wam.umd.edu is
Marc Meltzer
President of The Meltz Inc
"Our job is to play games. Our hobby is to consult."
Bob McCarthy
Oct 29, 1992, 3:16:14 PM10/29/92
to
Regarding "Taxi", does anybody remember what country Latka and Simka are from?
Any answers would be appreciated. Thanks.
Bob
Mark Bernstein
Oct 30, 1992, 10:03:16 AM10/30/92
to
Bob McCarthy (mcca...@raquette.Xerox.COM) wrote:
: Regarding "Taxi", does anybody remember what country Latka and Simka are from?
: Any answers would be appreciated. Thanks.
:
I may be wrong, but I don't think they ever named it. It was always referred
to as just "The Old Country."
: Regarding "Taxi", does anybody remember what country Latka and Simka are from?
: Any answers would be appreciated. Thanks.
I may be wrong, but I don't think they ever named it. It was always referred
to as just "The Old Country."
Mark Bernstein
ma...@cimage.com
Yon Bonnie Laird of Cairn Robbing
Oct 30, 1992, 12:27:22 PM10/30/92
to
In article <1992Oct30....@wam.umd.edu> mmel...@wam.umd.edu
writes:
> In article <1992Oct29.2...@spectrum.xerox.com>
> mcca...@raquette.Xerox.COM (Bob McCarthy) writes:
> :-> Regarding "Taxi", does anybody remember what country Latka and Simka
> are from?
> :-> Any answers would be appreciated. Thanks.
> :->
>
It was somewhere on the mainland of Eastern Europe (from the epsiode where
Latka becomes a general). There is a large mountain chain in the north
(where Simka's "mountain people" hail from). The national anthem is
"Ibida" .
writes:
> In article <1992Oct29.2...@spectrum.xerox.com>
> mcca...@raquette.Xerox.COM (Bob McCarthy) writes:
> :-> Regarding "Taxi", does anybody remember what country Latka and Simka
> are from?
> :-> Any answers would be appreciated. Thanks.
> :->
>
Latka becomes a general). There is a large mountain chain in the north
(where Simka's "mountain people" hail from). The national anthem is
"Ibida" .
DWT
Nov 1, 1992, 11:49:40 PM11/1/92
to
ma...@cimage.com (Mark Bernstein) wrote in <1992Oct30.1...@cimage.com>:
| Bob McCarthy (mcca...@raquette.Xerox.COM) wrote:
: Regarding "Taxi", does anybody remember what country Latka and Simka are from?
: Any answers would be appreciated. Thanks.
| I may be wrong, but I don't think they ever named it. It was always referred
| to as just "The Old Country."
They always said "my country" or "our country" (just as Gina does on
"Nurses"). As Mark said, it never was named, but I'm sure they never
called it "the old country" either.
David W. Tamkin Box 59297 Northtown Station, Illinois 60659-0297
dat...@ddsw1.mcs.com CompuServe: 73720,1570 MCI Mail: 426-1818
chkm...@gmail.com
Jun 15, 2015, 9:07:05 PM6/15/15
to
For some reason I thought they were Lithuanian.
chkm...@gmail.com
Jun 15, 2015, 9:08:34 PM6/15/15
to
Or Latvian
chkm...@gmail.com
Jun 15, 2015, 9:09:06 PM6/15/15
to
Or Latvian
Barry Margolin
Jun 15, 2015, 10:04:31 PM6/15/15
to
In article <4ec21fec-9fc5-4099...@googlegroups.com>,
Wikipedia says that his country of origin was never revealed. The
character was based on the "Foreign Man" character from Andy Kaufman's
standup act, and he claimed that character was from a fictional country
called Caspiar. The language they spoke was gibberish, not any real
language.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latka_Gravas
--
Barry Margolin
Arlington, MA
Wikipedia says that his country of origin was never revealed. The
character was based on the "Foreign Man" character from Andy Kaufman's
standup act, and he claimed that character was from a fictional country
called Caspiar. The language they spoke was gibberish, not any real
language.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latka_Gravas
--
Barry Margolin
Arlington, MA
Michael Black
Jun 15, 2015, 10:42:29 PM6/15/15
to
On Mon, 15 Jun 2015, chkm...@gmail.com wrote:
> Or Latvian
>
I always thought it was made up, so Latka (and then Simka
when she arrived) could talk gibberish, and they could make
up endless weird religious and cultural things.
