Author: Jake Rossen

While you’re probably familiar with upcoming presidential debate co-anchor Anderson Cooper, you may not know as much about his October 9 broadcast partner, Martha Raddatz, an ABC News veteran who seems eager to press both candidates on issues that went unexplored during their first face-off in September.

Before the fireworks start, we’ve unpacked some facts about Raddatz, from her seat on a bombing mission to being mortified at a very un-presidential ringtone going off in the White House briefing room.

1. SHE WENT TO HIGH SCHOOL WITH ROSEANNE BARR.

Born in Idaho Falls, Idaho in 1953, Martha Raddatz attended East Lake High in Salt Lake City, Utah and attended class with Roseanne Barr. While Raddatz earned her diploma in 1971, Barr opted out of further education to pursue a career in comedy.

2. SHE’S A COLLEGE DROPOUT.

(Not that there’s anything wrong with that.) Raddatz attended the University of Utah near her childhood home in Salt Lake without much of an idea of what she wanted to do for a living. When a job position opened up at nearby television affiliate KTVX, Raddatz opted to drop out of college during her senior year. While she later described the decision as “stupid,” Raddatz was able to move up from menial tasks to shooting her own stories, eventually becoming an on-camera presence by the age of 24.

3. SHE’S BEEN TO IRAQ MORE THAN 20 TIMES.

Raddatz worked her way up to positions at an ABC affiliate in Boston and at National Public Radio before becoming ABC’s chief White House correspondent in 2005. Uncomfortable remaining in the press corps in Washington, Raddatz insisted on traveling to Iraq multiple times in order to gain a better understanding of how the war was affecting the area. Military officials cited her determination to return to those troubled hot spots as one reason they respected her reporting; Raddatz later compiled some of her experiences in Iraq into a book, The Long Road Home.

4. SHE TOOK PART IN A BOMB-DROPPING MISSION.

Eager to experience the rigors of combat firsthand, Raddatz spent years trying to convince the U.S. military to allow her to fly along on a bombing raid. She finally got her wish: Raddatz was inside an F-15E when it was loaded with explosive devices weighing more than 500 pounds each.

5. BUT THAT WASN’T THE MOST DANGEROUS THING.

Crossing a river in Jalalabad near Afghanistan, Raddatz hitched a ride on a makeshift inflatable raft steered by an eight-year-old local. It was the only path that would get her near an area that was once home to Osama bin Laden.

6. SHE TOLD HER SON ONE OF HISTORY’S BIGGEST SECRETS.

Raddatz’s globetrotting has had one undesirable side effect: it has proven worrisome to her kids, including her son Jake, who grew concerned for her mother’s safety whenever she was about to travel. In 2011, Raddatz was headed for Kabul when she received word that the U.S. government had located and killed Osama bin Laden. Calling Jake to tell him she wouldn’t be making the trip, she then had to tell him why: he was sworn to secrecy until the president announced it on television later that day.

7. SHE USED CHAMILLIONAIRE’S “RIDIN’ DIRTY” AS A RINGTONE.

During her time as a White House correspondent, Raddatz often had trouble hearing incoming calls or messages on her cell phone—press gatherings are frequently busy, crowded, and noisy. To allow her to acknowledge important incoming calls, she asked Jake to program a loud ringtone into her cell. He chose Chamillionaire’s “Ridin’ Dirty.” In a 2007 White House briefing, it went off in her purse, and she had to scramble to turn it off.

When Chamillionaire heard the story, he was pleased, “Can’t lie,” he tweeted. “That just made my night. Appreciate it. @MarthaRaddatz Keep it gangsta.”

Just days after renewing his near-exclusive deal with CNN, Anderson Cooper is set to moderate the second presidential debate between candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump on Sunday, October 9. For his part, the 49-year-old Cooper has indicated he’s likely to step back and let the candidates engage in their political pugilism without much interference.

While he preps for the showdown, we’ve got a cheat sheet on the co-host himself. Check out some revealing information about Cooper’s modeling past, his run-ins with Charlie Chaplin, and how he nearly wound up with the CIA.

