Uncle John’s Giant 10th Anniversary Bathroom Reader (38 page)

JANE FONDA

First film:
Tall Story
(1960)

The role:
Not what you’d expect. The future feminist plays June, a 21-year-old home economics major and cheerleader who’s got her sights set on the school’s basketball star and top scholar (Anthony Perkins). Once she gets him—about a third of the way through the film—she fades into the background. The story then focuses on Perkins’s basketball dramas.

Memorable line:
(On why she came to college) “The same reason that every girl, if she’s honest, comes to college—to get married.”

NICOLAS CAGE

First film:
Fast Times at Ridgemont High
(1982)

The role:
“Brad’s Bud”—a part so small that the writers didn’t even bother giving him a name (or any lines). Most of his part was cut out, but you can still see him looking miserable behind the grill at All-American Burger. He was billed as Nicolas Coppola, but got so much flak from the cast about being director Francis Coppola’s nephew that by his next film he’d changed his name to Cage.

MICHELLE PFEIFFER

First film:
Hollywood Knights
(1980)

The role:
“Sporting her old nose and too much eye-liner…she [plays] Suzy Q, a carhop at Tubby’s Drive-In, where her job requires her to wear tall, white go-go boots.” On the side, she’s an aspiring actress and girlfriend of Tony Danza—who also makes his screen debut in this “low-rent ripoff of
American Graffiti.”

Memorable line:
“I have an audition in the morning.”

TOM HANKS

First film:
He Knows You’re Alone
(1980)

The role:
Hanks is on for 3 1/2 minutes in this low-budget psychoslasher film. He plays a college student who meets two of the killer’s future victims and takes them on a date to a Staten Island amusement park. That’s about it.

Memorable line:
“Want a goober?”

A few choice thoughts from Roseanne.

“My husband said he needs more space. So I locked him outside.”

“You may think you married the man of your dreams…but 15 years later, you’re married to a reclining chair that burps.”

“My husband and I found this great new method of birth control that really, really works…Every night before we go to bed, we spend an hour with our kids.”

“Men can read maps better than women, because only the male mind could conceive of one inch equaling one hundred miles.”

“The other day on “Donahue,” they had men who like to dress up as women. When they do, they can no longer parallel park.”

“I quit smoking. I feel better. I smell better. And it’s safer to drink out of old beer cans laying around the house.”

“The day I worry about cleaning my house is the day Sears comes out with a riding vacuum cleaner.”

“My son is into that nose-picking thing. The least he can do is act like an adult—buy a car and sit in traffic.”

“You get a lot of tension. You get a lot of headaches. I do what it says on the aspirin bottle. Take two and keep away from children.”

“The way I look at it, if the kids are still alive when my husband comes home from work, then I’ve done my job.”

“Women are cursed, and men are the proof.”

“Women complain about premenstrual syndrome, but I think of it as the only time of the month I can be myself.”

“It’s okay to be fat. So you’re fat. Just be fat and shut up about it.”

…Well…funny, anyway. Here’s some dialogue from B-sci-fi films. No kidding, someone actually got paid to write this stuff.

S
cientist:
“They took five death row inmates and injected them with a genetic code of sorts, taken from different species of fish, primarily salmon. It essentially fuses with genetic material already existing.”

Astonished listener:
“Fish-men!?”

Scientist:
“You could say that. The goal was to create an amphibious soldier, but…something went wrong…”

—Humanoids from the Deep

Dr Wagner:
“But you’re sacrificing a human life!”

Dr Brandon
(mad scientist): “Do you cry over a guinea pig? This boy is a free police case. We’re probably saving him from the gas chamber.”

Dr Wagner:
“But the boy is so young, the transformation horrible…

Dr Brandon:
“And you call yourself a scientist! That’s why you’ve never been more than an assistant.”

—I Was a Teenage Werewolf

Teenager:
“You know something? Those things, whatever they are—they’re smarter than all of us put together.”

