OLD-FASHIONED FAMILY VALUES. In the early 1870s in Corinne, Territory of Utah, a law firm had so many divorce cases that it developed a slot machine and, through it, sold the necessary papers for $2.50 a set. At that time in the territory, no grounds for divorce were required, and these papers were so complete that they became legal when signed by the couple involved.
TAKE IT OFF! The strip tease is one of the only forms of theatrical entertainment that originated in the United States. It was introduced in N.Y. burlesque houses in the late 1920s to regain the patrons they’d lost to the new musical shows on Broadway that were featuring nudity.
The bullfrog is the only animal that never sleeps.
THE POLITICALLY CORRECT QUIZ
“Political correctness” isn’t as bad as it’s made out to be—after all,there’s nothing wrong with trying to be sensitive to people’s feelings. On the other hand, people can get pretty outrageous with their ideas of what’s “appropriate.” Here are some real-life examples of politically correct (or “incorrect”)behavior. How sensitive are you? Can you spot the “correct”one? Answers on page 490.
1. In 1994, an English charity offered low-income kids at a local school free tickets to the ballet Romeo and Juliet. The school’s headmistress, Jane Brown, turned them down. Why?
a) She thought the play was “too violent for children under 13.”
b) She said the play was “blatantly heterosexist.”
c) She said she was appalled by the “lack of ethnic diversity in Shakespeare’s plays.”
2. In 1978 the city council of Woonsocket, Rhode Island, struck a blow for political correctness by
a) Officially renaming the town’s manholes “personholes.”
b) Creating “ethnically diverse” streets, adding red and brown stripes to the white and yellow center lines.
c) Installing urinals in all of City Hall’s women’s restrooms.
3. In 1997 the commissioners of Kelberg County, Texas, passed a resolution eliminating the greeting “Hello” for official county business. They replaced it with
a) “Heaven-o”
b) “Peace on Earth”
c) “Howdy, y’all”
4. The Dutch founded the town of Fishkill, New York, in the 1600s (kill means “stream” in Dutch). In the 1990s, some residents started a campaign to change the name, because
a) It sounds like their water is polluted.
b) It discriminates against fish.
c) It celebrates “animal cruelty.”
One of the most popular soups in 1929: Peanut butter soup.
5. In the early 1980s, a white landlord in Tiburon, California, (near San Francisco) put cast-iron black “lawn jockeys” on many of his downtown properties. “It adds a little bit of charm to the place,” he explained. But local activists protested that it also added a touch of racism. So the landlord painted the jockeys’ skin “a pale Caucasian pink.” Problem solved? Not exactly. In 1994
a) A local African American minister started a campaign to get the jockeys repainted black.
b) The International Jockeys’ Union demanded that statues of women jockeys be included among the displays.
c) White supremacists picketed the statues to protest the “reverse racism.”
6. In 1922, the high school basketball team from Dickinson, North Dakota, took on the nickname the “Dickinson Midgets.” Seventy-four years later, in the summer of 1996, the town’s school board decided the name was offensive and should be changed. The town responded by
a) Inviting a representative from Little People of America (an organization that protects dwarves’ and midgets’ rights) to discuss the issue.
b) Holding a recall election and replacing the school board.
c) Voting to change the name to the “Dickinson Little People.”
7. Which of these incidents really happened?
a) A six-year-old in Lexington, North Carolina, kissed a classmate on the cheek and was suspended for “sexual harassment”—despite the fact he didn’t even know what sex is.
b) A customer in a Quebec pet shop threatened to report the store to the government’s French-language monitoring office because she was shown a parrot that only spoke English.
c) The 20,000 members of Britain’s National Plumbers’ Association were instructed by the government—at the risk of incurring a fine for sexist behavior—to stop talking about “ballcocks” and use the term “float-operated valves” instead.
Accident report: 75% of industrial accidents happen to people who skipped breakfast that day.
