It's like writer's block for the intarwebz. -_-
And NO, this isn't solving it.
'Topic block' can only exist if you are going out of your way to try and think of a topic. If you do not have anything in mind, then there is no need for a topic to be started.
I recommend Encyclopedia Dramatica.
For the betterment of all interwebz.
Quote from: HeroOfTimeO0 on November 05, 2007, 02:55:09 PM
Quote from: Kilroy on November 05, 2007, 02:49:04 PM
Quote from: LiveOnTheEdge on November 05, 2007, 02:42:46 PM
Topic about why you want to kill Roy.
Must I explain my name?
Tell us the story! :D
*sigh*
It was a long, long time ago, when I listend to Mr. Roboto, then went to Wikipedia and read this...
Kilroy was here
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This article is about the graffiti. For the Styx album, see Kilroy Was Here (album).
Engraving of Kilroy on the WWII Memorial in Washington DCKilroy was here is an American popular culture expression, often seen in graffiti. Its origins are open to speculation, but recognition of it and the distinctive doodle of "Kilroy" peeking over a wall is almost ubiquitous among U.S. residents who lived during World War II through the Korean War.
The same doodle also appears in other cultures, but the character peeping over the wall is not named Kilroy but Foo, i.e. Foo was here. In the United Kingdom, such graffiti are known as "chads". In Chile, the graphic is known as a "sapo" [toad]; this may refer to the character's peeping, an activity associated with frogs because of their protruding eyes.
Contents [hide]
1 Origins
2 Legends
3 Kilroy was here in popular culture
4 External links
[edit] Origins
The phrase appears to have originated through United States servicemen, who would draw the doodle and the text "Kilroy Was Here" on the walls or elsewhere they were stationed, encamped, or visited. Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable notes that it was particularly associated with the Air Transport Command, at least when observed in the United Kingdom.
One theory identifies James J. Kilroy, an American shipyard inspector, as the man behind the signature. During World War II he worked at the Bethlehem Steel Shipyard in Quincy, Massachusetts, where he claimed to have used the phrase to mark rivets he had checked. The builders, whose rivets J. J. Kilroy was counting, were paid depending on the number of rivets they put in. A riveter would make a chalk mark at the end of his or her shift to show where they had left off and the next riveter had started. Unscrupulous riveters discovered that, if they started work before the inspector arrived, they could receive extra pay by erasing the previous worker's chalk mark and chalking a mark farther back on the same seam, giving themselves credit for some of the previous riveter's work. J.J. Kilroy stopped this practice by writing "Kilroy was here" at the site of each chalk mark. At the time, ships were being sent out before they had been painted, so when sealed areas were opened for maintenance, soldiers found an unexplained name scrawled. Thousands of servicemen may have potentially seen his slogan on the outgoing ships and Kilroy's omnipresence and inscrutability sparked the legend. Afterwards, servicemen could have begun placing the slogan on different places and especially in new captured areas or landings. At some later point, the graffiti (Chad) and slogan (Kilroy was here) must have merged. (Michael Quinion. 3 April 1999.[1])
The New York Times reported this as the origin in 1946, with the addition that Kilroy had marked the ships themselves as they were being built—so, at a later date, the phrase would be found chalked in places that no graffiti-artist could have reached (inside sealed hull spaces, for example), which then fed the mythical significance of the phrase—after all, if Kilroy could leave his mark there, who knew what else he could do?
Author Charles Panati says, "The mischievous face and the phrase became a national joke." He continued to say, "The outrageousness of the graffiti was not so much what it said, but where it turned up."
While the origins of the slogan are obscure, those of the cartoon are less so. It almost certainly originated as "Chad", in the UK before the war; a creation of the cartoonist George Edward Chatterton. Presumably, the two merged together during the 1940s, with the vast influx of Americans into Britain. The "Chad" cartoon was very popular, being found across the UK with the slogan "What, no ...?" or "Wot, no ...?" underneath, as a satirical comment on shortages and rationing. (One sighting, on the side of a British 1st Airborne Division glider in Operation Market Garden, had the plaintive complaint "Wot, no engines?"). Later, as the country began to prosper in the 1950s and 1960s, it became a feature of some forms of advertising, especially on posters touting home improvements etc. For instance in many areas of the country outdoor toilets were the norm, so a poster might say "Wot, no inside lav?" advertising indoor plumbing.
