Most critics called SNL in the early-1990s a “juvenile” show, but that was fine by NBC. The 18 to 34 demographic brought in the highest advertising dollars—and the show remained high in the ratings…for a while.
When you do something on the “Q.T.” you are using an abbreviation of the word quiet.
SATURDAY NIGHT DEAD #3
By 1995 the writers were finding it increasingly tough to find new material for overused characters, which resulted in yet another a succession of seemingly endless and pointless skits. Once again, the show had become difficult to watch. The network pressured SNL to clean house one more time, and Michaels agreed:
No one anywhere was saying, “SNL is doing what it’s supposed to be doing,” or “These people are funny.” So we had to let Adam Sandler go with two years on his contract, and Farley with a year. And Chris Rock had gone on to do In Living Color.
It was time for a new cast.
The roller-coaster ride continued. To read about SNL’s long crawl back to the top, go to page 490.
DEEP THOUGHTS BY JACK HANDEY
• The face of a child can say it all, especially the mouth part of the face.”
• “For mad scientists who keep brains in jars, here’s a tip: Why not add a slice of lemon to each jar, for freshness.”
• “I wish I had a kryptonite cross, because then you could keep both Dracula and Superman away.”
• “Can’t the Marx Brothers be arrested and maybe even tortured for all the confusion and problems they’ve caused?”
• “The crows were all calling to him, thought Caw.”
• “Why do the caterpillar and the ant have to be enemies? One eats leaves, and the other eats caterpillars.…Oh, I see now.”
• “Consider the daffodil. And while you’re doing that, I’ll be over here, looking through your stuff.”
• “Instead of a Seeing Eye dog, what about a gun? It’s cheaper than a dog, plus if you walk around shooting all the time, people are going to get out of the way. Cars, too.”
Fewer than 1% of people 1) notice a car alarm, and 2) call the police when they hear a car alarm.
FUTURE IMPERFECT
Uncle John predicts that you won’t believe some of the ridiculous things people use to tell fortunes. How does he know? His Ouija board told him.
Scarpomancy: Predict someone’s future by studying their old shoes.
Tiromancy: Study the shape, holes, mold, and other features on a piece of cheese.
Scatomancy: Predict your future by studying your own poop. (Not to be confused with spatulamancy, the study of “skin, bones, and excrement.”)
Bibliomancy: Open the Bible and read the first passage you see—that’s your fortune. (In some Christian denominations, this is grounds for excommunication.)
Stichomancy: Read the first passage of any book you see.
Pynchonomancy: Throw darts at a paperback copy of Gravity’s Rainbow, by Thomas Pynchon, then read the sentence on the deepest page penetrated by the dart.
Uromancy: Predict someone’s future by studying their urine.
Dilitiriomancy: Feed African benge poison to a chicken. Ask the gods a question, being careful to end the question with, “if the chicken dies, the answer is yes,” or “if the chicken dies, the answer is no.” Then wait to see if the chicken dies.
Haruspication: Study the guts of an animal, preferably a sacred one.
Hepatoscopy: Study only the animal’s liver; ignore the rest of the guts.
Alphitomancy: Feed a special cake to an alleged wrongdoer. An innocent person will be able to eat and digest the cake, a guilty person will gag on the cake or become ill.
Alepouomancy: Draw a grid in the dirt outside your village. Each square represents a different question. Sprinkle the grid with peanuts, wait for a fox to eat them, then study the fox’s footprints to see how the questions are answered.
NAME THAT CITY
Here’s a game: a lot of American cities have had other names throughout their histories. Can you guess which are which?
