Uncle John's Ahh-Inspiring Bathroom Reader (14 page)

—Patricia E. Presutti, Lewiston, New York (1986 winner)

• The countdown had stalled
at T minus 69 seconds when Desiree, the first female ape to go up in space, winked at me slyly and pouted her thick, rubbery lips unmistakably—the first of many such advances during what would prove to be the longest, and most memorable, space voyage of my career.

—Martha Simpson, Glastonbury, Connecticut (1985 winner)

• As the newest Lady Turnpot
descended into the kitchen wrapped only in her celery-green dressing gown, her creamy bosom rising and falling like a temperamental soufflé, her tart mouth pursed in distaste, the sous-chef whispered to the scullery boy, “I don't know what to make of her.”

—Laurel Fortuner, Montendre, France (1992 winner)

• The moment he laid eyes
on the lifeless body of the nude socialite sprawled across the bathroom floor, Detective Leary knew she had committed suicide by grasping the cap on the tamper-proof bottle, pushing down and twisting while she kept her thumb firmly pressed against the spot the arrow pointed to, until she hit the exact spot where the tab clicks into place, allowing her to remove the cap and swallow the entire contents of the bottle, thus ending her life.

—Artie Kalemeris, Fairfax, Virginia (1997 winner)

When we saw the opossum on a list of wildlife that thrives in cities, it made us curious about how it manages to survive in such a hostile environment. Turns out that this tough little critter is quite an amazing animal.

Of all the mammals on Earth, opossums are among the oldest. Fossil records show it going back more than 100 million years. Remarkably, the gray-and-white, pink-nosed, rat-tailed opposums we see in our backyards today are almost identical to the ones that walked around with the dinosaurs. They have survived that long with very few evolutionary changes.

The opossum is a
marsupial,
a primitive type of mammal distinguished by its unique reproductive system. It gives birth to embryos that develop into viable “pups” in an external pouch—like a kangaroo. There used to be thousands of species of marsupials in North America, but over tens of millions of years they migrated south, into what is now South America.

Continental drift prevented them from returning until fairly recently (less than eight million years ago) and by that time another type of mammal had evolved:
placental
mammals, which develop their young
inside
their bodies. Placental mammals dominated. Of all the South American marsupial species that could have survived in North America, only one did: the opossum.

The evolutionary cards are stacked against the opossum.

It's not fast: it has a top speed of 1.7 mph.

It's not large: adults range from 6 to 12 pounds.

It's not exceedingly smart: it has almost the smallest brain-to-body ratio of any land mammal.

It's not aggresive, nor well-suited for fighting to defend itself. So why is the primitive opossum the only marsupial that made it in
North America? Here are some features that helped opossums beat the odds:

• They'll eat anything. They can survive on worms, snails, insects, snakes, toads, birds, fruits, vegetables, or garbage. (They'll also eat cat food and dog food.)

• Opossums are unusually resistant to diseases, including rabies. They're also very resistant to snake venom—a dose of rattlesnake venom that would kill a horse barely affects an opossum.

• They have a prehensile (grasping) tail that they can use to gather branches and grass for nesting, climb trees, and escape predators.

• Opossums are the only animals besides primates that have an opposable thumb. It's on their hind feet, and they use it to grasp with, like humans do.

• Male opossums have another unique appendage: a forked penis. Females have a two-channel vagina, so everything has to line up correctly for successful mating. This means that the opossum can't crossbreed with other species, which is another reason it has changed so little over the eons.

Another unique trait that plays a big part in the opossum's survival is its ability to “play dead.” Is it playing? Not exactly.

When an opossum is threatened by an enemy, it doesn't have a lot to work with. It doesn't want to fight and avoids it at all costs. It hisses and growls, baring its mouthful of teeth—it has 50, the most of any land mammal. It will even emit a foul odor, vomit, or defecate to repel the enemy. Sometimes these strategies work.

But if the predator is really hungry and still a threat, the opossum has one more weapon. It passes out. It's not an act, it's an involuntary reaction to overwhelming danger. It goes into a coma or shocklike state: the heart rate drops drastically, the body temperature goes down, the tongue hangs out, and it drools. It is, for all appearances, dead. Why is that good? Most predators won't eat dead animals. They'll usually sniff around, then leave it alone.

After a while, as short as a minute or as long as six hours, the opossum will “wake up” and waddle on its way to survive another day, another week, and who knows, maybe another 100 million years.

In our
Third Bathroom Reader,
we covered the origin of
Saturday Night Live.
Why write about it again? Because it's one of the most influential TV shows of all time. Over the years, it has had its ups and downs, but it remains essentially the same show Lorne Michaels devised back in 1975.

In the late 1960s, America's youth spoke out against the war in Vietnam, against racism, and against a government they saw as a growing threat to the freedom of speech. How did the big three TV networks react to this dissent? They mostly ignored it.

Take the popular variety show
Laugh-In
, which was marketed to younger people. It featured a head writer who also happened to be a Nixon speechwriter. The result: More fluff than substance. And
The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour
coasted along fine until Tommy Smothers began speaking out openly against the war. CBS swooped in and quickly canceled the show in 1969. By the end of the decade, the message was clear: “The revolution will not be televised.”

In the early 1970s, the revolution took an unexpected turn: it showed up in underground comedy.
MAD
magazine and
National Lampoon
spread the anti-establishment message on their pages; comedy troupes such as Second City in Chicago and Toronto and The Groundlings in Los Angeles performed cutting-edge satire with no rules, no limits, and no censorship—all things that TV network executives stayed well away from. To them, comedy was Johnny Carson and Dick Cavett for adults, and
The Brady Bunch
and
Gilligan's Island
for kids.