—The Eye Creatures

Dr. Durea:
“Oh, she’s a lucky young woman, [Dr.] Groton. We have desperate need of her blood. She has survived decapitation and is manufacturing the right type of vital fluid for us. We are not butchers, Groton! We don’t have this young lady here to merely drain her body and cast her aside! No. We are scientists! And we must have others to experiment with!”

—Dracula Vs. Frankenstein

First Scientist:
“You say you made a close examination of this light?”

Second Scientist:
“Not as close as I would have liked! It was being guarded by a…a sea serpent! A hideous beast that defies description!”

First Scientist:
“Oh, doctor, if I didn’t know you were a scientist of high standards, I’d say you were a victim of the ridiculous ‘Phantom’ stories that are running wild around the village!”

—The Phantom from 10,000 Leagues1

Steve
(the hero scientist): “Who are you? What do you want?”

Evil alien brain:
“I am Gor! I need your body as a dwelling-place while I am here on your planet Earth.”

Steve:
“Why me?”

Gor:
“Because you are a recognized nuclear scientist. Because you have entrée to places on Earth I want to go. I chose your body very carefully, even before I knew about Sally—a very exciting female!”

Steve:
“Leave Sally out of this!”

Gor:
“Why? She appeals to me! There are some aspects of the life of an Earth savage that are exciting and rewarding! Things that are missed by the brains on my planet, Arous.”

—The Brain from Planet Arous

Dr. Marvin
(hero scientist): “General, we saw a strange thing this afternoon. We saw what appeared to be a flying saucer.”

General Hanley:
“A flying saucer!?”

Carol Marvin
(scientist’s new wife): “It nearly ran us off the road.”

Hanley:
“You’re sure of that?”

Dr. Marvin:
“Both Carol and I are subject to the same atmospheric disturbances that may have affected other observers, but there is a quantitative difference, when you’re a scientist.”

Dr. Marvin:
“What do you want with me?”

Alien:
“Arrange for your world leaders to confer with us in the city of Washington D.C.”

Dr. Marvin:
“They may not listen! I’m only a scientist!”

—Earth Versus the Flying Saucers

Is blood really thicker than water? How much would you have to eat if you “ate like a horse’’? We found the answers in
The Column of Lists.

A
t a snail’s pace:
The fastest-moving land snail is probably the common garden snail. Its top speed is 55 yards per hour, or 0.0313 mph.

Only skin deep:
The skin on your eyelid is one one-thousandth of an inch deep (the thinnest); the skin on your upper back is one-fifth of an inch (the thickest).

Eat like a horse:
A 1,200-pound horse eats about 15 pounds of hay and nine pounds of grain every day (seven times its own weight each year).

Quick as a wink:
The average wink, or blink, lasts one-tenth of a second.

Knee-high to a grasshopper:
The knee-high measurement of an average-sized grasshopper is about 1/2 inch.

High as a kite:
The official record is 12,471 feet. Abbott Rotch, director of the U.S. Weather Bureau station in Milton, Massachusetts, set that record on February 28, 1898. Weather bureau people used to be master kite fliers, and their kites carried instruments that measured not only the temperature and humidity but also the altitude.

Faster than a speeding bullet:
Los Angeles Police Department ballistics experts say that the fastest bullet is fired from a .223-caliber rifle and travels at 3,500 feet per second, more than three times the speed of sound.

Blood is thicker than water:
In chemistry, water is assigned a relative density, or specific gravity, of 1.00—it is used as the standard for all other densities. By comparison, blood has a specific gravity of 1.06—only slightly thicker than water.

We admit it—we like to sneak a peek at the personal ads every once in a while. Even when they’re completely serious, they’re fascinating. And when they’re strange, they’re irresistible. Most of these ads were collected by Kathy Hinckley for her book
Plain Fat Chick Seeks Guy Who Likes Broccoli.

WOMEN SEEKING MEN

Me: buxom blonde
with blue eyes. You: elderly, marriage-minded millionaire with bad heart.

I like driving around with my
two cats, especially on the freeway. I make them wear little hats so that I can use the carpool lane. Way too much time on your hands too? Call me.