FORMER NAME
PRESENT NAME
1. Fort Dallas
a. Austin, TX
2. Hot Springs
b. Cleveland, OH
3. Yerba Buena
c. New York, NY
4. Fort Dearborn
d. Baltimore, MD
5. Lancaster
e. Charleston, SC
6. Terminus
f. Atlanta, GA
7. Cole’s Harbor
g. Chicago, IL
8. Waterloo
h. Miami, FL
9. Willingtown
i. Minneapolis, MN
10. Quinnipiac
j. Truth or Consequences, NM
11. Assunpink
k. Reno, NV
12. Rumford
l. Milwaukee, WI
13. Oyster Point
m. Lincoln, NE
14. New Netherland
n. San Francisco, CA
15. St. Charles
o. Denver, CO
16. Fort Pontchartrain
p. Wilmington, DE
17. All Saints
q. Concord, NH
18. Juneautown
r. Detroit, MI
19. Lake Crossing
s. Trenton, NJ
20. New Connecticut
t. New Haven, CT
Answers
1. h; 2. j; 3. n; 4. g; 5. m; 6. f; 7. d; 8. a; 9. p; 10. t; 11. s; 12. q; 13. e; 14. c; 15. o; 16. r; 17. i; 18. l; 19. k; 20. b
In St. Louis, Missouri, it’s illegal to drink beer from a bucket when you’re sitting at the curb.
WORD ORIGINS
Ever wonder where words come from?
Here are some more interesting stories.
FIASCO
Meaning: A complete and humiliating failure
Origin: “The making of a fine Venetian glass bottle is a difficult process—it must be perfect. If the slightest flaw is detected the glassblower turns the bottle into a common flask—called in Italian, fiasco.” (From Why Do We Say It?, by Frank Oppel)
ASSASSIN
Meaning: One who carries out a plot to kill a prominent person
Origin: “In the 11th and 12th centuries, the Hashashin (“hashish eaters”) were a secret murder cult of the Ismaili sect of Muslims. Their leader, Hasan ben Sabah, offered them sensual pleasures, including beautiful maidens and hashish, so that they supposed they were in heaven. He then sent them on gangland-style missions to rub out prominent targets, assuring them of a quick trip to paradise if things went sour. The Hashashin survived in our word assassin.” (From Remarkable Words with Astonishing Origins, by John Train)
SEEDY
Meaning: Somewhat disreputable; squalid
Origin: “During the seasons when rye, barley, oats, and other grains were being planted, a fellow who spent his days in the fields was likely to be covered with seeds. Once the derisive title entered common usage, it came to mean anything run-down—from shacks to individuals.” (From Why You Say It, by Webb Garrison)
BOO
Meaning: An exclamation used to frighten or surprise someone
Origin: “The word boh!, used to frighten children, was the name of Boh, a great general, the son of the Norse god, Odin, whose very appellation struck immediate panic in his enemies.” (From Pulleyn’s Etymological Compendium, by M. A. Thomas)
Americans stand about 14 inches apart when they converse; Russians, about 10 inches.
TRIVIAL
Meaning: Of little or no consequence/value
Origin: “The Latin triviu— from tri (three) and via (way)—means ‘a place where three roads meet.’ In Medieval schools the trivium were three roads of learning—grammar, logic, rhetoric. With the passage of time the ‘academic’ trivium was forgotten but not the ‘inconsequential’ trivial. It has long been felt that gossips and idlers gather where roads intersect. What was usually discussed at these congregations was the commonplace, matters of little value, the gosssip that one mi
ght expect to hear at tri-viae—the trivial.” (From The Story Behind the Word, by Morton S. Freeman)
GALORE
Meaning: A great deal of something
Origin: “The term was brought into our speech by sailors. It is from the Irish go leor (‘in abundance’).” (From War Slang, by Paul Dickson)
TATTOO
Meaning: A permanent mark on the skin made by ingraining an indelible pigment
Origin: “When Captain Cook sailed to Tahiti in 1769, he unwittingly introduced tattoos to sailors. Upon studying the island’s inhabitants, Cook described how ‘both sexes paint their bodys.’ Cook called it ‘tattow,’ his rendition of the Tahitian term tatau. The word was derived from the Polynesian ta, ‘to strike,’ a reference to the puncturing of the skin ‘with small instruments made of bone, cut into short teeth.’” (From The Chronology of Words and Phrases, by Linda and Roger Flavell)
ATCHOO!
