In 2008 Barack Obama had 459,000 friends on MySpace. Miley Cyrus: 552,000.
TOP CAT was the second prime-time animated series, after The Flintstones. Both were produced by Hanna-Barbera and both aired on ABC. Top Cat was a con man who led a scheming gang of alley cats. And just as Fred Flintstone was based on Ralph Kramden in The Honeymooners, Top Cat was based on Sgt. Bilko, the shady army man on The Phil Silvers Show. Original episodes of Top Cat ran from 1961–62. After that, reruns were shown sporadically in syndication and on cable TV. In the late 1980s, several Hanna-Barbera cartoons were revived, including a Flintstones reboot called Flintstone Kids and new episodes of The Jetsons. A TV-movie called Top Cat and the Beverly Hills Cats was produced in 1987 to give Top Cat the same treatment, but it received low ratings and sold poorly on home video, scrapping any plans for a Top Cat revival.
WOODSY OWL was the mascot of the U.S. Forest Service. One of the few famous public service mascots (like Smokey Bear), Woodsy appeared in TV commercials from 1970 until around 1990, urging kids to “give a hoot, don’t pollute.” While that campaign was about litter prevention, Woodsy was “rebooted” in 2006 after leaving the airwaves for more than a decade, but with a broader pro-environment approach. His new slogan is “Lend a hand, care for the land.”
BUSTER BROWN was one of the earliest American cartoon characters, and one that survived for decades in several media. In 1902 Richard Felton Outcault created a comic strip about Buster (he took the name from vaudeville child star Buster Keaton), a wiseacre prankster in a page-boy haircut, his sister Mary Jane, and a pit bull named Tige. The characters moved to short films in the 1920s, a radio show that debuted in 1943, and to TV in 1951. Buster and Mary Jane were hugely popular, but today they’re only remembered for the shoes that bear their names. The Brown Shoe Company licensed the use of the Buster Brown characters in 1904 and has offered lines of “Buster Brown” children’s shoes ever since. “Mary Janes”—now a generic term for patent leather, rounded-toe shoes with straps for girls and women—get their name from the Mary Jane of Buster Brown.
Vinegar works as an air freshener—just place a small bowlful in a room to deodorize it.
THE MASTER HOAXER
Here at the BRI, we have a lot of respect for people who pull off elaborate hoaxes. Here’s one of the best ever.
BACKGROUND After graduating from Ohio State University in 1952, Alan Abel moved to New York City, hoping to become a stand-up comedian. When that didn’t work out, he took a job answering the customer hotline at the American Automobile Association. It was a pretty boring job, so to entertain himself, he’d give callers unnecessarily complicated driving instructions. Not only did that alleviate the boredom, it was fun, which made him realize that he’d found his niche in comedy: pulling pranks. Over the next five decades, Abel pranked the American media repeatedly with a series of bizarre hoaxes just believable enough to get press coverage…and get the press angry.
HOAX: The Society for Indecency to Naked Animals
STORY: While driving through Texas in 1959, Abel saw a cow and a bull mating in the middle of a road, which held up traffic for 20 minutes. During the interlude, Abel noticed two elderly women acting horrified and covering their faces in disgust. He thought it was absurd that anyone could consider the idea of mating animals offensive, so he took the idea a step further into absurdity and wrote a tongue-in-cheek article for the Saturday Evening Post calling for the need to clothe all animals. The Post thought he was serious (or seriously nuts) and rejected the article. But the seed for Abel’s first prank had been planted. In May 1959, he formed a phony organization called the “Society for Indecency to Naked Animals” (the badly worded title was intentional). He issued press releases and held press conferences for SINA, claiming he represented a large group of people who aimed to clothe the “scandalously naked animals all over the world.” SINA’s slogan was “A nude horse is a rude horse,” and its logo was a horse wearing red swim trunks.
