Mount Rushmore in popular culture

Mount Rushmore as depicted on the 2006 South Dakota state quarter.

Because of its fame as a monument, Mount Rushmore in South Dakota has appeared frequently in works of fiction, and has been discussed or depicted in other popular works.

As a cover for a secret location[]

Several films and other media depict Mount Rushmore as a secret base of operations for the government or another clandestine group, or as having some comparable significance other than as a monument. In the early 1980s television series, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, a flashback sequence in the episode, "Testimony of a Traitor", shows Rogers meeting with the President of the United States in a secret base inside Mount Rushmore. In Team America: World Police, it is the secret base of operations for the protagonists. In the film, the base, along with the sculptures on the surface, are severely damaged in a suicide bombing by Michael Moore.

In the universe of the Ben 10 franchise, Mount Rushmore is the location of the main Plumbers (a sort of intergalactic police force) complex, and plays a key role in multiple episodes of the series, including "Secrets," "Truth", the "Ben 10,000" episodes, and "Ben 10 vs. The Negative 10." The monument is inadvertently destroyed by Upchuck in the latter episode, during the final battle with the Forever King. Another group shown as having a secret base inside the mountain is the "All Purpose Enforcement Squad" of Young Justice, in the DC Universe series, with the team accidentally damaging Washington's head when they break into the facility to rescue their teammate Secret. The comic book superhero Mister Majestic, a character in the Wildstorm Productions universe, also had a secret base of operations inside Mount Rushmore, analogous to Superman's "Fortress of Solitude". In Ultraman: The Adventure Begins, a 1981 animated movie jointly produced by Hanna-Barbera and Tsuburaya Productions, the heroic Ultra Force is headquartered within Mount Rushmore.

Mount Rushmore was a primary location of interest in the plot of the 2007 film National Treasure: Book of Secrets starring Nicolas Cage.^[1] In the film, Benjamin Franklin Gates (Cage) discovers in the titular Book Of Secrets that the location of the monument was chosen to erase landmarks in a map that leads to the golden city of Cíbola, hidden deep underground behind the mountain. In the film, the golden city appears to be beneath a lake to the north of the monument - this would likely be Horse Thief Lake, about 1.5 miles to the northwest of the monument, but the lake actually used in the film is the nearby Sylvan Lake, five miles southwest of the monument.

Alterations and additions to the faces[]

Mount Rushmore with a fifth President in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)

Mountain overlooking the fictional town of Konohagakure, from Naruto

The large carved faces of the monument have made it a target for parodies and other symbolic alterations of its appearance in media:

Cartoonists have added more famous faces, real and imaginary, to Mount Rushmore, or show the four presidents talking. Toothpaste companies have made commercials showing how Roosevelt's teeth could be brushed if he'd only smile again!"^[2]

Replacement or destruction of the existing faces[]

Alterations in media have frequently included replacement of one or more of the four presidents' faces with other people or characters, or the addition of another face:

