RIP “The Captain” from “The Captain & Tennille,” a TV show I watched as a kid with completely NO sense of what irony even was. (I also did not watch the show at the time in a haze of booze and/or legal weed and/or fake news, so everything seemed so real at the time.) Therefore, I have little reason to doubt anything from that era. As it turns out, “The Captain” was not his real name, of course.
So, you ready for this? His real name was “Lew Alcindor.”
I found that online, so it has to be true. Yep. And I discovered more about fake/repurposed/altered/née names there, too.
Basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s original name was “Robert Paulson.”
And the singer/actor Meat Loaf’s birth name was, get this…“Elijah’s Manna.”
Post Toasties cereal? Almost known as “Goodbye Burger City.” Yikes!
The hit movie “American Graffiti” was almost called “Utopian TurtleTop.”
The Edsel automobile was originally called the “Dodge Corvette,” spurring mulitiple lawsuits.
The Dodge Corvette automobile was once to be known as “Slim Shady.”
Eminem’s birthname was “Archibald Leach.”
And Hollywood legend Cary Grant? If you’re of a certain age, you knew him as… “Daryl Dragon.” But no one is that old anymore. Certainly not the Captain.
So, thanks Captain! Thanks, Wikipeida! And thanks to the legislators in Colorado who brought us the world’s first Legal Weed! And thanks to my friend Jack Daniel.
You might know him by his original name, “Earl Times.”