1. HE PARTIED WITH CHARLIE CHAPLIN.

Born in New York in 1967 to actor Wyatt Cooper and heiress Gloria Vanderbilt, Cooper was exposed from an early age to a very unique social circle. His parents held parties where they invited the likes of Charlie Chaplin, Lillian Gish, and George Plimpton. Cooper’s father once said that everyone treated Anderson and his older brother, Carter, like adults. “No child should ever be called little,” Wyatt told New York Magazine in 2005. “They were always treated like potential adults.”

2. HE WAS A FAMOUS BABY.

Famed photographer Diane Arbus once convinced Vanderbilt to allow her to photograph a sleeping Cooper for a spread in Harper’s Bazaar magazine. After some reluctance, Vanderbilt allowed the photo to be published; it’s since become one of Arbus’s most recognizable photographs and has been displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

3. AS A CHILD, HE THOUGHT PEOPLE COULD TURN TO STONE.

As is the case with many children, young Cooper could take information and process it literally. When his father showed him a statue that was erected in honor of ancestor Cornelius Vanderbilt, Cooper admitted he thought dying meant that your body would turn to stone.

4. HE BECAME A MODEL AT AGE 10.

After Cooper’s father passed away during heart surgery at the age of 50, 10-year-old Cooper decided that he should begin to think about providing for himself. Eager to have a source of income, he signed with the Ford Modeling Agency and began modeling clothes for Ralph Lauren and Macy’s, among others. (The gigs lasted until age 13 when, according to Cooper, a photographer made some inappropriate comments, which led him to quit.)

5. HE ONCE CONTRACTED MALARIA.

As a teenager, Cooper began to feel restless and decided to take several international excursions by himself to prove he could adapt to different situations. In addition to trekking the Rockies and kayaking in Mexico, at 17 he decided to backpack through Central Africa. While there, he contracted malaria and spent time at a hospital in Kenya.

6. HE INTERNED AT THE CIA.

After enrolling at Yale University, Cooper noticed a flyer hanging in the school’s career counseling office inviting students to explore their options with the CIA. He decided to spend his summers interning at the headquarters of the agency in Langley, Virginia. Cooper later called the work “pretty bureaucratic” and “mundane” and decided not to pursue intelligence work as a profession.

7. HE FAKED HIS PRESS PASSES.

Following both his brother’s suicide and his graduation from Yale, a distraught Cooper decided to once again head overseas to try and distract himself from emotional upheaval. Without an “official” job with a news outlet, Cooper made his own press passes, bought a video camera, and did freelance work from such war-torn areas as Burma and Somalia to cover famines and unrest. Back home, he was able to sell the footage to Channel One, a classroom-based closed-circuit news network. The channel later made him an official correspondent; in 1995, Cooper wound up at ABC.

8. HE HOSTED A REALITY SHOW.

At ABC, Cooper was charged with anchoring the overnight news series World News Tonight and later hosting a reality television series called The Mole. Perceiving the latter as a serious blow to his credibility, ABC executives said he would never again work in broadcast news. 

9. HE WAS NOT AN IMMEDIATE HIT AT CNN.

Suspecting ABC executives were correct, Cooper backed away from Mole duties and migrated to CNN in 2002. The network slotted him on Paula Zahn’s a.m. show American Morning, where Cooper failed to impress critics who may still have been doubting his credentials from the reality television stint. The Los Angeles Times called him the “chuckling Anderson Cooper,” who looked as though “he rode over on a skateboard.” Cooper later described his performance on the show as “nervous” and “uncomfortable.” But by taking on other network assignments no one wanted, he was later able to earn himself an opportunity as anchor of Anderson Cooper 360.

10. HE ONCE DRESSED AS PHIL DONAHUE FOR HALLOWEEN. (HE REALLY LIKES PHIL DONAHUE.) 

During his short-lived daytime talk show, Anderson Live, Cooper invited legendary broadcaster Phil Donahue for an interview. To commemorate the occasion—and Halloween—he dressed up as the silver-haired, microphone-wielding talk traffic cop. Cooper said he grew up watching Donahue and wanted to “pay homage” to him.

11. HIS MOTHER ISN’T LEAVING HIM A CENT.

Despite her family’s considerable wealth, Gloria Vanderbilt has no intention of leaving Cooper any cash when she exits the planet. “My mom made it clear to me there’s no trust fund, there’s none of that,” he told Howard Stern, calling inheritances an “initiative sucker.”

