Tonight, I met Rambo via Rambo IV, though I thought it was the first one until I choked on a handful of popcorn during some particularly awful grunting and Ben said “you just don’t understand what he’s been through!” To be fair, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be and the tidbits on imdb and wikipedia made it all the more worthwhile:

"During its long development process, ‘Rambo’ went through a number of story premises. One un-produced script featured Rambo living a quiet life with wife and child, until white supremacists kidnap his family. Another script found Rambo trying to stop a hostage situation at the United Nations, where he is working as a diplomat, when terrorists (including Rambo’s adopted son) take hold of the UN headquarters in New York.

Maung Maung Khin, who played the Burmese dictator Tint, fought for the Karen Rebels in real life. He was afraid his family would be murdered if he took this role, but he took it anyway.

The Burmese military junta has ordered DVD vendors in Burma not to distribute the film due to the movie’s content. Rambo is available on bootlegs however, and it is a great hit amongst the Karen Freedom Fighters and Burmese exiles critical of the Burmese military dictatorship. According to Karen Freedom Fighters, the movie gave them a great boost of morale. Burmese Freedom Fighters have even adopted dialogue from the movie (most notably “Live for nothing, or die for something”) as rallying points and battle cries. “That, to me,” said Sylvester Stallone, “is one of the proudest moments I’ve ever had in film.” Also, overseas Burmese have praised the movie for its vivid portrayal of the Burmese military’s oppression of the Karen people."

Also, I initially wrote ‘pieces of trivia’ but realised it didn’t sound right, so I googled it and the second result was (omigah! fate!) Sylvester Stallone on how he auditioned for the role of Hans Solo:

"Yes as a matter of fact I did and it didn’t meet with much approval since when I stood in front of George Lucas he didn’t look at me once, obviously being very shy. Then I said ‘Well obviously I’m not the right type.’ but it all worked out for the best since I don’t look good in spandex holding a Ray gun."

To show my gratitude, I introduced those Rambo-loving coke-drinking snake-sucking cowboys to Baman and Piderman, which is basically Dr. Katz meets Strongbad made by a couple of bored 12-year-old boys.