Uncle John’s Curiously Compelling Bathroom Reader (6 page)

• Fastest Motorcycle Driven While Blindfolded:
164.87 mph, by Billy Baxter at Wiltshire, U.K., in August 2003.

• Most Rattlesnakes Held in the Mouth at One Time:
Eight, by Jackie Bibby in Orlando, Florida, in May 2001.

The town of Levan—in the center of Utah—is “navel” spelled backwards.

FLUBBED HEADLINES

These are 100% honest-to-goodness headlines. Can you figure out what the writers were trying to say?

Man Eating Piranha Mistakenly Sold as Pet Fish

Nuns Forgive Break-In, Assault Suspect

MAN WITH ONE ARM CHEATS ON OTHER HALF

Home Depot Purchases Wallpaper, Blinds Retailers

NATION SPLIT ON BUSH AS UNITER OR DIVIDER

Man Is Fatally Slain

UTAH GIRL DOES WELL IN DOG SHOWS

Smithsonian May Cancel Bombing of Japan Exhibits

POLL SAYS 53% BELIEVE THAT MEDIA OFFEN MAKES MISTAKES

Some Pieces of Rock Hudson Sold at Auction

Blind Woman Gets New Kidney From Dad She Hasn’t Seen in Years

A REASON FOR ODOR FOUND AT SEWER PLANT

Judges Appear More Lenient on Crack Cocaine

William Kelly Was Fed Secretary

TV Networks Agree to Police Violence

Autos Killing 110 a Day, Let’s Resolve to Do Better

D
EALERS
W
ILL
H
EAR
C
AR
T
ALK AT
N
OON

Bush Planning Mars Trip

A
R
A
F
A
T SWE
A
RS IN CABINET

Something Went Wrong in Jet Crash, Expert Says

L
ANSING
R
ESIDENTS
C
AN
D
ROP
O
FF
T
REES

Sewer District Plans Emergency Backup

Man Accused of Shooting Neighbor, Dog Held for Trial

First actor to appear on the cover of
Time
magazine: Charlie Chaplin, in 1925.

BOX OFFICE BLOOPERS

Everyone loves bleepers…er, bloppers…er, we mean bloopers. Here are a few great ones from the silver screen
.

Movie:
Goldfinger
(1964)

Scene:
Dressed as Army soldiers, Goldfinger’s crew breaks into Fort Knox and disables personnel with nerve gas.

Blooper:
They’re wearing Air Force insignias on their Army uniforms.

Movie:
The Sound of Music
(1965)

Scene:
Maria (Julie Andrews) is riding on a bus singing “I Have Confidence in Me.”

Blooper:
The bus is supposed to be moving…but the mountains in the background never change.

Movie:
Free Willy
(1993)

Scene:
Randolph and Jesse are sitting inside by a window reading a book together.

Blooper:
At the beginning of the scene, the sun is shining brightly. Two minutes later, it’s pitch black outside.

Movie:
Crash
(2004)

Scene:
Officer Ryan (Matt Dillon) is talking on the phone about his father’s health insurance.

Blooper:
Ryan is a patrolman, but he’s wearing sergeant stripes.

Movie:
Annie Hall
(1977)

Scene:
The end credits.

Blooper:
Christopher Walken’s name is listed as “Christopher Wlaken.”

Movie:
9 to 5
(1980)

Scene:
Violet (Lily Tomlin) gets stopped by the police for a broken taillight.

Blooper:
When the car pulls away, both taillights are working fine.

Nearly three-fourths of all the fresh water in the world is in Canada.

Movie:
Napoleon Dynamite
(2004)

Scene:
Napoleon dances to a funk song after Pedro’s class president speech.

Blooper:
During the dance, Napoleon’s shirt is tucked in, then it’s untucked, then tucked back in, then untucked, then tucked in again.

Movie:
The Da Vinci Code
(2006)

Scene:
In a flashback scene, Mary Magdalene (Charlotte Graham) leaves Jerusalem. As she walks, the Dome of the Rock is clearly visible in the background.

Blooper:
This landmark was built in the 7th century…about 700 years after Mary Magdalene died.

Movie:
Charlie’s Angels
(2000)

Scene:
The Angels are fighting the Thin Man (Crispin Glover).

Blooper:
Just before Dylan (Drew Barrymore) lifts up Alex (Lucy Liu) to kick the Thin Man, she calls her “Lucy,” not “Alex.”

Movie:
Mr. and Mrs. Smith
(2005)

Scene:
Three BMWs chase Mr. and Mrs. Smith (Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie).

Blooper:
The movie is supposed to take place in New York City. So why do we see a street sign reading “Los Angeles City Limits”?

Movie:
2001: A Space Odyssey
(1968)

Scene:
The shuttle crew discovers the monolith on the moon. As they gaze at it, moon dust begins to blow around.

Blooper:
There is no wind on the moon—it has no atmosphere.

Movie:
Romeo + Juliet
(1996)

Scene:
Romeo (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Juliet (Clare Danes) lie dead.

Blooper:
Romeo blinks.

Movie:
A Night at the Opera
(1935)

Scene:
Mr. Driftwood (Groucho Marx) complains that his meal at a restaurant in Milan, Italy, costs $9.

Blooper:
They didn’t use dollars in Italy…they used
lire
.

Johnny Depp played guitar on the 1998 Oasis album
Be Here Now
.

INVENTIVE ADVERTISING

The other day, we were eating delicious Cowboy Burgers at Applebee’s when Uncle John remarked that it seems like advertising is becoming more and more intrusive. Then he took a refreshing sip of his ice-cold Pepsi
.