• In the 2000 Courage The Cowardly Dog episode "Family Business", Muriel wondered what her nephew Basil did with Mount Rushmore (since he stole the heads of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt). The camera zooms out with the president's heads underneath the house.
• In the 1980 film Superman II, General Zod and his criminal partners Ursa and Non (the three escaped supervillains from the Phantom Zone) use their superpowers to replace the faces of Washington, Jefferson and Roosevelt with their own, while destroying Lincoln's. This scene is removed in the 2006 director's cut of the film, replaced instead with a scene showing them destroying the Washington Monument.^[3] The October 1981 issue of MAD Magazine parodies the film and depicts this scene, except that in addition to putting their own faces on the monument, the villains have replaced Lincoln with Richard Nixon.
• In the 1992 film Buried on Sunday, an unarmed nuclear missile is accidentally launched and it breaks the nose of Theodore Roosevelt off before landing next to a group of bikers in Sturgis, who decide to trade it for speed.
• In the 1996 film Mars Attacks!, the Martians in a UFO carve their leaders' faces into Mount Rushmore, replacing the Presidents' heads.
• The cover of the Chipmunks' 1982 album, Chipmunk Rock, depicts Roosevelt replaced by Alvin the Chipmunk.
• The Nintendo 64 video game Pilotwings 64 (which features a level based on United States geography and landmarks) shows the monument in the approximate location of South Dakota, but replaces Washington's head with that of Nintendo's mascot Mario.^[4] The player can change Mario into his rival Wario by crashing into his face or by shooting him from the Gyrocopter.
• In a viral video teaser for the Watchmen film, "The Keene Act and You", a brief scene depicts Richard Nixon in place of Abraham Lincoln.^[5]
• In the 2005 miniseries Category 7: The End of the World, global warming causes the moisture inside the mountain to expand, which causes the head of George Washington to break off.
• In the 2006 miniseries 10.5 Apocalypse, an earthquake hits the site as a fault-line begins to recreate the Western Interior Seaway, destroying the faces of the presidents, which eventually fall.
• In an episode of Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide, Ned Bigby and his friend, Jennifer "Moze" Mosely, collaborate on a project involving Mount Rushmore with Ned in place of Thomas Jefferson. By the end of the episode, the project gets ruined after Ned frees himself after getting stuck and the project falls over.
• In Robert Ferrigno's Assassin trilogy, fundamentalist Islamic clerics dynamite Mount Rushmore in a failed attempt to destroy it.
• In the 1993 Roger Rabbit short Trail Mix-Up, Roger, Baby Herman, a bear, and a beaver are sent flying by an erupting geyser, and crash into Mount Rushmore, destroying it (the faces comically screaming before the crash).
• In Poul Anderson's 1973 dystopian novelette The Pugilist, the United States is defeated and conquered by the Soviet Union. The puppet American government installed by the Soviets orders what is left of the US Army to turn its artillery at the Heads on Mount Rushmore and destroy them.
• In the beginning of the "Boom Boom" trailer for the 2014 video game Wolfenstein: The New Order, Mount Rushmore is seen being destroyed by Nazi soldiers after their victory in World War II, with a general observing the destruction of the landmark.^[6]
• In the 2009 film Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, four colossal vanilla cream pies hit the faces of the statues of the presidents on the mountain, except for the one of Abraham Lincoln. Which got hit in the back of the head referencing his assassination.
• In the 2021 Marvel What If...? episode, "What If... Thor was an Only Child?", Frost Giants partying with Thor on Earth use the Casket of Ancient Winters "to create some ice sculptures — like Loki horns — on Mount Rushmore".^[7]

Addition of extra faces[]

Depictions of a fifth (and occasionally, sixth) face usually place it to the left of George Washington or to the right of Abraham Lincoln, at about the same height as other presidents:

• The cover of the February 1957 issue of MAD Magazine Issue #31, depicts Mount Rushmore with a fifth face: that of Alfred E. Neuman. In MAD Magazine, the fifth face is closer to the base of the mountain, and is below Thomas Jefferson.
• In the 1964 film, The Incredible Mr. Limpet, Don Knott's title character is transformed into a fish resembling a tilefish. He helps the Allies win the Battle of the Atlantic in World War II. For these exploits, his tilefish image is added (during a fantasy sequence) to Mount Rushmore, to Lincoln's right (viewer's perspective).
• In the 1978 Judge Dredd comic "The Cursed Earth" two faces are added: President Jimmy Carter to the left of Washington, and the leader of a group of mutants to the right of Lincoln.
• In the American television sitcom ALF (TV series), Kate dreams that Alf becomes president and has his face is added to Mt. Rushmore (Episode: "Hail to the Chief").
• In the final scene of the 2003 film Head of State, fictional president Mays Gilliam's face has been added into Mount Rushmore next to George Washington.
• In the opening titles of the 2001 British satirical animated series 2DTV, George W. Bush erects his face in the gap between Roosevelt and Lincoln. A nuclear warhead is then deployed from the top of Bush's sculpture, much to the shock of the other presidents.
• In a deleted scene from the 1989 film Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, a fifth face carved into the mountain is that of an African-American woman (named in the novelization as Sarah Susan Eckert).
• President Barack Obama has been added as a fifth head to Mount Rushmore on internet depictions of the mountain. On July 8, 2009, climate change activists unfurled a banner with the purpose of portraying a fifth face on Mount Rushmore of Obama as a President who could make Presidential changes in leading effective climate legislation as opposed to being a politician.^[8][9][10]
• Prior to the retirement of Coach Paul "Bear" Bryant in 1982, fans of the University of Alabama football team generated an image with Bryant's face added to the left of Lincoln.
• In the popular cartoon, Phineas and Ferb, the character Candace gets her face carved into Mount Rushmore by her brothers for her birthday, but afterwards, lava destroys it.
• In the Doctor Who episode Last of the Timelords the Master is described as having himself carved into Mount Rushmore when after he conquered the Earth.
• In the 2019 limited series Years and Years, the likeness of Donald Trump (depicted in the series as having won re-election in 2020) is mentioned as having been carved into Mount Rushmore by 2027.

