Uncle John’s Giant 10th Anniversary Bathroom Reader (26 page)

GONE WITH THE WIND, by Margaret Mitchell

First the book was called
Pansy
, after the lead character. Then Pansy’s name was changed to Scarlett and the title became
Tote the Weary Load.
That didn’t last long, either—Mitchell decided on
Tomorrow Is Another Day
(Scarlett’s famous line)…then backed away from it when she realized that more than a dozen books in print already started with the word “Tomorrow.” Publication was imminent—and she needed a title. Finally, she just picked a line she’d used in the book.

A majority of Americans say they get their info and opinions on world events from TV news and documentaries. When you consider how easy it is to fake TV “news,” that’s a pretty scary thought.

T
HE TAMARA RAND HOAX

Background:
On March 30, 1981 President Ronald Reagan was shot by John Hinkley, Jr. A few days later, KNTV in Las Vegas, ran a segment of the “Dick Maurice and Company” show that had been taped on January 6, 1981—nearly two months earlier.

Incredibly, the tape showed a psychic named Tamara Rand predicting that Reagan would be shot in March or April “by a young, fair-haired man who acted alone” and had the initials “J. H.” The prediction-come-true was so amazing that a few days later ABC’s “Good Morning America” and NBC’s “Today” also broadcast it.

The Truth:
An Associated Press reporter noticed that Rand was wearing different rings on her fingers during the assassination segment than on the rest of the show. Her microphone was attached to her shirt a different way, too. The reporter did some investigating…and discovered that the day
after
the assassination, Rand and Maurice had sneaked back to the TV studios wearing the same clothes they’d worn in the first interview, and taped a new one. Then they combined the two videotapes to make it look as if Rand had predicted the assassination.

What Happened:
Maurice and Rand admitted the hoax. Maurice was suspended from his show; Rand faded back into obscurity.

BLOOD SPORT

Background:
On April 29, 1991, Denver’s Channel 4 KCNC News began airing “Bloodsport,” a four-part series on Denver’s dog-fighting underworld. Exhibit A was an anonymous home video that someone had mailed to KCNC reporter Wendy Bergen. The footage showed dogs working out on treadmills and fighting one another. The story launched a police investigation into illegal dog-fighting in Denver.

The Truth:
On May 2,1991, the broadcasting columnist for the
Rocky Mountain News
reported that the “anonymous home video” was actually footage of a dogfight that had been staged for KCNC. Bergen and her cameraman denied the charge, but a few days later the man who staged the fights agreed to cooperate with the police in exchange for immunity. It turned out that the fights
had
been staged, and that the workout scenes had even been filmed on the cameraman’s own treadmill.

As Bob Tamarkin writes in
Rumor Has It,
“After finding out that attending a dogfight was a felony punishable by up to four years in prison, Bergen re-edited the tape to make it look like a home video. She sent it to herself and told executives that it had arrived anonymously.”

What Happened:
Bergen and her cameraman eventually confessed; both were fired and each was indicted on felony charges. Bergen was found guilty of conspiracy, being an accessory, and one count of dogfighting. She was fined $20,000.

THE PREGNANT MAN OF THE PHILIPPINES

Background:
In May 1992 newspapers in the Philippines began running stories about “Carlo,” a male nurse who was actually a hermaphrodite—a person born with complete sets of both male and female sexual organs. Carlo claimed he was six months pregnant, and he had a bulging belly to prove it. “I feel proud that I’m going to be the mother of a baby boy,” he told reporters. “I’m happy now that I’m really feeling fulfilled like a complete woman.” NBC’s “Today” picked up the story, and Bryant Gumbel interviewed Carlo on the air.

The Truth:
A few days after the “Today” interview, a gynecologist examined Carlo and quickly discovered that 1) he wasn’t pregnant; 2) he wasn’t a hermaphrodite, and 3) he looked pregnant because he was wearing a fake belly under his shirt. “Carlo” was actually Edwin Bayron, and the pregnancy was part of a scheme to have his gender legally changed to female so that he could marry his male lover, a 21-year-old Army officer, in the Catholic Church.

What Happened:
Bayron went underground after the hoax was exposed; Gumbel apologized on the air.

DATELINE NBC

Background:
On November 17, 1992, “Dateline NBC” aired a story attacking the safety record of GM trucks that had “sidesaddle” gas tanks. The story included NBC’s own crash tests, which showed two of the trucks exploding into flames when hit by another car in a side impact.

The Truth:
As a multi-million-dollar lawsuit filed by GM later alleged, NBC had attached tiny model rocket engines to the trucks to make them burst into flames. Furthermore, the lawsuit alleged, “NBC did not disclose that the fire lasted only 15 seconds, that gasoline had leaked from an ill-fitting cap, and that its own correspondent had argued that the tests were unscientific and should not be aired.”

What Happened:
NBC settled the lawsuit with GM in February 1993 and as part of the settlement, apologized to GM publicly for staging the crash. NBC News president Michael Gartner was fired 21 days later, and the incident became famous as “a video-age symbol of irresponsible journalism.”

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LIFE’S LITTLE IRONIES

• Astronaut Buzz Aldrin’s mother’s maiden name was Moon.

• The only member of the band ZZ Top without a beard has the last name
Beard.

• On Jan. 4, 1971 George Mellendorf, a soldier in Vietnam, sent Pres. Richard Nixon this letter: “Dear President Nixon: It seems nobody cares if we get our mail. We are lucky to get it twice a week. Sir, someone is not doing their job.” It was delivered to Mr. Nixon in Feb. 1978, seven years later.

