"Hey, it worked for the one-armed man," I replied. They looked at me blankly. "You know, like in The Fugitive." No response. So we moved on.

You'd be surprised at the cultural references people don't get. I had a student write a paper describing the church of Santa Sofia in Constantinople and the church of Hagia Sofia in Istanbul as two separate buildings!

and all I was thinking was "Istanbul was Constantinople, now it's Istanbul not Constantinople..."