Imitation of the style[]

Deep Purple's 1970 album Deep Purple in Rock has a cover inspired by Mount Rushmore depicting the five members' faces instead of the four presidents. The title is an obvious pun, the music genre of the album being rock music, while the monument is carved from what is essentially a very large rock. In turn, the English cover of the volume 4 DVD release of the anime series Cromartie High School (entitled "Mount Rockmore") is a parody of the Deep Purple album. Here, the anime characters' faces replace those of the band members.

In the Japanese manga, Naruto, four of the main leaders (Hokage) of Konohagakure (Hidden Leaf Village) have had their faces carved into a mountain overlooking the village of Konohagakure, in a style similar to that of Mount Rushmore with Tsunade's face added later, in Shippuuden. Kakashi Hatake (despite his short tenure) and Naruto Uzumaki were the 6th and 7th face to be added to the mountain in the last chapter. The village was designed by Japanese manga artist Masashi Kishimoto.

The fictional nuclear-equipped warship Outer Haven, in the video game Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, features a Mount Rushmore-esque sculpture of the four "Snake" characters that have appeared thorough the Metal Gear series (Solidus Snake, Old Snake, Liquid Snake and Big Boss).

In the 1994 live action version of Richie Rich starring Macaulay Culkin, the Rich family has their own version of Mount Rushmore, named Mount Richmore in the movie, built on their property with their own faces sculpted into it. It becomes the setting for the film's finale, echoing the finale of North by Northwest.

The WWE had their own version of Mount Rushmore consisting of the best wrestlers in the company's history. The ones sculpted into the mountain are The Undertaker, Steve Austin, John Cena, and Hulk Hogan.

In Series 9, episode 7 (A Cuddle) of Taskmaster, the contestants David Baddiel, Ed Gamble, Jo Brand, Katy Wix and Rose Matafeo are tasked to 'forge the best Mount Rushmore'. Baddiel and Wix were the joint winners of the task with five points each.

In North by Northwest[]

Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) and Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint) dangle precipitously from the sculpture of George Washington in North by Northwest.

Sign near the mountain

The memorial was famously used as the location of the climactic chase scene in Alfred Hitchcock's 1959 film North by Northwest. The scene was developed in the course of screenwriting, as Hitchcock and scriptwriter Ernest Lehman were trying to develop an idea. As Lehman would later recall, Hitchcock "murmured wistfully, 'I always wanted to do a chase across the faces of Mount Rushmore.'"^[11] While writing the script, Lehman took a trip to Mount Rushmore to scale the faces of the famous monument; he only got halfway to the top, and bought a camera to give to the park ranger to photograph the famous monument for him. However, the scene was not actually filmed at the monument, since permission to shoot an attempted killing on the face of a national monument was refused by the National Park Service. In the film the villain's house is located on a fictitious forested plateau above the monument.

