We explore some of Wikipedia’s oddities in our 7,110,381-part monthly series, Wiki Wormhole.
This week’s entry: Quick hits
What it’s about: Lots of things! We often come across Wikipedia articles that fascinate or amuse to some degree, (often by reading Instagram’s excellent Depths Of Wikipedia), but are too short to write a full column about. So, instead of one long topic, we’re once again running down several short ones.
Black Neon Tetra: This small, slightly iridescent fish is a favorite among aquarium owners, and its Wikipedia pages have the usual animal categories—taxonomy, description, in the wild, credit card fraud… Yes, a small tropical fish committed financial crimes in 2023, when its owner—YouTuber “Mutekimaru”—used motion tracking software to turn the fish’s movements into Nintendo Switch inputs. In 2020, the fish had beaten Pokémon Sapphire in a mere 3,195 hours, but in 2023, partway through a playthrough of Pokémon Violet, the software crashed, giving the fish access to the main menu. The scaly swindler managed to log into the Nintendo eShop, add 500 yen ($3.85 USD) to his owner’s account, and exposed his credit card details on the livestream. The fish was pardoned by Donald Trump in October and is now serving as Undersecretary Of Commerce.
South Dakota v Fifteen Impounded Cats: More animal malfeasance, although again, the issue is really with the owner. In 2009, a woman nearly hit a police car while backing out of a parking space. The cop noticed she had been living in her car, along with her 15 cats. The cop impounded the cats, citing poor sanitary conditions, including a full litter box in the car. The woman sued to get her cats back rather than see them put up for adoption, and took the case all the way to the state Supreme Court. While the Court agreed the state had handled the situation badly—a warrantless search, a false accusation that the cats were in poor health, and a lack of charges for any traffic offense—they argued that 15 cats potentially obstructing the driver’s view was a hazard, and ruled in favor of rehoming the cats.
Comic Strip Switcheroo: In 1997, Rick Kirkman and Jerry Scott, creators of the comic strip Baby Blues, came up with an ambitious April Fool’s prank, and nearly the entire comics page was in on the joke. Forty-six syndicated cartoonists participated in a mass swap, each drawing another artist’s comic (without giving any advance notice to the newspapers). There were a few one-for-one swaps (Blondie and Garfield; Dilbert and The Family Circus; Beetle Bailey and Shoe), but there were also two large groups of artists who rotated their strips—our favorite swap was Dan Piraro (Bizarro) taking over Luann (he has her transform into a cockroach). Peanuts was one of the few strips that didn’t participate; Charles Schulz was skeptical of the concept and declined, although it’s possible Schulz just couldn’t master the tone of Funky Winkerbean.
Fidel Castro and Dairy: The Cuban revolutionary-turned-dictator was so fond of dairy that his passion for the pasteurized has its own Wikipedia page. He made it a point of national pride for Cuba to produce a better fromage than France; a French diplomat caused an international incident by describing Cuban camembert as “not too bad.” Castro also tried to breed a “supercow,” that could produce milk in Cuba’s heat. A third of the cattle he imported died within the first few weeks, but Castro’s program eventually produced Ubre Blanca, who set a world record by producing 121.6 liters of milk in a day. The cow had a security detail, and was buried with military honors.
Fidel also loved ice cream—no less an authority than Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Márquez vouches for Castro eating between 18 and 28 scoops after a meal, and he once worked around the U.S. embargo by having his Canadian ambassador ship him 28 containers of ice cream from a Howard Johnson’s. One of the CIA’s many failed assassination attempts involved hiring the mafia to poison Castro’s milkshake.
Further down the Wormhole: Operation I Drink Your Milkshake was one of over 600 failed attempts by the CIA to assassinate Castro. (And, reportedly, the closest! The poison capsule froze to the side of the container and the poison spilled, otherwise the ploy might have worked.)
