RMS Titanic in popular culture

File:09-01-06-bransontitanic.jpg

The Titanic Museum in Branson, Missouri is a permanent two-story museum attraction shaped like Titanic herself.

RMS Titanic was a passenger liner that became infamous for its collision with an iceberg and dramatic sinking in 1912. It has been featured or referenced in many works.

Literature

The Titanic sinking has become the best-known seafaring disaster and therefore an archetype for a disaster involving multiple casualties, which might not necessarily involve ships. The metaphor "rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic", meaning making trivial changes when a fundamental change of course is needed, has come into common usage. Another, though less well known metaphor concerning the disaster is "to win tickets for the Titanic", meaning an event that at first seems to be fortuitous, but which turns out to have dire consequences. Tickets for the Titanic was used as the title of a 1987 British TV show, whose theme tune was all about the sinking, but with little to do with the actual disaster.

File:Stöwer Titanic.jpg

The sinking of the Titanic by artist Willy Stöwer.

The sinking of Titanic has been the basis for many years and novels describing fictionalised events on board the ship. Many reference books about the disaster have also been written since Titanic sank, the first of these appearing within months of the sinking. Survivors like Second Officer Charles Lightoller and passenger Jack Thayer have written books describing their experiences. Some like Walter Lord, who wrote the popular A Night to Remember, did independent research and interviews to describe the events that happened on board the ship.

Morgan Robertson's 1898 novella Futility, or the Wreck of the Titan, which was written 14 years before RMS Titanic's ill-fated voyage, was found to have many parallels with the Titanic disaster; Robertson's work concerned a fictional state-of-the-art ocean liner called Titan, which eventually collides with an iceberg on a calm April night while en route to New York. Most of those aboard die because of the lack of lifeboats. Both Titan itself and the manner of its demise bore many striking similarities to Titanic and its eventual fate, and Robertson's novella remains in print today as an unnerving curiosity.

In Isaac Asimov's story Kid Stuff, the elf, while talking about their invisible island, says that once a big ship hit the island dead center, and the entire population working together made it appear as an iceberg. It said that the name of it, as far as they remember, was Titanic.

Clive Cussler's 1976 Dirk Pitt novel Raise the Titanic detailed raising the Titanic using inflatable bags in order to recover a mineral vital to national security. Because it was written before the Titanic was discovered, its premise was based on the theory that the ship remained in one piece. The novel was made into a movie in 1980 starring Richard Jordan in the lead role and included Anne Archer and Jason Robards. The film did not perform at the box office, prompting the producer, Sir (later Lord) Lew Grade to famously remark, "It would have been cheaper to lower the Atlantic!"

In 1997, a novel very similar to the 1997 film was published. It was called Titanic: The Long Night and it was written by Diane Hoh. Hoh published a sequel in 1998, called Remembering the Titanic.

Arthur C. Clarke's 1990 novel The Ghost from the Grand Banks detailed the attempts by two groups to raise the Titanic in time for the centenary of its sinking.

Connie Willis's 2001 novel Passage uses the sinking of the Titanic as the setting for the near-death experiences of some of the characters.

Media and entertainment

Movies

Main article: List of films about the RMS Titanic

RMS Titanic has been featured in a large number of films and TV movies.

There are several references to the part of the 1997 movie where the band plays "Nearer, My God, to Thee", the song reportedly played during the sinking

• In the film The Simpsons Movie, the band Green Day plays as they and the stage they are atop sinks to the bottom of then toxic Springfield Lake.
• In the film Osmosis Jones, as Frank starts to die, due to Drax's interference, some cells, dressed in the same clothes the band on the Titanic wore, play the song, and one of the cells says, "Gentleman, it's been a pleasure playing with you."
• In the South Park episode, "Summer Sucks", Stan, Kyle, and Cartman pick up their instruments and play "Nearer, My God, to Thee", amid the chaos created by the black snake.

In the 2001 movie The Little Polar Bear, a vessel called the "Black Mouth" hits a rock and sinks like the Titanic.

Musicals

The story was also made into a Broadway musical, Titanic, written by Peter Stone with music by Maury Yeston. It ran from 23 April 1997 to 21 March 1999 and won five Tony Awards for 1997, including Best Score, Best Book, and Best Musical. The production originally starred Michael Cerveris, John Cunningham, David Garrison, Victoria Clark, Brian d'Arcy James, Jennifer Piech, and Martin Moran.

The 1960 Broadway musical The Unsinkable Molly Brown tells survivor Margaret Brown's life story, which included the events on board Titanic. Interviewed following the disaster, she commented, "I'm a Brown. We're unsinkable." The musical was written by Richard Morris with music by Meredith Willson. A film version starring Debbie Reynolds was released in 1964.

Television

Many television shows have also referenced the Titanic disaster. The second episode of the series One Step Beyond was titled "Night of April 14th". The show The Time Tunnel featured a visit to the ship on its first episode. Lady Marjorie Bellamy, a character in the British drama Upstairs, Downstairs, went down in the Titanic. A character on the TV show Dead Like Me became a grim reaper when she died on the Titanic. The Titanic is also been in the show Seconds from Disaster.

