Uncle John's Endlessly Engrossing Bathroom Reader
Page 26
Claimant: A collie named Blair
Claim to Fame: The first canine movie star
Story: In 1905 Blair starred in “Rescued by Rover,” a six-minute British silent film about a dog who rescues a baby after a gypsy beggar woman snatches it from its stroller. (Rover crosses a river and searches house-to-house through a slum until he finds the baby, then races home and leads the father to it.) Six minutes may not sound like much, but motion pictures had been around for less than a decade and feature-length films were still many years off. Rescued by Rover played to so many packed movie houses that the film had to be remade three times to replace the negatives as they wore out from overuse.
Claimant: Dr. Miller Reese Hutchinson
Claim to Fame: The world’s first electric hearing aid
Story: Hutchinson was on the staff of the Thomas Edison Labs when he invented the Acousticon. It was a box about the size of a hardcover book that contained a microphone and batteries. An earpiece was attached to it with a cord and was held to the user’s ear whenever they wanted to hear what someone was saying. Footnote: One of Hutchinson’s other inventions was the Klaxon, an extremely loud horn that makes an “AH–OOOH–GAH!” sound. Originally used on autos and bicycles, the Klaxon found greater fame as the dive alarm on submarines. Mark Twain reportedly joked that Hutchinson invented the Klaxon to deafen the public so that they would buy more Acousticons.
Claimant: Mary Dyer (1611–60)
Claim to Fame: First woman in American history ever hanged
Story: In 1658 Dyer, a Quaker, entered the (Puritan) Massachusetts Bay Colony to protest a law that banned Quakers from the colony. She was arrested and thrown out of Massachusetts, only to return a second time and then a third, after which she and two other Quakers, both men, were tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. The two men were hanged; Dyer was spared at the very last minute—literally as the noose was being placed around her neck
—and banished from the colony for the third time. When she returned a fourth time in 1660, a judge ordered that the earlier death sentence be carried out. The following morning, June 1, 1660, on Boston Common, Dyer was given one last chance to renounce her Quaker faith. She refused, whereupon she was hanged…for the crime of being a Quaker in Massachusetts.
Claimants: Joshua Pusey and Charles Bowman
Claim to Fame: Inventors of the first matchbook
Story: Pusey was a cigar-smoking patent attorney who hated carrying around a bulky box of wooden matches everywhere he went. In 1889 he came up with something more compact: two rows of cardboard matches (which Pusey called “flexibles”) attached to a paper wrapper “adapted to be opened and closed as the covers of a book.” A match-book. The name survives, but Pusey’s book cover design does not—in 1893 a Pennsylvania inventor named Charles Bowman patented the version we use today. (Bowman also patented a “safe” match that would not ignite when chewed by rats.)
SODA POPPED
Coke and Pepsi pretty much rule the marketplace, so it’s hard for a new brand
to find success. Soda companies have tried new flavors, old flavors, brighter
colors, no colors, more caffeine, less caffeine, bigger bottles, smaller
cans, and even retro-sugar. Here are some pops that fizzled.
Soda: C2
Year: 2004
Story: In 2004 Coca-Cola’s market research indicated that more men wanted to buy low-calorie “diet” drinks but were reluctant to do so because they thought diet drinks were too feminine. So Coke created C2, which was a regular/diet hybrid—half the sugar (and calories) were replaced with sugar-free sweeteners. Despite promising market research, the product bombed, capturing less than 1% of the soda market. What happened? People (men and women alike) who wanted Coke with no sugar preferred to buy Diet Coke, and those who didn’t mind the sugar bought regular Coke.
Soda: Hubba Bubba
Year: 1986
Story: A. J. Canfield was a small company whose specialty was making soda in unusual flavors, such as chocolate fudge, cherry chocolate fudge, and Swiss creme. In 1986, on a license from the Wrigley Company, Canfield manufactured Hubba Bubba—bubble-gum-flavored soda. It was hard to find in the ’80s, and didn’t last long.
Soda: Pepsi Blue
Year: 2002
Story: Inspired by its successful launch of Mountain Dew Code
Red (cherry-flavored, red Mountain Dew) in 2001, Pepsi unveiled Pepsi Blue the following year. Would you drink a soda that looked like window cleaner? Pepsi apparently thought millions would, despite the fact that it didn’t taste like Pepsi (it tasted more like cotton candy) and it was dyed with Blue No. 1, a coloring agent banned outside the United States years earlier because of fears that it may cause cancer. Pepsi Blue lasted about a year in stores.
Soda: 7-Up Gold
Year: 1988
Story: The Dr Pepper Company was working on a light-colored, caffeinated, extra-spicy ginger ale in 1988, when the company merged with 7-Up. Since the soda resembled 7-Up more than it did Dr Pepper, the new bosses released the ginger ale drink as a new 7-Up flavor called 7-Up Gold. Marketing experts think 7-Up Gold sold poorly because of 7-Up’s famous “never had it, never will” slogan—referring to caffeine—and 7-Up Gold had a lot of caffeine. Others say it’s because 7-Up Gold tasted weird. Either way, it went off the market in 1990.
