composer of most of its songs. The detective novel Death at the Opera (1934) by Gladys Mitchell is set against a background of a production of The Mikado. In 2007 the Asian American theatre company Lodestone Theatre Ensemble produced The Mikado Project, an original play by Doris Baizley and Ken Narasaki. It was a deconstruction of the opera premised on a fictional Asian American theatre company attempting to raise funds, while grappling with perceived racism in productions of The Mikado, by producing a revisionist version of the opera. This was adapted as a film in 2010. Film and television references to The Mikado include the climax of the 1978 film Foul Play, which takes place during a performance of The Mikado. In the 2010 episode "Robots Versus Wrestlers" of the TV sitcom How I Met Your Mother, at a high-society party, Marshall strikes an antique Chinese gong. The host rebukes him: "Young man, that gong is a 500-year-old relic that hasn't been struck since W. S. Gilbert hit it at the London premiere of The Mikado in 1885!" Marshall quips, "His wife's a 500-year-old relic that hasn't been struck since W. S. Gilbert hit it at the London premiere". "The Mikado" is a villainous vigilante in the comic book superhero series The Question, by Denny O'Neil and Denys Cowan. He dons a Japanese mask and kills malefactors in appropriate ways – letting "the punishment fit the crime". In 1888, Ed J. Smith wrote a stage parody of The Mikado called The Capitalist; or, The City of Fort Worth to encourage capital investment in Fort Worth, Texas. The 2-8-2 railroad locomotive was renamed "The Mikado" when a U.S. production run of these locomotives was shipped to Japan in 1893. Fans even decorated Mikado rooms in their homes, Mikado clubs were established across America, and in 1886 a Michigan town took the name of the opera. Popular phrases from The Mikado The phrase "A short, sharp shock", from the Act 1 song "I am so proud" has entered the English language, appearing in titles of books and songs, such as in samples of Pink Floyd's "The Dark Side of the Moon", as well as political manifestos. "Let the punishment fit the crime" is another often-used phrase from the Mikado's Act II song and has been mentioned in the course of British political debates. Both concepts predate Gilbert. Examples of later use include