A TV SHOW IS BORN
“The Adventures of Superman” was actually just part of the Man of Steel’s leap into every existing entertainment medium. In the early 1940s, Superman was the star of a popular radio show and a movie cartoon series. In 1948 and 1950, he became the star of movie serials. (“Now the one and only Superman at his mightiest as a real live hero on the serial screen!”)
In 1951, DC comics agreed to a deal for a feature film and a TV series. The star of the serials, Kirk Alyn, was offered the lead role, but he declined. So the producers conducted an extensive—and unsuccessful—search for a new hero. They interviewed more than 200 actors; they became so desperate that they even checked out the 1951 Mr. America contest. They weren’t impressed. They wanted brains, not just beef.
It wasn’t until George Reeves strolled into their office one day that Our Hero was ready to fly again. Reeves, who’d played Brett Tarleton in Gone with the Wind, had been stuck in “B” films like Sir Galahad during the 1940s. Now he was hired to star in the first full-length Superman movie, Superman and the Mole Men (“America’s favorite hero! His latest... his greatest!”), not because of his acting ability, but because of his profile and—most important—his chin, which looked like Superman’s from the comics. Reeves wasn’t particularly excited about the part, either. “I’ve played about every type of part you can think of,” he said at the time. “Why not Superman?”
The low-budget film became the pilot episode of the TV series, which went on the air in 1953, sponsored by Kellogg’s.
American hens lay enough eggs each year to circle the equator 100 times.
CHEAP SHOTS
“Superman” was filmed like an assembly-line product. Each episode cost only $15,000 to make, and four episodes were shot every 10 days. The cast always wore the same clothes, because several episodes were filmed at the same time; this way they didn’t have to keep track of when they were supposed to change costumes.
SUPER SUITS
Reeves had naturally sloping shoulders, and Superman had big, broad ones—so the Superman costume had rubber and sponge padding built into it (which made it unbearably hot).
MAN AND SUPERMAN
• The show almost cost Reeves his life. In 1953, while Reeves was making an appearance as Superman in Detroit, a youngster aimed his father’s loaded pistol at Reeves. (He wanted to watch bullets bounce off Superman.) George calmly talked the kid into giving up the gun, but stopped wearing the Superman suit in public.
• Reeves tried to give up smoking, believing he’d be setting a bad example if kids spotted him with cigarettes. He also tried to avoid being seen in public with women, a tall order for a bachelor TV star. In 1953 he toured the country speaking to kids about the dangers of jaywalking, bicycling...and trying to fly.
UP IN THE SKY
Special effects have come a long way since Superman flew in 1951:
• For takeoffs, Reeves jumped off a springboard so he’d look like he was propelled into the air.
• If he was jumping out a window, he just leaped onto a mattress.
• If he was flying, he was pulled into the air by wires and pulleys, and in later episodes by a hydraulic system.
• For Superman’s dramatic landings, Reeves simply jumped from an off-screen stepladder.
TYPECASTING
Sadly, his success as Superman ruined Reeves’s chances for other acting parts. He had a role in the Oscar-winning film From Here to Eternity (1953), for example...but his scenes were cut because audiences shouted “Superman!” every time he appeared in the film. In 1959, after trying singing and directing, he put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger. The headlines blared: “Superman Kills Self.”
Until 1850, most golf balls were stuffed with feathers.
THE DEATH OF
WARREN G. HARDING
Did Warren Harding die of a heart attack or was he poisoned? This piece on his suspicious death is from It’s a Conspiracy!, by the National Insecurity Council.
The Deceased: Warren G. Harding, 29th president of the United States (1921-1923)
How He Died: In the summer of 1923, President Harding was visiting Vancouver when he became gravely ill. He was rushed to San Francisco and seemed to recover. But then, on August 2, 1923, he suddenly died of a heart attack. The New York Times reported: “Mrs. Harding was reading to the President, when utterly without warning, a slight shudder passed through his frame; he collapsed....A stroke of apoplexy was the cause of his death.”
Although initial newspaper accounts didn’t mention it, the White House physician, General Sawyer, was probably in the room as well when the president died.