In recent Marvel mutant film Deadpool, the title character sports a tank top featuring the likeness of Bea Arthur. According to actor Ryan Reynolds, who also produced the film, it cost $10,000 to acquire Arthur’s likeness for that short scene. It must have taken another considerable effort to arrange the late actress’s more recent tribute: being immortalized as an action figure.

This week, collectibles giant Funko unveiled a set of all four leading characters from The Golden Girls, the hugely successful NBC sitcom that aired from 1985 to 1992 and co-starred Arthur as perpetually-exasperated Dorothy Zbornak, a divorcee who shares her Florida home with her mother, Sophia, and friends Rose and Blanche.

The debut coincided with New York Comic Con, one of the bigger pop culture fan festivals. According to Decider, visitors to the Javits Center in Manhattan have been making a beeline for Funko’s booth, where the four-pack of the nearly 4-inch toys are being sold. Funko’s director of marketing, Mark Robben, said that the nostalgia factor has earned them mentions on Good Morning America and Live with Kelly, adding to the demand. And the $24.99 set is already fetching up to $279 on eBay.

If you’re not at the convention, there’s still hope: Target is expected to offer the toys at their stores in the near future. You’ll also be able to find the Girls depicted in Funko’s trademark Pop! style. Cheesecake not included.

[h/t Elle]

For two years, retired Marine Corps. Sgt. John Peck kept a packed black suitcase in his closet. He had no idea when he might get summoned to Brigham and Women’s Hospital for an urgent—and incredibly complex—emergency surgery.

This past August, the call came. A man was dying. And Peck would be the recipient of both his arms.

In a story detailed in The Washington Post, Peck is now learning to cope with what appears to be only the second double-arm transplant on a quadruple amputee. A veteran of the Iraq War, Peck encountered an improvised explosive device (IED) in Afghanistan in 2010 that took all four of his limbs. In 2014, he discovered he might be a candidate for the procedure. After two years idling on a waiting list and 14 hours of surgery, he became the recipient of two flesh-and-blood arms that are intended to replace his prosthetic devices.

While doctors have cautioned him the healing process will be slow, Peck told reporters in Boston on Wednesday that he can already lift his arms and has faint sensations in both. Physicians expect that Peck will have enough command of the limbs within the next nine to 12 months to perform complex tasks like cooking.

Good news, since Peck’s goal is to become a chef. But at the press conference, he was more concerned with acknowledging the unidentified donor who had given him a new lease on life. “Your loved one’s death will not be for nothing,” he said. “Every day that I look down at our new arms, I will drive on . . . and I will never give up. I will remember his selflessness and his gift until the day I die.”

[h/t NPR]

Know of something you think we should cover? Email us at tips@mentalfloss.com.

For years, Nike teased the possibility of mass-producing the self-lacing shoes made famous by Michael J. Fox in 1989’s Back to the Future Part II. A replica shoe that was screen-accurate but didn’t self-lace was released in 2011; October 2015 saw Fox presented with a prototype that actually worked.

Now, fans of the series and sneakerheads are anxiously awaiting the pending release of the real thing. The good news? It’ll only cost you $10 to have a chance at owning a pair of the Nike Mags that were worn by Marty McFly. The bad news? It’s via a lottery system, and only 89 pairs are being made available.

Nike is currently accepting raffle entries through a digital storefront for the Mags, with all proceeds benefiting The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research.

The Draw, as the company calls it, began on Tuesday, October 4 and runs through October 11. Winners will be announced October 17, with exorbitant price gouging on eBay expected to commence moments later.

While it might seem like a paltry number of shoes, Nike probably realizes an entire line of space boot-looking sneakers aren’t for mass consumption. The adaptive fit technology that automatically sizes the sneaker for a custom fit is being eyed for the lucrative athletics market, with the Nike HyperAdapt 1.0 slated for release next month.

[h/t ABC]

Hopping on a pedal bike and cruising around town is a rite of passage for many children. But according to the Centers for Disease Control, less than half of riders from the ages of 5 to 14 wear a helmet.

Advertising agency DBB and Danish design firm MOEF are looking to change that. They’ve come up with a prototype bicycle helmet designed to look like the distinctive plastic hair sported by LEGO figures, according to Bored Panda.

The idea, according to DBB, is to create safety apparel that children will want to wear. (Considering the popularity of LEGO building among adults, they may want to consider larger sizes.) For now, the helmet is just a prototype but co-designer Simon Higby is petitioning for LEGO to take a look at the viability of mass-producing the helmets.