Other scenes, including the view of the Memorial's parking lot, the patio at the Memorial concession, the scene in the dining room of the concession, and the loading of the body into the ambulance, were actually shot at Mount Rushmore. The other scenes involving Mount Rushmore were filmed on Hollywood soundstages. The reference in the movie to the Sheraton-Johnson Hotel in Rapid City, South Dakota is accurate; the hotel still operates as the Hotel Alex Johnson.

The North by Northwest appearance has been parodied in several venues. In "North by North Quahog", a 2005 episode of the animated series Family Guy, Mount Rushmore's forested plateau was the location of the villain's home, and characters Peter and Lois are chased down the monument by Mel Gibson. In the 1994 film Richie Rich, the Rich family's imitation of Mount Rushmore becomes the setting for the film's finale, echoing the finale of North by Northwest.

Other appearances[]

Appearances set in the future[]

Alan Weisman, in his 2007 book The World Without Us,^[12] suggests that the Mount Rushmore memorial could last up to 7.2 million years and thus be one of the longest-lasting human artifacts. Because of this enduring structure, it has appeared in some science fiction set in the distant future:

• In the 1991 Red Dwarf novel Better Than Life, Dave Lister finds Mount Rushmore half-buried underneath billions of glass bottles, which causes him to realise he is back on Earth, which had been turned into a garbage dump for the human-colonised Solar System in the centuries after he entered stasis aboard Red Dwarf. Its usage is reminiscent of the scene from the original Planet of the Apes film). In addition to Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Roosevelt, the mountain features Elaine Sallinger, “perhaps the greatest American President of all time”.
• A 1980 episode of the post-apocalyptic cartoon Thundarr the Barbarian, "Attack of the Amazon Women", uses Mount Rushmore as its setting.
• The altered appearance in the 1989 film Star Trek V: The Final Frontier is also a future setting, specifically the late 23rd century.
• In Nelson S. Bond's "Meg the Priestess" series, the short story "Pilgrimage" involves a journey to the "Place of the Gods": Jarg, Ibrim, Taamuz and Tedhi, revealed to be Mount Rushmore.
• The speculative documentary series Life After People predicts that, while the faces of Mount Rushmore are expected to still be recognizable in 10,000 years, in five million years the sculpture will no longer exist due to erosion.

In literature[]

• In Donald E. Westlake's 1990 crime novel Drowned Hopes, protagonist John Dortmunder climbs the mountain and into Abraham Lincoln's nose to retrieve a stash of stolen money hidden there years earlier.^[13]

In theme parks[]

• Dudley Do-Right's Ripsaw Falls at Universal's Islands of Adventure featuring the parody of Mount Rushmore.
• Mount Rushmore is one of the landmarks reproduced at the Window of the World theme park located in the western part of the city of Shenzhen in the People's Republic of China.
• A version made out of 1.5 million Lego bricks is featured at Legoland Billund in Denmark. The one at Legoland California has minifigures that move a giant cotton swab in and out of Washington's right ear.

In video games[]

In addition to in Pilotwings 64, Mount Rushmore also appears:

