“Then he took the song he’d written, The Chipmunk Song,’ to Liberty and the president, Alvin’s namesake, said, ‘We need hits, not chipmunks.’ My dad said, ‘You have nothing to lose, why don’t you put it out?’ In the next seven weeks they sold 4.5 million records.”
Ultimately, the first Chipmunk record sold more than 7 million copies; at the time, it was the fastest-selling record in history.
LIFE AFTER DEATH
The Chipmunks outlived Bagdasarian. He died in 1972 of a heart attack; 11 years later, in 1983, the Chipmunks emerged as stars of their own Saturday morning TV cartoon show. Today they rank as three of the most lucrative characters ever created in a pop song.
THE “PURPLE PEOPLE EATER”
In 1958 a friend of actor/singer Sheb Wooley told him a riddle he’d heard from his kid: “What flies, has one horn, has one eye, and eats people?” The answer: “A one-eyed, one-horned people eater.” Wooley thought it was funny, and wrote a song based on it.
A short time later, he met with the president of MGM Records to decide on his next record. Wooley played every song he’d written, but there was nothing the guy liked. “You got anything else?” the president asked. “Well, yeah,” Wooley said, “one more thing—but it’s nothing you’d want to hear.” The president insisted, so Wooley reluctantly played him “Purple People Eater.” Three weeks later it was the #1 song in the country.
There isn’t any sand in sandpaper.
THE SECRETS OF A
HARLEQUIN ROMANCE
Romance novels account for a hefty chunk of the paperback book market. If you’re looking for a few extra bucks, writing one may be a way to pick them up. So, for you aspiring “writers,” here are some facts and guidelines about Harlequin Romances.
VITAL STATS
History: Harlequin Books was founded in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in 1949 to reprint romance novels put out by the British publisher Mills & Boon. In 1958 Richard and Mary Bonnycastle bought the company, rechristened it Harlequin Enterprises, and set up headquarters in Toronto. Now, with more than 10 billion romances sold, Harlequin is the McDonalds of paperback publishing. They print books in some 17 languages and ships to more than 100 different countries.
Sales: In 1970 Harlequin sold 3 million books. Now it sells more than 200 million a year. The company estimates that every six seconds, another Harlequin romance is sold.
Market: Romance is the biggest-selling area of the paperback book market—25% to 40% of all mass-market paperback sales...and Harlequin has an estimated 80% of that market. Surveys show that romance addicts will spend up to $60 a month on romances (and read them in less than two hours apiece).
Audience: More than 100 million people worldwide read romances regularly—mostly in the U.S., Germany, France, and the U.K. But Harlequin reports that sales are growing steadily in Asia. Company surveys indicate that 50% of its North American readers are college-educated, and a third make more than $30,000 a year.
YOU CAN WRITE A ROMANCE
Tired of reading other people’s fantasies? Think you’ve got what it takes to pen prose powerful enough to promote palpitations? Want to try your hand at writing a romance novel? Here are excerpts from the editorial guidelines for a basic Harlequin romance. This is the information Harlequin supplies to all prospective writers, and we provide it here as a service to you.
To avoid being trapped in a burning building, Hans Christian Anderson always carried a rope.
Guidelines: “What we are looking for are romances with...strong believable characters, not stereotypes; stories that center on the development of the romance between the heroine and hero, with the emphasis on feelings and emotions.”
Style: “Keep ‘strong’ language (swear words) and highly provocative, sensual language to a minimum.
“Descriptions of sex or sexual feeling should be kept to a minimum in Romances. Love scenes are fine, but the descriptions of such, which should not go on for pages, should deal with how the heroine feels (perhaps the hero, too)—her emotional responses, not just purely physical sensations. Leave a lot to the imagination. A kiss and an embrace, if well told, can be just as stimulating to the reader as pages of graphically described sensual scenes.”
Heroine: “Generally, younger than the hero, relatively inexperienced sexually, though this fact need not be stressed. She should hold traditional (not to be equated with old-fashioned) moral standards....The heroine need not be a career woman, nor even a woman with a fascinating, different job....She may hold just an average job, earning average income; she may be unemployed. If she works in a traditional woman’s job—secretarial, nursing, teaching, etc.—that’s okay, too.
