Dodos in popular culture

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The Dodo's significance as one of the best-known extinct animals and its singular appearance has led to its widespread use in literature and popular culture.

1 Books and magazines
2 Comics
3 Movies and television
4 Music
5 Games
6 See also

[edit] Books and magazines

The first use of the Dodo in popular culture was in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, in 1865. The book features a Dodo character simply called Dodo. The character represents the author himself, as he frequently doubled the do at the beginning of his real name, Dodgson, due to a stutter.

In the 1987 book Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by English writer Douglas Adams, Professor Chronotis claims that the Dodo only became extinct because he had worked so hard to save the coelacanth.

"Dodos are forever" is a book by popular children's author Dick King-Smith.

In "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" by J. K. Rowling, a book pretended to be a school book of Harry Potter, the dodo is featured under the name "Diricawl". It is described as having the ability to disappear and reappear elsewhere. According to this book, Muggles (non-magical people) wrongfully assume that diricawls/dodos are extinct, and wizards keep their continued existence a secret because their supposed extinction taught Muggles to be more careful about slaying animals.

The underground humor magazine at the United States Air Force Academy is called The Dodo, a play on the Academy's official mascot, the Falcon. Its on-line version, the eDoDo, is maintained by Academy graduates and its bulletin boards are frequented by graduates and cadets.

In the Thursday Next books written by Jasper Fforde, Thursday has a pet Dodo named Pickwick. In the universe of the Thursday Next stories, Dodos are created as pets through cloning from usable DNA.

Four pages in Thomas Pynchon's sprawling novel Gravity's Rainbow is devoted to the Dodo. Pynchon makes mention of Frans Van der Groov, a mad Dutchman who arrives at Mauritius sometime in the 17th century with a boatload of live hogs and ends up "systematically killing off the native dodoes for reasons he could not explain." This can be found on pages 108-111 in the 1987 Penguin edition of Gravity's Rainbow.

Howard Waldrop's short story The Ugly Chickens describes a 20th-century ornithologist's mad chase after the last living dodos. He succeeds, and he finds them. In a way.

[edit] Comics

DC Comics published a comic series from the 198999 through the 1960s entitled The Dodo and the Frog, featuring the characters Dunbar Dodo and Fennimore Frog. Dunbar was portrayed as something of a simpleton, and often fell for the schemes of Fennimore. The two made a later appearance in the 1980s comic series Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew.

In the Dutch comic series Douwe Dabbert a Dodo was featured as his traveling companion, leaving him eventually for the last female Dodo.

[edit] Movies and television

The 1938 Bob Clampett-directed Looney Tunes cartoon Porky in Wackyland has Porky Pig chasing the last Dodo across the surreal Wackyland. The Do-Do Bird is somewhat insane, as is his environment, but he is still able to escape capture from Porky for most of the film.

One of the Doctor's companions in the third season of Doctor Who (1966) was nicknamed Dodo. She had a bright and happy, if unsophisticated, personality, somewhat reminiscent of the Dodo bird's traits.

The 1990s cartoon Tiny Toon Adventures featured a dodo character named Gogo Dodo, who was the son of the dodo bird portrayed in Porky in Wackyland. Gogo's personality in the series was quite wild and bizarre, often embracing surreal and nonsensical elements.

In a 1996 episode of the animated series The Simpsons (entitled Homer the Smithers), Mr. Burns orders Homer to prepare him a Dodo egg for lunch. This is part of a running joke of the show, which consists of making the character of Mr. Burns as out-of-touch with modern world developments as possible.

The 2002 movie Ice Age features an army of Dodos, who are trying to survive extinction by stockpiling only three watermelons. The watermelons are destroyed in the movie, along with a number of Dodos trying to protect them, thus dooming the species to extinction. This rendition plays into the stereotype of the Dodo being a simpleton animal.

An episode of The Goodies had Bill Oddie discovering the reason for the extinction of the dodo---the fact that "they're delicious!"

In the later episodes of the Dutch-Japanese cartoon series Alfred J. Kwak, Alfred encounters the secret underwater habitat (named after and based on the mythical Atlantis) where the Dodos fled to save their species from extinction.

In the episode of Superman: The Animated Series entitled "The Main Man," a villain named "the Preserver" has a living dodo bird in a simulated Earth environment. At the end of the episode, Superman takes the dodo back to his Fortress of Solitude.

In 2006, the Dodo is set as an example of the documentary Flock of Dodos highlighting the "evolution intelligent-design circus". There are screenings at select universities and a public release may be in early 2007.

[edit] Music

In 1981 the band Genesis featured a song on the Abacab album entitled "Dodo/Lurker".

The David Bowie Box Set "Sound + Vision" released in 1995 contain a previously unreleased version of the song "1984" which included a sub-song called "Dodo". The song was originally recorded in 1973 during the "Diamond Dogs" recording sessions. The "Sound + Vision" box set was re-released in 2003.

In 1999, Aimee Mann featured a dodo on the cover of her album "Bachelor No. 2, or, the Last Remains of the Dodo." None of the songs mention the dodo, however.

Dave Matthews' 2003 album Some Devil begins with a track called "Dodo," a soft, harmonic song with lyrics that muse on the possible feelings of the last dodo alive on earth.

The N. Dodo Band (Nenoneonewneoneonosolonadadatodododo band) was a new wave band (1975-1979) during the New York music scene playing such clubs as CBGB's, Max's Kansas City, Great Gildersleeves, Tier 3, Privates, Trudy Hellers, etc. Their motto was "todo mundo es dodo" (everyone is dodo).

The "Punk Rock Song" single by Bad Religion features a song entitled "The Dodo".

[edit] Games

In the 2001 video game Grand Theft Auto III, an aircraft named the Fully-winged Dodo can be seen flying over the city. Although this plane cannot be flown, a shorn-winged version, simply called Dodo, can actually be flown (with great difficulty) by the player. The Dodo can be found at the Liberty City Airport. This is of course a joke, mocking the fact the Dodo was a flightless bird. The Dodo reappears in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, and is available at the Las Venturas Airport.

In the video game Blazing Dragons, one of the villans of the game resorts to using a "ground-delivery dodo" to take Flicker's steam-engine plans to the castle of Sir George after his "air-delivery eagle" flies straight out the window without taking the plans with him.

The time-travel card game Early American Chrononauts includes a card called Mating Pair of Live Dodo Birds which time travelers can symbolically rescue from the year 1598.

There is a Pokémon character named after the Dodo bird, Doduo which possesses two heads, and its three-headed evolution, the Dodrio. Despite their names, however, they more closely act like and resemble large, multi-headed Roadrunners.