• The Don’s Death Scene
On the day that Coppola was supposed to film the scene in which Don Corleone dies while playing with his grandson, they were having trouble getting the young boy playing the grandson to perform his part. Brando mentioned a trick that he liked to use with his own small children: He would cut up the peel of a slice of orange into teeth, stuff it into his mouth, and play “monster” with his kids. Coppola liked the sound of it, so he tossed the script aside and filmed Brando playing monster with the boy. That was the scene that ended up in the movie.
Bolivia & Paraguay are the only South American countries with no coast.
THREE BITS OF GODFATHER TRIVIA
• Foreboding fruit: One of the best-known uses of foreshadowing in all three Godfather films is the use of oranges to hint at upcoming scenes of violence and death. The Godfather buys a bag of oranges just before he is gunned down; later in the film, he dies while playing “monster” with his grandson with an orange peel stuffed in his mouth. The character Sal Tessio (Abe Vigoda), who betrays Michael and is murdered at the end of the film, is introduced at the beginning of the movie playing with an orange. According to production designer Dean Tavoularis, oranges didn’t start out as symbolic of anything. Cinematographer Gordon Willis, who worked on all three Godfather films, is known as “the Prince of Darkness” because he likes to film in low light, so Tavoularis put oranges in some sets for contrast—just to brighten scenes that would otherwise have been extremely dark and devoid of color.
• Hits: The scene where Sonny Corleone beats up his brother-in-law, Carlo Rizzi, contains a famous blooper that has become known as “The Miss”: Sonny takes a swing at Carlo and obviously misses, but there’s a sound effect, and Rizzi still reacts as if he’s been punched. (Ever notice that Rizzi is wearing an orange leisure suit?) The entire fight sequence, including The Miss, was reenacted in a 2003 episode of The Simpsons titled “Strong Arms of the Ma.”
• Name game: Francis Ford Coppola was named after his grandfather, Francesco Pennino. Where’d the “Ford” come from? The Ford Motor Company. They sponsored a radio show that employed his father, Carmine Coppola, as a conductor and musical arranger.
First movie to earn $100 million: Jaws (1975). First movie to earn $200 million: Jaws (1975).
ANSWER PAGES
G.E. COLLEGE BOWL
(Answers for page 61)
LITERATURE
Tossup: Animal Farm, the title of the 1945 novel by George Orwell
Bonus Questions:
1. Lord Alfred Tennyson
2. Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley were husband and wife.
3. Santiago
4. Jack Kerouac, in his 1957 novel On the Road
5. O. Henry
SCIENCE & MATH
Tossup: Time (your watch is a chronometer)
Bonus Questions:
1. They’re traveling at almost exactly the same speed—1 knot is equal to 1.151 miles, which means the ship is traveling at 46.04 mph.
2. The funny bone
3. You made $20—$10 on the first sale; $10 on the second.
4. The moon and its physical features
5. 10° Celsius or Centigrade (to convert Fahrenheit to Celsius, subtract 32 and then multiply by ).
GENERAL KNOWLEDGE
Tossup: Wild Bill Hickok
Bonus Questions:
1. In your pancreas (they produce insulin)
2. A countess
3. Pain
4. Ships or boats
5. Kill it—the musca domestica is the scientific name for the common housefly.
G.E. COLLEGE BOWL
(Answers for page 303)
SCIENCE & MATH
Tossup: 18 feet (300 yards/10 seconds = 30 yards per second. 30/5 = 6 yards per fifth of a second = 18 feet per second)
Bonus Questions:
1. James drank sulphuric acid.
2. Liquid
3. James Van Allen—he discovered the Van Allen belts in 1958.
4. Only one—the number 2. Every other even number is divisible by 1, itself, and 2, which means it is not prime.
After decades of civil war, there are more than 1 million live landmines buried in Mozambique.
5. Call 911—you’re having a heart attack!
U.S. HISTORY
Tossup: Treason (Article 3, Section 3)
Bonus Questions:
1. Andrew Johnson; Dwight D. Eisenhower
2. Aaron Burr (he shot Alexander Hamilton in a duel in 1804)
3. Abraham Lincoln
4. Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania
5. To put down the Whiskey Rebellion and resume collection of the federal tax on whiskey in Pennsylvania
GEOGRAPHY
Tossup: Afghanistan
Bonus Questions:
1. The (U.S.) Virgin Islands
2. Vaduz
3. Australia
4. The Caspian Sea—the world’s largest landlocked body of water
5. The Aleutian Islands, in Alaska
GENERAL KNOWLEDGE
Tossup: Massachusetts, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and Virginia
Bonus Questions:
1. A tomato
2. General John Joseph “Black Jack” Pershing
3. A map of the moon
4. By planting thousands of apple trees and giving seedlings and seeds to everyone he met. (He’s better known as Johnny Appleseed.)