The animated series Futurama did a parody where it had the cast boarding a space–faring vessel called Titanic ("A Flight to Remember"). The spaceship was torn in half by a black hole on its maiden voyage. Titanic was once used in the plot of the NBC soap opera Passions, where the lovers Luis and Sheridan discovered that they were passengers on the ship in past lives. The show NewsRadio used the Titanic as the setting for their fourth season finale.

The ship has been referenced a few times in the popular show Doctor Who. The first is in the Fourth Doctor story Robot, in which the Doctor claims he doesn't like the word 'impregnable' because it sounds too much like 'unsinkable', which reminds him of the Titanic. In another Fourth Doctor story, The Invasion of Time, the Doctor claims that he "wasn't responsible" for the disaster. In the episode Rose, the Ninth Doctor is said to have been present at Southampton at the time of Titanic's launch; in the next episode, "The End of the World", [the Doctor comments that he was "clinging to an iceberg" after surviving the sinking of an 'unsinkable ship'. In the 2007 series, at the end of the "Last of the Time Lords", the Titanic appears to crash into the TARDIS; this is revealed as an alien spaceship replica of the ship in the 2007 Christmas special, "Voyage of the Damned".

The cartoon series Animaniacs also depicts the Titanic sinking, and in one Pinky and the Brain cartoon, the sunken ship is all in one piece, and was somehow brought back to the surface of the ocean. In movies, Titanic made brief appearances in Time Bandits, Cavalcade, and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. In a multi-part story in the Dark Horse Comics Godzilla series, an evil scientist transports Godzilla to various points in time, one issue focusing on Godzilla running into the Titanic and being responsible for its sinking. In Ghostbusters II, used as a frivolous indication of the rising supernatural forces, a dockmaster in New York calls the authorities to inform them that Titanic had arrived in port. The inevitable gag element is included when one of the dock-workers looks at another and says "Better late then never...".

There was a Star Trek: Hidden Frontier episode called "Two Hours" that featured the sinking of Titanic, and the situation had something to do with a man from the future who had been tampering with the timeline.

A segment of Kablam! entitled "Son of Hercules", which ended with Hercules skipping a large boulder across the ocean, closed out with the boulder whacking into a passing ocean liner, which leads into an obvious parody of the sinking of the Titanic, complete with all the lights blinking and going out, and the ship cracking in two as it sinks.

On the 23 May 2007 episode of The Daily Show, fictional comedian Geoffrey Foxworthington (a knock off of Jeff Foxworthy) quotes, "If you've recently booked a trip on the RMSTitanic, you might be a puzzlewit."

In the TV Series Timon & Pumbaa (TV series), the Titanic is referenced in two episodes. In the episode called "Frantic Atlantic", an ocean liner the pair are travelling on sinks when a dumb penguin damages it. They are later marooned in a desert island with the penguin and the penguin pulls a plug in the island and the island sinks also. It's shown that these two events in the episode are homages to the Titanic because the ocean liner sinks by the bow and the island sinks like the Titanic also, with one end sticking up before the final plunge. In another episode, Timon & Pumbaa are on another ocean liner in which they cause numerous trouble with the ship by abusing the captain, Quint. Some of the trouble they caused included causing the captain to fall down a funnel and causing the ship to become stuck on a highway during rush hour. In the end, the ship sinks when it hits an ice cube. Timon & Pumbaa watch the ship's final plunge and Timon comments, "It sank like a Titanic rock!" Jack & Rose from the 1997 movie Titanic (1997 film) are seen on the stern of the ship as it sinks, with Jack calling Rose "Rosemary".

In the The Suite Life on Deck episode "The Kidney of the Sea", the entire plot of the story is based on the 1997 film Titanic (1997 film).

In the TV Series Arthur (TV series), the Titanic is referenced in two episodes. In one episode, Muffy and her friends are having a sleepover and she and her friends are playing on a toy galleon. The galleon is rocking back and forth and Muffy comments to Prunella, the make-believe captain, "I thought you said the Titanic was unsinkable!" In another episode, during a song, Buster and Muffy are seen as Jack & Rose from the 1997 movie Titanic (1997 film) in the famous "flying" scene on an ocean liner resembling the RMS Mauretania (1906) called the "Gigantic". This ship has also been seen in the spin-off TV series Postcards from Buster, in a brief scene in an episode where a band is shown playing on the deck as the ship is rocking back and forth. It's obvious that this ship is based on the Titanic because it's called the "Gigantic", which was the original name for the Titanic's sister ship, the HMHS Britannic.

