There was a period of like 2 years when I was a kid where chuck Norris jokes were all the rage on the playground and I made an iPhone app that listed them all.
Jokes like “Chuck Norris is able to slam a revolving door.”
Anyway, I “built” this stupid app when I was like 13, copy-pasted like 300 jokes in there and a random one would show every time you tapped the screen.
Chuck Norris’s estate blocked the app from going live. I wish I had printed that rejection out and framed it.
For the first time in over a decade he was suddenly relevant in a way. People remembered he existed, and they were playing off his tough guy image.
And what did he do? Try and shut it down and start suing people. Stupid.
It took him a couple of years to come around to it. If it wasn’t for those jokes would he be remembered anywhere as well? Or would he be a much more obscure celebrity by now?
You underestimate how popular Walker, Texas Ranger was. It wasn't pulling ratings like Seinfeld, ER, or Friends, but it was a solid primetime staple for almost a decade.
I never watched it myself, but the 50+ demo loved it.
Maybe for people in the US. Internationally? I haven't watched a single episode of WTR, I don't know anyone who has, but everyone knows who Chuck Norris was.
WTR did air here in Sweden in the 90s. From a quick search in the news archives, it was on late at night on tv3 in the late 90s and then it ran on that or/and some other cabel channels in the 00s as well (reruns?).
As a gent born and raised in Texas, and has never seen the show - I am pleasantly surprised to see these comments about how popular WTR was internationally. If I had been asked to bet, I would have lost money on this one.
I've got the impression that the big US exports are ones that play into big American stereotypes, e.g WTR, Baywatch, Friends. Not even that they see these shows and get programmed with these stereotypes, but that they have these stereotypes (Texas, California, NYC) and shows like this feed their imaginations and give them detail.
Exported media is weird. Like the huge proportion of British/BBC output (usually period, but also often detective in a way redolent of Christie) that is made primarily for export to foreign consumers who think of British upper-class culture as aspirational.
There is US exported media that just randomly becomes popular in a specific demographic. Case in point: Adventures of Ford Fairlane, a flick with Andrew Dice Clay that got a razzie the year it came out. IIRC it got a cult following in Norway because the voice over was done by a popular radio DJ.
Walker, Texas Ranger and Baywatch were both created by non-network studios as syndicated shows, they weren’t prime time network shows. The budgets for syndicated content is a lot lower than network produced content.
The rights to air these sorts of shows are dirt cheap compared to Friends or Seinfeld, so it makes sense that cheap syndicated garbage like Walker, Texas Ranger and Baywatch were popular internationally, the rights were cheap.
From my memory from the 90s: Baywatch, X-Files, that speaking car one, Beverly Hills 90210, Ninja Turtles. Some dumb sitcom named Step by Step? edit: oh and ALF
Oh and Married with Children, but it was always very late night and I was not allowed to watch it.
And our teacher always played us ET on VHS. (and that dog playing basketball.)
If you like MwC, look up episodes of Unhappily Ever After on Youtube, it's sort of the second-generation MwC. Same sort of humour but taken even further, I can easily re-watch Unhappily but MwC is sort of a once-you've-seen-it...
It was a syndicated show, the goal is to license it to as many companies as possible. It was never a network TV show like Seinfeld, those syndication rights are way more expensive than created for syndication shows like WTR.
Personally I was at a prime age watching a lot of Conan O'Brien's Late Night show and one of his best skits was the Walker Texas Ranger Lever. They would pick the most ridiculous clips from the show and just run them out of context. IIRC Chuck Norris even showed up on the show one time to give him a "stern talking to".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpIEyn9G6_8
The only time I ever saw Walker,Texas Ranger was when I was living in Italy for a few months in the aughts. It was dubbed in Italian. Apparently it was popular there.
> You might be able to argue he was a bigger star than any of them.
I think that's a hard argument to make.