Meaning: The sound you make when you sneeze
Origin: “Excluded from dictionaries, this imitative word corresponds oddly with the French a tes souhaits (pronounced ‘a tay soo-eh’), their version of ‘God bless.’ It even sounds like it, though à tes souhaits follows the sneeze. Is this overlap a mere fluke, or has somebody really been listening?” (From The Secret Lives of Words, by Paul West)
Chance that a driver will swerve out of their lane of traffic while talking on a cellphone: 7%.
MEMORABLE MOMENTS IN MARKETING
All those advertising gimmicks that clutter our lives didn’t simply materialize out of thin air. There’s a story behind each one…
MEMORABLE MOMENT: First mail solicitation
THE PRODUCT: National Cash Register
THE STORY: In the late 1800s, John Patterson’s store had a problem with employee theft. There was no reliable method of making sure clerks didn’t simply help themselves to the cash that came in. When Patterson heard about a saloonkeeper in Dayton named James Ritty who had solved the problem, he investigated.
Ritty had invented a “cash register,” a machine that kept a running tab of all the money received during the day. Patterson ordered two, and they ended his employee theft problem. Patterson was so impressed that he bought the cash register company for $6,500 in 1884 and renamed it National Cash Register.
Convinced that cash registers would make him rich, he mailed out 90,000 brochures—one to every major retailer in the Midwest. It was the nation’s first serious direct-mail campaign—and it was a complete failure. Patterson discovered that the brochures had been intercepted by the same salesclerks who were stealing cash. The brochures were destroyed before they could be seen by the business owners.
He changed his strategy and sent out hand-addressed envelopes marked “highly confidential.” Inside, store owners found fancy invitations asking them to come to the best hotel in town for a demonstration of a foolproof method of ending employee theft. That year he sold over 15,000 machines. By 1922 he had sold two million cash registers. Today National Cash Register (NCR) is still a thriving corporation, all because of America’s very first junk mail campaign.
MEMORABLE MOMENT: First service contract
THE PRODUCT: Coleman lanterns
THE STORY: William (W. C.) Coleman was a typewriter salesman in 1900 who was partially blind. One evening he walked into a drugstore in Alabama that was illuminated by a pressurized gas lantern. It was so much brighter than the standard wick-burning oil lamps that for the first time Coleman could see well at night. He immediately quit his job selling typewriters so he could sell the gas lamps instead. Sixty sales calls later, he’d sold only two lanterns. He discovered people were so used to inferior lamps that they refused to believe Coleman’s were better.
White pelicans don’t feed where they nest. They may fly 100 miles each day in search of food.
So he decided to rent the lanterns for $1 per month, promising that any lamps that quit working would be immediately repaired free of charge. “No light, no pay,” he said. Four days later, he had sold every lantern he had. In 1901 he bought the patents for the lamp and named it after himself. Today Coleman products are available worldwide, all because of a bright idea: the first service contract.
MEMORABLE MOMENT: First use of the phrase “new and improved”
THE PRODUCT: Toni Home Permanent
THE STORY: The “permanent wave” style of curling hair was invented in 1906. And for close to 40 years, the only way a woman could get a “perm” was to go to a beauty salon and sit underneath a large, cumbersome machine. In 1943 Richard Harris became the first person to offer a “home permanent.” His product, called Noma (because it used No Machines) used chemicals to curl hair. Unfortunately, it also damaged hair. Harris reformulated the product and changed the name to Toni (“tony” was slang for “classy”). He came up with the slogan “new and improved” and was back in business again. Ten years after his disastrous Noma experience, Harris sold Toni to Gillette for $20 million, and his slogan went down in advertising history.