5. Maid Marian
U.S. CITIZENSHIP TEST (EASY)
(Answers for page 177)
1. The White House
2. 13
3. The original 13 colonies
4. 50
5. The 50 states. A new star is added to the flag every time a state enters the union. Originally the plan was to add a star and a stripe every time a state entered the Union, but that would have made the flag taller than it is wide; either that or the stripes would have become so thin that the appearance of the flag would have changed drastically. In 1818 the number of stripes was dropped from 15 to 13, and after that, only stars were added to the flag.
6. The Congress
7. The president
8. Germany, Italy, and Japan
No two lions have the same pattern of whiskers.
9. Alaska (49) and Hawaii (50)
10. To escape religious persecution (see page 44).
11. The Mayflower
12. 18
13. George Washington
14. The Congress
15. The House of Representatives and the Senate
16. The Democratic Party and the Republican Party
17. “The Star-Spangled Banner”
18. Francis Scott Key
19. November
20. January
21. Thanksgiving
22. Thomas Edison
23. England
U.S. CITIZENSHIP TEST (MEDIUM)
(Answers for page 334)
1. A veto
2. The adoption of the Declaration of Independence
3. Freedom of religion, of speech, of the press, of assembly, and to petition the government
4. Nine. The number varied from six to ten in the 19th century; then in 1869 the number was set at nine. An odd number was chosen to prevent tie votes.
5. The president of the United States
6. The Congress. However, as commander in chief, the president can order soldiers into combat without a declaration of war from Congress. The Korean War (1950–53), the Vietnam War (1957–75), and the Persian Gulf War (1991) were all undeclared wars.
7. The citizens of the United States
8. The electoral college. Each state has as many votes, or electors, in the Electoral College as it has U.S. senators and representatives in Congress (and the District of Columbia has three votes). In some states, the ballot may only show the names of the presidential candidates. In those states, you are actually casting votes for the elector, who will vote for the presidential candidate you prefer. In most states, all of the electo
ral college votes go to the presidential candidate who wins the highest number of the state’s popular votes.
9. The legislative, executive, and judicial branches
10. The president
11. Slavery and states’ rights
In Florida, it’s against the law to hunt or kill deer while they’re swimming.
12. To interpret laws
13. 435. In addition, four “delegates” represent the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Guam, and a “resident commissioner” represents Puerto Rico. These officials can cast votes in committee and on some votes that come before the full House, but they are not full voting members.
14. 100
15. Each of the 50 states has two senators.
16. The Bill of Rights
17. 6 years
18. 2 years
19. 2 full terms. When the Constitution was written, there was no limit to how many terms a president could serve. Before Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1933–1945), no president had ever run for more than two consecutive terms, out of respect for the precedent set by George Washington, who declined to run for a third term. FDR broke the tradition—he ran (and won) four times.
The 22nd Amendment, ratified in 1951, limited presidents to two terms, or only one term in the case of a vice president who has served more than two years of another president’s term, such as when a president dies in office or is impeached and removed from office.
20. There is no limit.
21. Patrick Henry. According to tradition, Henry said it in 1775 during the Virginia Provincial Convention. The following year he became independent Virginia’s first governor, and he was largely responsible for the passage of the Bill of Rights, the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
U.S. CITIZENSHIP TEST (HARD)
(Answers for page 473)
1. The right to vote. (All other rights depend on it.)
2. Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson wanted his friend John Adams to write it, but Adams believed Jefferson was the better man for the task, and gave three reasons: “Reason first: You are a Virginian, and Virginia ought to appear at the head of this business. Reason second: I am obnoxious, suspected and unpopular; you are very much otherwise. Reason third: You can write 10 times better than I can.”
3. 27 (so far)
4. The speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. Next in the line of succession is the president pro tempore of the Senate (traditionally the majority-party senator with the longest history of continuous service), followed by the members of the cabinet in the order in which their departments were established: the secretary of state, followed by the secretary of treasury, secretary of defense, the attorney general, and the secretaries of the interior, agriculture, commerce, labor, health and human services, housing and urban development, transportation, energy, education, veterans affairs, and homeland security. The secretary of bathroom reading is not an official member of the cabinet; Uncle John sits upon his throne but will probably never be president.
In 19th-century Britain, you could be hanged for associating with Gypsies or stealing bread.
5. Virginia, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, North Carolina, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Maryland, Delaware, and Georgia
6. The president must: 1) be a native-born citizen; 2) be at least 35 years old; and 3) have lived in the U.S. for at least 14 years.
7. 1787
8. You’ll have to answer this yourself—Uncle John has no idea where you live!
9. The 15th, 19th, 24th, and 26th amendments
10. The president, the cabinet, and the departments under the cabinet members. Here’s an easy rule of thumb: If it’s part of the federal government but isn’t part of the federal courts or the Congress, it’s part of the executive branch.