Candace Bergen's career was just as long. Her first movie role was 1966, she was nominated for an Oscar in 1979, and she was on a popular sitcom from 1988 to 1998 that won her five Emmies and attracted national commentary after criticism from the Vice President.
I was a kid in the 80s and 90s and to me even then Chuck Norris was a B-movie self-parody joke character. He was not an A-list "action star" in the sense that Schwarzenegger, Stallone, or even Van Damme were.
The dude was a badass, 6 time undefeated karate world champion (!!!), created his own variant of karate mixed with korean martial arts, was a good friend with Bruce Lee and that scene in Colloseum - probably the coolest thing I saw as a kid growing up behind iron curtain... not many actors can have such a resume on top of their acting career.
Those who cared would/will know him regardless. But obviously those people would be relatively few and far apart.
An immense amount of time, dedication and talent must have went into all those achievements. This requires mastery of body and mind at an exceptional level. Putting aside all jokes and acting roles, the martials arts is where he earned my full respect and that will also stick in my memory about him.
"World champion" is an embellishment, but he was a strong point fighter within North America. His six championships were for a tournament that crowned self-titled "Professional [weight class] Karate Champions", with the "World" embellishment added later. To be fair, people from other countries did occasionally appear at these tournaments, but there weren't Japanese fighters there, and Japan dominates the gold medal count for the WKF World Karate Championship that started in 1970.
That is hands down one of my ATF scenes in any movie. Expendables 2 was IMO just about the most "fun" movie I've ever seen as well. It wasn't great cinema, or a specific classic.. but it was fun. I have similar feelings about Gremlins 2 as well. We need more fun movies, but too many people seem to have not been issued a sense of humor these days.
Found out about his passing from my teenage kids. They knew him as some legendary tough guy based solely on the jokes, but had no idea who he actually was. To be fair, looking at some other comments here about his political and personal leanings, I didn't know who he actually was either.
> Isn't that an obligation when you own a trademark? That you sue people, or else you may lose the trademark?
It's not quite as cut and dry as you suggest. Besides, in which way was a trademark being violated? Last I knew merely talking about and referencing a celebrity by name was not a trademark violation.
His proximity to Bruce Lee earned him more or less permanent kung fu cinema fame. Walker,Texas Ranger and other work he did definitely boosted it, but the memes clinched it.
>> If it wasn’t for those jokes would he be remembered anywhere as well?
You’re assuming the jokes make people dive deeper. In reality I know the jokes and didn’t have a clue who he was and never cared enough to find out. The reality is the probably didn’t make much of a difference to how well he or his work was actually known.
The Ruby gem "Faker" is used for generating fake data for testing, like legit-looking names, emails, phone numbers, lorum ipsum text, etc. About 10 years ago I was working on a messaging app, and wanted some real messages to see in the UI while I was developing it. One of the best engineering decisions I've made in my career was to pick the Chuck Norris Facts generator for the messages, so every time I re-seeded my local db or looked at a review app on staging, I was greeted by two fake people sending a half-dozen Chuck Norris facts to each other.
If you're curious, maybe you can look into Chuck's lawsuit against Penguin's book of Chuck Norris facts. He would eventually "co-author" his own book. The obvious guess here is trademark infringement (over use of Chuck's name/likeness) and/or copyright (if some of these facts were lifted from his book).
For better or worse, in the US you can pretty much sue anyone for anything. A court certainly requires more evidence to declare liability than Apple would to remove an app.
As far as copywriting facts, are you really under the impression that Chuck Norris is the only man who can factually slam a revolving door? :)
I did something similar when Microsoft gave away Windows Phones for every app published on the app store. I used the Chuck Norris API though. The one I used is sadly no longer available (I think it was called CNDB). But there's a new one: https://api.chucknorris.io
In India, we have Rajni (Rajnikanth) jokes that keep increasing in number and are still pretty popular...