Kilroy was the most popular of his type in World War II, as well as today. Clem (Canadian), Overby (Los Angeles- late 1960s), Chad (British- WW II), and Mr. Foo (Australian- WW I & II) never reached the popularity Kilroy did. The 'major' Kilroy graffito fad ended in the 1950s, but today people all over the world scribble 'Kilroy was here' in schools, trains, and other similar public areas.
Kilroy is still known and used today by US Servicemen. He has been seen scribbled on barriers on Main Supply Routes (MSRs) in Iraq and on warehouses in Taji, Iraq.
[edit] Legends
There are many legends attached to the Kilroy graffiti. One states that Adolf Hitler believed that Kilroy was some kind of American super spy because the graffiti kept turning up in secure Nazi installations, presumably having been actually brought on captured Allied military equipment. Another states that Stalin was the first to enter an outhouse especially built for the leaders at the Potsdam conference. Upon exiting, Stalin asked an aide, "Who is this Kilroy?" Another legend states that a German officer, having seen frequent "Kilroys" posted in different cities, told all of his men that if they happened to come across a "Kilroy" he wanted to question him personally. Another one states the entire gag was started by a soldier in the Army who was sick of the Air Force bragging that they were always the first on the scene; the little man and phrase then began appearing in ludicrous places to indicate that someone had, in fact, arrived prior to the Air Force.
The graffiti is supposedly located on various significant and/or difficult-to-reach places such as on the torch of the Statue of Liberty, on the Marco Polo Bridge in China, in huts in Polynesia, on a high girder on the George Washington Bridge in New York, at the peak of Mt. Everest, on the underside of the Arc de Triomphe, scribbled in the dust on the moon, in WWII pillboxes scattered around Germany, around the sewers of Paris, and, in tribute to its origin, engraved in the WWII Memorial in Washington D.C.
The Transit Company of America held a competition in 1946 offering a real trolley car to the man who could verify he was the "real Kilroy". J. J. Kilroy brought his co-workers with him to prove that he was undeniably the true Kilroy. The other forty or so men who showed up were not able to establish they were the "real" Kilroy. Kilroy gave his prize to his nine children to play with in their front yard. [2]
[edit] Kilroy was here in popular culture
"Kilroy was here" turns up repeatedly in popular culture, in many different contexts. Although the Kilroy graffiti is no longer commonly seen, Kilroy is still as common as ever in popular media.
In the Playstation game Megaman Legends 2, on the Sulphur-Bottom, in a second floor room with a Servbot, the book on a table, when examined with the circle button, the message says "Theres something written on this..."Kilroy was here." Whats that mean?".
Tennessee Williams used the name for a character in his 1953 play Camino Real. Stage business during Scene 1 includes graffiti on a wall.
In the novel, Jurassic Park, a line about Nedry's backdoor program to turn off the systems of the park reads "...And partly it was a kind of signature: Kilroy was here."
Isaac Asimov published a fictional short story entitled "The Message" (1955) which is the story of a thirtieth-century historian named George Kilroy who travels back in time to witness historic events. It is while witnessing the first allied beach assault landings of World War II in Africa that Kilroy first leaves his mark, scratched into a shack on the beach. This short story may be found in Asimov's short story collections Earth Is Room Enough or The Complete Stories Volume 1.
Alfred Hitchcock displays the message as his own calligraphy while introducing the twenty-eighth episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955).
The Asimov-edited anthology 100 Great Science Fiction Short Short Stories contains a piece by author Paul Bond entitled The Mars Stone in which human explorers on Mars find a cryptic message etched into a stone wall which is decoded to read KILROY WAS HERE.
In Total Drama Island, when the characters talk to the audience in the bathroom, you can see a drawing of kilroy on our left.
The novel V. by Thomas Pynchon claims that Kilroy was originally part of a schematic for a band-pass filter.
Robert Heinlein's early juvenile Space Cadet mentions that the first spaceship to go to Mars and return was the "Kilroy was Here."
In one Calvin and Hobbes strip, Calvin builds a giant half-head and fingers out of snow on the crest of a hill; seen from the right angle, it looks like a giant Kilroy peeking over the hilltop.
