YMMV / Just So Stories

• Aluminum Christmas Trees:
  • The bananas of the 'little short red kind' as mentioned in The Elephant's Child do exist in real life, although in most locations they're only available seasonally.
  • Some of the fish that the whale eats in "How the Whale Got His Throat" sound like the made-up words of a Seussian poem ("He ate the starfish and the garfish, and the crab and the dab, and the plaice and the dace..."), but they all really exist.
  • In "How the Whale Got His Throat" when the Mariner finds himself inside the Whale's stomach he dances the hornpipes in order to cause the beast discomfort so it will release him. Hornpipes are a style of solo dance traditionally performed by British sailors of the 18th and 19th Centuries as a way of exercising and staying in shape while aboard the confines of a ship.
  • After the 'Stute Fish has convinced the Whale to try eating a man he tells the Whale that he'll find a castaway sailor that he can sample at Latitude 50 North, Longitude 40 West. Those are real-life coordinates for a location in the Atlantic Ocean about 550 miles east of Newfoundland, Canada.