Soda: dnL
Year: 2002
Story: Not learning from the failure of 7-Up Gold, 7-Up once again tried to infuse its product with caffeine. Meant to compete with the caffeine-loaded energy drinks that were gaining popularity at the time (Red Bull, Rockstar, and Monster), dnL tasted exactly like 7-Up…it just had caffeine in it. The product was marketed as “7-Up, turned upside-down,” and “dnL” is actually “7-Up” upside-down. Despite the clever name, it didn’t work, and dnL was gone by 2003.
Soda: Coke Blak
Year: 2006
Story: By 2005 gourmet-coffee culture had evolved from a fad into a part of the American mainstream. Coca-Cola didn’t want to lose any more business to Starbucks—which had partnered with Pepsi to bottle its own drinks and sell them in supermarkets—so it entered the coffee-drink business in 2006. Its entry: Coke Blak. The recipe: one part Coca-Cola, one part cold coffee, and one part sweet cream (so it wasn’t even black coffee, like the name implies). It was pulled from American store shelves in 2007…but it continues to sell very well in France.
“We learn from history that man can never learn anything from history.”
—George Bernard Shaw
I LOST ON JEOPARDY!
Recently, one of our writers auditioned for and made it on
to the TV game show Jeopardy! Here’s his report of how
a game show is made, what it’s really like, and why
he couldn’t tell us if he won. (He didn’t.)
• Getting an audition is fairly difficult. Each January, Jeopardy! offers an online contestant test: 50 general-knowledge questions in 10 minutes. If you pass (reportedly you have to get at least 48 correct), a contestant coordinator sends you an e-mail a few weeks later and invites you to one of the auditions, held in hotel ballrooms in several major cities around the country.
• The audition is a grueling test of you, your smarts, and your personality. It’s a three-hour ordeal that gauges about 20 potential contestants’ knowledge, personality, and ability to play the game. Part one: another 50-question quiz. Part two: auditioners participate in a mock game of Jeopardy! with a computerized game board and buzzers. Scores aren’t kept—it’s a test to see if you speak clearly, phrase your responses in the form of a question, and keep the game moving along briskly. Part three: a personality interview. Three contestant coordinators simply ask you about yourself and what you would do with all that prize money. If you passed the written test and impressed the panel with your sparkling personality, several months later the coordinator calls with congratulations and a show taping date.
• Multiple shows are taped in one day. Most game s
hows, Jeopardy! included, film five episodes—a week’s worth of shows—in one day. Taping occurs on Tuesday and Wednesday. Because of this, contestants are told to bring three outfits with them in case they win a game and come back as the next episode’s “returning champion.” The different clothes create the illusion for home viewers watching the next day that it’s the next day.
• There are no “fabulous parting gifts.” That may have been a game show standard in the 1960s and ’70s, but it’s no longer true. Gone are the cases of Turtle Wax, Rice-a-Roni, and the board-game version. Contestants receive a Jeopardy! tote bag and a silver picture frame with Jeopardy! written on it. (It’s for the photograph they get of themselves with host Alex Trebek.)
• …but you do get money… The player who comes in first gets to keep whatever money they win. Second- and third-place contestants get a flat fee: $2,000 for second place, $1,000 for third.
• …which covers your expenses. Jeopardy! tapes in Culver City, California. You have to pay for your own travel and hotel. However, if you are a returning champion and win enough to return for the next week’s taping, Jeopardy! pays your airfare.
• It’s a long day. Each day’s contestants (about 15 people) stay at the same hotel (which offers a special contestant discount), and at 7:00 a.m. they all gather in the lobby to board the Jeopardy! Bus, a shuttle that takes them to the Sony Pictures Studio. Jeopardy! is one of the many productions filmed there—Wheel of Fortune is made on the set next door to Jeopardy! Once they reach the studio, contestants are ushered into a “green room” with couches and bottled water, where they get an orientation (“speak clearly, don’t be nervous, phrase your answers in the form of a question”).
• You have to rehearse. After a mic fitting and a few minutes in the makeup chair, the contestants get to check out the Jeopardy! set. Each player gets to test the “clicker” or “answering device” and play a rehearsal game for a few minutes. At about 10:00 a.m., the studio audience is let in and the contestants head back to the green room. The order of who gets to play in each of the five episodes is chosen at random—names are placed on notecards, face down on a table. Until their names are picked, contestants may watch from the studio audience.
• Alex Trebek is kept far, far away. Since the 1950s quiz-show cheating scandals, FCC rules prohibit the host from interacting with contestants, as he may have prior knowledge of the day’s questions. So contestants do not meet or even see Trebek until the taping begins and he saunters out on stage.
• It’s shot in real time. The commercial breaks on TV last about two minutes, and they do in taping as well. If Trebek flubbed a question (or “answer”) during the game, he rerecords it during the break. The time can also be used for the judges (an independent accountant and one of the show’s writers) to deliberate on any disputed answers. If there are no problems to fix, Trebek takes questions from the studio audience. Most commonly asked question: “How many of the answers do you know?” Trebek’s standard response: “All of them, because I have them in front of me.”
