International Talk Like a Pirate Day - Parodic Holyday
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".