Swedish magazine Seriemagasinet No. 1/1948, featuring Kilroy.The popular British comic strip, The Perishers, has a character called Adolf Kilroy, who is a tortoise bearing an uncanny resemblance to Adolf Hitler, perhaps in reference to the story about Hitler described above.
When the Italian comic strip Amok was first published in Sweden, its title was changed to Kilroy because of the popularity of the phrase even in Sweden. The first issue of the comic magazine Serie-Magasinet published in 1948 proudly boasted "Kilroy är här!" ("Kilroy is here!") on the cover.
Kilroy is mentioned in Closing Time, the sequel to Catch-22, by Joseph Heller inside the bomb shelter.
Peter Viereck's poem "KILROY" [3]
The Kilroy cartoon appears in the bank at the end of Kelly's Heroes. Instead of "Kilroy was here" the message is: "Up Yours Baby".
In the fourth season of M*A*S*H there was an episode with a reference to Kilroy that Hawkeye made while B.J. was sitting on the bus with his face half out the window like Kilroy posters and Hawkeye said "Stay there for a sec" and wrote Kilroy on the lower part of the window which was dusty.
The rock group Styx's 1983 rock opera/concept album was entitled Kilroy Was Here.
At the end of the Styx's song Mr. Roboto, we find out that the narrator of the song is in fact Kilroy.
"Kilroy was here" appears on the side of a slum dwelling in the 1989 movie "American Ninja 3: Blood Hunt".
Kilroy appears on the side of Jerry Seinfeld's refrigerator in the first episode of the show Seinfeld.
Kilroy is here appears on a military truck in Patton, a biographical film about General George Patton.
The Kilroy Was Here graffiti with Kilroy peeking over is provided as a 'spray' in the popular first-person shooters Counter-Strike: Source and Day Of Defeat: Source.
There is a musical about a private Kilroy, who happens to also be a secret agent for the O.S.S. during W.W.II.
In the serial novel Implementation one of the main characters is a soldier named Kilroy.
In NetHack, "Kilroy was here", in various stages of erasure, is seen written on the dungeon floors.
The text "Kilroy was here" appears on a red panel somewhere in the DOS game Crystal Caves by Apogee.
The text "Kilroy was here" appears in the Commodore 64 games Killerwatt and Labyrinth of the Creator.
In the first level of Return to Castle Wolfenstein, a popular first-person shooter game for PC, a picture of Kilroy is on the wall of the player's cell.
A parody graffiti, "Killjoy Was Here", is briefly shown written on the moon in the 1948 Warner Bros. cartoon "Haredevil Hare" with Bugs Bunny and Marvin the Martian.
Kilroy Was Here was the name of a song by the band The Move on their self-titled debut album. From the lyrics: "Kilroy was here/Left his name around the place/Kilroy was here/Though I've never seen his face"
In the Podiobook EarthCore by Scott Sigler one of the characters leaves signs with "Kilroy was here" all over the underground caverns.
In the final episode of BBC sitcom 'The Young Ones' in 1984, Rik suggests that, because of his dampening demeanour, Neil often writes on walls "Look out, Killjoy was here".
When the famished cat in the classic cartoon King-Size Canary opens a tin of sardines it is empty apart from a small sign reading "Kilroy was here".
The words "Kilroy was here" appeared chalked on a prison wall in the "Vault of Death" episode of the Thunderbirds TV series.
A character by the name of Bango Skank leaves the phrase "Bango Skank was here" in several locations in a number of Stephen King's stories.
The Budapest University of Technology and Economics has a tradition called KGB (Kilroy Goes to Budapest). During the day, new students of the university visit various places all over Budapest, and perform tasks at each location, to familiarize themselves with the monuments and the mass transport facilities of the city.
In Geoff McFetridge's Nike promo film, "The Mind Trip: There and Back", Kilroy is featured as the main character. Kilroy is also featured on Nike's, Geoff McFetridge inspired, "Champion Vandal" shoebox and t-shirt.
In the novel The Ghost Boy, the main character walks past a wall which is mentioned to have multiple Kilroy's on it.
The children's book The Eleventh Hour by Graeme Base contains a mouse, Kilroy, who leaves a graffiti message on a wall reading Kilroy Was Here.