• As a Wonder of the World in the PC game Civilization IV
• After completing the entire game in 1991's The Simpsons: Bart vs. the Space Mutants, a dark orange-colored photo of Mount Rushmore was visibly seen in the background with Bart's head sitting next to Washington.
• In Capcom's Street Fighter as the background stage of Mike
• In Pro Pinball: Timeshock!, where climbing on it is one of the tasks
• In Fatal Fury 2 as Terry Bogard's stage.
• In the 1993 computer game Sam & Max Hit the Road, one scene features a fictional Dinosaur Tar Pit at Mount Rushmore, where the character Sam can be made to sing "The Name Game" with the names of the Presidents depicted on the mountain. Characters are also seen bungee jumping from each of the Presidents' nostrils using green colored rope.
• In Taz: Wanted, Taz and his friends Sylvester, Wile E. Coyote, Elmer Fudd, Daffy Duck and Yosemite Sam are passing through Mount Rushmore during the opening cutscene.
• In Metal Gear Solid 4, the four computer AIs: GW, AL, TJ and TR are named after the initials of the four presidents and Liquid Ocelot's warship, Outer Haven, is decorated with a "Mount Snakemore" consisting of Solidus Snake, Old Snake, Liquid Snake, and Big Boss.
• In the 2008 strategy game Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3, an allied campaign mission is staged around the site, with various weapons located inside the heads.
• In Crash Tag Team Racing, In the Tyrannosaurus Wrecks Hub, one can see, in a mount, four dinosaur skulls imitating Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln.
• Brütal Legend has a Mt. Rockmore feature. Due to the game being centered around rock, the legendary figures of the real life Mt. Rockmore have been replaced with figures of legendary rockers (the player also has the option of changing these heads).
• In the 1990 game Fighter Bomber from Activision, one can fly by the monument.
• In Just Cause 2, one of the settlements features a parody of Mount Rushmore, featuring a three-headed sculpture secret base where the head of the middle represents the current president of Panau, Pandak "Baby" Panay. That settlement takes place for the 6th mission of the game "Into the den".
• In Toy Story 3 the video game featuring the parody of Mount Rushmore called Mount Toymore.
• In the game Flip Out! the aliens visited Mount Rushmore for one of the levels where each face was sliced into four pieces that had to be flipped and put back in order.^[14]
• In Skullmonkeys, a level named "Monk Rushmore" features a monument similar to Mount Rushmore in the background, with heads of Skullmonkeys replacing the presidents.
• In Awesome Possum, Awesome is added to Mount Rushmore in the ending sequence, in appreciation of saving the world.
• In Red Dead Redemption 2, a point of interest called "Face in Cliff," which is a large face resembling that of the presidents of Mount Rushmore carved into a cliff.

In comics and cartoons[]

• In the Justice League Adventures comics, Superman is shown as going to Mount Rushmore to seek solitude on at least one occasion.
• Several Don Martin cartoons in MAD magazine feature Mount Rushmore gags. One from 1965 shows a presidential barber being urgently dispatched from Washington, D.C. The barber - dangling precariously from the rope ladder - reaches out with his scissors and snips the stem of a small tree growing from Abraham Lincoln's left nostril as though it were a nose hair. A gag from 1973 shows helicopter tourists flying to the back side of the mountain, where the Presidents are kneeling as if they are peering through holes in a fence. A 1976 entry depicts work crews cleaning the monument. While some workers clean the Presidents’ heads, other workers descend by elevator into a huge cavernous underground chamber to clean the Presidents’ shoes and boots.
• In the manga Naruto, the heads of all Hokage (Leader of the Hidden Leaf Village) are carved into a mountain in the background of the main village.
• The 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles episode "The Big Blowout" shows Mount Rushmore and depicts one scene showing Krang replacing George Washington.
• In the James Bond Jr episode, "Far Out West", the villain Dr. No plots to destroy Mount Rushmore with a laser weapon.
• In the 2005 Family Guy episode, "North by North Quahog", Mount Rushmore is featured as being the location of Mel Gibson's home where Peter Griffin and his wife Lois are chased by him. After he falls to his apparent death, Peter and Lois make out on top of Washington's head (to which Washington mentions this to Jefferson and Roosevelt, who both then taunt Lincoln).
• In the Dexter's Laboratory episode "Rushmore Rumble", Dexter and Mandark bring the Abraham Lincoln and George Washington faces respectively on Mount Rushmore to life and make them fight each other to determine who is the best.
• In the American Dad! episode "Honey, I'm Homeland", a leftist terrorist cell attempts to blow up the faces to re-sculpt Washington, Roosevelt and Lincoln into those of leftist heroes including Sean Penn, Michael Moore and Captain Planet.
• Mount Rushmore also appears on the Cartoon Network media franchise Ben 10 as a Plumbers base. It was destroyed by Ben as Upchuck two times,
• In an episode of The Berenstain Bears, the Bear family visited a monument that was obviously a parody of Mount Rushmore, featuring a scene inside a replica of Abraham Lincoln's ear.
• In the reboot of Animaniacs, Washington's head gets replaced with the Brain's head in Season 1 Episode 1, with the other heads pushed to the side, much to their annoyance.
• During season four of Daria, in the end credits of select episodes showing various alter egos of the show's characters, the Fashion Club is depicted on Mount Rushmore instead of the four Presidents. Sandi, the club's president, is shown where Washington is; Tiffany, Stacy and Quinn are in place of Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln, respectively.

