by Uncle John’s
RUSSIAN HIT MAN GONE WRONG
In early 2012, videographers Jonathan Vanegas and Vitaly Zdorovetskiy made a video called “Miami Zombie Attack Prank.” In it, Zdorovetskiy dressed in disheveled clothes smeared with red goop, walked around neighborhoods in Miami scaring people while Vanegas filmed. It was viewed more than 13 million times on YouTube. Their follow-up was another prank video called “Russian Hit Man Prank Gone Wrong.” Vanegas, dressed in a suit and tie, walks through a supermarket parking lot carrying a briefcase and talking on a cell phone. He approaches a middle-aged man, puts the briefcase down in front of him, and tells him he has 60 seconds to run away. The man, terrified, runs alongside Zdorovetskiy. Zdorovetskiy keeps acting like he’s talking to someone on the cell phone, stopping, then running again, the terrified man right there with him. After a minute or so he finally tells the man it’s a prank and that he’s simply filming him with his camera phone.
The man did not take it well. He kicked and punched Zdorovetskiy, then chased him to where Vanegas was still filming the two. “You trying to get a laugh?” he screamed at the two. ”I’m not a motherf— you laugh at!” He then landed a couple punches on Vanegas, yelling, “If you keep filming me, I am going to f— you up!” The video goes on for a few more minutes, with the guy screaming profanities at the two pranksters, and the pranksters apologizing. It finally ends with Zdorovetskiy muttering, “We gotta go.”
“MEANWHILE, SOMEONE HAD CALLED THE COPS— AND THEY SOON ARRIVED WITH A BOMB SQUAD.”
Meanwhile, someone had called the cops—and they soon arrived with a bomb squad. Zdorovetskiy fled, but Vanegas was arrested on felony bomb hoax charges and spent the night in jail. Zdorovetskiy was later arrested on the same charges. The victim of the prank was identified as 51-year-old Air Force veteran Andre Brown. He told reporters that he thought Zdorovetskiy and Vanegas should not be severely punished, saying, “I think they need to think about what they’re doing more carefully.” Brown was not charged with any crimes.
BETTER SAFE THAN SORRY
In 1947 Olga Frankevich and her sister fled from Soviet police during a purge of anti-Communist dissidents. The Frankeviches took up residence in a house in rural Ukraine. They were too afraid to come out…until 1992. Olga hid under the bed almost the entire time. Her sister moved about the house.
UNACCEPTABLE
Vassar College sends out acceptance e-mails to applicants around the world in lieu of the traditional postal letter. But in January 2012, 122 early-application hopefuls were informed by e-mail of their upcoming matriculation at the prestigious institution. Unfortunately, only 46 of those students had actually been accepted. Vassar’s computer system had set up a placeholder “test” acceptance e-mail, which, because of a computer error, was accidentally sent to everyone on the applicant list, regardless of their status.
•Cornell University is an Ivy League school, so it’s hard to get into and hard to pay for. In 2009 somebody in the financial-aid office used the wrong mailing list and sent 25 already rejected applicants a letter telling them that they had been accepted and needed to fill out financial-aid paperwork.
•In 2007 the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill sent a letter out to all 2,700-odd freshman applicants informing them of their acceptance. The college hadn’t even decided who it was going to accept yet.
•In 2009 the University of California San Diego, sent welcome letters to 28,000 applicants who had previously been told of their rejection and even included an invitation to a summer orientation weekend. A few hundred students and their families showed up, thinking the college had somehow reversed their rejections.
“A FEW HUNDRED STUDENTS AND THEIR FAMILIES SHOWED UP, THINKING THE COLLEGE HAD SOMEHOW REVERSED THEIR REJECTIONS.”
•The University of California, Los Angeles, accepts thousands of freshmen, but also maintains a waiting list in case spots open up. In April 2012, the school’s admissions office emailed financial-aid updates to thousands of newly admitted students…as well as the 894 students on the waiting list. The letter concluded with the line, “Once again congratulations on your admission to UCLA,” which wasn’t true, along with a link to their financial-aid profile, clearly marked “waiting list.” Confused students were issued an apology two days later.