Hero: “Try to avoid excessive age difference; for instance, the 17-year-old heroine and the 37-year-old hero. He should be very attractive, worldly and successful in his field and, unlike the heroine, quite sexually experienced, and this fact may be implied.”
SEND NOW!
Want more info? Send for complete guidelines. Enclose a self-addressed, stamped envelope to Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd., 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9. (Don’t quit your day job: Publishers receive up to 1,000 unsolicited manuscripts every month. For the few books they do buy, they pay advances between $1,000 and $15,000, with royalties of 7% to 8%.)
Ride on: 10% of Californians own convertibles.
UNSUNG SUPERHEROES
Imagine inventing America’s most popular comic character...and getting only $130 for it. That’s what happened to these guys.
THE HEROES: Jerry Siegel and Joseph Shuster
WHAT THEY DID: Created Superman, the most popular comic book character in American history.
One night in 1934, 17-year-old Jerry Siegel, an aspiring comic book writer fresh out of high school, came up with the idea for Superman. He was so excited that at dawn he ran 12 blocks to his tell his friend and partner, Joseph Shuster.
The pair began drawing up cartoon panels showing their hero in action. They sent samples to newspaper comic strip editors all over the country, but no one was interested. Finally, in 1938, DC Comics agreed to print a Superman comic and paid Siegel and Shuster $130 ($10 a page for 13 pages of work) for it. In addition, the two were hired as staff artists to draw future Superman comics.
Superman made his first appearance in June 1938. He was an instant smash. Over the years he inspired a radio show, animated cartoons, a TV series, movies, and licensed products. In the 1970s alone, Superman products grossed about $1 billion.
THE SAD FACTS: When Siegel and Shuster sold the first comic to DC for $130 and signed on as staff artists, they effectively signed away all rights to Superman. From then on, all the money went to DC Comics.
They continued drawing the strip for DC until 1948, when the company fired them for asking for a share of the profits. Both men filed suits against DC...which they ultimately lost. By the 1970s, both were broke, living on money made by selling old comic books and other memorabilia they still owned. Shuster was unemployed, nearly blind, and living in a tiny apartment in Queens, New York.
Finally, in 1975, Warner Communications (owner of DC) voluntarily gave them pensions of $20,000 a year. In 1981 these were increased to $30,000—plus a $15,000 bonus after the first Superman film grossed $275 million. That was all the compensation the two men ever received for their creation.
Emergency rooms treat twice as many left-handed people for accidents as right-handed people.
PATRON SAINTS
The Roman Catholic Church has more than 5,000 saints, many of whom are “patron saints”—protectors of certain professions, sick people, even hobbies. Here are a few of the more interesting ones.
Saint Matthew: Patron Saint of Accountants. (He was a tax collector before becoming an apostle.)
Saint Joseph of Cupertino: Patron Saint of Air Travelers. (Nicknamed “The Flying Friar,” he could levitate.)
Saint Fiacre: Patron Saint of Taxi Drivers, Hemorrhoid Sufferers, and Venereal Disease.
Saint Matrona: P
atron Saint of Dysentery Sufferers.
Saint Louis IX of France: Patron Saint of Button Makers.
Saint Adrian of Nicomedia: Patron Saint of Arms Dealers.
Saint Anne: Patron Saint of Women in Labor. (Not to be confused with Saint John Thwing, Patron Saint of Women in Difficult Labor.)
Saint Nicholas of Myra (also known as Santa Claus): Patron Saint of Children and Pawn-brokers.
Saint Bernardino of Siena: Patron Saint of Advertisers and Hoarseness.
Saint Blaise: Patron Saint of Throats (he saved a child from choking) and Diseased Cattle (he also healed animals).
Saint Joseph: Patron Saint of Opposition to Atheistic Communism.
Saint Sebastian: Patron Saint of Neighborhood Watch Groups.
