Thursday, April 07, 2005

Five (or perhaps 7) things you didn't know about Yaphet Kotto

Here at 19 Minutes Past the Hour World Headquarters, we've been criticized for not providing you, the reading audience, with enough tidbits to carry you through your next cocktail party, long queue at the bus stop, or dentist appointment. And after a particularly odd conversation with a key 19 Minutes relative, it dawned on us that we're especially deficient in providing trivia about actor Yaphet Kotto.

So to save you the trouble of running your own
Google search
, here's some Kotto material that'll be sure to impress:

1. Though he was born in New York City, he's the son of a crown prince from Cameroon.

2. Somehow, despite being the son of a crown prince from Cameroon, he also manages to be Jewish. This raises the question: There was a Jewish crown prince from Cameroon?

3. There's a hardcore metal band from the Bay Area named "Yaphet Kotto". Their latest album appears to be called "We Bury Our Dead Alive" (which just goes to prove that all the good album titles are taken).

3a. This is most likely unrelated to the previous item, but Yaphet Kotto played Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in the made-for-TV movie "Raid on Entebbe". (Considering that Kotto is Jewish, this was a deliciously ironic role.)

3b. In yet another unrelated note, the actual Yaphet Kotto recorded a 45 rpm record featuring jazz and poetry, a reading of the poem "Have You Dug His Scene?"

4. Kotto's son, Fred, is an officer with the San Jose Police Department.

5. Yaphet Kotto is probably the only person to play roles on "The A-Team", "Death Valley Days", "Homicide: Life on the Street", and "Seaquest: DSV". But I might be wrong.

So there are your useful bits of Yaphet Kotto trivia. Tune in at a yet-to-be-determined time, as we bring you up-to-date on what's going on with Ted Knight. Or at least what was up with him before he died in 1986

6 comments:

Carol Davidson said...

Gee. Thanks.

Mark Alread said...

Ok I am feeling really bad right now.

This seems to be sort of sarcastic post about an actor with an interesting name and personal history. The point of the post is with such a unique name who would ever actually know who this person? Of course when I saw the title of the post the first thing that popped in my mind was "Hey, wasnt that Mr. Big and Mr Kananga on Live and Let Die James bond movie and didnt he also play the poscombat traumatic stress syndrome veteran on a hawaii 50 episode?"

Then I read the post and figured out, yes I am that big of a TV/Movie watching geek to know him by sight.

P.S. he is also in the first and greatest Alien movie with Harry Dean Stanton. Now THERE is a trivia lovers actor!

Carol Davidson said...

Mark, sometimes you scare me more than Mitch does.

Mitch Teich said...

Well, yeah, it's not so much a sarcastic post about Yaphet Kotto as it is a post about how there's weird trivia about literally everyone. (And of couse, had I mentioned his "Live and Let Die" role, that wouldn't have been one of the 5 things you didn't know about Yaphet Kotto, would it?

Mark Alread said...

(And of couse, had I mentioned his "Live and Let Die" role, that wouldn't have been one of the 5 things you didn't know about Yaphet Kotto, would it?

Good point, but hey you had me hooked at #3a Raid on Entebbe movie, another great classic.

Carol Davidson said...

Geeks.