Abel recruited a young actor (and future Saturday Night Live star) named Buck Henry to play SINA spokesman “G. Clifford Prout” in radio and TV interviews, and even got him booked on The Today Show. While the prank was an attempt to expose the failings of a media more interested in sensationalism than substance, many people were actually fooled, including a California woman who tried to donate $40,000 to the “cause.” (Abel returned the money, explaining to her that he “couldn’t accept money from strangers.”) Amazingly, the organization wasn’t exposed as a prank until three years later, when, after Walter Cronkite interviewed “Prout” for the CBS Evening News, a few network employees recognized Henry from his fledgling performing career.
There are 1,500 shades of animation paint in the film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
HOAX: Deep Throat, Revealed
STORY: As the Watergate scandal was unfolding in 1973, Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein announced that they had been getting information from a secret source, nicknamed “Deep Throat” (after the popular porno film). Speculation ran wild as to who Deep Throat really was, so when Alan Abel invited reporters to a New York City press conference to meet the legendary informant, 150 journalists showed up. What they got was a masked actor who bickered with his wife, fainted, and was quickly taken to a waiting ambulance…still incognito. Although that should have made it clear that it was a hoax, a literary agent offered Abel $100,000 to write a Deep Throat biography.
HOAX: Alan Abel is Dead
STORY: In 1979 Abel set out with a lofty goal: to force the New York Times, the most respected newspaper in the United States, to retract an obituary…which it had never done before. First, he had phone service installed in the trailer home of a friend in Utah and registered it to the “Wellington Funeral Home.” Then he paid for a wake at All Soul’s Church in Manhattan. And finally, an hour before press time on a Sunday afternoon, when he knew there wouldn’t be enough time for staff to properly fact-check the story, he had his wife call the Times. Legendary prankster Alan Abel, she reported, had died of a heart attack while skiing in Park City, Utah. The reporter made some calls to both the “Wellington Funeral Home” and All Soul’s Church to confirm the story, and the next day, the Times published an obituary detailing Abel’s many high-profile pranks. Shortly after the paper hit stands, Abel issued a press release denying his death. The following day, the New York Times had to issue a retraction.
1.5 million of the 80–90 million people who watch the Super Bowl call in sick the next day.
HOAX: The Donahue Fainting
STORY: In 1985 the popular talk show Donahue ceased taping episodes in Chicago, opting instead to broadcast live from New York City. Abel figured this was a good time to protest what he considered trashy television and also make a scene on live TV. So Abel hired seven actresses and got them all tickets to sit in the audience for the first live Donahue. One by one, as the show progressed, each of the women fainted, in full view of the cameras. In all, 10-12 people fainted, including some who weren’t even in on the prank. Although no one was seriously injured, Phil Donahue and his producers panicked: Fearing the studio’s lights were too hot, the producers evacuated the remaining audience members and a nervous Donahue finished his show to an empty house. After Abel publicly came clean, he heard from a Donahue producer that Donahue was so mad that he tore apart his office and kicked all the furniture around. But when it actually made the show’s ratings go up, Donahue sent Abel a Christmas card that read, “Hope nothing causes you to feel faint in the new year.”
HOAX: The KKK Symphony Orchestra
STORY: In 1991 former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke ran for governor of Louisiana, claiming that he had abandoned his racist ways and had broken all ties with the notorious hate group. Abel didn’t believe him. So to ensnare Duke, he created a fictitious KKK Symphony Orchestra. Posing as “Charles Calhoun,” Abel sent out recordings of the Orchestra along with press press releases promoting a “kinder, gentler KKK” and a claim that although the orch
estra members were from different ethnic and racial backgrounds, they’d all play while wearing white hoods. “Calhoun” even told Julia Lobaco, a reporter from the Arizona Republic, that Duke was one of the Orchestra’s backers. Lobaco asked Duke, who adamantly denied involvement, to which “Calhoun” responded, “Well, what would you expect him to say?” Nevertheless, when Abel invited Duke to guest-conduct the orchestra, Duke accepted the offer…until he discovered that the “Orchestra” was a put-on. (He lost the election, too.)
East meets West: Mary Kay Cosmetics has over 200,000 representatives in China.
