Talk:Freedonia

Doctor Who reference

I've removed the following from the References heading of the article:

It is unclear from the context of the Doctor's comment in Doctor Who, whether this reference to Freedonia is intended to refer solely to the fictional country or act as a tip of the hat to the micronation known as the Principality of Freedonia (see microstates/micronations) or both.

Given that there the fictional Freedonia a) is well known and b) has been used in a hoax context several times over the years, there is no particular reason to think that the Doctor (or screenwriter Gareth Roberts) was thinking of anything other than the fictional country as the basis of his fib. In the absence of a reliable source indicating that the micronation was meant, it seems unnecessary to mention the micronation in this context, particularly in a section meant to list citations. There is a cross-reference to the other Freedonia at the top of the article. That, IMO, is far more useful and appropriate than mentioning it a a rather dubious Doctor Who context. Please see also Talk:The Shakespeare Code for discussions of other possible allusions in the episode whose provenence was considered too tenuous to be worthy of mention in that article. Thanks. -- Karen | Talk | contribs 06:03, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree. There's much greater likelihood Roberts was referencing the Marx Bros than the micronation. --Gene_poole 08:39, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I've retooled the language about Code to reflect only what's on screen. Which is nothing, really. It's not clearly a reference to anything. Not the Marx Brothers. Not the "Principality". It's just a quick mention of a name that sounds like a plausible country name. CzechOut 11:49, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

It makes me nervous that you've pinned it as definitely generic instead of possibly Duck Soup, possibly generic, we don't know which. I haven't seen a source from the show about what was intended, so perhaps it would be better not to state the most likely inspiration for the Doctor's use of the name. That said, you've done wonders with this article over the last day or two. Well done! -- Karen | Talk | contribs 04:28, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Merger with Duck Soup

It has been proposed that this article be merged with Duck Soup

• Disagree — While the connections to Duck Soup are strong, the word has passed on into general English usage to the extent that it has uses that are only very generally connected with the film. Merger would perhaps constrict the listing of notable uses of the word to their relevance to Duck Soup. This article needs a bit of work to make itself stand more distinctly on its own, but it can and should be done. CzechOut 19:16, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
• Do not merge - as CzechOut says, there is certainly material for the article that has little or nothing to do with the film. In-depth discussion of The West Wing and other popular culture uses would be somewhat out of place in the film article, but make for an interesting article here about a fictional country whose borders have expanded far beyond those of its celluloid origin. -- Karen | Talk | contribs 04:33, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Trivia / Previous uses of Freedonia

I have removed the following from the article, if this stuff has any merit it must be cited.

Trivia

• Fredonia was the name Benjamin Franklin suggested the United States adopt for itself at its inception. He was soundly voted down.
• Echoing Franklin, Fredonia was suggested again in the 1830s as one of two possible names for the new Republic of Texas. (The other being "Houstonia") ... There may be some confusion about the word "Fredonia" being a possible early name because of the so-called Fredonia Rebellion, the six-week-long insurgency near Nacogdoches, TX, led by Col. Haden Edwards that lasted from mid-December 1826 to the end of January 1827. SEE the Wikipedia entry on the Fredonian Rebellion. Dannyburner (talk) 20:20, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Mfv2 20:03, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Europe?

Who says Freedonia is in Europe? The whole symbolism seems to be rather American, and doesn't claim Firefly that his forefathers came to the land on board of the Mayflower ("The horesflies were on the Fireflies"?) Absurdistani (talk) 09:39, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Spelling of "Freedonia" vs. "Fredonia"

Is there any explicit place in Duck Soup where you see the word spelled with TWO E's rather than ONE? As you've probably noticed, all the towns in America called Fredonia are spelled with one E, and I've seen other references to it spelled with one as well, and I've never seen it spelled with two E's except for this article. I see that on the "Fredonia" disambiguation page it lists it as an alternative spelling to Duck Soup's Freedonia, but unless someone can find the specific spelling of it as "Freedonia" in the movie, changing the name officially to Fredonia (Duck Soup) or Fredonia (concept) or some such and as the main, bolded article in the disambiguation page since that's probably the correct linguistical spelling, would not be a bad idea. Experimental Hobo Infiltration Droid (talk) 00:19, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, the documents claiming to be the original script and posted at these two pages spell it that way:

http://www.weeklyscript.com/Duck%20Soup.txt http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Duck-Soup.html

And so does this earlier-draft script when the film title was being changed -- from Firecrackers to Cracked Ice!

http://www.marx-brothers.org/marxology/charact.htm

Spy Magazine Hoax/Practical Joke

It also caught (among others) Nick Smith, then the US Representative for Michigan's Seventh District. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Smith_(U.S._politician)

So what? Well, Calhoun County was part of Smith's district -- and one part of Calhoun County was a township named . . . Fredonia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fredonia_Township

Is this worth mentioning? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.172.13.239 (talk) 00:47, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Did Smith think that "Fr(e)donia" was in his state or didn't he? If he did (as suggested above), then I'd have guessed that he'd have something to say about charges that "ethnic cleansing" was going on there. More surprising is his insistence (check the Spy article!) that the UN should be involved in sorting out this domestic US matter. Morenoodles (talk) 04:51, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

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