• You have to wait. There’s a three-month lead time between filming and airing. A show shot in January, for example, won’t air until April, although at the time of taping, they tell you exactly what day it will air so you can tell your family and set your TiVo. You also have to wait for your prize money. Whether it’s first-place winnings or the runner-up fee, the check comes three months after the episode airs.
• You can’t tell anyone how you did. They want to keep the element of surprise, both to discourage betting and for good TV. Producers begrudgingly allow contestants to tell their family how they did, but they’d prefer you didn’t.
A WINNING PHRASE ORIGIN
In November 1986, Disney CEO Michael Eisner and his wife, Jane, were dining with famed pilots Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, who had just flown a plane around the world nonstop. Jane Eisner asked what they were doing next, and they said, “We’re going to Disneyland.” The Eisners thought that would make an excellent slogan. So Disney rushed to create an ad around it, and about two months later the first ad was aired. After Super Bowl XXI on January 25, 1987, an unseen reporter asked New York Giants quarterback Phil Simms, “Now that you’ve just won the Super Bowl, what are you going to do next?” Simms’s scripted reply, shot on field amid the postgame chaos: “I’m going to Disneyland!” The ad has been repeated after almost every Super Bowl since and extended to other sports…and beyond. Stars who have appeared include Magic Johnson, Miss America Gretchen Carlson, Joe Montana, Michael Jordan, Nancy Kerrigan, Mark McGwire (after breaking the single-season home run record), Tom Brady, Curt Schilling, and American Idol winner David Cook.
OOPS!
Everyone enjoys reading about someone else’s blunders. So go ahead and feel superior for a few moments.
WHEN IS A DEATHBED NOT A DEATHBED?
In 2009, 58-year-old Michael Anderson of Shawnee, Oklahoma, suffered a stroke. Barely holding on to life in the hospital, he decided it was time to come clean about something that had haunted him for decades. He summoned police to his bed and told them his name was really James Brewer. In 1977, he said, he shot and killed a man in Tennessee named Jimmy Carroll, who he thought was having an affair with his wife. He was arrested but jumped bail, changed his name to Michael Anderson, and settled in Oklahoma. His conscience clean, Brewer could now die in peace. Except he didn’t: A few weeks later, he made a full recovery from the stroke, and police arrested him for murder.
WHEN IS AN APOSTLE NOT AN APOSTLE?
In an April 2009 issue of the Daily Universe, the student newspaper at Brigham Young University—which is owned by the Mormon Church—a story referred to the Mormon leadership council as the Quorum of the Twelve Apostates. What’s wrong with that? It should have been the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. An apostle is a faithful religious follower; an apostate is someone who has bitterly abandoned their religion. All 18,000 copies of the Daily Universe were recalled and shredded.
I’M NOT DEAD YET
Milo Bogisic of Montenegro decided to end it all in 2009. But he wanted the aftermath of his suicide to be clean and easy, so he took his gun to a funeral home, where he bought a coffin (he paid in cash). Then he asked the undertaker to wait a moment while he wrote out his own obituary. Finally, Bogisic got into the casket, put the gun to his head, and pulled the trigger. But he didn’t die: The bullet went through his chin and nose and missed his brain—a serious wound, but not fatal. Despite repeated requests, Palma will not give Bogisic a refund on the casket.
IT BROKE THE SPELL-CHECKER
The longest place name in the United States is Lake Chargogga-goggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg in Webster, Massachusetts (most residents just call it “Webster Lake”). But the local Worcester Telegram & Gazette recently discovered that the name is actually misspelled on signs, in guidebooks, and in official documents. It turns out that there are more than 20 spelling variants stretching back hundreds of years, and somehow along the line, the lake took on the name Lake Chargoggagoggmanchaoggagog-gchaubunaguhgamaugg, instead of the properly spelled Lake Char-goggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg. All signs will be corrected at taxpayer expense.
GRAM CRACKERS
In 2005 Ohio resident Calvin Wells was convicted of possessing 100 grams of cocaine, which carried a mandatory 10-year prison term. But the bailiff goofed—the verdict form (signed by the jury) had a typo: It listed Wells’s crime as possession of “ten one hundred (100) grams.” An appeals court later ruled that the wording could be interpreted as 10/100th grams—or of a gram—of cocaine, a misdemeanor whose punishment of four years Wells had already served. So he had to be set free. Or did he? The media attention generated by the case reached court officials in New Jersey, where Wells was wanted on a parole violation from 2000. Before he was released from an Ohio jail, he was extradited to New Jersey, where he faces a 10-year prison term.
BLACK (HUMOR) FOREST
In May 2009, a woman living near a forest in Elmstein, Germany, hear
d loud screams coming from the woods. Alarmed, she dialed 112 (the German equivalent of 911) to summon police—she was convinced a person was being tortured. Elmstein police dispatched several heavily armed officers—and a rescue helicopter—to the site. Over a loudspeaker, police ordered the perpetrator to release the victim and turn himself in. Roland Hoffman of Elmstein slowly emerged from the forest. He had gone in there to read a book, and was laughing so loud at it that the woman mistook it for tormented screams. “We realize that people think the sound of Germans laughing is unusual, but we’re sure the caller meant well,” one officer told reporters.