•The Diversity Visa Program (also called the Green Card Lottery) issues 50,000 visas annually to people from nations with low U.S. immigration rates, particularly in Africa and the Middle East. Around 13 million people apply for the program annually, requiring a lottery, conducted at random by computer. In 2011, 22,000 applicants were selected too early in the process, and received “Welcome to America!” letters…before the State Department had to apologize and backtrack.
DOWN ON THE FARM
In November 1995, farmer Lowell Altvater, 80, of Sandusky, Ohio, saw a rat in his barn and fired his shotgun at it. Except it wasn’t a rat—it was his wife’s hat. And she was wearing it at the time. She was behind a divider wall in the barn, and Mr. Altvater, seeing only the hat above it, mistook it for a rat scurrying along the top of the wall. Mrs. Altvater was not hurt, but her husband was charged with negligent assault anyway, partly, police said, because just a few years earlier Mr. Altvater had shot himself in the leg in the same barn…while trying to shoot a rat.
•In October 2011, John Watkyn-James, 51, was driving his tractor down a rural road in the south of Wales, towing a metal work trailer roughly 10 feet long, when he parked on the road near one of his pastures to feed some horses. Big no-no: He parked with the trailer straddling a train track. Less than a minute later a high-speed passenger train hit the trailer at roughly 75 mph. The trailer was smashed to bits, and the nose of the train was heavily damaged, but, very fortunately, the train did not derail, and nobody was hurt. Watkyn-James was, however, charged with “endangering the safety of persons using the railway,” and was ordered to perform 200 hours of community service. He was also told by the judge that he was “incredibly stupid.”
•In November 2012, a farmer on the outskirts of Billings, Montana, was driving a combine harvester through his cornfield when he felt a “shudder” go through the machine. He shut the harvester off and, in what could have been a scene from a horror film, found a screaming man caught up in the machine’s giant cylinder of blades. When emergency medical technicians finally arrived, they had to manually reverse the blades to get the man out. Amazingly, he was pretty much okay: He needed lots of stitches, but none of his injuries were life-threatening. How did the guy end up in the harvester? The 57-year-old, who police said they would not be identifying, told officers that he’d been walking down a nearby road when he’d gotten tired…and decided to lie down in the cornfield. He fell asleep—and the combine had driven right over him, snagging him by his clothes and pulling him up into the blades. “The man is incredibly lucky to be alive,” Sheriff Kent O’Donnell said. “And that’s about all you can say about that.”
“WE REGRET THE ERROR”
There was an error in the Dear Abby column that was published on Monday. In the fifth paragraph, the second sentence stated that Charlie’s hiccups were cured temporarily through the use of carbon monoxide. It should have read carbon dioxide.”
—Anchorage Daily News
“In our entry on Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon Days, we referred to A Prairie Ho Companion; we meant A Prairie Home Companion.”
—The Guardian (U.K.)
“In an article in Monday’s newspaper, there may have been a misperception about why a Woodstock man is going to Afghanistan on a voluntary mission. Kevin DeClark is going to Afghanistan to gain life experience to become a police officer when he returns, not to ‘shoot guns and blow things up.’ ”
—The Sentinel-Review
(Woodstock, Ontario, Canada)
“An earlier version of this story incorrectly described Buffington’s special support hose as ‘mercury-lined.’ The hose are mercury-gauged, meaning that barometric mercury is used to measure the compression of the hos
e. They are not mercury-lined, which would, of course, make them poisonous.”
—The Sunday Paper (Atlanta, Georgia)
“In our feature ‘Why She Left Him,’ the woman identified in the photograph as former adult-film star Ginger Lynn Allen is neither Ms. Allen nor an adult-film actress. US regrets the error.”
—US Weekly
“A story on Wednesday about foraging for edible mushrooms contained a photo of Amanita muscaria, which is a poisonous and hallucinogenic mushroom. It was a copyeditor’s error.”
—Portland (Maine) Press Herald
“We misspelled the word ‘misspelled’ twice, as ‘mispelled,’ in the Corrections and Clarifications column on September 26, page 30.”