“9-1-DUMB, WHAT’S
YOUR EMERGENCY?”
The other day, Uncle John was thinking about how cool it is that when an emergency occurs, you can dial 911 to get help. So he dialed 911 to say thanks. Apparently, the police don’t really like that. Here are some other things they didn’t like.
KEEP POUNDING AWAY
James Little’s voice was familiar to the 911 dispatchers in Regina, Saskatchewan. He had a long history of making frivolous emergency calls and was under a court order not to call 911 unless he had an actual emergency—or else he would go to jail. But on Easter morning of 2010, Little, 75, just couldn’t help himself. He called 911 and asked the dispatcher where the pound key on his phone was located. Little spent Easter Sunday in jail.
MAMA BEER AND BABY BEER
In 2010 a 32-year-old Florida man named Charles Dennison called 911 to report that his mother had stolen his beer. The 911 operator told him that it wasn’t a police matter—he should work it out with his mother. He couldn’t, so he called 911 again. The operator reiterated, “Work it out yourselves.” Then Dennison threatened to keep calling 911 over and over until officers came and arrested his mom. True to his word, Dennison phoned the emergency line dozens of times that night until cops came out and arrested…him.
THIS PLACE IS LIKE A PRISON!
Carly Houston, 29, was hauled into the Naperville, Illinois, police station in 2010 after she threatened a taxicab driver and refused to calm down when police attempted to reason with her. She was arrested for disorderly conduct. At the station, officers informed Houston that she could make one phone call to someone who could come in and post her bail. So who did Houston call? 911. “I’m trapped! You gotta get someone in here to get me out of here!” One more charge was added: making a false emergency call.
More than half of all items listed on eBay receive no bids.
KISS AND MAKE-UP
…and other cleverly named celebrity autobiographies.
• The Merchant of Dennis, by Hank Ketcham, creator of “Dennis the Menace”
• sTori Telling, by Tori Spelling
• Love, Lucy, by Lucille Ball
• Just Farr Fun, by Jamie Farr
• Bunny Tales, by Izabella St. James, ex-girlfriend of Hugh Hefner
• Winking at Life, by Wink Martindale
• Breaking the Surface, by diver Greg Louganis
• Backstage with the Original Hollywood Square, by Peter Marshall, host of The Hollywood Squares
• KISS and Make-Up, by Gene Simmons of KISS
• Sly Moves, by Sylvester Stallone
• Out of Sync, by Lance Bass of *NSYNC
• To Be or Not to Bop, by Dizzy Gillespie
• All You Need Is Ears, by Beatles producer George Martin
• Priceless Memories, by Bob Barker
• Be My Guest, by Conrad Hilton
• Prairie Tale, by Melissa Gilbert (Little House on the Prairie)
• They Made a Monkee Out of Me, by Davy Jones of the Monkees
• My Word Is My Bond, by Roger Moore
• Pryor Convictions, by Richard Pryor
• That’s Not All Folks, by Mel Blanc
• Between a Heart and a Rock Place, by Pat Benatar
• Lips Unsealed, by Belinda Carlisle of Go-Gos (they had a hit with “Our Lips Are Sealed”)
• Landing on My Feet, by Olympic gymnast Kerri Strug
Rule of claw: The colder the waters it lives in, the tastier the lobster.
FAMOUS FOR 15…EWW!
Andy Warhol once said, “In the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes.” Let’s hope that when your time comes you won’t earn your 15 minutes the way this person did.
RENDEZVOUS WITH DESTINY
In August 2009, a 19-year-old British woman named Charlotte Taylor hopped a train from East Boldon, in northern England, to the city of Leeds, 75 miles away. She and some friends had tickets to the three-day Leeds Music Festival, which featured acts such as Radiohead, Vampire Weekend, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Kings of Leon, and the Arctic Monkeys.
Taylor made it to the festival and was enjoying the music along with thousands of other fans. Then nature called, and when she visited the portable toilets, she found her 15 minutes of fame when she accidentally dropped her purse down the hole of the toilet…and then tried to retrieve it herself.