There was, however, one word that the network brass has always pricked up its ears for: ratings. And NBC's late-night Saturday ratings were so low in 1975 that they were giving away advertising spots in the time slot as a free bonus to attract primetime advertising
deals. They blamed the low ratings on the time of night rather than on what they were broadcasting:
Tonight Show
reruns. But everyone was growing tired of having Johnny on six, and sometimes seven, nights a week. NBC was ready to replace the reruns with something else. They were considering a weekly variety show hosted by impressionist Rich Little and singer Linda Rondstadt.

They gave the task of creating the new show to a young executive named Dick Ebersol, who didn't even bother pursuing Little; he wanted to do something new and fresh that younger viewers could identify with. A fellow executive told him, “Dick, there's only one guy you should talk to.”

By the time he was 30 years old, Canadian Lorne Michaels (born Lorne Lipowitz) had graduated with an English degree from the University of Toronto, sold cars in England, starred as one-half of a comedy team on Canadian television, been a writer for
Laugh-In
(all of his jokes about Nixon were rejected), produced a TV special for Lily Tomlin, and submitted an idea for a late-night variety show to NBC—twice.

But the timing for his show wasn't right until 1975, when Ebersol sought him out. At their first meeting, Michaels told Ebersol: “I want to do a show for the generation that grew up on television.” His concept was already mapped out: an anything-goes comedy show featuring edgy satire, commercial parodies, fake news, rock music, and a celebrity host. It had to be live—a practice network television had abandoned in the 1970s—otherwise it wouldn't have the spontaneity it needed. Ebersol agreed and pitched the idea to the network, selling it as a “youth” show and pointing to the dismal ratings NBC was getting in the 18 to 34-year-old market. To Ebersol's and Michaels's amazement, the network was convinced…mostly.

By the 1970s, Johnny Carson had as much clout as anybody at NBC. The
Tonight Show
had done so much for the network that what Johnny wanted, Johnny got. And one thing Johnny
didn't
want was competition. Worried that a new comedy show would compete with his “King of Late Night” status, Carson summoned Michaels and Ebersol.

But one of Michaels's strengths was his diplomatic skill—he calmly reassured the “Great One” that his show would be very different than Carson's: no interviews, a bunch of unknowns, a completely different format aimed at a completely different audience. Carson was duly impressed with the two young men and gave them—and the network—his approval. He would come to regret that decision.

Michaels signed a deal with NBC, fittingly, on April 1, 1975. He and Ebersol were given Studio 8H on the 17th floor of New York's Rockefeller Center. Michaels wanted to call the new show
Saturday Night Live,
but ABC was putting together a show by the same name—hosted by Howard Cosell and featuring the “Primetime Players.” So they called it
NBC
's
Saturday Night
, then just
Saturday Night
. (The show wasn't called
Saturday Night Live
until the March 26, 1977, episode.)

Michaels began a search for “enlightened amateurs”—comedians who, according to Doug Hill and Jeff Weingrad in their book
Saturday Night
, spouted “drug references, casual profanity, a permissive attitude toward sex, a deep disdain for show business convention, and bitter distrust for corporate power.” Michaels wanted to combine that rawness with the style of his all-time favorite comedians: Monty Python's Flying Circus.

Michaels approached one of the hottest comedians of the mid-1970s, Albert Brooks, with the idea of hiring him as the permanent celebrity host. Brooks declined, saying that he wanted to focus on a movie career. He did, however, offer an alternative idea. “You don't want a permanent host anyway,” he told Michaels. “Every show does that. Why don't you get a different host every week?” So they did. But they still needed a cast.

That summer, word of the new show quickly spread through the show biz world. Ads for auditions went into trade papers all over the country. In New York, comedy clubs put their best acts on when the
Saturday Night
people arrived. But Michaels wanted more than stand-up comedians, he wanted socially conscious performers who could act, improvise, do impressions, sing, and dance. He scoured the ranks of
National Lampoon
, comedy troupes, even serious repertory
theaters. Michaels could only pay his performers $750 per episode, but he was offering something most couldn't refuse: exposure on national television. One more rule: none of
Saturday Night
's talent would be over 30 years old.

First hired was Gilda Radner, whom Michaels had performed improv with in the 1960s. In 1975 Radner was with Second City in Chicago, along with Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, and John Belushi. Michaels was reluctant about Belushi—who was known as much for being uncontrollable as he was for being a brilliant comedian. But Belushi did so well as a samurai pool hustler in his audition that he was hired over Murray, who had already signed a tentative deal with ABC's
Saturday Night Live.

From the improvisational group The Proposition he found Jane Curtin, who fit the bill as the “white bread” woman, and from The Groundlings in Los Angeles, Laraine Newman. She was chosen partly for her audition performance and partly for her red hair, which would offset Curtin's sandy blonde and Radner's brunette locks. To round out the appearance of the cast, Michaels wanted a black man. He'd originally hired Garrett Morris as a writer. But even though Morris had no comedic experience, Michaels was impressed with his acting ability in the 1972 film
Cooley High
, so Morris was made a cast member instead. Now that the cast was set, they needed a name. Michaels mocked ABC's Saturday-night show by calling NBC's performers the “Not Ready For Primetime Players.”