—The Guardian
THE EDGE OF OLYMPIC GLORY
Athlete: Thomas Hamilton-Brown
Event: Boxing, lightweight division
Story: At the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, South African boxer Hamilton-Brown lost his first-round fight to Chile’s Carlos Lillo in a split decision, and he was out of the Games. But a couple of days later, Olympic officials announced that the judges had made a scoring error—and that Hamilton-Brown was the winner of the fight. However, after his loss, Hamilton-Brown had consoled himself with an eating binge. When it came time to fight his next match—the one he didn’t think was coming—he was five pounds over his weight-class limit. Hamilton-Brown was disqualified.
Athlete: Siegfried “Wim” Esajas
Event: 800-meter run
Story: At the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, Esajas became the first athlete from Suriname to compete in the Olympics. Or he would have been. Esajas overslept on the day of his qualifying heat and missed the race. It turns out the blunder wasn’t his fault. Suriname’s Olympic Committee later admitted that its secretary-general, Fred Glans, had incorrectly told Esajas that his race had been rescheduled from the morning to the afternoon.
Athletes: Eddie Hart and Rey Robinson
Event: 100-meter dash
Story: At the 1972 Summer Olympics, Americans Hart and Robinson were the favorites to win gold and silver in the 100-meter dash. On the morning of August 31, they both made it handily through their heats, and qualified for the quarterfinals, to be held that evening. While Hart, Robinson, and their coach, Stan Wright, were on a stroll that afternoon, they saw races being shown on a television screen in the Olympic Village. At first they thought it was a replay of their morning races, but then they saw a race about to start with Hart’s name listed for it…with an “N/A” next to it. The quarterfinals were being held now. The three ran (really fast, we imagine) to the stadium, but they were too late. Hart and Robinson missed their races and were immediately disqualified. Wright was blamed for the fiasco at first, but the U.S. Olympic Committee later admitted that Wright had been given a race schedule that was later changed, and he had not been notified. Hart and Robinson went home empty-handed and never made it to the Olympics again.
Athletes: Olympic torchbearers
Event: Lighting the Olympic flame
Story: During the opening ceremonies at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea, hundreds of live “Doves of Peace” were released into the packed Olympic stadium, an Olympic tradition going back to 1920. The doves are supposed to be released just as the Olympic flame is being lit, but, for reasons unknown, this time they were released several minutes beforehand. Where did the doves go? Dozens landed on the soon-to-be-lit Olympic cauldron. Minutes later, as the huge crowd looked on, the three Olympic torchbearers—who could plainly see all the birds on the cauldron—lit the flame. And a bunch of Doves of Peace became barbecued Doves of Peace. Furious protests by animal-rights groups followed, apologies were issued, and releasing live doves during opening ceremonies lasted just one more Olympics before the practice ended.
Athlete: Lindsey Jacobellis
Event: Snowboard cross
Story: At the 2006 Winter Olympics, American snowboarder Jacobellis was almost 50 yards ahead of her nearest competitor with about 100 yards to go in the women’s snowboard cross final. On the second-to-last jump, Jacobellis made an early-celebration showboating move—and fell straight on her rear end when she landed. She scrambled to her feet and tried to make it to the finish line in first place, but the snowboarder who had been so far behind her, Switzerland’s Tanja Frieden, swooped by—and won the race by a comfortable three-second margin. In postrace interviews, Jacobellis said she hadn’t been show-boating—she’d only been trying to stabilize herself in the air. She later admitted that she had been showboating.
Athletes: North Korean women’s soccer team
Event: Before a match
Story: In the minutes before the 2012 Summer Olympics match between the North Korean and Colombian women’s soccer teams, the North Korean players looked up to see their faces and names on the jumbo screens around the stadium. Alongside the team photos was an image of a flag—the flag of South Korea. Outraged North Korean players stormed off the field and refused to play. Panicked officials could be seen on the sidelines trying to calm players and coaches as the video crew worked to get the right flag on the screens. Finally—after 40 minutes—they did, and the game began. London’s Olympic Committee was forced to issue formal apologies—even British Prime Minister David Cameron apologized for the gaffe. An Olympic Committee spokesman later said the error had been made by a London video producer (whom they declined to name).