B
EER-FOOT

When the town of Creston, British Columbia, couldn’t come up with the $20,000 needed to build a statue of Sasquatch, the Kokanee Brewing Company came to the rescue. But Kokanee’s contribution to the statue fund was contingent on one small change in the design. Now Bigfoot can be sighted in downtown Creston…carrying a 12-pack of Kokanee beer.

HOT CUP OF WHAT?

The advertising company Saatchi & Saatchi came up with a clever idea to help sell Folgers coffee: paint New York City manhole covers so they look like full cups of coffee viewed from above. As the manhole covers emit steam, they look like steaming cups of Folgers coffee. (You know it’s Folgers because the logo appears prominently on the street next to the cover.) One problem: The steam that rises out of the manholes doesn’t
smell
like coffee, but rather like something much worse and much less appetizing.

FAUX-LANTHROPY

In 2004 Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream responded to a plea from a group of nuns in Amsterdam, Netherlands, to help the homeless. Displaying incredible generosity, the company gave winter jackets to the city’s street people. But every jacket they donated bore the Ben & Jerry’s logo.

PIMP MY DRINK

In 2004 Seagram’s Gin “found” its way into popular songs from such hip-hop artists as Twista, Dem Franchize Boyz, and Kanye West. Another performer, Petey Pablo, scored the year’s second-most-played rap song, “Freek-a-Leek,” which features the lines: “Now I got to give a shout out to Seagram’s Gin / ’Cause I’m drinkin’ it and they payin’ me for it!”

Hedgehog urine was once believed to cure baldness.

AMERICAN GRAFFITI, INC.

Targeting their products to inner-city youth, Sony Music hired graffiti artists to spray-paint ads on walls in many American cities. The ads depicted caricatures of urban kids enjoying Sony music products. City officials, especially in San Francisco, were furious that a major corporation would advocate vandalism and ordered Sony to clean up the walls or face legal action. Sony denied involvement at first, but finally gave in and removed the ads.

SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM!

British comedy troupe Monty Python, who routinely made fun of Spam on their 1970s TV show, was paid by Hormel Foods to display cans of the processed meat in
Spamalot
, their Broadway musical adaptation of the film
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
. (
Spamalot
also featured a paid mention of Yahoo!)

A NOVEL APPROACH

In her chick-lit book
The Sweetest Taboo
, British novelist Carole Matthews changed the car her heroine drives from a Volkswagen Beetle to a Ford Fiesta. Why? Ford paid her—plus they gave Matthews her own Fiesta (which she named Flossie).

JO$E, CAN YOU $EE?

In 2005 famed playwright Neil Simon approved a script change in his 1969 play
Sweet Charity
: The original version had the characters simply drinking “tequila.” Now they drink “Jose Cuervo’s Gran Centenario Premium Tequila.” And not only that, the Jose Cuervo logo was displayed prominently on some of the sets.

BODY LANGUAGE

In 2005 Karolyne Smith of Salt Lake City offered something unusual on eBay: advertising space…on her forehead. She did it, she says, to send her son to private school.
GoldenPalace.com
, an online casino, chose the “Buy It Now” option for $10,000, and Smith now has a tattoo of the casino’s logo on her forehead. “To me, $10,000 is like $1 million,” she said. “And it’s a small sacrifice to build a better future for my son.”

A tiger can cover about 30 feet in a single stride.

FAMOUS LAST WORDS

If you could choose your last words, what would they be?

“Curtain! Fast music! Lights!

Ready for the last finale!

Great! The show looks good!”

—
Florenz Ziegfeld, Broadway producer, hallucinating on his deathbed

“It hurts.”

—
Charles de Gaulle

“Dost thou think that I am afraid of it? This will cure all sorrows. What dost thou fear?

Strike, man, strike!”

—
Sir Walter Raleigh, to his executioner

“I’m losing.”

—
Frank Sinatra

“I am not going. Do with me what you like. I am not going. Come on! Come on! Take action! Let’s go!”

—
Sitting Bull, to the police who were there to arrest him, just before being shot

“Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it! This is…”

—
David Johnston, geologist who was killed in the 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens

“I’m tired. I’m going back to bed.”

—
George Reeves, who starred as Superman in the 1950s, to his friends before shooting himself

“Wait until I have finished my problem!”

—
Archimedes, Greek mathematician, to the Roman soldier who captured and killed him

“No.”

—
Alexander Graham Bell, in sign language, to his deaf wife, who pleaded, “Don’t leave me.”

“Codeine. Bourbon.”

—
Tallulah Bankhead

“Dammit…Don’t you dare ask God to help me!”

—
Joan Crawford, to her housekeeper, who was praying for her

“Yeah.”

—
John Lennon, to the cop driving him to the hospital, who asked, “Are you John Lennon?”

Think you know everything about Harry Potter? Okay—when’s his birthday? (July 31)

THE MUSTACHE REPORT

We found these stories right under our noses
.

W
HY THE LONG FACE?

In 2003 Bhupati Das, from the Indian state of West Bengal, announced his plan to break the world record in “mustache weightlifting.” The 48-year-old said he’d been inspired to try it six years earlier when he read about a man who had lifted a typewriter with
his
mustache. “I made up my mind,” Das said, “and started nursing my mustache.” He “nursed” it to a length of four feet, oiling it twice a day (he had to keep it tucked behind his ears and covered with a cloth while at work). Alas, it was all for naught: He failed to break the
Guinness
world record of 24kg (52.9 lbs.).

THE STRONG, SILENT TYPE