Uncle John’s Giant 10th Anniversary Bathroom Reader (29 page)

“Morrow was so mortified by what he was acting terrified of on the screen that he slunk out of the theater and met his family in the parking lot when the movie was over. [Then he] hastily retreated to his house” to avoid talking to anyone in the audience.

GREAT DIALOGUE

Narrator:
“Once more a frantic pilot radios in a report on a UFO. A bird. A bird as big as a Battleship.”

General Buzzkirk:
“Three men reported they saw something. Two of them are now dead.”

Mitch:
“That makes me Chief Cook and Bottle Washer in a one-man Bird-Watchers’ Society!”

First Pilot:
“This is Easy Baker Squadron Leader. Target below and to the side. See it?”

Second Pilot:
“Yee-ow! Holy Toledo! I’ve seen some mighty big chicken-hawks back on the farm, but man, this baby takes the cake! Honest to Pete, I’ll never call my mother-in-law an old crow again!”

Sally:
“Will it work, Mitch?”

Mitch:
“I don’t know. I honestly haven’t the faintest, foggiest idea. It’s one of those cockeyed concepts that you pull down out of Cloud Eight somewhere in sheer desperation.”

Scientist:
“That bird is extra-terrestrial! It comes from outer space—from some God-forsaken anti-matter galaxy millions and millions of light years from the Earth. No other explanation is possible.”

Narrator:
“No corner of the Earth was spared the terror of looking up into God’s blue sky and seeing, not peace and security, but the feathered nightmare on wings!”

Mitch:
“The explosion was no accident! I did it on purpose! I used the mesic atom projector!”

Scientist:
“What!”

Mitch:
“Sure! We had the basic wiring all fouled up. It was a simple matter of adjusting the polarity on the main condensor terminals!”

Some rumors have been around so long that they deserve a special place in the annals of gossip. Have you heard any of these?

O
RIGIN:
Mid-1940s.

RUMOR:
The Harvard School of Medicine will buy your body for $500. All you have to do is let them tattoo the words “Property of Harvard Medical School” on the bottom of your feet. When you die, your body will be shipped C.O.D. to Harvard.

HOW IT SPREAD:
By word of mouth, back when $500 was a lot of money.

THE TRUTH:
Harvard says it has never paid people for their bodies, and only accepts donations from people who specify in their wills that they want their bodies to go to the school. Even then, surviving relatives have to agree with the bequest. To this day, the school receives several calls a week asking about the program.

ORIGIN:
The 1950s, heyday of big hair.

RUMOR:
A teenager got a beehive hairdo, and liked it so much that she didn’t wash it out—not even after a couple of weeks. She sprayed it every morning with hair spray…and suddenly one morning got a terrible stabbing pain on the top of her head. She went to the doctor, who found a black widow that had stung the woman on her scalp. She died from the sting a few days later.

THE TRUTH:
This story changes with fashion trends. In the 1960s, it was a mouse that tunneled into the brain of a “dirty hippie”; in the 1970s, a man died on the floor of a disco when the cucumber he stuffed down the front of his tight pants cut off circulation to his legs. Most versions have two morals: 1) bathe regularly; and 2) avoid loony fashion fads.

ERA:
The 1970s, during the energy crisis

RUMOR:
The oil companies have a pill that can make a car go 100 miles on one gallon of gas. But they’re sitting on it to keep gasoline sales high. (Similar stories abounded about super-carburetors and experimental cars that went 1,000 miles on a gallon of gas.)

HOW IT SPREAD:
Word of mouth, perhaps as an explanation for the fuel crisis, and/or a manifestation of public fear and suspicion of huge corporations.

THE TRUTH:
Oil companies scoff at the idea, and no one has ever produced a shred of evidence. The story can be traced to an old gas station con, when hucksters would pull into a gas station, fill a fake gasoline tank with water, and then convince the gas station owner that the car ran on water and a magic pill. The con man then sold the owner a jar of the pills for all the cash he had.

ORIGIN:
Late 1930s.

RUMOR:
If the wrapper of your Tootsie Roll Pop has a picture of the Indian aiming his bow and arrow at a star (called “Shooting Star” by the company) on it, you can send it in for a free bag of candies.

HOW IT SPREAD:
From one kid to another since the Tootsie Roll Pop was introduced in 1936.

THE TRUTH:
The Tootsie Roll Company has never redeemed an Indian wrapper for bags of candy. Even if it wanted to, it couldn’t afford to, since nearly half of all Tootsie Roll Pops have the Indian on the label. The company responds to such requests with a legend of its own: in a special form letter, it explains that Shooting Star is the one who invented the process of putting the Tootsie Pop inside the lollipop. Every once in a while, Shooting Star returns to the factory and inspects the candy to make sure the company is following his instructions. The Indian on the wrapper is Shooting Star’s seal of approval: it shows that he has personally inspected that piece of candy himself.

ORIGIN:
The 1960s

RUMOR:
It’s against the law to kill a praying mantis. If you’re caught, you can be fined.

THE TRUTH:
Praying mantises are good for gardens, but there’s no law protecting them—they’re not endangered. (In fact, this rumor predated the Endangered Species Act by many years.) The tale was probably invented years ago by a gardener trying to keep kids from destroying the weird-looking, but beneficial, bugs.

If you’ve never seen one of Alan Smithee’s movies, consider yourself lucky. As a director, Smithee has made more movies than almost anyone…and nearly everyone of them stinks. Here’s the story behind the name.

I
HAVEN’T HEARD OF THIS “SMITHEE” GUY. HAS HE REALLY MADE SO MANY MOVIES?

