Uncle John’s Legendary Lost Bathroom Reader (76 page)

—The Washington Post

COMIC DELIVERY

According to Roger Axtell, in his book
Do’s and Taboos of Hosting International Visitors
, a high-ranking insurance company executive visiting Japan in the 1980s delivered a speech that began with a joke. It went over well...but later on he learned that it was translated something like this:

“The audience not only laughed,” Axtell says, “but in typical generous Japanese style, they stood and applauded as well. After the speech, not realizing what had transpired, the American remembered going to the translator and saying, ‘I’ve been giving speeches in this country for several years and you are the first translator who knows how to tell a good joke.’”

WHAT A GUY!

When the Perdue Chicken Co. translated its slogan—“It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken”—into Spanish, they ended up with “It takes a hard [sexually aroused] man to make a chicken affectionate.”

Florence Nightingale carried a pet owl in her pocket wherever she traveled.

We’ve been including this section in the
Bathroom Reader
for years, and we’ve never run out of material. In fact, we’ve got a bulging folder of articles we haven’t even used. It seems that people are getting weirder and weirder.

T
HE PLAINTIFF:
J. R. Costigan

THE DEFENDANT:
Bobby Mackey’s Music World, a country music bar in Wilder, Kentucky

THE LAWSUIT:
In papers filed in small claims court, Costigan claimed a ghost “punched and kicked him” while he was using the bar’s restroom one night in 1993. He sued the bar, asking for $1,000 in damages and demanding that a sign be put up in the restroom warning of the ghost’s presence.

The club’s lawyer filed a motion to dismiss the case, citing the difficulty of getting the ghost into court to testify for the defense.

THE VERDICT:
The case was dismissed.

THE PLAINTIFF:
Frederick Newhall Woods IV, serving a life sentence for the infamous Chowchilla, California, school bus kidnapping.

THE DEFENDANT:
The American Broadcasting Company

THE LAWSUIT:
In 1976, Woods and two accomplices kidnapped a bus driver and 26 elementary school students and buried them underground. When ABC aired a TV movie docudrama about the kidnapping in 1994, Woods was offended. He sued the network, claiming that the show “portrayed (him) as being callous, vicious, hardened, wild-eyed, diabolical, and uncaring.”

THE VERDICT:
Unknown.

THE PLAINTIFF:
Carl Sagan, world-famous astronomer

THE DEFENDANT:
Apple Computer, Inc.

THE LAWSUIT:
Late in 1993, computer designers at Apple code-named a new computer model
Sagan.
Traditionally, this is an honor—“You pick a name of someone you respect,” explained one employee. “And the code is only used while the computer is being developed. It never makes it out of the company.” Nonetheless, Sagan’s lawyers complained that the code was “an illegal usurption of his name for commercial purposes” and demanded that it be changed. So Apple designers changed it to BHA. When Sagan heard that it stood for “Butt-Head Astronomer,” he sued, contending that “Butt-Head” is “defamatory on its face.”

Idaho is the only state in the U.S. that has never had a foreign flag flying over it.

THE VERDICT:
Pending (in 1994).

THE PLAINTIFF:
Barry Manilow

THE DEFENDANT:
K-BIG FM, a Los Angeles radio station

THE LAWSUIT:
In 1994, the station ran a TV ad campaign saying what they
wouldn’t
play—namely Barry Manilow songs. Manilow sued, claiming “irreparable damage to his reputation”

THE VERDICT:
Settled out of court for an undisclosed amount.

THE PLAINTIFF:
Saul Lapidus, a New York City landlord

THE DEFENDANT:
Empire Szechuan Gourmet

THE LAWSUIT:
When the local Chinese restaurant left takeout menus at his building, Lapidus billed them for cleanup costs. When they refused to pay, he took them to court.

THE VERDICT:
Lapidus won; Empire paid the bill.

THE PLAINTIFF:
David Pelzman, owner of David’s on Main, a Columbus, Ohio, restaurant

THE DEFENDANT:
Jeff Burrey, 24, a (former) customer

THE LAWSUIT:
In 1993, Burrey made a reservation for four at the restaurant but didn’t show up. So Pelzman sued him for $440 ($60 per person, and $200 for the private detective he hired to track Burrey down). Incredulous, Burrey filed a $10,000 counter-suit, alleging defamation, fraud, and misrepresentation.

“If they can sue a customer for not showing up for a reservation,” Burrey said, “then a customer can sue the restaurant for having to wait 15 minutes to be seated.”

THE VERDICT:
Pending (in 1994).

Man of the world: Both China and Russia have their own “Tarzan” legends.

Everybody’s tried it and hardly anyone says they like it...but 30% of all American households have a can on hand. So how much do you know about SPAM? How much do you want to know? Not much, probably. Too bad—we’re going to tell you about it anyway.

M
AKING A SILK PURSE OUT OF A SOW’S EAR

It’s a question as timeless as the pork-packing industry itself: Once you’ve removed all the choice meat from the carcass of a pig, what do you do with all the pig parts nobody wants?

That’s the question the folks at the George A. Hormel Company faced in 1937. Their solution: Take the
parts
that nobody wants and make them into a
loaf
nobody wants. Jack Mingo describes the historic moment in his book
How the Cadillac Got Its Fins:

PORCINE PLAGIARISM

But pig parts were piling up just as high at other pork packers, and as soon as they saw Hormel’s solution they began selling their own pig loafs. Afraid of being lost in the sow shuffle, Hormel offered a $100 prize to anyone who could come up with a brand name that would make its pork product stand out from imitators. The winner: A brother of one of the Hormel employees, who suggested turning
“Spiced Ham”
into
SPAM
.