In music[]

American composer Michael Daugherty's 2010 piece for chorus and orchestra, "Mount Rushmore," depicts each of the four presidents in separate movements. The piece sets texts by George Washington, William Billings, Thomas Jefferson, Maria Cosway, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln.^[15]

Alice Cooper references Mount Rushmore in his album DaDa on the song "I love America" with the words, "I love that mountain with those four big heads."

Adam Young composed a score in based on the shrine called "Mount Rushmore." It was released November 1, 2016.

The song, "Little Snakes", by Protest The Hero critiques the monument as a symbol of colonialism, referencing the genocide of indigenous peoples and the ownership of slaves by George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.^[16][17] The song appeared on their fifth studio album, Palimpsest (2020).

In government media[]

Mount Rushmore National Memorial 1927-1952 Black Hills, South Dakota

Mount Rushmore commemorative half dollar obverse.

• The U.S. Postal Service issued a commemorative 3¢ postage stamp on August 11, 1952. The stamp commemorates the 25th anniversary of the Mount Rushmore National Monument.
• Mount Rushmore has been depicted on several United States coins. One of the most recent was the South Dakota State Quarter (seen at the top of this article) issued in 2006. In 1991 the United States Mint issued several commemorative coins, specifically a 50¢,^[18] $1,^[19] and $5 coin ^[20] for the anniversary of Mount Rushmore.
• Mount Rushmore has been featured prominently on South Dakota's automobile license plates since 1952.
• The flag of South Dakota features the phrase "THE MOUNT RUSHMORE STATE", which was added in 1992, although the image on the flag does not include the monument.

In other media[]

• From the 1987 second season of Pee-wee's Playhouse, Mount Rushmore is seen when Pee-wee Herman is flying out on his scooter.
• A 1960s rock band bears the same name as the monument.
• The Washington Nationals baseball club uses large foam rubber depictions of the "Rushmore Four" in both their marketing campaigns and in a series of in-stadium promotions, which include the "Racing Presidents".^[21] "George", "Abe", "TJ" and "Teddy" appeared in the fourth inning of home games at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium; the tradition continued at the new Nationals Park. For almost six seasons, the Teddy character never won a Racing Presidents event, causing Nationals fans to chant his name in the hope that the race they viewed would be his first win. Teddy finally won his first race on the last day of the 2012 season, the first time the Nationals made it to the playoffs.^[22] (Teddy then went on to win the race during all three 2012 postseason games played in Nationals Park.)
• A 1995 Colgate TV commercial depicted a man at Mount Rushmore cleaning the teeth of the Theodore Roosevelt statue.
• A 2012 Geico TV commercial showed the Gecko walking toward the opening of a long tunnel, which turned out to be inside the right eye of George Washington at Mount Rushmore.^[23]
• In the 2013 film Nebraska, Woody (Bruce Dern) and David Grant (Will Forte) stop by Mount Rushmore on their road trip to Nebraska. Woody remarks that he thinks the faces of Mount Rushmore look incomplete.
• In Professional Wrestling, a stable in Pro Wrestling Guerrilla called Mount Rushmore was established by wrestlers Adam Cole, The Young Bucks, and Kevin Steen.^[24]
• In the series The Man in the High Castle, a show on Amazon Prime, the opening crawl depicts the Mount Rushmore statues crying with old war footage.^[25]
• Russ Meyer's film Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens (1979) features a radio evangelist, played by Ann Marie, selling a pillow with a picture of Mount Rushmore on it (for one dollar). She erroneously claims that the faces on the mount include Aaron Burr.
• In the History Channel documentary Life After People, the fate of Mount Rushmore is explored. As it is technically part of nature, and is made out of solid granite, it would be around for a very long time after people, possibly to be viewed by our possible replacements.

References[]