I remember reading 'The Vinci Code' in college which was very popular those days and getting a SMS from a friend almost the same day, "Rajnikanth gave Monalisa that smile!".
Having been near the epicenter, I recall that Vin Diesel jokes (same format) pre-dated Chuck Norris ones. I always found it a shame that the Chuck Norris ones caught on; Vin Diesel is, imo, a better role model.
> Chuck Norris’s estate blocked the app from going live. I wish I had printed that rejection out and framed it.
Seeing the youthful spirit run headfirst into the corprocracy of locked down devices and app stores is depressing. Twenty years ago you would have made a webapp or flash animation, most likely avoided scrutiny and not even been shaken down. Thirty years ago you would have made a QBasic program and floppy/email/dcc it to your friends, completely illegible to the corprocracy. But these days simply trying to publish through the common channels, and you're immediately subject to restrictions made for businesses.
The Vin Diesel jokes I remember had an absurd quality to them beyond "He's really tough." One I recall fondly was "Vin Diesel writes Donkey Kong Fan Fiction."
I think that comparison is quite unfair to Teddy, and overly flattering to Chuck Norris.
Historian, sheriff, war hero, governor, explorer, and a successful President who reshaped America largely for the better. While Roosevelt was human, he led a life that very few have ever matched.
It is funny because you usually think of Death as something inevitable and people just accept it but then ... some of these guys put up a fight. Mega-LMAO!
I don’t age. I level up.
I’m 86 today! Nothing like some playful action on a sunny day to make you feel young. I’m grateful for another year, good health and the chance to keep doing what I love. Thank you all for being the best fans in the world. Your support through the years has meant more to me than you’ll ever know.
God Bless,
Chuck Norris
I can only assume Chuck has decided to relieve the grim reaper of his duties, leaving us all here to meet our own end not with a scythe but a roundhouse kick.
If you're referring to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Under_a_Velvet_Cloak - note that it was written a couple decades after the prior books of the series, for a different publisher, to a different length. Those would be yellow flags with almost any author.
While normally making jokes after a person's death would be socially questionable, in this case Chuck Norris himself loved the Chuck Norris jokes. For me at least, a good sense of humor is maybe the most endearing personality trait. RIP
Fundamentally, I'd argue that very little should ever be unreasonable or out of bounds to make jokes about; what is important is that it's good humour.
> Fundamentally, I'd argue that very little should ever be unreasonable or out of bounds to make jokes about; what is important is that it's good humour.
On a personal level, I couldn't agree more. I do hope that culturally we get to that point at some time :-)
I mean, jokes are made to uplift, intent in joking is important and punching up is preferable to punching down, this being said this didn't apply to chuck Norris that would have already got to the punchline without throwing a single fist.
Jokes aside, this octogenarian was living his golden years enviably. He was summiting peaks last fall, doing 500 lb barbell curls, and still sparring in his birthday video just 10 days ago. We’ve all gotta go sometime, but the way Chuck Norris went out was the way I’d want to go—able to do it all right up until the end. He was a lot of folks’ childhood hero, but that title is freshly renewed in my eyes. I have new inspiration in my fitness endeavors going forward.
He forgot to actually curl it. Like someone else said, the weights are almost certainly not actually 500lbs. Even elite bodybuilders and strongmen in their prime don't come close to curling 500lbs, let alone an old man.
Looking at the video, if it was legitimate, it would be 585lbs (6 45lb plates on each side plus a 45lb bar), which is even less believable.
And the beast shall come forth surrounded by a roiling cloud of vengeance. The house of the unbelievers shall be razed and they shall be scorched to the earth. Their tags shall blink until the end of days. — from The Book of Mozilla, 12:10
I had no idea he was in his 80s (older than my parents would be), and that he did Walker, Texas Ranger when he was in his 50s. The final episodes aired when he was 61! That's nuts.
Not a fan of him in real life (based on how he portrayed himself publicly), but I do find his level of physical fitness even more impressive back in the 1990s (and even up until his death), given his age.
