Didja Notice?

 

In this issue, Marion is opening a new night club called The Raven's Nest on Manhattan's fashionable east side.

 

From Indy's remark on page 2, The Raven's Nest would seem to be on a corner of Riverside Drive. Riverside Drive is an actual street in Manhattan.

 

On page 3, one of the club decorators is singing the words, "flat foot floogie with the floy floy." These are lyrics from the jazz song "Flat Foot Floogie (with a Floy Floy)" by Slim and Slam. But the song wasn't released until 1938, and this is supposed to be 1936. The song lyrics were widely considered nonsense refrain, but the song as originally written had "floozie" (a promiscuous woman) instead of "floogie", and "floy floy" was a slang term for venereal disease (though not a widely-known one).

 

Page 3 reveals that Indy is a silent partner with Marion in The Raven's Nest. Marion reminds him here that she put every nickel she made "from the that lost Ark mess" into the club.

 

On page 4, Marion downs two old-fashioneds in rapid succession. An old-fashion is a cocktail made with whiskey, bitters, and sugar.

 

On page 5, from the description Marion gives the club's audience, she's about to introduce Frank Sinatra to the stage: she calls him "Frank" and refers to him as a blue-eyed Italian kid "who's been makin' 'em swoon from Hackensack to Poughkeepsie." Sinatra was the son of Italian immigrants, was known for his deep blue eyes, and began his singing career in 1935 in the New Jersey and New York City area.

 

On page 6, Indy swings on a sandbag rope across the club's stage to escape the falling column, with Indy thinking, "Not exactly as graceful as Errol Flynn...but it worked!" Flynn was a popular film actor from 1933-1958, known for his swashbuckling, sword-wielding roles.

 

On page 9, Indy and Marion take a carriage ride through Central Park. Central Park is a public park in the center of Manhattan and one of the largest urban parks in the world.

 

At the entrance gates of Marko's estate, a sign reads "Society of Friends of Italian Opera", and it is seen that Marko, besides being a gangster, is a fan of opera. The society mentioned here may be a nod to the 1959 crime comedy film Some Like It Hot, in which the Friends of Italian Opera is a front for a national crime syndicate.

 

Climbing over the brick wall of Marko's estate, Indy dumps facefuls of alum onto the guard dogs, causing them to close their mouths tightly in discomfort. Alum is a chemical compound known for its sour taste. Some old cartoons depicted its characters exaggeratedly puckering their lips after accidentally ingesting the stuff.

 

On page 11, Marko is listening to Rigoletto on his phonograph when Marion comes to visit. Rigoletto is an 1851 three-act opera by Giuseppe Verdi.

 

Marion compliments Marko's classical music collection, at first calling it "longhair". This was a term used in the late 1800s and early 1900s for an "intellectual", particularly in musical tastes. The term may have derived from many classical musicians having long locks.

 

Among the records in Marko's collection is an original wax recording of Enrico Caruso singing La Traviata. Caruso (1873-1921) was an Italian tenor opera singer. La Traviata is another three-act opera by Giuseppe Verdi, from 1853.

 

Jamal's curio shop is in Greenwich Village. Greenwich Village is a neighborhood in Manhattan.

 

Indy finds a box of Acme brand blasting caps in Jamal's shop. As far as I can tell, this is a fictitious brand of detonators, though "Acme" (Greek for "prime") has been used as the name of numerous businesses in the real world. "Acme" is also famously known as a brand name for just about any product imaginable in Warner Bros. Looney Tunes cartoons.

 

As the Raven's Nest is burning down at the end of the story, Indy tells Marion that the insurance will cover it, explaining he took out a policy because, "...I was there in Nepal--I've seen what happens to your business ventures!" This refers to the burning of her bar The Raven in Nepal in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

 

Back to Indiana Jones Episode Studies