You can take a look at their entire design process below.

[h/t BoredPanda]

As moderator of tonight’s vice presidential debate between Republican Mike Pence and Democrat Tim Kaine, CBSN anchor Elaine Quijano will become the first digital reporter to officiate a national election face-off. Not a regular CBSN viewer? We can still get you up to speed on Quijano’s career, the ignobility of reporting on cats, and how she convinced the President to change a key policy.

1. A FAKE CRIME GOT HER INTERESTED IN JOURNALISM.

Elaine Quijano (who originally went by the name Elaine Cagas) enrolled in the University of Illinois intending to pursue a degree in engineering. While in school, she grew curious about a journalism class taught by Robin Neal Kaler and decided to sign up. “One time [Kaler] staged a mock crime,” Quijano told the Asian Journal [PDF] in 2008. “In the middle of a lecture, someone ran in and grabbed her purse, and Robin ran out after him. We were just stunned. And I was so naive—I had no idea it was a ruse. But Robin came back in and said, ‘You were all just eyewitnesses to a crime.’ It was a test of our powers of observation.’” Quijano shifted to broadcast journalism, eventually interning for WCIA-TV in Champaign, Illinois before landing at CNN Newsource in 2000.

2. SHE HAD TO COVER A CAT STUCK IN A TREE.

Before graduating to a national platform, Quijano gained experience in small-town markets like WCIA. According to Adweek, she was once dispatched to cover the fate of a cat that was unable to climb down from a tree. “Suffice to say, it was not a high point in American journalism,” she said.

3. SHE SPENT A LOT OF TIME IN A GAS MASK.

After moving to CNN correspondent status, Quijano covered several major stories of the early 2000s, including the presidential election and the September 11 terrorist attacks. While embedded in Kuwait, Quijano was awakened nearly every night to the sound of alarms that signaled a possible chemical attack. “There were sirens and alarms all hours of the day and night, and each time we’d have to evacuate with our chemical and biological sets with gas masks and all this gear,” she said [PDF]. “So we’d lug all this stuff down flights of stairs to the basement, and someone would test the air. That’s frightening—these guys sniffing the air to find out if we were breathing chemicals.”

4. SHE HELPED CONVINCE PRESIDENT OBAMA TO REVERSE POLICY.

During her tenures at CNN and CBS, Quijano covered politics extensively as a White House correspondent. In 2011, she reported that President Obama’s office had not been sending letters of condolence to families of military members that had committed suicide. After Quijano’s report, a policy was enacted to make sure that correspondence was delivered.

5. SHE LIKES TO SCUBA DIVE.

Of her many career accomplishments, Quijano still has one major item to check off her bucket list: swimming with whale sharks. Although she’s an experienced scuba diver, she hasn’t yet gone swimming in the waters of her native Philippines. In 2013, she dove in order to report on a story about the Aquarius Reef Base, an underwater research lab.

6. SHE’LL BE THE FIRST ASIAN-AMERICAN DEBATE MODERATOR.

Quijano will be making history in more than one way on October 4. In addition to being the first digital correspondent moderating a national debate, her appearance will also mark the first time an Asian-American will take the seat.

7. HER FAVORITE BOOK IS …

… The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. “It’s interesting to think about the world beyond what we think we know,” she has said.

Furniture retailer Ethan Allen is officially a Mickey Mouse operation. The brand recently announced a partnership with the Walt Disney Company that’s slated to bring a series of high-end (read: expensive) home decor options accented with some of the most popular children’s characters in the history of entertainment.

In design terms, that means a lot of furniture—including sofas, coffee tables, and ottomans—cut in the shape of, or emblazoned with, Mickey Mouse’s familiar silhouette. A set of coasters will run you $39, while an elaborate character chest is $1599. The full line doesn’t go on sale until November 18, but you can take a look at some of their pre-sale items below.

All images courtesy of Ethan Allen.

[h/t Inquisitr]

Know of something you think we should cover? Email us at tips@mentalfloss.com.

At first, Erik King wasn’t sure he liked being a meme. As the relentless Sergeant James Doakes, who was immediately suspicious of co-worker and closeted serial killer Dexter Morgan on Showtime’s Dexter, King’s boiling-point performance arrived just as the internet was discovering new ways to capture bits and pieces of film and television.

