Years ago — decades ago, really — I had a French teacher — a Turkish fellow — who told a funny story about traveling by train in France and sitting beside a young French fellow wearing a UCLA sweatshirt. “Do you know what that is?” he asked the young man.
“Ookla?” he replied.
What I didn’t realize was that Thundarr‘s Wookiee-like companion got his name the same way:
The show itself was actually the creation of Steve Gerber, creator of Marvel Comics’ Howard the Duck. The name Ookla actually comes from UCLA. Gerber and friend Martin Pasko were having dinner in the Westwood area one night during the time Gerber was writing the bible for the series. Gerber commented to Pasko that he hadn’t yet decided upon a name for the Wookiee-like character the network insisted be added to the series, over Gerber’s objections. As the two walked past the gate to the UCLA campus, Pasko quipped, “Why don’t you call him ‘Ucla’?”