Saint Joseph of Arimathea: Patron Saint of Funeral Directors.
Saint Eligius: Patron Saint of Gas Station Workers. (He miraculously cured horses, the precursors to automobiles.)
Saint Martin de Porres: Patron Saint of Race Relations, Social Justice, and Italian Hairdressers.
Saint Martha: Patron Saint of Dietitians.
In 1992 former Panamanian pres. Noriega’s wife was arrested in Miami for shoplifting buttons.
ACCIDENTAL
DISCOVERIES
Not all scientific progress is the product of systematic experimentation. A number of important modern discoveries have been a matter of chance—which means you should keep your eyes and ears open, even while you’re just sitting there on the john. You never know what might happen.
The Discovery: Insulin
How It Happened: In 1889 Joseph von Mering and Oscar Minkowski, two German scientists, were trying to understand more about the digestive system. As part of their experiments, they removed the pancreas from a living dog to see what role the organ plays in digestion.
The next day a laboratory assistant noticed an extraordinary number of flies buzzing around the dog’s urine. Von Mering and Minkowski examined the urine to see why...and were surprised to discover that it contained a high concentration of sugar. This indicated that the pancreas plays a role in removing sugar from the bloodstream.
Legacy: Von Mering and Minkowski were never able to isolate the chemical that produced this effect, but their discovery enabled John J. R. MacLeod and Frederick Banting, two Canadian researchers, to develop insulin extracts from horse and pig pancreases and to pioneer their use as a treatment for diabetes in 1921.
The Discovery: Photography
How It Happened: The camera obscura, designed by Leonardo da Vinci in the early 1500s and perfected in 1573 by E. Danti, was a workable camera. It was widely used in the early 1800s—but not for taking photographs. The reason: The technology for photos didn’t exist. People used the camera for tracing images instead, placing transparent paper over its glass plate.
In the 1830s, French artist L. J. M. Daguerre began experimenting with ways of recording a camera’s images on light-sensitive photographic plates. By 1838 he’d made some progress; using silver-coated sheets of copper, he found a way to capture an image.
Aztec emperor Montezuma had a nephew, Cuitlahac, whose name meant “plenty of excrement.”
However, the image was so faint that it was barely visible. He tried dozens of substances to see if they’d darken it...but nothing worked. Frustrated, Daguerre put the photographic plate away in a cabinet filled with chemicals and moved on to other projects.
A few days later, Daguerre took the plate out. To his astonishment, the plate had mysteriously darkened; now the image was perfectly visible. One of the chemicals in the cabinet was almost certainly responsible...but which one?
He devised a method to find out. Each day he removed one chemical from the cabinet and put a fresh photographic plate in. If the plate still darkened overnight, the chemical would be disqualified. If it didn’t, he’d know he’d found the chemical he was looking for. It seemed like a good idea, but even after all the chemicals had been removed, the plate continued to darken. Daguerre wondered why. Then, examining the cabinet closely, he noticed a few drops of mercury that had spilled from a broken thermometer onto one of the shelves.
Legacy: Later experiments with mercury vapor proved that this substance was responsible. The daguerrotype’s worldwide popularity paved the way for the development of photography.
The Discovery: Safety glass
How It Happened: In 1903 Edouard Benedictus, a French chemist, was experimenting in his lab when he dropped an empty glass flask on the floor. It shattered, but remained in the shape of a flask. Benedictus was bewildered. When he examined the flask more closely, he discovered that the inside was coated with a film residue of cellulose nitrate, a chemical he’d been working with earlier. The film had held the glass together.
Not long afterward, Benedictus read a newspaper article about a girl who had been badly injured by flying glass in a car accident. He thought back to the glass flask in his lab and realized that coating automobile windshields, as the inside of the flask had been coated, would make them less dangerous.
Legacy: Variations of the safety glass he produced—a layer of plastic sandwiched by two layers of glass—are still used in automobiles today.
A typical eggshell takes up 12% of an egg’s weight.
BOX-OFFICE BLOOPERS II
Here are a few more movie mistakes to look for in popular films.
