Uncle John’s Giant 10th Anniversary Bathroom Reader
Page 29
THE GINSU KNIFE: From Dial Media. Ads showed a karate expert shattering bricks and kicking a watermelon, then fuming because he couldn’t cut as well as the “amazing Ginsu knife!” Sounds vaguely Asian, but it’s not—it was originally brought to the company by a salesperson who thought it was great because it never needed sharpening. But it was still just a knife…until the creative vice president of Dial came up with a Japanese-sounding name, a karatetheme ad, and the tag line: “But wait, there’s more!”
THE VEG-O-MATIC: “This is Veg-O-Matic, the world-famous food appliance. Slice a whole potato into uniform slices with one motion….Simply turn the ring and change from thin to thick slices. Isn’t that amazing? Like magic, you can change from slicing to dicing. No one likes dicing onions. The Veg-O-Matic makes mounds of them fast. The only tears you’ll shed will be tears of joy. You can make hundreds of French fries in one minute. Isn’t that sensational? Here’s your chance to own one for only $9.99!” From Ronco.
Difficult, Tennessee, gets its name because its residents couldn’t agree on a name for the town.
THE SMOKELESS ASHTRAY: A plastic ashtray with a little fan that sucks smoke in. “Does cigarette and cigar smoke offend you? Does smoke irritate your eyes? If it does, you need the new Smokeless Ash tray…. Helps clear the air you breathe. If you smoke, buy one and be considerate of those who don’t smoke. If you don’t smoke, buy one for those who do. Buy two or three. They really do make great Christmas gifts. And they’re only $9.98!”
POCKET FISHERMAN: A fishing rod and reel that fold into a small carrying case. “Attaches to your belt…or fits in the glove compartment of your car!”
MIRACLE MOP: For $19.95, you get the original self-wringing mop “with a twistable shaft that lets you wring out the head without putting your hands into the dirty water!”
THE BUTTONEER: “The problem with buttons is they always fall off. The problem with buttons is they always fall off. And when they do, don’t sew them on the old-fashioned way with needle and thread. Use The Buttoneer, the new automatic button fastener that attaches any kind of button!…Repair upholstery, pleat draperies, attach appliqués, ribbons, decorate toys, dolls…it’s The Buttoneer!”
THE RONCO BOTTLE AND JAR CUTTER: “An exciting way to recycle throwaway bottles and jars into decorative glassware, centerpieces, thousands of things!…A hobby for Dad, craft for the kids, a great gift for Mom. The Ronco Bottle and Jar Cutter. Only $7.77!”
THE RONCO RHINESTONE AND STUD SETTER: A gizmo that attaches rhinestones and studs to jackets and jeans. “It changes everyday clothing into exciting fashions!…For young or old, the Ronco Rhinestone and Stud Setter is great fun!” Later marketed on TV as The Bedazzler.
Karate was invented in India.
DAMN YOU, STINK MAN!
Until recently, all movies made in Hong Kong—including “chop sockey” low-budget martial arts films—legally had to have English subtitles, because it was a British colony. But chop sockey producers spend as little on translations as possible—typically it might take only two days and $128 to translate a whole film. In Sex and Zen & a Bullet in the Head, Stefan Hammond and Michael Wilkins list some of the most ludicrous chop sockey subtitles. (These are real!)
“You’re a bad guy, where’s your library card?”
“How can you use my intestines as a gift?”
“Quiet or I’ll blow your throat up.”
“Check if there’s a hole in my underpants.”
“No! I saw a vomiting crab.”
“Damn you, stink man!”
“You’re stain!”
“Bump him dead.”
“Suck the coffin mushroom now.”
“A big fool, with a gun, go to war. Surrendered and turned to a cake.”
“You bastard, try this melon.”
‘‘Noodles? Forget it. Try my fist.”
“Brother, my pants are coming out.”
“Get out, you smurk!”
“Don’t you feel the stink smell?”
“Take my advice or I’ll spank you without pants.”
“You cheat ghosts to eat tofu?”
“I’m not Jesus Christ, I’m Bunny.”
“You’re bad. You make my busts up and down.”
