Meanwhile, in Orange County…
So it’s No Hope now?
Geopolitically two different areas. My question is why it took so long for Burbank?
Do they still let you walk out on the tarmac and up the stairs?
And I don’t ever recall talking about an airport by some honorary name (San Diego is “San Diego” not Lindbergh; Orange County is “Orange County” not John Wayne. Phoenix is “Phoenix” not Sky Harbor (although that’s kinda cool)).
My how fleeting is fame. It’s getting so you can’t even count on being remembered more than a decade or two even with a building named after you.
And what’s with the “branding” of a frickin’ airport. I didn’t know airport names were supposed to sell plane tickets. To the vast majority of exceedingly blandly named airports, this will come as news.
It’s been a while since I thought much about Bob Hope. Was he racist in the “yeah, Vaudeville produced a lot of cringe-worthy stuff in the 1920s” kind of way or the “Jesus Christ, John Wayne—how can you still be standing up for White Supremacy in the 1970s” kind of way?
Was Bob Hope racist? My sense was that he was aggressively inoffensive, a persona scrubbed of anything even potentially controversial.
Bob Hope Burbank Airport
Just has a certain ring to it, don’t it.
Great Dana Gould / Bob Hope story:
Fair enough, probably overdue.
But it’s hard to think of any airports that couldn’t do with rebranding. I don’t know much about John Foster Dulles, for example, but bless, his surname’s got the word “dull” right there, front and centre - always made me feel Washington must be a boring spot to visit.
Then there’s Liverpool’s John Lennon Airport (and I say this as a massive Beatles fan): a genius, but the guy could be a nasty piece of work sometimes.
Belfast has George Best Airport, which seems pretty cool, he was a marvel, but I wouldn’t be surprised to learn there were feet of clay there too (okay, bad metaphor for one of the best soccer players to ever live!)
Maybe we should just name our airports after birds, or Greek gods, or Culture starships?
[quote=“atl, post:6, topic:77632”]
Do they still let you walk out on the tarmac and up the stairs?
[/quote]Yes, you still walk onto the tarmac to enter and exit the plane, and usually get to board through the back or front door depending on where you’re seated. But you’re not exactly traipsing across the tarmac - you walk perhaps twenty yards of roped-off path, under supervision. I suppose there’s little stopping you from making a break for it and causing a bunch of people to freak out, but I don’t think it’s a tempting notion and I don’t think it happens much…
“gate A5”
5.8" Ă— 8.3"? Minkia, I thought travelling in economy was cramped!
/Try the veal.
[quote=“phosphorious, post:9, topic:77632, full:true”]
Was Bob Hope racist? My sense was that he was aggressively inoffensive, a persona scrubbed of anything even potentially controversial.
[/quote]Yeah, this was rather my response. I could imagine Hope being seen as less valuable cultural property, as being less iconic than he once was. Certainly I could see him described as not being very funny, and as having a brand of humor that relied on a bunch of cultural stereotypes that are less accepted nowadays. These are all reasons not to bother to honor him - but I wasn’t really aware of a growing sense he was actually objectionable.
Cory, your favorite US airport? Really? Better than Atlanta or PDX?
I just flew through there last week, and they are prepping to cut the entire terminal to comply with new runway setback regs. So if you like it, better fly there soon.
It seems like everyone from the past these days is a “racist reactionary old-timey” so-and-so, if BB is to be believed. In what way was Bob Hope either racist or reactionary, or a “boob” for that matter?
Tell that to the airport exit freeway signs:
I don’t know about whether he was a racist, and what kind, but have you ever seen the Road To movies with Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour? His whole schtick was being a boob, a slapstick fool. Crosby was the handsome one, Hope was the funny one, and Lamour had very attractive elbows. I watched too many of those movies as a kid, and didn’t realize the recurring elbows thing was family-friendly subterfuge.