Movie: Rear Window (1954)
Scene: Jimmy Stewart, in a cast and sitting in a wheelchair, argues with Grace Kelly.
Blooper: His cast switches from his left leg to his right.
Movie: Raiders of the Lost Ark (1982)
Scene: German soldiers and Gestapo agents lift the ark.
Blooper: Paintings of C3P0 and R2D2, the androids from Star Wars (another George Lucas film), are included among the hieroglyphics on the wall.
Movie: Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
Scene: Richard Dreyfus and Melinda Dillon smash through several road blocks as they near Devil’s Tower.
Blooper: The license plate on their station wagon keeps changing.
Movie: Abbot and Costello Go to Mars (1953)
Blooper: In the movie they actually go to Venus.
Movie: Camelot (1967)
Scene: King Arthur (Richard Harris) praises his medieval kingdom while speaking to some of his subjects.
Blooper: Harris is wearing a Band-Aid on his neck.
Movie: The Fortune Cookie (1966)
Scene: Walter Matthau leaves one room and enters another—and appears to lose weight in the process.
Blooper: Matthau suffered a heart attack while this scene was being filmed; only half was completed before he entered the hospital. He returned five months later to finish the job—40 pounds lighter than he was in the first part of the scene.
Movie: Diamonds Are Forever (1971)
Scene: James Bond tips his Ford Mustang up onto two wheels and drives through a narrow alley to escape from the bad guys.
Blooper: The Mustang enters the alley on its two right wheels—and leaves the alley on its two left wheels.
At one North Carolina golf club, you can rent a llama to be your caddy for $100.
THE TRUTH ABOUT
LEMMINGS
You’ve probably heard that lemmings commit mass suicide when they experience overpopulation. It turns out that isn’t true...and you can blame the myth on the Walt Disney Company.
THE MYTH
In 1958 Walt Disney produced White Wilderness, a documentary about life in the Arctic. This film gave us the first close look at the strange habits of arctic rodents called lemmings.
• “They quite literally eat themselves out of house and home,” says the narrator. “With things as crowded as this, someone has to make room for somebody somehow. And so, Nature herself takes a hand....A kind of compulsion seizes each tiny rodent and, carried along by an unreasoning hysteria, each falls into step for a march that will take them to a strange destiny.”
• The film shows a pack of lemmings mar
ching to the sea, where they “dutifully toss themselves over a cliff into certain death in icy Arctic waters.” “The last shot,” says critic William Poundstone, “shows the sea awash with dying lemmings.”
• The narrator says: “Gradually strength wanes...determination ebbs away...and the Arctic Sea is dotted with tiny bobbing bodies.”
THE TRUTH
• According to a 1983 investigation by Canadian Broadcasting Corporation producer Brian Vallee, White Wilderness’s lemming scene was sheer fabrication.
• Vallee says the lemmings were brought to Alberta—a landlocked province that isn’t their natural habitat—where Disney folks put them on a giant turntable piled with snow to film the “migration segment.”
• Then, Vallee reports, they recaptured the lemmings and took them to a cliff over a river. “When the well-adjusted lemmings wouldn’t jump,” writes Poundstone, “the Disney people gave Nature a hand [and tossed them off]....Lemmings don’t commit mass suicide. As far as zoologists can tell, it’s a myth.”
Shocking fact: 7 times as many men as women are killed by lightning in the U.S.
TRANSLATED HITS
Here are six popular songs that originated in a foreign language and were translated into English—sometimes by people with no idea of what the original lyrics were. From Behind the Hits, by Bob Shannon.
IT’S NOW OR NEVER—ELVIS PRESLEY
Background: In 1901 Italian composer Eduardo di Capua wrote “O Sole Mio.” This operatic theme was eventually popularized in America by Mario Lanza (who sang it in Italian) and again by Tony Martin in 1949. Martin’s version, an English “translation,” was called “There’s No Tomorrow.” It hit #2 on the pop charts in 1949.
Uncle John’s Legendary Lost Bathroom Reader Page 18