SUSPICIOUS FACTS
Warren and the Duchess
• Harding owed his political success to his ambitious wife, Florence (nicknamed “the Duchess”). But his marriage wasn’t a happy one; he strayed often. During the 1920 campaign, for example, the Republican National Committee paid a former lover of Harding’s $20,000 for incriminating letters, paid her $2,000 a month for her silence, and sent her to Europe to keep her away from reporters.
• Harding had a child by Nan Britten, the daughter of a friend. In fact, they had regular trysts in a large White House closet.
• According to former Treasury agent Gaston Means, who worked for Mrs. Harding, the president’s wife despised her husband for his affairs and his ingratitude. In his bestselling book about Harding’s death, Means reported that when the president’s wife found out Harding had fathered Britten’s baby, she got hysterical and vowed revenge. “I made him, I made him president!” she raved. When she confronted her husband, there was a nasty scene. He roared that he had never loved her, was sick of the whole presidential charade, and wanted to live with Britten and his child.
Rats can live longer without water than camels can.
After Harding’s Death
• To everyone’s surprise, Mrs. Harding refused to allow either an autopsy or a death mask.
• The New York World reported: “There will be no death mask made of President Harding....Although it is the usual custom, when a Chief Executive dies, to have a mask made that his features may be preserved for posterity, Mrs. Harding demurred.”
• About a year later, while the president’s widow was visiting General Sawyer, the former White House physician unexpectedly died in his sleep.
• According to the account in The New York Times: “General Sawyer’s death was almost identical with the manner of death of the late Warren G. Harding when General Sawyer was with the President in San Francisco. Mrs. Harding was at White Oaks Farm (Sawyer’s home) when General Sawyer was found dead. Members of his family had no intimation of the seriousness of the general’s condition up to the moment he expired.”
POSSIBLE CONCLUSIONS
Harding really did have a heart attack. His administration was riddled with scandals, and people called for his impeachment. The president, who’d previously had five nervous breakdowns, was said to be despondent. He may have succumbed to the stress.
Harding was poisoned by his wife. If Harding was really ready to give up his political career and marriage, then the Duchess may have poisoned him either to avoid disgrace or to exact revenge. She may have tried first in Vancouver; when Harding didn’t die, the attempt was dismissed as food poisoning. Five days later, in San Francisco, she may have succeeded.
• Refusing a death mask and an autopsy is consistent with this scenario. (Poison victims sometimes die with horrible grimaces.)
• Sawyer’s death is either a remarkable coincidence or proof of Mrs. Harding’s guilt. Even if he wasn’t involved in killing the president, as a physician Sawyer may have guessed what had happened and helped to cover it up. Mrs. Harding could have poisoned him to keep her secret safe.
The Empire State Building is only 265 feet taller than the Eiffel Tower.
STATE YOUR NAME
You know the names of all 50 states...but do you know where any of them come from? Here’s the best information w
e could find on the origin of each.
ALABAMA. Possibly from the Creek Indian word alibamo, meaning “we stay here.”
ALASKA. From the Aleutian word alakshak, which means “great lands,” or “land that is not an island.”
ARIZONA. Taken either from the Pima Indian words ali shonak, meaning “little spring,” or from the Aztec word arizuma, meaning “silver-bearing.”
ARKANSAS. The French somehow coined it from the name of the Siouan Quapaw tribe.
CALIFORNIA. According to one theory, Spanish settlers named it after a Utopian society described in a popular 16th-century novel called Serged de Esplandian.
COLORADO. Means “red” in Spanish. The name was originally applied to the Colorado River, whose waters are reddish with canyon clay.
CONNECTICUT. Taken from the Mohican word kuenihtekot, which means “long river place.”
DELAWARE. Named after Lord De La Warr, a governor of Virginia. Originally used only to name the Delaware River.
FLORIDA. Explorer Ponce de Leon named the state Pascua Florida—”flowery Easter”—on Easter Sunday in 1513.
GEORGIA. Named after King George II of England, who chartered the colony in 1732.
HAWAII. An English adaptation of the native word owhyhee, which means “homeland.”