“He’s Big Head Man, he is lousing around.”
“She’s terrific. I can’t stand her.”
“You daring lousy guy.”
“Well! Masturbate in hell!”
“The fart of God.” “What does it mean?” “With a remarkable sound.”
“Okay, I’ll Bastare, show your guts.”
“Suddenly my worm are all healed off.”
“And you thought. I’m gabby bag.”
Take your weight and divide by three. That’s how much your legs weigh.
THE SECRET OF NANCY DREW
The most famous girl sleuth in history had her own secret for over 60 years: the identity of her creator.
THE MYSTERY
As every fan knows, the author of the Nancy Drew series is Carolyn Keene. She began writing about the girl detective in 1930 (debut adventure: The Secret of the Old Clock), and today her work is as popular as ever. There are more than 20 million Nancy Drew books currently in print, in 18 languages.
The only problem: There is no person named Carolyn Keene—the name was invented by a man named Edward Stratemeyer. For over 60 years it was assumed that his daughter, Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, really wrote the books. Then in 1968, a real-life amateur sleuth uncovered the whole truth.
THE CLUES
1. It was Edward Stratemeyer who first conceived the broad outlines of Nancy Drew, the 16-year-old amateur detective, in 1930.
• Stratemeyer started out writing “dime novels’5 in the 1890s. During the Spanish-American War, he invented a fantastically popular series of juvenile stories starring the Rover Boys. Then he created teenage scientist Tom Swift and the Bobbsey Twins.
• In 1906, he realized he couldn’t write stories fast enough to keep up with demand. So he began hiring newspaper reporters to write books from his plot outlines, paying them between $50 and $250 per novel. They never got credit—Stratemeyer made them sign a contract giving up all rights to their work, renouncing royalties, and promising never to reveal their identities.
• Thus the Stratemeyer Syndicate was born. By the 1920s, the syndicate was producing and selling millions of books a year. They starred Baseball Joe, Dave Dashaway, Bomba the Jungle Boy, the Motor Girls, and many more. In 1927, Stratemeyer invented one of his most popular series, the Hardy Boys (and its “author,” F. W. Dixon).
Alexander the Great introduced the eggplant to Europe.
• By the time of his death, Stratemeyer had developed more than 800 books for children and teenagers under 88 different pseudonyms. Just before he died in 1930, he came up with the idea that would be the Syndicate’s biggest seller—Nancy Drew.
2. Stratemeyer’s daughter, Harriet, took over the Syndicate. She later said she found the first three Nancy Drew manuscripts among her father’s possessions.
• After graduating from Wellesley College in 1915, Adams went to work for her father—but not as a writer. Ironically, Stratemeyer didn’t feel that women should work. “If they did,” Adams recalled, “it was a disgrace and meant their fathers couldn’t support them.”
• Nevertheless, when Stratemeyer passed away in 1930, Adams and her sister took over the business. In the next 50 years, she outproduced her father, and is credited with writing 180 books and originating the plots for 1,200 others.
• Adams said that her father wrote the first three Nancy Drew books himself, and that in 1930, she found them, cleaned them up, and sent them off to be published. Then she took over the series and wrote the rest of them. Throughout her life, Adams was celebrated as the “real Carolyn Keene.”
3. But there was a disparity between Nancy Drew and Adams’s other characters.
• Nancy was independent, quick-thinking, in charge—a proto-feminist; Adams’s other creations,
like the Dana Girls, were flat and conventional.
• Critics and fans were puzzled by this. In a long analysis of the Nancy Drew series in The Horn Book, for example, Anne Scott MacLeod concluded that
What Harriet Adams achieved in Nancy Drew was, apparently, as accidental as it was monumental. “If I made Nancy liberated, I was unconscious of the fact,” Mrs. Adams said in 1980. It is ungenerous, but entirely believable. Adams’s portraits of other women [in her other books]…seem ample evidence that she was [not] a feminist.
MYSTERY SOLVED
Adams wasn’t a feminist—but Mildred Wirt Benson was.