MEMORABLE MOMENT: First premium
THE PRODUCT: Quaker Oats
THE STORY: As we told you in Uncle John’s All-Purpose Extra Strength Bathroom Reader, in 1881 Henry Parsons Crowell bought a small bankrupt oat mill called the Quaker Mill in Ravenna, Ohio. In those days oats were sold in 180-pound barrels, which were kept in the back of store. Crowell decided to sell his oats in two-pound packages, advertising that his resealable cartons kept his oats free from dirt, disease, animals, and insects. Crowell also added another new gimmick: premiums. Each box contained a free spoon or a dish. Boxtops could be redeemed for kitchen items or a radio. In 1888 Crowell, Schumacher, and five other oatmeal processors merged their companies to form the American Cereal Company, later renamed Quaker Oats. When Crowell died in 1943, he was one of the wealthiest men in Chicago, due in large measure to the fact that he was the first person to put a free prize in the bottom of a box of cereal.
Only 20% of diamonds are considered high enough quality to be classified as a “gem.”
MEMORABLE MOMENT: First money-back guarantee
THE PRODUCT: Sherwin-Williams paint
THE STORY: Henry Sherwin and Edward Williams formed a paint company in 1866. Their paint was so cheap that it washed off in the rain and peeled in the sun. Dissatisfied customers refused to buy any more paint from them.
So they reformulated the product, improving the quality. But they couldn’t convince people to buy it because of their bad reputation. So to overcome this resistance, Sherwin-Williams offered to refund cusomers’ money if they weren’t completely satisfied with the paint. It worked. Today Sherwin-Williams is the largest producer and distributor of paints and varnishes in the United States, and the third largest worldwide, thanks to the invention of the money-back guarantee.
UNCLE JOHN’S POLICE LOG
In February 2000, an accountant named John Brady was using a restroom in East Memphis, Tennessee, when a man reached under the stall, grabbed his pants leg, and demanded that Brady hand over his wallet. When Brady, 55, refused, the robber, 29-year-old Oscar Reynolds, grabbed Brady’s ankles and tried to pull him out of the stall. All he managed to do was tear off half of Brady’s pants—the half that contained his wallet. Luckily, though, Brady’s screams alerted security guards, who nabbed the thief and held him until police arrived. It took a jury just 15 minutes to convict Reynolds of robbery; a judge later gave him the maximum sentence: 10 years…in the can.
“Researchers” in Washington State claim to have taken a plaster cast of Bigfoot’s butt.
TRUST ME…
Call it doublespeak, call it spin, call it “a different version of the facts.” The truth is—it’s still a lie.
TRUST ME… “All the waste in a year from a nuclear power plant can fit under a desk.”
SAID BY: Presidential candidate Ronald Reagan, 1980
THE FACT: It would have to be a pretty big desk—the average nuclear plant yields 30 tons of waste per year.
TRUST ME… “I
f you don’t start crying right now, I’m gonna have that dog shot!”
SAID BY: Director Norman Taurog. Taurog said this to his 10-year-old nephew Jackie Cooper, while filming the movie Skippy in 1931. Cooper was having trouble crying on cue, so his dog was removed from the set and a gunshot rang out. Cooper started sobbing profusely while the cameras rolled.
THE FACT: After Taurog was satisfied with the footage he brought the un-shot dog back on the set. He won an Oscar for best director.
TRUST ME… “Though neutral during WWII, Switzerland favored the Allied cause.”
SAID BY: The inscription on a watch given to President Truman in 1946 by the city of Geneva
THE FACT: The Swiss government helped finance the Nazi movement.
TRUST ME… “I wasn’t lying, Senator. I was presenting a different version of the facts.”
SAID BY: Oliver North at the Iran-Contra Hearings, 1987
THE FACT: No comment.
TRUST ME… “I have never had my cheeks altered or my eyes altered. I did not have my lips thinned, nor have I had dermabrasion or a skin peel.”
SAID BY: Michael Jackson
THE FACT: Again, no comment.
Shifts in the Earth’s crust have moved the pyramids of Egypt three miles south in 4,500 years.
Uncle John's Ahh-Inspiring Bathroom Reader Page 49