IDAHO. Possibly taken from the Kiowa Apache word for the Comanche Indians.
Survey results: 56% of high school seniors try alcohol before the eighth grade.
ILLINOIS. The French bastardization of the Algonquin word illini, which means “men.”
INDIANA. Named by English-speaking settlers because the territory was full of Indians.
IOWA. The Sioux word for “beautiful land,” or “one who puts to sleep.”
KANSAS. Taken from the Sioux word for “south wind people,” their name for anyone who lived south of Sioux territory.
KENTUCKY. Possibly derived from the Indian word kan-tuk-kee, meaning “dark and bloody ground,” or kan-tuc-kec, “land of green reeds,” or ken-take, meaning “meadowland.”
LOUISIANA. Named after French King Louis XIV.
MAINE. The Old French word for “province.”
MARYLAND. Named after Queen Henrietta Maria, wife of English King George I.
MASSACHUSETTS. Named after the Massachusetts Indian tribe. Means “large hill place.”
MICHIGAN. Most likely from the Chippewa word for “great water,” micigama.
MINNESOTA. From the Sioux word for “sky tinted” or “muddy water.”
MISSISSIPPI. Most likely taken from the Chippewa words mici (“great”) and zibi (“river”).
MISSOURI. From the Algonquin word for “muddy water.”
MONTANA. Taken from the Latin word for “mountainous.”
NEBRASKA. From the Otos Indian word for “broad water.”
NEVADA. Means “snow-clad” in Spanish.
NEW HAMPSHIRE. Capt. John Mason, one of the original colonists, named it after his English home county of Hampshire.
NEW JERSEY. Named after the English Isle of Jersey.
Big splash: Most hippopotamuses are born under water.
NEW MEXICO. The Spanish name for the territory north of the Rio Grande.
NEW YORK. Named after the Duke of York and Albany.
NORTH AND SOUTH CAROLINA. From the Latin name Carolus; named in honor of King Charles I of England.
NORTH AND SOUTH DAKOTA. Taken from the Sioux word for “friend,” or “ally.”
OHIO. Means “great,” “fine,” or “good river” in Iriquois.
OKLAHOMA. The Choctaw word for “red man.”
OREGON. Possibly derived from Ouaricon-sint, the French name for the Wisconsin River.
PENNSYLVANIA. Named after William Penn, Sr., the father of the colony’s founder, William Penn. Means “Penn’s woods.”
RHODE ISLAND. Named “Roode Eylandt” (Red Island) because of its red clay.
TENNESSEE. Named after the Cherokee tanasi villages along the banks of the Little Tennessee River.
TEXAS. Derived from the Caddo Indian word for “friend,” or “ally.”
UTAH. Means “upper,” or “higher,” and was originally the name that Navajos called the Shoshone tribe.
VERMONT. A combination of the French words vert (“green”) and mont (“mountain”).
VIRGINIA AND WEST VIRGINIA. Named after Queen Elizabeth I of England, the “virgin” queen, by Sir Walter Raleigh in 1584.
WASHINGTON. Named in tribute to George Washington.
WISCONSIN. Taken from the Chippewa word for “grassy place.”
WYOMING. Derived from the Algonquin word for “large prairie place.”
The story of Cinderella has been made into a movie 58 times.
WHO WERE
HARLEY & DAVIDSON?
Here’s the story behind two of the best-known names in America.
The first motorcycle was developed by Gottlieb Daimler, one of the founders of Daimler-Benz (maker of the Mercedes Benz) in Germany in 1885. Ten years later, two German brothers, Hildebrand and Alois Wolfmuller, began manufacturing motorcycles to sell to the public.
In 1901 news of the Wolfmullers’ motorcycles reached Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Four young friends—21-year-old William Harley and the Davidson brothers, William, Walter, and Arthur—decided to build a small engine in the Davidsons’ backyard and attach it to one of their bicycles. Legend has it that the engine was made from household castoffs, including a carburetor made of a tomato can.
After working out the bugs on their prototype, they built three more motorized bicycles in 1903 and began riding them around town. Their bikes were simple but reliable—one of them ultimately racked up 100,000 miles. People began asking if they were for sale.