“It was weird,” King tells mental_floss. “I had never had a performance taken out of context before, so it took some getting used to. But I found it flattering.”

As Dexter celebrates its 10th anniversary, King took some time to talk with us about Doakes’s untimely death, how his father inspired the character, and the art of surprising serial killers with tirades of profanity.

Was the intensity of Doakes on the page from the beginning?

I think it was clear who Doakes was. The intensity was there, but the disdain came later. The more Dexter eluded Doakes, the more he got pissed off. My father was in federal law enforcement and I have a lot of family and friends who are cops, so I knew a lot of them.

Was there any of your dad in the character?

There’s a lot of him in Doakes. He passed away in 2011, but I used to joke with him all the time. “You know, this guy is you.” It’s exaggerated, but he didn’t suffer fools. If someone parked in front of his house, there might be a colorful word or two coming out of him. And it was a public street. [Laughs]

Doakes and Dexter were usually playing a pretty cerebral cat and mouse game, but it occasionally got physical. Michael C. Hall once said he was taken aback by how strong you were while shooting a fight scene. Do you remember that?

I’m surprised he would say that, actually. If he thought that, he never let on. Michael is taller than me, you know. I had to bring my A-game. Doakes had to come at him like a bowling ball, had to hold his own, because I knew what was gonna happen in the end. As an actor, he always brought it.

The great flaw of Doakes is that he was suspicious of Dexter from the outset, which probably didn’t help his chances of survival. When did you know he would be dying at the end of season two?

It was either four or six episodes in out of the 12. One of the producers very kindly called me, which doesn’t always happen. He said, “I’ve got some good news and some bad news. The good news is, we’re writing some great stuff for you. The bad news is, you won’t be around much longer.” [Laughs] My first thought was how the rest of the cast would react, because I was and am good friends with them. I know the energy Erik King brings to the set and the energy Doakes brings, and I didn’t want to have it become, “Oh, what a shame.” So I kept it a secret for as long as I could.

Were you happy with the way he went out?

In order to maintain the integrity of who he was, he had to find out something [about Dexter]. It couldn’t have been eight or nine seasons of, “I’m watching you, motherf*cker.” That’s not going to work. Even though I wanted the character to hang around longer, I totally understood the choice.

Was there ever any discussion of Doakes surviving the cabin explosion?

Not with me. Once the cabin blew up and pieces were flying through the air, there was never a doubt in my mind.

Doakes had a way with words. How did you find out some of his choice profanity had become a meme?

I was at a gym in North Carolina trying to put some size back on when I was asked to return for season seven [in a flashback]. This guy comes up to me and says, “Did you see this website? They put Doakes in all these other movies.” You know, like Ghost—“surprise, motherf*cker.” Just little scenes. Someone would turn around and Doakes would be there.

As an actor, it was arresting to me, and kind of weird that Doakes had taken on a life of his own. Now it’s flattering. “French fries, motherf*cker,” all of that. I’ve seen it. [Laughs]

If that was weird, the Doakes bobblehead must have thrown you, too.

I have a couple of them. They have to send it to you for approval. “Does it look like you?” “Yeah, I guess it looks like me, kind of.”

What do you think would have happened to Doakes if he hadn’t crossed paths with Dexter?

Probably a police captain. The guy was really driven. He had a dogged determination. He and Dexter both. I always said they were like two pitbulls sniffing each other out. He keeps going until he finds what he’s looking for. And you see where it got him.

One of the biggest art crimes in recent memory has been solved. According to CNN, two of artist Vincent Van Gogh’s paintings stolen from Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum in 2002 have been recovered. Their estimated value? $30 million.

Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen and Seascape at Scheveningen, both completed in the 1880s, were found missing after thieves used a ladder to enter the museum through the roof. Federal investigators reported in 2005 that two Dutch men had been convicted of the crime but that authorities had been unable to locate the artwork.  

The trail was apparently cold until Italian authorities reached a key point in their investigation of alleged drug kingpin Raffaele Imperiale. The two paintings were discovered in the basement of one of Imperiale’s apartments.

Museum curators said only minor damage to the edges of the paintings was observed; they were otherwise in good condition and expected to be returned once a criminal trial has been completed in Italy. Imperiale is believed to be on the run in the United Arab Emirates.  

[h/t CNN]