It was like the "Bungarians" in the Tom Swift Jr. books, you could
sort of imagine who they were supposed to be, but no offense could
be taken by a real country.
In "Taxi's" case, Andy Kaufman couldn't do any of the comedy if he
couldn't be making up things, hence the need for a fake country.
Michael
> Or Latvian
>
I always thought it was made up, so Latka (and then Simka
when she arrived) could talk gibberish, and they could make
up endless weird religious and cultural things.
It was like the "Bungarians" in the Tom Swift Jr. books, you could
sort of imagine who they were supposed to be, but no offense could
be taken by a real country.
In "Taxi's" case, Andy Kaufman couldn't do any of the comedy if he
couldn't be making up things, hence the need for a fake country.
Michael
Rhino
Jun 15, 2015, 11:32:46 PM6/15/15
to
show but I remember Latka's country as a made up one, not a country that
exists or even one that used to exist.
That's not a terribly unusual technique in fiction. I remember coming
across The Duchy of Grand Fenwick in The Mouse That Roared and The Mouse
on the Moon. I've always suspected that this is a fake name for
Lichtenstein or maybe Luxembourg, one of those very small countries in
Europe. (I've actually been to Luxembourg and found it interesting to be
in a country you could basically bicycle across in a few hours.)
"Caspiar" suggests that it might be adjacent to the Caspian Sea which
really exists in southern Russia. "Gravas" sounds Greek to me. "Latka"
might also be Greek, I suppose, although it sounds a bit more Slavic
than Greek. I expect all of these names were selected just to justify
the comedy of the gibberish language.
--
Rhino
anim8rFSK
Jun 16, 2015, 12:46:40 AM6/16/15
to
In article <alpine.LNX.2.02....@darkstar.example.org>,
--
Wait - are you saying that ClodReamer was wrong, or lying?
Michael Black <et...@ncf.ca> wrote:
> It was like the "Bungarians" in the Tom Swift Jr. books, you could
> sort of imagine who they were supposed to be, but no offense could
> be taken by a real country.
Brungarians, ultimately defeated by Tom, and replaced by Kranjovians ...
> It was like the "Bungarians" in the Tom Swift Jr. books, you could
> sort of imagine who they were supposed to be, but no offense could
> be taken by a real country.
--
Wait - are you saying that ClodReamer was wrong, or lying?
Stan Brown
Jun 16, 2015, 5:28:23 AM6/16/15
to
On Mon, 15 Jun 2015 23:32:43 -0400, Rhino wrote:
> That vaguely rings a bell. I only watched one or two episodes of the
> show but I remember Latka's country as a made up one, not a country that
> exists or even one that used to exist.
>
> That's not a terribly unusual technique in fiction. I remember coming
> across The Duchy of Grand Fenwick in The Mouse That Roared and The Mouse
> on the Moon. I've always suspected that this is a fake name for
> Lichtenstein or maybe Luxembourg, one of those very small countries in
> Europe. (I've actually been to Luxembourg and found it interesting to be
> in a country you could basically bicycle across in a few hours.)
Or Monaco. In the 19th century there were real vest-pocket kingdoms
> That vaguely rings a bell. I only watched one or two episodes of the
> show but I remember Latka's country as a made up one, not a country that
> exists or even one that used to exist.
>
> That's not a terribly unusual technique in fiction. I remember coming
> across The Duchy of Grand Fenwick in The Mouse That Roared and The Mouse
> on the Moon. I've always suspected that this is a fake name for
> Lichtenstein or maybe Luxembourg, one of those very small countries in
> Europe. (I've actually been to Luxembourg and found it interesting to be
> in a country you could basically bicycle across in a few hours.)
all over Germany. /The Prisoner of Zenda/ was set in one of them,
with the fictional name of Ruritania, and the adjective "Ruritanian"
came to stand for anything associated with petty politics of petty
nations.
But Ruritania and Grand Fenwick were given names. Latka's country in
/Taxi/ was known only as "Latka's country".
--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com
Shikata ga nai...