Yep. Smithee has had his hand in more than 60 movies, an untold number of television shows and more than a dozen music videos since 1969. He’s not only very prolific, but more versatile than any other director. His movies have appeared in all genres and budget ranges, from forgettable Westerns and slasher films…to medium-range comedies…to high-budget science fiction. What’s strange, though, is that with all these movies, he’s never been interviewed by
Entertainment Weekly
or
People.

Even more curious is the fact that although getting funding for a movie is hard enough even for a
good
director, his movies consistently stink.

HOW DOES HE MANAGE TO GET SO MUCH WORK? IS HE SOMEBODY’S BROTHER-IN-LAW OR SOMETHING?

No. He’s not related to anyone—because he doesn’t exist. His name is used by real directors who don’t want to take credit—or blame—for movies that didn’t turn out the way they’d hoped.

The name dates back to 1969 when “Smithee” directed his first film,
Death of a Gunfighter.
In reality, it was directed by two different people—Robert Totten and Don Siegal. But neither director was happy with the final version, and they asked their trade union, the Directors Guild of America, how to go about disassociating themselves from it. The Guild decided that a fictitious character should be created to shoulder the blame in cases where directors have lost control of their work.

Coming up with a name that was both generic and unique, however, was a problem. One Guild member, Emmy-winner John Rich, suggested an anonymous-sounding “Smith”—but that suggestion was turned down because it was common enough to possibly create confusion with real directors named Smith. Rich suggested adding two e’s at the end and Guild officers agreed.

Ironically, Smithee’s work in
Deach of a Gunfighter
got good reviews. The
New York Times
raved that the film was “sharply directed” and that “Smithee has an adroit facility for scanning faces and extracting sharp background detail.” Variety observed that “Smithee’s direction keeps the action taut and he draws a convincing portrayals from the supporting cast.” The reviews were so good, that Siegal joked to wannabe directors that they change their name to “Alan Smithee” and take credit for the film. Luckily, none of them took him up on the idea, because within a few years, Smithee’s name would become an industry watchword for bad films.

CAN ANY DIRECTOR USE THE NAME?

No, the Smithee name is controlled by the Directors Guild, and they have strong rules about when a director can use it. That’s based on the union’s longstanding philosophy that the director is the “author” of a film and so that part of the burden of taking credit for creative successes is also taking the blame for failures.

HOW BIG A SECRET IS THIS SMITHEE THING?

In Hollywood, it’s no secret at all. In fact, it’s become an in-joke that everybody’s in on. For example, a
Simpson’s
episode featured an industrial safety film at Homer’s plant that was credited as “An Alan Smithee Production.” In 1997, the University of Pennsylvania held a none-hour seminar on the societal ramifications of Alan Smithee. The organizers’ rationale: “[The Smithee concept is] a stark reminder of Hollywood’s economics: You can make a name for yourself, but it never belongs to you.”

Also in 1997, Disney released a movie about Hollywood titled An A
lan Smithee Production,
about a film director whose name really
is
Alan Smithee. An irony, completely unintended—its director, Arthur Hiller, hated the final cut demanded by its writer joe Ezsterhas so he applied to have his name taken off the final product. As a result, An Alan Smithee Film is officially directed by “Alan Smithee.” What could be more fitting?

Since his death in
1977,
Elvis’s popularity has grown. Once he was just a singer. Now he’s an icon with his own church (the Church of Elvis), and his own holy site (Graceland). It’s an amazing phenomenon—but it hasn’t been entirely accidental. Behind the scenes, a handful of people have orchestrated Elvis’s return from the dead for their own benefit. Here’s part of the inside story. For a more complete story, we recommend
Elvis, Inc.,
by Sean O’Neal. It’s entertaining bathroom reading.

B
ACK FROM THE DEAD

Ironically, the tale of Elvis’s resurrection begins with the story of a vampire.

In 1960 Universal Studios dusted off a number of its classic horror films and released them for TV broadcast. It was the first time baby boom kids had ever seen the original
Frankenstein
(starring Boris Karloff),
The Wolfman
(starring Lon Chaney) or
Dracula
(starring Bela Lugosi)—and the films were phenomenally popular. In fact, a huge “monster” fad swept America…and Universal cashed in by licensing its characters for T-shirts, posters, lunch boxes, etc. One of the most popular images was Bela Lugosi in his Count Dracula costume.

Courting Universal

When Lugosi’s widow and son found out about the merchandising deals, they filed suit to block them. Their argument: Lugosi’s name and likeness should be passed on to his family, as his worldly assets had been. At the very least, they had a right to share in the profits.

The Lugosis won their lawsuit. But Universal appealed the decision. The second time around, appellate judges reasoned that if the names and likenesses of famous people could be inherited, the relatives of all public figures—past and present—could sue for royalties. Even George Washington’s descendants could charge the federal government for the right to use his image on the $1 bill. The judges ruled in favor of Universal.

Laurel and Hardy

In 1975, after Laurel and Hardy’s old films became popular on TV, the heirs of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy filed a similar lawsuit against the Hal Roach Studios. This time, the
heirs
won, throwing the entire issue of posthumous “intellectual property” into chaos.

Based on legal decisions, it was impossible to tell who owned the rights to a dead celebrity’s image—the public…or the celebrity’s family.

ELVIS PRESLEY

That was the situation when Elvis died from a drug overdose on August 16, 1977. His death was announced at 3:30 that afternoon; within a few hours, newspapers were speculating about his estate’s value.