• On Jan. 2, 1997, famous psychic Jeanne Dixon made this celebrity prediction: “A famous entertainer [will] leave a nation in mourning within weeks.” On Jan. 25, three weeks later, she died of a heart attack.

We know—this sounds a little off-color. Butt…er…we mean
but…it’s
just another way to look at history.

L
ADY GODIVA,
wife of Earl Leofric, lord of Coventry, England, in the 1100s

Famous for:
Riding horseback through Coventry, covered only by her long blonde hair.

The bare facts:
Lady Godiva was upset by the heavy taxes her husband had imposed on poor people in his domain. When she asked him to give the folks a break, he laughingly replied that he’d cut the taxes if
she
would ride through the town naked. To his shock, she agreed. But she requested that townspeople stay indoors and not peek while she rode through the streets. Legend has it that they all complied except for one young man named Tom, who secretly watched through a shutter…which gave us the term “peeping Tom.”

ARCHIMEDES
(287-212 B.C.), a “classic absent-minded professor” and one of the most brilliant thinkers of the Ancient World

Famous for:
Running naked through the streets of ancient Syracuse, screaming “Eureka!”

The bare facts:
Archimedes’ friend, King Hieron II of Syracuse, Sicily, was suspicious that his new crown wasn’t solid gold. Had the goldsmith secretly mixed in silver? He asked Archimedes to find out. As Peter Lafferty recounts in his book,
Archimedes:

      
Archimedes took the crown home and sat looking at it. What was he to do? He weighed the crown. He weighed a piece of pure gold just like the piece the goldsmith had been given. Sure enough, the crown weighed the same as the gold. For many days, he puzzled over the crown. Then one evening,…the answer came to him.

          
That night, his servants filled his bath to the brim with water. As Archimedes lowered himself into the tub, the water overflowed onto the floor. Suddenly, he gave a shout and jumped out. Forgetting that he was naked, he ran down the street to the palace shouting “Eureka!” (“I have found it!”)

Archimedes, presumably still wearing his birthday suit, explained his discovery to the king: “When an object is placed in water,” he said, “it displaces an amount of water equal to its own volume.”

To demonstrate, he put the crown in a bowl of water and measured the overflow. Then he put a lump of gold that weighed the same as the crown into the bowl. “The amount of water was measured,” writes Lafferty, “and to the King’s surprise, the gold had spilled less than the crown.” It was proof that the goldsmith really
had
tried to cheat the king. The secret: “Silver is lighter than gold, so to make up the correct weight, extra silver was needed. This meant that the volume of the crown was slightly larger than the gold, so the crown spilled more water.”

Archimedes became famous for his discovery. We can only guess what happened to the goldsmith.

RED BUTTONS
, popular red-headed actor of the 1940s and 1950s

Famous for:
Being the first person ever to appear naked on TV.

The bare facts:
In the early 1950s, Red did a guest spot on the “Milton Berle Show,” which was broadcast live. One skit featured Berle as a doctor and Buttons as a shy patient who wouldn’t disrobe for his exam. Buttons wore a special “breakaway” suit—the coat, shirt, and pants were sewn together so they’d all come off when Berle yanked on the shirt collar. As he explained in
The Hollywood Walk of Shame:

      
When my character refused to get undressed, Milton was supposed to grab my shirt front and rip the entire thing off—and I’d be left standing there in old-fashioned, knee-to-neck one-piece underwear. That was the laugh.

          
Well, Milton reached for my shirt and accidentally grabbed me
under
the collar. And when he yanked at my breakaway suit, everything came off—including my underwear! We were on live television and there I stood—nude in front of a studio audience and all the people watching at home. When I realized what had happened, I got behind Milton, who was as shocked as I was, but had the presence of mind to announce the next act and have the curtain closed.

Buttons said he turned “as red as my hair.”

You probably still don’t know what you’re going to be doing when the year 2000 arrives…but some people have had their plans set for decades. Here’s a chronological list of what some of the real trailblazers have been busy with over the last 30 or 40 years, compiled by Eric Lefcowitz.

1
957: THE FIRST HOTEL RESERVATION.

Inspired by a novel about soldiers who agree to meet at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New York if they survive World War II, Jim Hoogerwert and his two best friends decided to meet at the Waldorf on December 31, 1999…and made reservations at the hotel. Hoogerwert, who’ll be 56 in 1999, told the
Los Angeles Times
in 1993: “I could never imagine, then, being 56. It seemed so far off.”

1963: THE FIRST “YEAR 2000” ORGANIZATION.

The World Association for Celebrating the Year 2000 (WACY) was founded in England. It began when the
Daily Telegraph
published a letter by John Goodman inquiring how people celebrated the year 1000. A clergyman replied that the year 1000 had been filled with apocalyptic fears. Goodman saw a parallel with contemporary life…and decided to form an organization to try to avert nuclear war. He wrote to Khrushchev, Kennedy and other world leaders with a plan to plant trees for the year 2000 rather than make bombs. When his plea was ignored, Goodman began travelling around England, planting “celebration-trees.” His motto: “An Un-disaster must be found for the world to think about.”

Eventually WACY blossomed into a worldwide foundation with members in 30 countries. Goodman, however, did not live to see the fruits of his labor—he died at age 65 in 1994.

1979: THE FIRST YEAR 2000 PARTY PLANS

Twenty students at Yale University formed the Millennium Society. Their goal: throw the biggest party in history, on December 31, 1999. Through annual Millennium Society Balls, the group planned to finance free public festivals in each of the world’s 24 time zones, including celebrations at China’s Great Wall, the Taj Mahal, Mount Fuji, the Eiffel Tower, and of course, Times Square.