From Reddit: "I heard that the opening 27 minutes of Saving Private Ryan were loosely based on a game of dodgeball played by Chuck Norris in 2nd grade." ;-)
I remember trade chat (/2) in wow on the Medivh server would often turn into Chuck Norris jokes. There were always about how bad ass Chuck was. How tough and impossibly manly.
One of my favorites.
Chuck Norris jumped into a lake. Chuck Norris didn't get wet. The lake got Chucked.
Trade chat (like /b/) was never great, but one of the first WoW addons I developed was designed to filter out garbage like this, and make idling with your guildies in Ironforge tolerable.
It's funny for a while, in measured amounts, and then it becomes tiresome.
17 years ago we launched the first "Chuck Norris Facts" app for Android (March 2009). It was a big success until end of 2010 when Chuck Norris sent his lawyers after us to get the app removed from the Android market. Chuck Norris won, we took the app down
So I guess Chuck Norris has now keys for the Pearly Gates and is the one who gets to pick the heavenly club members. I'm sure roundhouse kicks are somehow part of the process.
He was a hero in tech and science as well. I recall during my PhD studies, we always create new memes on our field that Chuck can finish things in no time. In loving memory of Chuck Norris.
Chuck Norris (and Michael Landon) were golden age role models for young men. Strong but thoughtful, firm but compassionate, and deeply principled but also practical. Yes, these were acting roles but they picked those roles for a reason. Rest in peace, Chuck.
I am not a scholar in general, or of Chuck Norris specifically. I only have the impressions I have from the pop culture I've consumed. Like most people. And for us, Norris represents something wholesome.
For others, those who've read something, or know more, or think they know more, that symbol, that myth, has been ruined. The illusion pierced, the ugly reality revealed. They then look with pity, disdain and contempt at those who still admire the person. Or worse, they make the bad faith argument that to admire him is in fact to embrace those ruinous facts of which most are still ignorant.
Frankly, I think what you're doing is a farce. You're showing the world how smart you are and how dumb everyone else is. Ultimately you're trying to prove how dumb it is to believe in anyone or anything. If you look closely enough you'll find dirt on anyone. There is a contradiction: you claim a moral stance, but your "moral" position degrades the very idea of role models, heroism, and admiration itself. With enough scrutiny, admiration tends to zero.
The reality of the person is irrelevant. What matters is what they mean, what they symbolize, and the kind of archetype they represent. This is of course not true universally; some mythological people are alive, powerful, and dangerous and we cannot afford such kayfabe. But some are harmless and imply no endorsement of their misdeeds. Especially for actors, storytellers, artists, scientists and perhaps a few others we not only CAN afford it, we SHOULD do it, because these role models (or symbols of role models) are what make up the beating heart of a coherent culture.
I choose to admire Chuck Norris, Michael Jackson, George Washington, Ben Franklin, Gahndi, Isaac Asimov, even if some deeds of theirs were wicked. I prefer to go through life admiring symbols of people even knowing that these are constructs. To do otherwise is to recognize the futility of admiration, and I choose not to live that way.
That's a lot of words to say "I prefer to ignore the evil that men do if I find them entertaining enough, and I think it's silly that anyone does otherwise."
The Chuck Norris you admire is a figment of your imagination. He was a product created by capitalism. He never actually fought Bruce Lee. He was never really a Texas Ranger. He was never in the real Delta Force. Putting him on the same cultural level as actual leaders who at least fought for something in the real world is risible. Holding such deep admiration for the things he pretended to do that you feel compelled to insult someone's character and intelligence for judging him as a human being is a far less than admirable moral stance.
The reality of the person is not irrelevant, the reality of the person is all that matters at the end of the day.