Michael Black
Jun 16, 2015, 9:59:13 AM6/16/15
to
On Mon, 15 Jun 2015, anim8rFSK wrote:
> In article <alpine.LNX.2.02....@darkstar.example.org>,
> Michael Black <et...@ncf.ca> wrote:
>
>> It was like the "Bungarians" in the Tom Swift Jr. books, you could
>> sort of imagine who they were supposed to be, but no offense could
>> be taken by a real country.
>
> Brungarians, ultimately defeated by Tom, and replaced by Kranjovians ...
>
I thought I had typed that wrong.
> In article <alpine.LNX.2.02....@darkstar.example.org>,
> Michael Black <et...@ncf.ca> wrote:
>
>> It was like the "Bungarians" in the Tom Swift Jr. books, you could
>> sort of imagine who they were supposed to be, but no offense could
>> be taken by a real country.
>
> Brungarians, ultimately defeated by Tom, and replaced by Kranjovians ...
>
I think when I first read the books, in the late sixties, I might have
thought it was a real country. But I'm not sure, and I know later I
realized it wasn't. But it's so close to "Bulgaria" that I wasn't even
sure how to spell the fake country.
I don't remember the country changing.
Michael
Barry Margolin
Jun 16, 2015, 10:33:10 AM6/16/15
to
In article <mlo5ad$mir$1...@dont-email.me>,
Latka is the Yiddish name for potato pancakes, and Simka also sounds
like an Eastern European Jewish name.
I suspect he deliberately chose names that sound like they come from
different parts of Europe to avoid suggesting any specific country.
like an Eastern European Jewish name.
I suspect he deliberately chose names that sound like they come from
different parts of Europe to avoid suggesting any specific country.
Horace LaBadie
Jun 16, 2015, 11:06:49 AM6/16/15
to
In article <barmar-215C72....@88-209-239-213.giganet.hu>,
US auto sales briefly.
Barry Margolin <bar...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> Latka is the Yiddish name for potato pancakes, and Simka also sounds
> like an Eastern European Jewish name.
Simca was a major French automobile company. It had a tiny share of the
> Latka is the Yiddish name for potato pancakes, and Simka also sounds
> like an Eastern European Jewish name.
US auto sales briefly.
anim8rFSK
Jun 16, 2015, 11:55:39 AM6/16/15
to
In article <alpine.LNX.2.02.1...@darkstar.example.org>,
The Brungarians are in books 9, 12, 15, 17, 18, 25 (where Tom, finally
sick of them, broadcasts from orbit over their country publicly
humiliating their evil government), 28, and come back for the end of the
series in books 30-33. The evil Kranjovians first start trying to steal
our secrets in book 5, and then their navy steals the plans for and
builds a duplicate Jetmarine in book 27, although they claim their
ultimate evil goal was just to build a fancy aquarium. Think of the
Brungarians as Klingons (or Russians) and the Kranjovians as some more
Asian menace, like Romulans (or North Koreans).
sick of them, broadcasts from orbit over their country publicly
humiliating their evil government), 28, and come back for the end of the
series in books 30-33. The evil Kranjovians first start trying to steal
our secrets in book 5, and then their navy steals the plans for and
builds a duplicate Jetmarine in book 27, although they claim their
ultimate evil goal was just to build a fancy aquarium. Think of the
Brungarians as Klingons (or Russians) and the Kranjovians as some more
Asian menace, like Romulans (or North Koreans).
Michael Black
Jun 16, 2015, 1:28:25 PM6/16/15
to
Jetmarine book around, but I remember no other enemy. If I could find it
easily, I would read it.
Michael
A Friend
Jun 16, 2015, 2:47:32 PM6/16/15
to
Michael Black
Jun 16, 2015, 3:39:20 PM6/16/15
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I had a decent size collection of Tom Swift Jr. books when I got rid of
them in 1972.
Michael
anim8rFSK
Jun 16, 2015, 4:35:52 PM6/16/15
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of the books. Random baddies still hold the number one slot.
Are you on The Facebook? We may have e-text versions of the TSJRs up
there someplace ...
stevene...@gmail.com
Sep 23, 2017, 10:20:12 PM9/23/17
to
Caspiar
renovat...@gmail.com
Mar 28, 2018, 12:10:32 AM3/28/18
to
Latvian
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