List of real people appearing in fictional context
|
|
This is a list of real people appearing in a fictional context. In such settings, real people, whether alive or dead at the time of the authorship of the piece, will be involved in fictional settings and meet fictional characters. Such settings are alternative histories, secret histories, Bangsian fantasy, historical fiction, and just general fiction.
People not to put on this list are mythical and/or religious figures, such as Satan - they go on the List of mythical and religious beings appearing in fictional context. An exception to this rule are Popes. Note also the existence of List of celebrities on The Simpsons - added to this list, these would obscure the other entries.
The top 5 most used real people are listed below. A 'use' does not count any work based strictly on history (although different 'interpritations' of an event may be counted as fiction). Remakes, books made into movies, remakes of books made into movies (rule of thumb: this is when they all have the same title) and different books in the same series (although not different books by the same author) are counted as one use. Also discount magazines and political cartoons.
Example: Mark Twain is used multiple times in the Riverworld novels, but is counted only once because they are a series. Captain William Bligh appears in three works called Mutiny on the Bounty, but since the two movies are based on the book, it, in total, counts only as one use.
Top Ten Real People Used Most in Fiction
(so far; the list is never 'finished'):
| Rank | Name | Uses Recorded | Category | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Adolf Hitler | 23 | World Leaders | Nazi dictator; ruler of Germany from 1933 to 1945. |
| 2 | William Shakespeare | 11 | Authors | English playwright of the 16th and 17th centuries AD. |
| 3 | Richard Nixon | 10 | World Leaders | 37th American President. |
| 4 | Abraham Lincoln | 9 | World Leaders | President of the United States |
| 4 | Napoleon I of France | 9 | World Leaders | French general and emperor |
| 6 | Franklin Delano Roosevelt | 7 | World Leaders | President of the United States |
| 7 | Genghis Khan | 6 | World Leaders | Mongolian conqueror |
| 8 | Caligula | 5 | World Leaders | Roman emperor |
| 8 | John F. Kennedy | 5 | World Leaders | President of the United States |
| 8 | Elvis Presley | 5 | Musicians | Rock and roll singer |
| 8 | Herbert George Wells | 5 | Authors | English novelist |
World Leaders & Politicians
King Arthur
Marcus Junius Brutus
Caligula
- Caligula, play by Albert Camus
- Caligula - film
- Demetrius and the Gladiators
- I, Claudius
- The Robe
Cassius
Fidel Castro
Julius Caesar
Cleopatra VII of Egypt
Draco
Queen Elizabeth I of England
Benjamin Franklin
Mohandas K. Gandhi
George IV of the United Kingdom
Ulysses S. Grant
Adolf Hitler
- Between Time and Timbuktu
- Blazing Saddles
- Dragonball Z
- Education for Death
- Family Guy
- Futurama
- God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian
- Hey Arnold!
- Monty Python (he uses the name Mr. Hilter)
- The Fox in the Attic
- The Illuminatus! Trilogy
- The Iron Dream
- Justice League: The Savage Time
- Little Nicky
- Soap (as an elderly waiter in Ecuador)
- South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (cameo in Hell)
- Springtime for Hitler
- Star Trek: Enterprise episode "Storm Front (Part II)"
- The Simpsons
- The Winds of War and War and Remembrance
- Wizards
- The Worldwar novels
- Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade
See also Cultural representations of Hitler
Saddam Hussein
- Family Guy
- The Simpsons
- South Park (regular character)
- South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut
- Pinky and the Brain
Ivan the Terrible
Joan of Arc
John Lackland
Genghis Khan
- Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure
- Clone High
- The Conqueror
- Johnny Bravo
- Monty Python (Famous deaths sketch)
- Time Squad
- The Fairly Oddparents
Kublai Khan
- Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
- Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut
- Time Squad
Louis XVI of France
Macbeth of Scotland
Marguerite de Valois
Baron Munchhausen
Ralph Nader
Napoleon I of France
- The Baron in the Trees, Italo Calvino
- Bewitched
- Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure
- Háry János, by Zoltán Kodály
- I Dream of Jeannie
- Psychonauts (in the mind of Fred Bonaparte)
- Red Dwarf
- Time Bandits
- Time Squad
- See also, Napoleon in popular culture
Philip IV of Spain
Pompey
Richard the Lionhearted
- Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott
- Many traditional tales of Robin Hood
- The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show
- Robin Hood: Men in Tights
Cardinal Richelieu
- The Three Musketeers
- The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne
- Monty Python's Flying Circus (episode 13 only, pantomiming to a Petula Clark record)
Scipio Metellus
Tipu Sultan
Margaret Thatcher
- For Your Eyes Only (movie)
William Marcy "Boss" Tweed
Vercingetorix
Burton K. Wheeler
Catholic Popes
Pope Alexander VI
- The Antipope (Part of The Brentford Trilogy)
Pope Boniface VIII
- The Divine Comedy, Part 1 (Inferno), by Dante Alighieri
Pope Celestine V
- The Divine Comedy, Part 1 (Inferno), by Dante Alighieri
- Sunsets and Glories, by Peter Barnes
Pope Clement V
- The Divine Comedy, Part 1 (Inferno), by Dante Alighieri
Pope John Paul II
Pope Nicholas III
- The Divine Comedy, Part 1 (Inferno), by Dante Alighieri
Pope Pius XII
- The Deputy by Rolf Hochhuth
Presidents of the United States
George H.W. Bush
George W. Bush
Jimmy Carter
Bill Clinton
- Family Guy
- Futurama
- The Simpsons
- South Park
- Road Rovers
- Eek! the Cat
- Pinky and the Brain
- Animaniacs
- Freakazoid
Thomas Jefferson
Lyndon Baines Johnson
- Forrest Gump
- MacBird by Barbara Garson
- "Superbird" by Country Joe and the Fish
John F. Kennedy
Abraham Lincoln
- Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure
- Clone High
- Civilization III
- Flaming Carrot comics
- Futurama
- The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy
- Histeria!