The Harley-Davidson Motorcycle Company legally incorporated in 1909. More than 150 U.S. manufacturers eventually followed suit, but Harley-Davidson has outlasted them all. It’s now the only American motorcycle company and sells more than 50,000 motorcycles a year.
THE HARLEY IMAGE
In the mid-1980s, Harley’s “rough rider” image began hurting sales. So the company took steps to change it. They encouraged Harley execs to wear white or red shirts to biker rallies to dispel the notion that Harley riders wear only black. They formed the Harley Owner’s Group (H.O.G.) and the Ladies of Harley club to offset outlaw biker clubs. And they licensed the Harley name and logo to $100 million worth of products as diverse as wine coolers, cologne, and removable tattoos. Still, the company prefers customers with permanent Harley tattoos: “If you can persuade the customer to tattoo your name on their chest,” one executive admits, “they probably will not switch brands.”
The smallest bones in your body are in your ear.
THE HONEYMOONERS
When TV critics are asked to pick the best sitcom in history, many select Jackie Gleason’s 1955 one-season wonder, “The Honeymooners.” Here are some facts about that classic program from Cult TV, by John Javna.
HOW IT STARTED
In the early days of TV, the three networks were CBS, NBC...and Dumont. This third network was founded in 1946 by the Allen Dumont Laboratories and limped along for nine years before finally disappearing in 1955. Its main contribution to television history was making Jackie Gleason a star.
In 1950 Gleason wasn’t welcome on the major networks—he’d done poorly as star of NBC’s sitcom “The Life of Riley” the previous season, and network executives were wary of his excessive lifestyle. But on Dumont, he flourished. As host of its 1950 variety show “Cavalcade of Stars”—performing his own comedy sketches as well as emceeing—he was a smash. His first two shows attracted a large audience and got rave reviews.
Inventing a Classic. For the third one, Gleason wanted to come up with something special. So he invented a husband/wife comedy sketch based on his childhood environment. “I knew a thousand couples like these in Brooklyn,” Gleason said. “It was like the loudmouth husband... with the wife who’s a hell of a lot smarter than [him]. My neighborhood was filled w
ith them.”
His writers wanted to call the skit “The Beast,” but Gleason didn’t like it. The husband might be a windbag, Gleason said, but he wasn’t an animal—he and his wife really loved each other. So the writers suggested “The Lovers”—which was close, but not right. Finally, Gleason came up with “The Honeymooners.”
The sketch, which featured Jackie as bus driver Ralph Kramden and Pert Kelton as his wife, Alice, was only on for a few minutes. But it elicited an enormous response from viewers. In fact, it was so popular that it became a regular feature on Gleason’s show. Gleason added two neighbor characters: sewer worker Ed Norton and his wife, Trixie.
Spotted skunks do handstands before they spray.
When Gleason moved to CBS in 1952, he brought “The Honeymooners” with him, and in 1955 it became a series. Thirty-nine episodes aired. Although it was a popular program, Gleason didn’t want to continue it. He preferred variety shows, where “The Honeymooners” periodically surfaced. The last “Honeymooners” special aired in 1978. Gleason unveiled 75 “lost episodes” in the 1980s.
INSIDE FACTS
Belly Laughs. Gleason never rehearsed, and generally didn’t need to because he had a photographic memory—one look at the script and he had it down. Nonetheless, he occasionally forgot his lines, which was a potential disaster in the days of live TV. When he did forget, Gleason would pat his stomach—a sign for someone else to think of something...quick. Once Alice snapped, “If you get any bigger, gas bag, you’ll just float away.” That wasn’t in the script.
Another time, Gleason forgot to make an entrance. Art Carney (Ed Norton), who was onstage at the time, calmly went to the icebox, pulled out an orange, and began peeling it until Gleason realized his mistake.
One evening, Art Carney showed up for a performance completely plastered. Gleason, who’d memorized Carney’s part as well as his own, did the whole show by asking a sitting (and incoherent) Carney yes or no questions.
Uncle John’s Legendary Lost Bathroom Reader Page 10