In an episode of the "Flintstones," Fred and Barney find themselves in the mouth of a whale, and carved on a whales tooth is "Kilroy was Here"
In a Peanuts strip, Charlie Brown gives up writing a Pen-pal letter due to constantly smudging the ink. Snoopy comes behind him and draws two doodles: one of a cat, the other of Kilroy.
In Tim Burton's Batman, The Joker graffitis a painting with a paraphrasing of the legendary term, which read 'Joker was here'.
In the computer game 1942: The Pacific Air War the text "Kilroy was Here" can be found written in the bottom of every air traffic control tower.
In Matt Groening's comic book School is Hell, Kilroy (with one rabbit ear) is on the wall of a room that the one-eared rabbit Bongo has trashed.
In a Peanuts strip, Lucy is giving a report, and says her grandmother is the "first person to carve those immortal words: Kilroy was here" on the bottom of a stool.
The words "Kilroy was here" appear chalked on a wooden fence during a scene in the 1947 Tex Avery cartoon - Hound Hunters.
In the Futurama episode Roswell That Ends Well, a Kilroy-style sketch of Dr. Zoidberg is scrawled on a missile along with the episode title.
In the video game Vagrant Story, one of the treasure rooms at the end of a long and trap-ridden maze is named Kilroy Was Here.
In the 1968 Doctor Who story "The Invasion", The Doctor and Jamie are climbing up an elevator shaft in which Frazer Hines, the actor playing Jamie, wrote "Kilroy Was Here".
In the 1981 Doctor Who story "Warriors' Gate", "Kilroy Was Here" is written as graffiti on the slave ship in the opening montage.
In Seymour: An Introduction, JD Salinger refers to Earth as "this splendid planet where...Kilroy, Christ, and Shakespeare all stopped".
Kilroy Was Here. is the name of a skate punk band from Austin, TX.
Killroy was Here is also found in the Cantigny Museum in Illinois.
"Kilroy was here" appears in Whiz Kids (TV series). One of the main characters uses Kilroy as first guess when he tries to guess passwords. Also, during the first episode, the same character connects to a journalist's computer and displays the Kilroy "logo" and states he is Kilroy.
In J.C. Hutchins "podio" book "7th Son" one of the main characters is named Kilroy 2.0. And his catchphrase is Kilroy 2.0 is here. Kilroy 2.0 is everywhere.
In the popular DOS/Amiga game, Flight of the Amazon Queen, when investigating the outhouse at Trader Bob's, Joe King discovers that "Killroy was here" is scrawled there. The outhouse has no other purpose except for this.
In the role-playing game Fading Suns, the inspectors and enforcers of the Charioteers guild are known as "Kilroys", and their insignia is the Kilroy "logo".
In the 1967 British movie "Quatermass and the Pitt" (known by the title "Five Million Years to Earth" in the USA), the phrase "Kilroy Was Here" is clearly seen scrawled on a wall in the abandoned building above Hobbs Lane Station.
In Guild Wars there's a character called Kilroy Stonekin who appears in random areas asking you to help him slay some monsters and runs his own boxing mini-game. His shout and crazy attitude in combat is also a shout to Leeroy Jenkins.
In the Mighty Max (TV series) episode titled "The Mummy's Hand," Virgil deciphers some hieroglyphs on the entrance to a temple to Osiris. According to Virgil, they say that "this was one of the lost temples of Osiris. And Kilroy was here."
In one of the Dear Dumb Diary books on one of the bathroom stalls is a drawing of kilroy.
In a B.C-comic strip there's "Johna was here" and the picture written inside a whale.
In the once popular American television show Home Improvement, the character Wilson (Home Improvement) resembles Foo/Kilroy.
In the 1983 film "Strange Brew", the Kilroy picture and text is scrawled on the jail wall behind the burly man that sells cigarettes.
In the 1970 film "Kelly's Heroes", The phrase "Kilroy was here" was written on the wall in the bank (presumably written by "Oddball").
In Osamu Tezuka's Phoenix vol.3 a sign saying "Kilroy was here" appears on the kings tomb in one panel.
In Halo 3 on the Xbox 360 the phrase appears painted on a wall on the Valhalla multiplayer map on certain dates of the year.
- Kilroy was here is also a repeated coda that the singer Van Morrison uses to introduce at the end of his song Vanlose Stairway and others.