International Talk Like a Pirate Day - Parodic Holyday

Talk Like a Pirate Day

In these modern times, the idolized vision of the pirates and their portrayal in the popular media (often relying on misremembered facts) has created a movement that tries to celebrate this kind of lifestyle. The greatest example of this movement is parodic holyday "International Talk Like a Pirate Day" that was established in 1995 by John Baur (Ol' Chumbucket) and Mark Summers (Cap'nSlappy). The main purpose of this holiday is to promote pirate lifestyle with popularization of the way the spoke and dressed themselves. After several years of promotion, Baur and Summers managed to establish notable following of this holyday over entire world.

The idea for forming this holyday came in Albany, Oregon, U.S., during a game of racquetball between Summers and Baur. After Summers became hurt, he fell to the ground and reacted to the injury with the laud "Arrrrr!", which is internationally famous pirate phrase for discomfort. Amused by this event, they started forming ideas for the nationwide (and later worldwide) holyday that would celebrate pirate lifestyle that is currentlydepicted in popular culture (idolized swashbucklers that, dressed in elaborate clothing and over-pronounced talk). That fateful game of racquetball happened on June 6th, but holyday itself was moved to September 19th. They did that in part for acknowledging D-Day, and in part to make holyday on the same day as Summers' ex-wife's birthday. The first big exposure of this holyday in happened in 2002, when Summers' and Baur's letter caught the eye of the of the famous American syndicated humor columnist Dave Barry. He supported their idea, and started it promoting regularly. From then, popularity of the holyday grew with each year, especially since the viral marketing and mouth to mouth impressions started flowing across the web.

In the previous few years Summers and Baur became well known in the media, becoming the biggest promoters of this lighthearted parodic holyday that celebrates all things Pirate. One of the greatest media exposures of "International Talk Like a Pirate Day" happened in 2006, when Baur's wife Torystarred as one of the wives in the reality program competition "Wife Swap" on American channel ABC. Two years later John Baur competed in the June 26, 2008 episode of the famous US gameshow "Jeopardy!" where he was introduced as a "writer and pirate from Albany, Oregon."

As mentioned before, current pop culture has very lighthearted and romanticized view toward the age of pirates. Roots of these beliefs come from various pieces media that showed pirates in more family friendly light than in reality. They influenced the current pop culture image of pirates - their speech, clothing, lifestyle, myths, legends and adventures. The prime example of that is character of Long John Silver from Robert Newton's1950 Disney movie "Treasure Island", 1954's "Long John Silver" and 1934 film "Treasure Island" with Lionel Barrymore, who all introduced to the audiences famous pirate speech and look (wooden legs, hooks on arms, eye patches, parrot on the shoulder, black Jolly Rodger flag, etc). In the 21st century, the greatest promotion of pirate lifestyle came from Disney's popular movie Franchise "Pirates of the Caribbean".