MOVIE BLOOPERS
Here are a few mistakes to look for in popular movies. You can find more in a series of books called Film Flubs, by Bill Gibbons.
Movie: Gone With the Wind (1939)
Scene: Scarlett is running on the street in Atlanta.
Blooper: She passes an electric light as she is running, years before the invention of the incandescent bulb.
Movie: Foul Play (1978)
Scene: Goldie Hawn is sitting on a park bench, eating a sandwich.
Blooper: As she eats her lunch, “the sandwich is whole, then half-eaten, then uneaten again, then half-eaten, then it has just one bite out of it, then it disappears completely.”
Movie: Driving Miss Daisy (1989)
Scene: Hoke and Daisy cross the state line from Georgia into Alabama. He comments that they’re in Alabama…then two state troopers pull them over.
Blooper: They forgot to change uniforms. They’re dressed as Georgia cops.
Movie: Star Wars (1976)
Scene: Luke returns safely after blowing up the Death Star.
Blooper: He accidentally calls out “Carrie!” to Princess Leia. (She’s played by Carrie Fisher.) Note: It’s in the re-released version, too.
Movie: Maverick (1994)
Scene: Mel Gibson is talking with a clerk at the railway station, in the Old West.
Blooper: You can see a white truck driving across the screen.
Movie: Batman (1989)
Scene: The Joker (Jack Nicholson) and his gang are defacing artwork in a museum.
Blooper: One of the gang splatters a portrait with pink paint. In the next shot, the work is back to its original state.
Often when actors are filmed in a car through the windshield, there’s no rearview mirror.
Movie: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
Scene: Hitler signs an autograph for Jones.
Blooper: He spells his name wrong. He signs it Adolph, with a “ph”—the American spelling—instead of the German Adolf. And he signs it with his right hand; Hitler was a lefty.
Movie: The Crusades (1935)
Blooper: According to Gibbons, “The king actually flips back his cape and looks at his watch!”
Movie: First Knight (1996)
Scene: King Arthur’s knights are charging into battle on horseback.
Blooper: There are tire tracks in the foreground.
Movie: Psycho (1960)
Scene: Janet Leigh is lying dead in the shower, after the famous “shower scene.”
Blooper: The corpse swallows.
Movie: 48 Hours (1982)
Scene: Eddie Murphy escapes from jail, with Nick Nolte’s aid.
Blooper: Nolte puts Murphy in his car handcuffed. Then Murphy’s hands are free—he stretches one arm over the back of the seat. Next scene: He’s handcuffed again.
Movie: Funny Farm (1988)
Scene: Chevy Chase jumps into a lake with his clothes on. He gets out of the water and gets into his car.
Blooper: Next scene, his clothes have miraculously become dry.
Movie: North to Alaska (1960)
Scene: John Wayne gets into a fight in a bar.
Blooper: He loses his toupee. Then in the next scene, he’s hairy again.
Movie: Presumed Innocent (1990)
Scene: Harrison Ford is besieged by journalists outside the courtroom. A reporter holds a cassette tape recorder up to Ford’s face for a comment.
>
Blooper: It has no tape in it.
Baby pigs can be housebroken in as little as 3 days.
“THE TONIGHT SHOW” PART IV: JACK PAAR’S NEARLY FATAL BATHROOM JOKE
Did you know that bathroom humor nearly killed “The Tonight Show” in 1960? It was a big story that year—if you’re old enough to have watched “The Tonight Show” back then, you probably remember it well. If not, here’s the tale.
FEBRUARY 10, 1960
It began like any other night on “The Tonight Show.” Jack
Paar walked out onstage, greeted the audience, and began his monologue.
On this night, however, things would be different. Paar wanted to tell a joke he’d heard from a friend. The friend had learned it from his daughter, who learned it when her junior high school teacher told it to the class. After telling the joke, the teacher passed out typewritten copies of it for the kids to share with their parents. The girl’s father liked the joke so much that he gave his copy to Paar.