The Internet has a fairly long memory and a lot of research on topics like this, and it does not agree that Hillary ever tried such a thing. Ample evidence that GOP politicians, including Trump, tried to claim she did. And late in the primary season a few of her supporters made some sounds like that. But nobody has ever found any shred of evidence her campaign made any accusations, or started any rumors.
Whatever the reason, it wasn't because his characters were "openly maga and a homophobe and a transphobe," because they weren't. Bruce Lee movies and Texas Ranger didn't address those issues at all.
And in spite of his flaws, it's possible that he had some good qualities as well, or at least aspired to them. So maybe those other qualities were what he looked for in the characters he played.
Doesn't seem like he aspired all that hard, since instead of expressing empathy for people who weren't like him, he continued to be a bigot in nearly every aspect. But sure, if you were a white cis straight guy I'm sure he was perfectly kind.
You either die a hero, or you live long enough to become a Faceboot psychosis villain. It's basically the politics version of "Why is everything so cold?"
I think you forget that Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act and put in the policy of “Don’t ask don’t tell” and Obama supported it originally.
Of course they both had a change of heart- was it true change or they saw the direction of the political winds? Who knows?
I don’t know Chuck Norris’s views on LGBT. But if he was a self proclaimed “born again Christian” and a rabid Trump supporter, I can only guess. But I no more expect people who were insulted by what he said (which I personally don’t know) to give him more grace or reverence than I do is a Black man who couldn’t give two shits about a dead racist podcaster.
Other people no more need to “contextualize” homophobia than I feel a need to “contextualize” the racism of a dead podcaster.
DADT was a significant improvement over the status quo of "we ask, you tell, and then you get dishonorably discharged". Considering it evidence of homophobia is revisionism. Did it go far enough? No. Was it a good step towards where we wanted to go? Yes.
> It passed both houses of Congress by large, veto-proof majorities. Support was bipartisan, though about a third of the Democratic caucus in both the House and Senate opposed it. Clinton criticized DOMA as "divisive and unnecessary".
Again he still signed it. It’s like Susan Collins who always has “serious misgivings” about things that her fellow Republicans do and then votes the party line anyway trying to stay in her party’s good graces while at the same time not pissing off her liberal constituents
It was gonna be law either way; signing it removed a political weapon from the folks pushing its passage. Arguing this is something Clinton did to gay people is counterfactual.
That’s a really poor excuse to sign on to something that you disagree with. I would not sign a petition for making the “Confederacy Day” law if I lived in Mississippi just because it would become law anyway. You have to stand for something.
Would you think it was okay if Tim Scott signed such a law just so his fellow Republicans couldn’t hold it against him in the primary? Well actually I wouldn’t be surprised if he did…
> I don’t get to praise Chuck Norris because of his anti-racism stances but then dismiss his stances against non straight people.
Sure, but I think it's fair to praise people when they do good things, and criticize them for the bad that they do. That's true fir Chuck Norris, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama... anyone.
Totally agree, though, that it's bullshit to think that having positive views on some issues wipes away the bad.
My charitable interpretation is that it was political winds, but possibly not in the way you're implying.
I do believe that Obama was 100% cool with gay marriage, but believed it was politically foolhardy to admit that publicly and in policy positions, but was able to advocate for his true feelings once the political climate changed. Still not awesome, but understandable from an electoral perspective.
I'm not really sure about Clinton. I would guess he's personally in favor of gay marriage and gays in the military today, but hard to say what his views might have been in the 90s (as I was a teenager at the time who wasn't all that interested in politics).
Also on supposedly-liberal people doing homophobic things: let's also not forget that California voters banned gay marriage statewide in 2008. 2008! And this was a ballot measure where all voters got a say, not something passed by the legislature.
Imagine having a lot of people you once admired and looked up to as role models, from actors all the way to even your parents, suddenly all within a decade or so take their masks off and reveal that they are actually villains.
I don’t think this is about nit picking some small detail that causes them to fail a quality/belief checklist. It’s not like finding out your hero picks his nose or doesn’t like chocolate ice cream. When someone goes mask-off as MAGA, they are revealing fundamental core beliefs and values that totally flip the kind of person you might have thought they were.