OH, NOOOOO!
Before you pass judgement on Taylor for going after her purse, stop and think for a minute: If you were unlucky enough to drop your purse where she dropped hers, you might not go after it if all it contained was your ID, a little cash, and some credit cards that you could easily cancel. But what if the purse contained lots of cash—say £400 (about $650)? And your new iPhone? And your house keys and your train ticket back to East Boldon? Taylor’s purse contained all this and more. “If I left it, I would have been stranded,” she told a reporter.
We all have our price. Drop a purse with enough valuable stuff in it down a porta-potti and even you will try to get it back.
Taylor’s price was met that day in Leeds. As she watched her purse fall down the hole, she felt she had only one option. So she reached down into the hole with one arm, then with both arms, and when she couldn’t quite reach the purse, she stuck her head and shoulders down the bowl, too.
And that’s when she got stuck.
World’s largest phone bill: $218 trillion. The Malaysian man who received the bill said there must have been “some mistake.”
IN A JAM
Taylor struggled to free herself, but all she managed to do was wedge herself even deeper into the bowl. Her friends waiting outside couldn’t free her either, and finally the fire department had to be called. It took seven firefighters to dismantle the portable toilet and set her free; in all, she spent nearly 30 minutes wedged upside down in the john. (She did get her purse back.)
But if she hoped to escape from her situation without attracting a lot of attention, it was already too late. Even as the fire department worked to free her, word of her predicament spread through the festival, and soon a crowd formed around the porta-potti, chanting, “POO GIRL! POO GIRL!”
Fortunately for Taylor, the porta-potti was so deep that she never actually came in contact with the kinds of things you’d think a person would come in contact with deep inside a porta-potti: This was a Poo Girl who’d touched no poo. But the fire department gave her a good hosing-off anyway, and after a quick change into dry clothes, she was back enjoying the music festival with her friends.
BY ANY OTHER NAME
If Poo Girl thought her notoriety would end once the festival was over, she was wrong there, too. Her story made headlines all over the United Kingdom, and the news wire services spread it all over the world. How about the Internet? More than one concertgoer captured the incident on their cell phone cameras and posted the videos on YouTube, and when someone launched a “Poo Girl Leeds Fest 2009 Appreciation Society” page on Facebook, 22,000 people signed up. (If you wanted to order an “I Am Poo Girl” T-shirt, tote bag, or hooded sweatshirt online, those were available, too.)
It took a few weeks for Taylor’s bruises to heal and her embarrassment to fade. Waiting for the notoriety to dissipate is going to take more time. Her family has tried to be supportive, but keeping a straight face around the Poo Girl has not been easy. “When Charlotte told me what happened I just laughed,” her mother Chris told The Sun. “I fel
t bad for her, but you have to laugh at these things.”
PHOBIAS OF THE FAMOUS
Celebrities are just like us, if we also couldn’t stand ostriches and paper.
Tyra Banks: Dolphins. Ever since she had childhood nightmares about them. On a 2006 episode of her talk show, she went to Sea World to confront the fear by petting some. (She sobbed the whole time.)
Walt Disney: The creator of Mickey Mouse was actually afraid of mice.
Meryl Streep: Helicopters.
Andy Warhol: Hospitals, after he spent two months in one after he was shot and nearly killed in 1968.
Eminem: Owls.
Pamela Anderson: Her own image startles her. She has a hard time looking in mirrors and can’t bear to watch herself on television.
Matthew McConaughey: His fear of revolving doors and tunnels (a very specific form of claustrophobia) is so strong that he gets the shakes when he has to go through them.
Megan Fox: Paper. Movie scripts are sent to her either laminated or in e-book form.
Jake Gyllenhaal: Ostriches. A few were present on the set of his 2010 movie The Prince of Persia. Trainers warned that sudden noises could startle the birds into violent attacks, which reportedly left Gyllenhaal paralyzed with fear whenever they were around.
Uncle John’s Heavy Duty Bathroom Reader@ Page 21