PIGS AT WAR

Described by one writer as “a pink brick of meat encased in a gelatinous coating,” SPAM seems pretty gross to folks who aren’t used to it (and even to plenty who are). It probably wouldn’t have become popular if it hadn’t been for World War II.

People drink coffee in every state...but Hawaii is the only state that
grows
it.

Because it was cheap, portable, and didn’t need refrigeration, SPAM was an ideal product to send into battle with U.S. GIs. It became such a common sight in mess halls (where it earned the nickname “the ham that didn’t pass its physical”) that many GIs swore they’d never eat the stuff again. Even General Dwight Eisenhower complained about too much SPAM in army messes.

THEIR SECRET SHAME

American G.I.s
said
they hated SPAM, but evidence suggests otherwise. Forced to eat canned pork over a period of several years, millions of soldiers developed a taste for it, and when they returned home they brought it with them. SPAM sales shot up in supermarkets after the war.

Laugh if you want (even Hormel calls it “the Rodney Danger-field of luncheon meat—it don’t get no respect”), but SPAM is still immensely popular: Americans consume 3.8 cans of it every second, or 122 million cans a year. That gives SPAM a 75% share of the canned-meat market.

SPAM FACTS

• More than five billion cans of SPAM have been sold around the world since the product was invented in 1937. “Nowhere,” says Carolyn Wyman in her book
I’m a SPAM Fan
, “is SPAM more prized than in South Korea, where black-market SPAM regularly flows from U.S. military bases and locally produced knockoffs, such as Lospam, abound. In fact, young Korean men are just as likely to show up at the house of a woman they are courting with a nine-can gift pack of SPAM as wine or chocolate.”

• SPAM may have helped defeat Hitler. Nikita Khruschev, himself a war veteran, credited a U.S. Army shipment of SPAM with keeping Russian troops alive during World War II. “We had lost our most fertile, food-bearing lands,” he wrote in
Khruschev Remembers
, “Without SPAM, we wouldn’t have been able to feed our army.”

• SPAM isn’t as gross as legend would have you believe. There aren’t any lips, eyes, or other pig nasties in it—just pork shoulder, ham, salt, sugar, and sodium nitrate.

Built-in bias? 96.1% of all television writers are white.

What do you know about one of the most popular shows in TV history? Take this quiz and see. (Answers on
page 666
.)

1. How did Paul Henning, the creator of “The Beverly Hillbillies,” get the idea for the show?

A)
He based the story on his own experience of moving from the Ozarks to California with his hillbilly uncle. (The character Jethro is loosely autobiographical.)

B)
He was touring a Civil War site while on vacation with his wife and mother-in-law.

C)
Someone told him the story of Ned Klamper, a Texas sharecropper who struck oil blowing up a tree stump, and moved to Las Vegas with his family. Henning changed the names and locations so that he wouldn’t have to pay for the story.

2. What was planned as the original location for the show?

A)
New York

B)
Beverly Hills—Henning wanted a wealthy town with the word “hills” in it...and Beverly Hills fit the bill perfectly.

C)
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia—Henning originally conceived of the show as the “Arabian Hillbillies.” According to the original storyline, Jed strikes it rich and moves to the Middle East so that he can learn the oil business from a greedy Saudi prince. He brings Granny (originally conceived as a Bible-thumping, anti-Arab bigot) with him; she would have had run-ins with merchants, camel dealers, etc. But protests from the Saudi royal family forced Henning to move the location to California and remake the greedy prince into Milburn Drysdale, head of the Commerce Bank.

3. Granny was the last character cast, and Irene Ryan was a long shot for the part from the get-go. Who almost got her part?

A)
A real live hillbilly—but she was illiterate and couldn’t read the script.

From 1950 to 1971, buying or displaying a Chinese stamp was considered “trading with the enemy.”

B)
Actress Bea Benaderet—but her boobs were too big for the part. She went on to play Cousin Pearl in
The Beverly Hillbillies
and later had her own show,
Petticoat Junction.

C)
Both of the above.

D)
None of the above—There was no “Granny” character called for in the original story, but Irene Ryan, wife of Filmways chairman Jack Ryan, had just completed an acting class and was itching to try out her training. She badgered her husband for a full nine months for a part in one of his shows, but he refused to give her one...until she threatened him with divorce, that is. He finally gave in and ordered that the character be created for
The Beverly Hillbillies.
Why that show? He was convinced the series would bomb.

4. Why was Raymond Bailey so believable in his role as Milburn Drysdale, the Clampett’s banker (and a complete jerk) who lives next door to them and manages their family fortune?

A)
He really was a banker.

B)
He really was a jerk.

C)
Trained as a classical Shakespearean performer by Lawrence Olivier, Bailey was one of the greatest actors of his time. The other members of the
Hillbillies
called him “the human chameleon” and boasted that he could have played Granny if he had wanted to.

5. Donna Douglas, who played Elly May, was as friendly in real life as she was on the show, but she was downcast and moody when she returned from vacation to film the 1966 season. Why?

A)
She was bitten by a wild racoon during a camping trip and had to endure more than a dozen painful rabies shots into her abdomen. The experience traumatized her so much so that she didn’t want to work with animals anymore. But studio officials insisted...and for a while she was depressed because she had to work with them.

B)
She fell in love with Elvis Presley while filming a movie with him in the off-season...but he didn’t return her feelings.

C)
Eager to cash in on her affinity with “critters,” Douglas wanted to form her own “Elly May” pet food company...but studio officials vetoed the idea and she spent the entire 1966 season in a funk.

Playing football was outlawed at Yale University in 1822. Maximum fine: 50¢.

6. How well did the show fare with critics and the public?

A)
The critics loved the show’s traditional family values (Jed took care of Granny, and Elly May and Jethro lived at home until they married)...but the public hated it.