In 1968 Geoffrey S. Lapin, a Nancy Drew fan, tracked Benson down in Toledo, Ohio. The 87-year-old had been working there as a reporter for 50 years—and was still writing a weekly column for the Toledo Blade called “On the Go with Millie Benson.”
Baby giraffes can grow as much as 1 inch every two hours.
But back in 1930, she was a reporter for the Des Moines Register. Edward Stratemeyer approached her about writing the first Nancy Drew story. He gave her a one-paragraph outline and paid her $125. She produced The Secret of the Old Clock.
At first, Stratemeyer wasn’t happy with the character Benson had created. He felt Nancy was too independent and bossy at a time when girls were supposed to be delicate and dependent on men. But he had a deadline, and sent the manuscript to the publisher anyway.
By 1934—four years after the first Nancy Drew story was published—the series had outsold every other children’s book in existence. Girls loved Nancy because she showed that they could have experiences on an equal level with boys. Benson told a reporter later:
I sort of liked the character from the beginning. Now that kind of woman is common, but then it was a new concept, though not to me. I just naturally thought that girls could do the things boys did.
THE REAL NANCY DREW
“Mrs. Benson’s life has tended to resemble her heroine’s,” commented a critic in the New York Times. “A doctor’s daughter, she was the first woman to get a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Iowa. She was [also] an accomplished pilot who “made nine solo trips to Central America to study pre-Columbian archaeology.”
Benson wrote 26 of the first 30 Nancy Drew books, but never revealed her identity. She didn’t want a lawsuit from the Stratemeyer Syndicate and besides, she “didn’t want to get pestered.”
After being discovered by Lapin, Benson was elected to the Ohio Women’s Hall of Fame in 1993 and was honored by the University of Iowa at the first Nancy Drew Conference the same year.
Did she enjoy the attention? Well, yes, she admitted to the New York Times, but added: “I’m so sick of Nancy Drew I could vomit.”
King Henry VIII owned tennis shoes.
THE NAKED TRUTH
Here’s the latest BRI collection of “Nudes in the News.”
THE NAKED USHERETTE
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil—‘During a screening of The Exorcist at La Pampa Cinema in 1974, the audience was distracted by an usherette scampering backward and forward across the screen pursuing a rat with a mop. To cries of ‘Get them off!’ she started to disrobe. It was while dancing naked in front of the screen that she noticed the auditorium being cleared by armed police. Explaining her behavior, the usherette said later: ‘I thought the audience was calling for me. I was as surprised as anyone.’”
—Star Billing, by David Brown
WHAT, NO DERBYS?
SEDGLEY, England—“Last May, police investigated claims that smartly dressed men were stripping off their suits and dancing naked in woodland near Penn Common, on the edge of the Black Country. ‘We just do not know what these men are up to,’ said Superintendent Malcolm Gough.
“ ‘It’s been going on and off for about a year now, although it seems to stop after November,’ said resident Judy Bardburn. She added: ‘People who have seen them say that all they wear are black shoes and black socks.’”
—Fortean Times #90
COUNTRY COMFORT
NASHVILLE, Tennessee—“When singer-songwriter Kristi Lockwood said she was looking for a little exposure, she meant it.
“Wearing only cowboy boots and a cowboy hat Wednesday, Lockwood strolled down the city’s famous Music Row, stunning other onlookers.
“ ‘Yeah, I saw Lady Godiva walking around,’ said George McLain, who works at a recording company. ‘She looked at us, and said “Hi guys.” It was pretty amazing.’ ”
The singer admitted she was doing it all for the publicity.
The Chinese used to scatter firecrackers around the house. Reason: they make great fire alarms.
She said she’d been in Nashville for three years, “working real hard on my voice and getting good feedback on my songs, but nobody was paying much attention.”
The police did. After getting a few calls, they found Lockwood, covered her, cited her for indecent exposure, and took her home.
—Nashville Banner, February 15, 1996
GEN. BUTT NAKED
MONROVIA, Liberia—“In the annals of Liberia’s civil war, nothing tops the tale of Gen. Butt Naked. Nude except for lace-up leather shoes and a gun, the general would lead his Butt Naked Battalion—which was famed for its fearlessness and brutality—into battle. Why no clothes? The general says he believed ‘it ensured protection from his enemies.’