The joke was slightly risqué by 1960 TV standards. But Paar figured that if it was appropriate for a junior high school class, it was appropriate for his television audience. “I could have read it in church,” he joked years later. “Not on Sundays, but I could read it during choir practice on Wednesday.”
Paar told the audience that he had debated reading the joke on the show, and hinted that it might not appeal to everyone. “There’s a slight question of taste involved here,” he said. “I do this only with full knowledge that we’re an adult group gathered at this hour, and we’re not here to do anyone any harm.” And then he told the joke.
THE JOKE
“An English lady, while visiting Switzerland, was looking for a room, and she asked the schoolmaster if he could recommend any to her. He took her to see several rooms, and when everything was settled, the lady returned to her home to make the final preparations to move.
In Yukon, Oklahoma, it’s illegal for patients to pull their dentist’s teeth.
“When she arrived home, the thought suddenly occurred to her that she had not seen a W.C. That’s a water closet to the British. We would call it a bathroom or ladies’ room, men’s room. I guess a bathroom.
“So she immediately wrote a note to the schoolmaster asking him if there were a W.C. around. The schoolmaster was a very poor student of English, so he asked the parish priest if he could help in the matter. Together they tried to discover the meaning of the letters W.C. and the only solution they could find for the letters was a ‘Wayside Chapel.’ The schoolmaster then wrote to the English lady the following note:
“DEAR MADAM:
‘I take great pleasure in informing you that the W.C. is situated nine miles from the house you occupy, in the center of a beautiful grove of pine trees surrounded by lovely grounds. It is capable of holding 229 people and it is open on Sunday and Thursday only. As there is a great number of people and they are expected during the summer months, I would suggest that you come early, although there is plenty of standing room as a rule.
‘You will no doubt be glad to hear that a good number of people bring their lunch and make a day of it, while others who can afford to go by car and arrive just in time. I would especially recommend that your ladyship go on Thursday when there is musical accompaniment.
‘It may interest you to know that my daughter was married in the W.C. and it was there that she met her husband. I can remember the rush there was for seats. There were ten people to a seat usually occupied by one. It was wonderful to see the expressions on their faces.
‘The newest attraction is a bell donated by a wealthy resident of the district. It rings every time a person enters. A bazaar is to be held to provide plush seats for all the people, since they feel it is a long-felt need. My wife is rather delicate, so she can’t attend regularly.
Pearls are made of calcium carbonate, the active ingredient in antacids.
‘I shall be delighted to reserve the best seat for you if you wish, where you will be seen by all. For the children, there is a special time and place so that they will not disturb the elders. Hoping to have been some service to you, I remain
‘Sincerely,
‘The Schoolmaster’”
THAT’S NO JOKE
The joke got a hearty laugh from the audience. Paar thanked them and said, “You’re my kind of people.”
But apparently they weren’t NBC’s kind of people. Then, as now, “The Tonight Show” was taped in the afternoon, and broadcast at 11:30 p.m. after NBC censors had a chance to look it over. They had never made any substantive changes in the show before…but that night they excised the entire water closet joke without telling Paar in advance. “Some idiot got concerned about the words ‘water closet,’ “ he later explained.
Paar was angry when he found out what had happened, but he thought the controversy would make for an interesting discussion on his show. He proposed airing the censored joke the following evening, to “let the viewers decide for themselves” whether it was appropriate. NBC refused. Paar was furious—he felt the censorship was damaging to his reputation, since it implied that he had told a smutty joke on TV.
THAT’S ALL, FOLKS
The following evening, Paar walked out onto the stage as usual…but rather than deliver his monologue, he vented his rage at NBC. Calling the censorship “a question of free speech,” Paar announced that he was quitting “The Tonight Show.” “There must be a better way to make a living than this,” he said. “I love NBC, and they’ve been wonderful to me, but they let me down.” Then he bade farewell to the audience, telling them, “You’ve always been peachy to me, always.”
