Time and the Arts

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See also Sources for Time Zone and Daylight Saving Time Data.

Data on recordings of "Save That Time," Russ Long, Serrob Publishing, BMI:

Also of note:

• An episode of "The Adventures of Superman" entitled "The Mysterious Cube," first aired 1958-02-24, had Superman convincing the controllers of WWV to broadcast time signals five minutes ahead of actual time; doing so got a crook trying to beat the statute of limitations to emerge a bit too early from the titular enclosure.
• The 1960s ITC television series "The Prisoner" included an episode entitled "The Chimes of Big Ben" in which our protagonist tumbled to the fraudulent nature of a Poland-to-England escape upon hearing "Big Ben" chiming on Polish local time.
• The series "Seinfeld" included an episode entitled "The Susie," first broadcast 1997-02-13, in which Kramer decides that daylight saving time isn't coming fast enough, so he sets his watch ahead an hour.
• The syndicated comic strip "Dilbert" featured an all-too-rare example of time zone humor on 1998-03-14.
• Surrealist artist Guy Billout's work "Date Line" appeared on page 103 of the 1999-11 Atlantic Monthly.
• "Gloom, Gloom, Go Away" by Walter Kirn appeared on page 106 of Time Magazine's 2002-11-11 issue; among other things, it proposed year-round DST as a way of lessening wintertime despair.
• The "20 Hours in America" episode of "The West Wing," first aired 2002-09-25, saw White House staffers stranded in Indiana; they thought they had time to catch Air Force One but were done in by intra-Indiana local time changes.
• "In what time zone would you find New York City?" was a $200 question on the 1999-11-13 United States airing of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" "In 1883, what industry led the movement to divide the U.S. into four time zones?" was a $32,000 question on the 2001-05-23 United States airing of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" At this rate, the million-dollar time-zone question should have been asked 2002-06-04.

• "We're been using the five-cent nickle in this country since 1492. Now that's pretty near 100 years, daylight savings [sic]." (Groucho Marx as Captain Spaulding in "Animal Crackers", 1930, as noted by Will Fitzerald, wfitzgerald@ameritech.net)
• "Good news." "What did they do? Extend Daylight Saving Time year round?" (Professional tanner George Hamilton, in dialog from a May, 1999 episode of the syndicated television series "Baywatch")
• "A fundamental belief held by Americans is that if you are on land, you cannot be killed by a fish...So most Americans remain on land, believing they're safe. Unfortunately, this belief—like so many myths, such as that there's a reason for 'Daylight Saving Time'—is false." (Dave Barry column, 2000-07-02)
• "I once had sex for an hour and five minutes, but that was on the day when you turn the clocks ahead." (Garry Shandling, 52nd Annual Emmys, 2000-09-10)
• "Would it impress you if I told you I invented Daylight Savings Time?" ("Sahjhan" to "Lilah" in dialog from the "Loyalty" episode of "Angel," originally aired 2002-02-25)
• "I thought you said Tulsa was a three hour flight." "Well, you're forgetting about the time difference." ("Chandler" and "Joey" in dialog from the episode of "Friends" first aired 2002-12-05)
• "Is that a pertinent fact, or are you trying to dazzle me with your command of time zones?" (Kelsey Grammer as "Frasier Crane")
• "Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It is already tomorrow in Australia." (Charles M. Schulz, provided by Steve Summit)