He gets a nice name-check in Blazing Saddles when Mongo (Alex Karras) is first spotted riding down the main street on a bull, and one of the townspeople shouts, "Mongo! Santa Maria!"

[1] Ohh! I always wondered what that was the real joke in that; that makes it soooo much better! :D

3) GREAT joke. Good call, my man. It took me years to figure that one out.

[0] Herbie's Watermelon Man is the very first song of my jazz playlist on my iPod; just so cool. Remember the Kiss-FM promo for Chuck Chillout's show with Kool Keith and Ced Gee from Ultramagnetic MCs that sampled this? And of course the most recent use of note was by Super Cat, in which we are introduced to Big Poppa himself (and the awfulness of Puff Daddy that eventually went down the line to the total rejection of craft that is Diddy...)

*sigh*

I Love it when you call me Big Pop-a, the show-stop-ah

And those of us familiar with Brazil, and their Brasilenas are familiar with "Watermelon Woman" Alessandra Soares :D