I have friends and family who I never thought had a hateful, cruel, or belligerent bone in their bodies, suddenly start acting like totally different people, in the span of a few years. This isn’t me holding them to some purity checklist!
Agreed. Additionally, when someone says something latently bigoted or hateful, it's easy to just let it slide because we all have our failings and societal progress is slow. Whereas maggotry is about openly embracing those failings, taking on additional types of failings from other people, and then socially validating it all as a purported political movement. But the only real thing tying it together is frustration with the world culminating in lashing out, which is why when they get into power there are no actual constructive policies in any political framework [0]. (apart from lining the preachers' pockets of course, and now apparently a holy war)
nit: I wouldn't call it "mask off" though, as if it's been there the whole time. I'd say it's more like there is tiny a kernel of that (and let's be honest, who doesn't have this in some form or another?), combined with a lack of willpower and critical thinking, that causes them into give in to the siren song of easy answers from mass-personalized propaganda.
[0] ancap and religious fundamentalism are the only frameworks I've been able to find that fit the maggot movement, and they're not particularly constructive.
It's an object lesson on how certain historical things happened. We go, oh no how could those people have all been inhuman monsters? If only we understood what made them like that.
Fred Rogers was the same kind, thoughtful person in everyday life as he was when he acted on his show. You can watch the congressional tapes of him testifying on increased funding to PBS and also testifying on not making VCRs illegal.
That's a little bit of a false dichotomy, though. I agree that it would be rare, even impossible, to find people who match every quality I imagined they had.
But some of those failings are forgivable, others are not.
Getting genuinely confused about pronouns sometimes: forgivable.
Being a loud, public MAGA homophobe transphobe: not forgivable.
I stopped being a Chuck Norris fan when I learned he was a frequent contributor to WorldNetDaily, that he actively campaigned against gay marriage, and that he advocated for the theory that Obama was not born in America and saying shit like 'Electing Obama will plunge America into a thousand years of darkness.'
Him liking Trump was a symptom of his regressive, homophobic, and racist beliefs.
Oh wow, coincidentally I watched a Chuck Norris film recently with my (90 year old) grandmother, which resulted in me diving down a bunch of Chuck Norris memes for the first time in more than a decade.
I even remember the times he was not vintage yet, but the real thing. Maybe even watched his famous fight scene with Bruce Lee on the cheap cinemas back in the day. Good days. RIP .
Not even every important influential person in tech gets the black bar. You think an actor who is mostly known for low-effort internet memes and pretending to be a cowboy on tv deserves it?
My mother told me, "Chuck Norris passed today at 86" and my mind immediately went to, "I would never expect him to pass anyone on the sidewalk at any slower speed."
Total Gym XLS has a 1-1.25" carriage bar for adding weight. 5gal bucket weights are the correct diameter to leave a gap between the weights and the floor.
You're probably right, but that's not the usual wording you hear. Of course, when grieving, proper proofreading may not be (nor should it be) at the top of anyone's list.
That's true. These days it seems the ideal conservative man is more like a caveman eating steak off the bone versus a thoughtful caring Atticus Finch type.
So many commenters here are, or choose to be, completely obvlivious to the fact that Chuck Norris was a racist little man who decried Obama becoming president, supported Trump through both campaigns, and openly hated muslims and gay people.
Very cool thread. Middle school jokes and culture wars. I’m so glad we don’t allow political threads on here and can instead bask in the intellectual might of people talking about TV man the did/didn’t like.
Jokes like “Chuck Norris is able to slam a revolving door.”
Anyway, I “built” this stupid app when I was like 13, copy-pasted like 300 jokes in there and a random one would show every time you tapped the screen.
Chuck Norris’s estate blocked the app from going live. I wish I had printed that rejection out and framed it.