He walked off the stage and went home, leaving his shocked sidekick, Hugh Downs, to finish the show alone. “Is he gone?” Downs asked in amazement, telling the audience, “Jack frequently does things he regrets.”
Food fact: “Exocannibals” eat their enemies. “Indocannibals” eat their friends.”
HIDING OUT
The incident made headlines all over the country. But Paar was nowhere to be found—he and his wife, Miriam, had escaped to Florida, where they hid out in a half-finished luxury hotel that a friend was building.
The Paars didn’t have a phone at the hotel, but NBC somehow learned of their hiding place, and network president Robert Kintner flew down to talk things out. He eventually talked Paar into coming back…but only after he and Robert Sarnoff, the chairman of NBC, both publicly apologized for censoring the joke. Paar returned on March 7 after being absent nearly a month. “As I was saying before I was interrupted…,” he joked with the audience. “There must be a better way of making a living than this. Well, I’ve looked. And there isn’t!”
PAAR’S NO. 1 PROBLEM
Paar’s protest increased his celebrity status and made him a hero of sorts with the public. Ironically, however, the bathroom joke that nearly ended his career was now making it almost impossible for him to use public restrooms, because wherever he went—even to the bathroom—admirers would approach him and congratulate him on his victory.
“Finally you reach the porcelain,” he lamented, “and find that—with all eyes on your performance—you cannot! What to do? They are all watching! You panic because now they might think you are some kind of weirdo or voyeur looking around. You press the handle of the urinal, you whistle, and you wish you could get the battery-jump starter from the trunk of your auto.…I tell you, it’s very hard being a star in a men’s room.”
Turn to page 327 for Part V of “The Tonight Show’s” history.
***
Precise definition: “Egotist: A person more interested in himself than me.”
—Ambrose Bierce
The “Dick Van Dyke Show” pilot was bankrolled by Joseph Kennedy, JFK’s father.
“EXPLOITATION 2000”
As the year 2000 gets closer, you can be sure someone will put together a film festival featuring all the cheesy flicks ever made with “2000” in the title. Here’s a preview of what you can expect to
see there.
CHERRY 2000 (1987)
Plot: In the year 2000, a man short-circuits his sex-toy robots and goes looking for replacement parts across dangerous terrain. On the way, he meets a real female—Melanie Griffith (before breast implants).
DEATH RACE 2000 (1975). The ads said: “In the year 2000, hit-and-run driving is no longer a felony, it’s a national sport!”
Plot: Top driver “Frankenstein” (David Carradine) battles Machine Gun Joe Viterbo (Sly Stallone) to win the annual transcontinental race. The more people you run over, the better your score. Written by Charles Griffith (Little Shop of Horrors).
EQUALIZER 2000 (1987)
Plot: “Another Road Warrior-style post-Holocaust picture (set in Alaska, which is now a desert). A military/industrial compound protects the precious commodity of oil (sound familiar?). One of the guarding group’s officers is betrayed, so his son takes off for the ‘wasteland.’ There he’s captured by rebels, and eventually leads an assault on the compound.”—Film Encyclopedia of Science Fiction
MADRID IN THE YEAR 2000 (1925) Early silent film.
Plot: Unknown. Featured special effects which were so unbelievable (even then) that audience members burst out laughing.
1 APRIL 2000 (1950) A propaganda film from the Austrian government, designed to convince Allied forces (then occupying Austria) to grant them self-determination. An historical curiosity.
Plot: Depicts the chaos that would result if Allied forces waited until April Fool’s Day 2000 to give Austria its independence. Notable for introducing actor Curt Jurgens (who became a well-known movie star).
Sneakers get their name because they don’t squeak like leather shoes do.
TEST-TUBE TEENS FROM THE YEAR 2000 (1993)
Original title: The Virgin Hunters
Plot: “When sex is banned in the year 2000, horny teenagers are left with no choice but to travel though time for some action.”
Uncle John’s Giant 10th Anniversary Bathroom Reader Page 30