heh i'm kinda embarased to admit this, even though the name Palpatine wasn't ever in the OT it had been in the EU pretty much since the beginning, although i wasn't familiar with this stuff at all so when i was watching ep1 for the first time i had no idea senator Palpatine was supposed to become the emperor, this revelation came to me only later when i noticed in the credits that palpatine was played by Ian McDiarmid, and being such a SW nerd in my early years i imediately recognized him as being the emperor :P His voice/face didn't spark any resemblence with the emperor to me initially.