11. The Preamble. It lays out the purpose of the Constitution in clear language, and establishes that the new government being established gets its powers from the people, and not vice versa. The Preamble reads:
“We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
12. Everyone who lives in the United States, whether they are citizens or not
13. Abraham Lincoln
14. The Mississippi River
15. A republican form of government—that means that the citizens elect representatives who form the government. This is also known as a representative democracy. In a direct or pure democracy, the voters would make the laws themselves instead of electing representatives to do it for them. The ancient Greek city-state of Athens was governed by a direct democracy.
According to DC Comics, Batman is 6’2” and weighs 220 pounds.
16. That all men are created equal.
17. 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, D.C.
RIDDLE ME THIS
(Answers for page 232)
1. Stars
2. A wheelbarrow
3. A splinter
4. A lawsuit
5. A pillow
6. A hearse
7. Heroine
8. Your lap
9. A nail
10. Your temper
11. Your leg
12. Asteroids
OL’ JAY’S BRAINTEASERS
(Answers for page 167)
1. BRIGHT THINKING
Standing in the hallway, Amy turned on the first light switch. She waited two minutes and then turned on the second light switch. Then after another minute she turned them both off. When she walked into the library, one was very hot, the other was slightly warm, and the other was cold—making it easy for her to tell Uncle John which switch turned on which lamp.
2. MYSTERY JOB
Brian works at a library.
3. SIDE TO SIDE
The river was frozen.
4. SPECIAL NUMBER
8,549,176,320 It contains each number—zero through nine—in alphabetical order.
5. TIME PIECES
An hourglass. It is filled with thousands of grains of sand.
6. WORD PLAY
If you remove the first letter of each word and place it on the end of the word, it will spell the same word backwards.
* * *
“Everything flows and nothing stays.” —Heraclitus
Only father & son to hit back-to-back home runs in major-league baseball: Ken Griffey Sr. & Jr.
BONUS PAGE: CAT-ENGLISH DICTIONARY
Somehow we wound up with an extra page. So we thought we’d use it to help you improve your interspecies communication skills.
“I’m hungry.” Meow.
“I’m not hungry.” Meow.
“Feed me.” Meow.
“Don’t feed me that.” Meow.
“Hey! That’s my seat.” Meow.
“You want me to go in what box?” Meow.
“This litter box has a plant in it.” Meow.
“Let me out.” Meow.
“Let me in.” Meow.
“Let me out.” Meow.
“Let me in.” Meow.
“I just want to look out the open door.” Meow.
“Here, I killed this sock for you.” Meow.
“The dog did it.” Meow.
“Please accept this disemboweled rodent as a token of my esteem.” Meow.
“Stop calling me Fluffy. The name is Butch.” Meow.
“Personally, I think Citizen Kane is overrated.” Meow.
“Hey, let’s run over there.” Meow.
“Now, let’s run back.” Meow.
“What was I supposed to do? The bird was asking for it.” Meow.
“Hey, watch me knock everything off this shelf.” Meow.
“Now, that’s a hairball!” Meow.
“Your face makes an excellent pillow
.” Meow.
“I’m so lonely. Why don’t you have 50 cats like crazy Mrs. Jones?” Meow.
“Cram it, clowny. I don’t do tricks.” Meow.
UNCLE JOHN’S BATHROOM READER CLASSIC SERIES
Find these and other great titles from the Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Classic Series online at www.bathroomreader.com. Or contact us at:
Bathroom Readers’ Institute
P.O. Box 1117
Ashland, OR 97520
(888) 488-4642
NOW AVAILABLE!
THE LAST PAGE
FELLOW BATHROOM READERS:
The fight for good bathroom reading should never be taken loosely—we must do our duty and sit firmly for what we believe in, even while the rest of the world is taking potshots at us.
We’ll be brief. Now that we’ve proven we’re not simply a flush-in-the-pan, we invite you to take the plunge: Sit Down and Be Counted! Become a member of the Bathroom Readers’ Institute. Log on to www.bathroomreader.com, or send a self-addressed, stamped, business-sized envelope to: BRI, PO Box 1117, Ashland, Oregon 97520. You’ll receive your free membership card, get discounts when ordering directly through the BRI, and earn a permanent spot on the BRI honor roll!
If you like reading our books…
VISIT THE BRI’S WEB SITE!
www.bathroomreader.com
• Visit “The Throne Room”—a great place to read!
• Receive our irregular newsletters via e-mail
• Order additional Bathroom Readers
• Become a BRI member
Go with the Flow…
Well, we’re out of space, and when you’ve gotta go, you’ve gotta go. Tanks for all your support. Hope to hear from you soon. Meanwhile, remember…
Keep on flushin’!
Table of Contents
Title Page
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Uncle John’s Curiously Compelling Bathroom Reader Page 58