SWITCHING CHANNELS
THE CASH COW
Back in the late 1960s, pro football wasn’t the overwhelmingly popular sport it is today. In those days, it enjoyed mostly regional popularity in the upper Midwest and Northeast. But the two leagues, the AFL and NFL, merged in 1966, consolidating resources just as the sport was becoming far more popular. NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle knew that a weekly TV game would increase exposure and take the sport national—and Major League Baseball already televised games nationally. Rozelle approached CBS and NBC, the #1 and #2 networks. Because of that, they weren’t looking to give up three hours of prime-time programming each week for a sport that wouldn’t draw as many viewers as shows like Laugh-In or My Three Sons.
There were only three networks then, so Rozelle went to third-place ABC…which had nothing to lose. They agreed to air a weekly NFL game on Monday nights, and in fall 1970, Monday Night Football debuted. Not only did it help popularize pro football in the United States, it made billions for ABC and was a Top-20 show for most of its run. It moved to ESPN in 2006.
THE CLASSIC
In the early ’80s, the hottest thing going on broadcast TV were soaps like Dynasty and Dallas, and action shows like The A-Team and Simon & Simon. What wasn’t popular? Situation comedies. In the 1982–83 season, there was only one comedy in the Nielsen Top 10: Three’s Company, on ABC. The unpopularity of sitcoms was one of the reasons why ABC entertainment president Lewis Erlicht personally rejected a pitch from enduringly popular comedian Bill Cosby for a comedy about an upper-middle-class African American family. Another reason was that Cosby wanted a full commitment from the network—he wanted a guarantee the show would air without his having to submit a script or produce a pilot episode. In his assessment, Erlicht wrote that the show “lacked bite,” and that “viewers wouldn’t watch an unrealistic portrayal of blacks as wealthy, well educated professionals.” He was quite wrong. The Cosby Show debuted on third-place NBC in fall 1984. That season it was the #3 show on TV…and for the next five seasons it was the #1 show on TV, launching NBC into first place.
“WHAT SHOW WAS REJECTED BY ABC, CBS, NBC, UPN, AND MTV?”
THE JUGGERNAUT
What show was rejected by ABC, CBS, NBC, UPN, and MTV, only to be accepted by Fox as a low-key summer replacement? American Idol, the #1 show on TV for seven straight years, and which generates nearly $1 billion in revenue a year for Fox.
MILITARY MINDLESSNESS
In the 1450s, the gunsmith Urban of Hungary crafted “the Basilica,” the largest cannon ever built. The 19-ton behemoth required
100 men to move and could shoot an 800-pound cannonball over a mile. Urban tried to sell the Basilica to Byzantine emperor Constantine XI, but Constantine turned him down on grounds that the cannon was too expensive. So Urban sold it to Ottoman Turk leader Sultan Mehmed II, who used the cannon to blow down the walls of Constantinople in 1453 and take the city from Constantine XI.
•Hitler left the defense of France’s Channel Coast to one of his top commanders, Erwin Rommel. On the night of June 5, 1944, things were so quiet and safe, Rommel decided to head home to Germany and surprise his wife for her birthday.
The next day was D-Day.
•John Sedgwick, a major general for the Union during the Civil War, found the Confederate sniper attacks at the Battle of Spotsylvania to be wanting. “What! What! Men dodging this way from a single bullet! I am ashamed of you. They couldn’t hit an elephant at this dist—” were reportedly Sedgwick’s last words.
FIRE THE WRITER
In 1896 publisher Alfred Harmsworth founded the London Daily Mail, which is still in print today. He held reporters to a very high standard, but liked to check in with them to see if they enjoyed their work. He once asked his staff if they were happy working for him. One reporter, attempting to tell Harmsworth what he thought he wanted to hear, said, “Yes, sir.” Harmsworth immediately fired him, telling the reporter, “I don’t want anyone here to be content on five pounds a week.”