In the TV Series American Dragon: Jake Long, the Titanic is referenced in one episode. In the episode "Fu and Tell", one of the main characters, Fu Dog, a 600 year old Shar Pei dog is fighting with an old enemy, Yuan Yuan, a poodle, they are shown causing several events in history. They are shown breaking the nose off the Great Sphinx of Giza, causing the Leaning Tower of Pisa to lean, and causing a dogfight in World War II. they are also shown fighting on the Titanic, in which they bump into the ship's wheel, causing it to turn and hit the iceberg. Thus, in this series, Fu Dog caused the Titanic to sink.

In the TV Series Kim Possible, the Titanic is referenced in one episode. In the episode "Royal Pain", a Titanic golf structure is seen in a Mini Golf course. Ron Stoppable causes the Titanic structure to fall down to push some bad guys out of the way. As he does so, he comments "The Titanic's going down again!"

In the TV Series Rainbow Fish, there is a park called "Shipwreck Park" in the fish's habitat. It's obviously a reference to the Titanic because the ship is split in two. In one episode called "Sherman Shrimp", Rainbow Fish gets stuck in the ship after he went down the funnel to retrieve a hockey puck after he accidentily threw it in there when he was playing hockey. Rainbow's trouble increases when some rust in the funnel starts to collapse. Sherman Shrimp rescues him before the funnel shoots out the collapsing rust. The ship in the series, although it is based on the Titanic, has some major differences. The ship has only one funnel that is still intact and the two halves are close together on the seafloor instead of far apart. This means that in the series, the Titanic broke in two when it hit the ocean floor.

In the The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, there is a bar called the Thug Tug, which is a parody of the Titanic sinking. Dennis the Hitman later punches a Car Stealer, which sends him flying up to hit the Thug Tug and it turns on end and sinks like the Titanic into the seabed.

In an episode of Caillou, Caillou and his new friend Alan ride a dragon in the episode "Caillou and the Dragon" in a similar style to Jack and Rose flying on the bow of the RMS Titanic in the movie Titanic.

In an episode of Phineas and Ferb, the boys make a romantic cuise ship, in which they find the most romantic thing is sinking the ship, causing the ship to sink, with everyone escaping on a water slide.

In an episode of "Dicking Around with Taahli on a Saturday night" (aired 25/April/2010 00:00hours), the antagonist and creator of the "Tit Ant", a paper ship floating inside a plastic container crashes into a barrage of icecubes. Taahli later ridicules the situation by saying that, "It's historically correct". Taahli proceeded to then lose the game.

In the show TUGS, the SS Duchess is based on the Titanic and her sisters.

In the X-Men: Evolution episode Cruise Control, Iceman creates various ice sculptures while on a cruise ship. In one scene, he creates an iceberg and asks his fellow X-Men what movie he is thinking of, obviously referring to the 1997 film. Disaster is averted when Cyclops blasts the iceberg apart after Magma fails to do so.

In the first episode of the TV Series The Replacements (TV series) "Todd strikes out", Todd replaces their baseball coach with a professional baseball player. The old coach is sent on a vacation on a cruise ship called the "Fleemtanic", an obvious parody of the Titanic. Later, the coach is seen on the prow of the ship saying, "I'm the King of the World!" before falling asleep, a parody of the moment with Jack in the 1997 movie Titanic (1997 film).

Music

Songs about the disaster feature in folk songs and popular music including the Polish rock group Lady Pank's song "Zostawcie Titanica", which is a plea to not disturb the wreck. The Buffalo Sabres' 2006–2007 season is referred to as the Titanic.

In 1989 the American heavy metal band Metal Church released the album Blessing in Disguise which contains the song "Rest In Pieces (15 April 1912)", which details the sinking and aftermath of the Titanic tragedy.

Games

In 1998, Titanic: The Board Game became available briefly in Great Britain but has not been re-released.

On SeaQuest DSV, the shipwreck "King George" is a Olympic class Liner

Other

Using Titanic as humor or reference has not been exclusive to popular entertainment. Gus Grissom, whose Liberty Bell 7 Mercury spacecraft sank after his 1961 flight, named his Gemini 3 spacecraft Molly Brown as a reference to the play and his hopes that his second craft would be unsinkable. The Intel Itanium microprocessor has often been jokingly called "Itanic", since (as of 2007) its sales have fallen spectacularly short of expectations.

Many fish aquariums have many models of the Titanic made from different fish decoration companies. They can mostly be found in pet stores like Petco.

Video games

• Titanic (1984) by R&R Software Ltd.
• Beyond the Titanic (1986) by Apogee Software.
• R.M.S. Titanic (1986) by Electric Dreams.
• Titanic (1989) by Topo Soft.
• Search for the Titanic (1989) by CRL.
• Titanic Blinky (1991) by Zeppelin Games Ltd.
• In 1996 Cyberflix made a point and click adventure game, called Titanic: Adventure Out of Time, which sees the player travelling around a virtual representation of the Titanic.
• Starship Titanic (1998) by Douglas Adams.
• Hidden Expedition: Titanic (2006)
• Hidden Mysteries-Titanic Secrets of The Fateful Voyage (2009)