- Time Squad
- Star Trek ("The Savage Curtain")
- How Few Remain
- Animaniacs
- All That
- The Rudy and Gogo World Famous Cartoon Show
- Tiny Toon Adventures
Richard Nixon
- Cold Turkey
- Dick
- Forrest Gump
- Futurama
- Hot Shots! Part Deux
- I Think We're All Bozos on This Bus
- Nixon in China
- The Simpsons
- The Two Georges
- Watchmen
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
- Annie
- Histeria!
- The Illuminatus! Trilogy
- Nick Danger, sketch by the Firesign Theatre
- The Plot Against America
- The Three Stooges
- The Winds of War and War and Remembrance
Theodore Roosevelt
- Heavenly Discourse
- The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, and other Scrooge McDuck stories from Keno Don Rosa.
- How Few Remain and the following Great War triology
George Washington
- Futurama
- Histeria!
- A House-Boat on the Styx
- South Park
- Time Squad (three times so far)
Woodrow Wilson
Artists, Writers, Musicians
Ahmad ibn Fadlan
Dave Barry
Ludwig van Beethoven
Richard Francis Burton
- The Riverworld series by Philip José Farmer
Lord Byron
- Gothic, movie by Ken Russell
- The Anubis Gates, novel by Tim Powers
- The Stress of Her Regard, novel by Tim Powers
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- Nightmare Abbey, novel by Thomas Love Peacock
- Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, novel by Douglas Adams
- The Anubis Gates, novel by Tim Powers
Carl Hiaasen
Samuel Johnson
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
- Monty Python (Famous Deaths Sketch)
- Riverworld
- Amadeus
Wilfred Owen
- The Ghost Road trilogy of novels by Pat Barker
William Rivers
- The Ghost Road trilogy of novels by Pat Barker
Siegfried Sassoon
- The Ghost Road trilogy of novels by Pat Barker
Mark Twain
Pablo Picasso
- Bluebeard
- Monty Python (making a painting while riding on a bicycle)
Edgar Allan Poe
- Time Squad
- I Am The Walrus - by The Beatles (is mentioned being kicked by Penguins who are singing the Hare Krishna)
Elvis Presley
- Angels with Angles
- Bubba Ho-tep
- Good Omens
- Mostly Harmless
- Armageddon: The Musical and sequels by Robert Rankin
- Quantum Leap
William Shakespeare
- A House-Boat on the Styx
- Pursuit of the House-Boat
- Blackadder Back and Forth
- "The Immortal Bard", short story by Isaac Asimov
- The Reduced Shakespeare Radio Show, Episode 6: "Shakespeare's Little Known Trip To America"
- The Sandman
- Shakespeare in Love
- The Shakespeare Stealer
- Time Squad
- The Science of Discworld II: The Globe
- 1601, Mark Twain
- King of Shadows
- Magic tree house
Mary Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley
- Gothic
- The Stress of Her Regard, novel by Tim Powers
Virgil
Voltaire
H. G. Wells
- The Dancers at the End of Time
- The Time Ships
- Time After Time
- Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman
- Doctor Who serial "Timelash"
Walter Winchell
Scientists & Thinkers
Aristotle
Confucius
Maria Skłodowska-Curie
Charles Darwin
John Dee
Albert Einstein
Philo T. Farnsworth
Sigmund Freud
Stephen Hawking
Robert Ingersoll
Lawrence Lessig
Leonardo Da Vinci
- The Da Vinci Code
- History of the World, Part I
- Leonardo's Last Supper, by Peter Barnes
- Quest of the Delta Knights
Ada Lovelace
Sir Isaac Newton
Tom Paine
Socrates
Alan Turing
Explorers
Captain William Bligh
- Mutiny on the Bounty - Book and movies
- The Bounty - a musical about Bligh and the Bounty.
Christopher Columbus
Amelia Earhart
- Fluke (book)
- Star Trek Voyager - episode "The 37s"
- Time Squad
Charles Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Dr. Livingstone
Marco Polo
Military people
General George Armstrong Custer
- Little Big Man
- How Few Remain and the following Great War triology
General Robert E. Lee
Admiral Horatio Nelson
- Monty Python (Famous Deaths sketch)
Criminals and Outlaws
Billy the Kid
Al Capone
The Daltons
Matthew Hopkins
Gilles de Rais
- Bluebeard, the fairy tale, readapted many times
Jack the Ripper
Unclassified
Erzsébet Báthory
- The Blood Countess
- Daughters of Darknes (1971 movie)