“As the war wound down, so did Gen. Butt Naked’s commitment to kill, until he gave it up and became an evangelical preacher. Today he wears a suit and tie as he roams the battered capital with a microphone preaching peace and reconciliation.”
—Wire service reports, August 3, 1997
NAKED LUNCH
MELBOURNE, Australia—“Daring shoppers escaped the heat by taking off their clothes today in an Australian music store. About 50 patrons crowded Gaslight Music for its annual Nude Day promotion.
“The nude customers won free compact discs and were served a buffet lunch by a waiter and waitress and entertained by a pianist and an orator, all wearing only a smile…as the media looked on.”
—Reuters News Service, October 18, 1994
NAKED LUNCH II
STOCKHOLM, Sweden—“A tourist in Stockholm could not catch the restaurant waiter’s eyes, so he stepped outside, took all his clothes off and reentered, shouting: ‘You Swedes only pay attention to nudes. Now will you serve me?’ He was arrested for indecent behavior.”
—The World’s Greatest Mistakes, by Steve Brummett
Three names considered before picking “Nike” for their shoe company: Falcon, Bengal, Dimension 6.
PRIME TIME PROVERBS
TV comments about everyday life. From Prime time Proverbs, by Jack Mingo and John Javna.
ON BRAINS
“If brains was lard, Jethro couldn’t grease a pan.”
—Jed Clampett,
The Beverly Hillbillies
Dr. Crane [about Sam]: “I was hoping for some insight.”
Diane Chambers:“What insight could you possibly hope to gain from a man whose IQ wouldn’t make a respectable earthquake?”
—Cheers
“When God was handing out brains, he mistook you for a cactus.”
—Shirley Feeney,
Laverne and Shirley
“Yeah, she’s beautiful, but you can’t find her IQ with a flashlight.”
—Bill Maxwell,
The Greatest American Hero
“If brains were money, you’d need to take out a loan to buy a cup of coffee.”
—Diane Chambers,
Cheers
ON HEALTH
Dr.: “What you’ve got is a classic case of insomnia.”
Balki Bartokomous: “Oh no…I knew it was something terrible! Okay, give it to me straight. How long have I got?”
Dr.: “Fifty or sixty years.”
Balki: “Fifty or sixty years? Oh, my God, a slow death!”
—Perfect Strangers
“In the world of ulcers, Unger, you’re what’s known as a carr
ier.”
—Dr. Gordon,
The Odd Couple
ON FEAR
Mr. Carlin: “I think I’m overcoming my agoraphobia.
Bob: “I didn’t know you had a fear of open places.”
Mr. Carlin: “I thought it was a fear of agricultural products. Anyway, wheat doesn’t scare me anymore.”
—The Bob Newhart Show
“Claustrophobia? That’s a dreadful fear of Santa Claus.”
—Vinnie Barbarino,
Welcome Back, Kotter
President Chester A. Arthur once sold a pair of Abe Lincoln’s pants at auction.
FORGOTTEN POP HISTORY
Here are a few tidbits of obscure Americana, from the 1941 book Keep Up with the World, by Freling Foster.
DRAWERS ON SALE? DISGRACEFUL! A New York dry goods store shocked America in 1876 with the announcement that it would thereafter carry a full line of ladies’ underwear. Until that time, all such garments were made in the home, being considered too intimate to be purchased in public. Besides, these unmentionables, when hung to dry on an outdoor clothesline, were always covered by a sheet to protect them from the vulgar gaze of passing males.
THE FIRST TALKING DOLL. A doll developed by Thomas A. Edison about 1888 is believed to be his least-known invention and the only toy of its time that ever actually talked. The doll had a small phonograph in its body that enabled it to recite nursery rhymes, a dozen of which were recorded for its mechanism. After making several hundred of these dolls, Edison was informed that, years before, his company had sold the right to manufacture phonograph toys to another firm. Edison stopped production and had the dolls destroyed. Of the few he saved and presented to friends, only two are believed to be in existence today.