Uncle John’s Unsinkable Bathroom Reader (63 page)

Actor:
Vic Morrow

Movie:
Twilight Zone: The Movie
(1983)

Story:
In a horrific morality tale, Morrow played a vicious racist who has the tables turned on him and suddenly finds himself in the jungles of Vietnam, being hunted down by American soldiers. While filming a scene involving gunfire and a helicopter, the pyrotechnics used for the gunfire exploded prematurely, causing the helicopter to crash. The helicopter’s blades decapitated Morrow, 53, and also killed two extras, both of whom were children. The movie was released anyway, but it didn’t do as well as expected at the box office—probably due to distaste over the accident. Director John Landis was later charged (but acquitted) with involuntary manslaughter and child endangerment.

Actress:
Natalie Wood

Movie:
Brainstorm
(1983)

Story:
Wood, a star in her childhood and early adulthood with films like
Miracle on 34th Street, Splendor in the Grass
, and
West Side Story
, died in 1981 while filming the virtual reality–themed
Brainstorm
. While partying on a yacht off Catalina Island with her husband Robert Wagner and
Brainstorm
co-star Christopher Walken, Wood disappeared. It was later discovered that she had tried to leave the yacht on a dinghy but fell into the water and drowned. She had one scene left to shoot in
Brainstorm
. Paramount Pictures debated for nearly two years about what to do, ultimately completing Wood’s final scene with a body double and dubbed dialogue.
Brainstorm
was quietly released in 1983.

Dr. Fredric J. Baur was a “food storage technician” for Proctor & Gamble for nearly half a century. His proudest achievement: the cylindrical Pringles potato chip can, which he patented in 1970. How proud was he? He wanted to be buried in one. And when he died in June 2008 at the age of 89, his children honored the request, putting as much of his ashes as would fit into a Pringles can and the remainder in an urn. The two containers were buried side by side.

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) was one of the literary giants of the 20th century. Here’s why
.

“At eighteen our convictions are hills from which we look; at forty-five they are caves in which we hide.”

“Genius is the ability to put into effect what is on your mind.”

“A sentimental person thinks things will last; a romantic person hopes against hope that they won’t.”

“Action is character.”

“The extraordinary thing is not that people turn out worse or better than we had prophesied. The extraordinary thing is how people keep their levels, fulfill their promises, and seem actually buoyed up by an inevitable destiny.”

“Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.”

“It’s not a slam at you when people are rude, it’s a slam at the people they’ve met before.”

“Personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures.”

“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind and still retain the ability to function.”

“Show me a hero and I will write you a tragedy.”

“The kiss originated when the first male reptile licked the first female reptile, implying in a subtle, complimentary way that she was as succulent as the small reptile he had for dinner the night before.”

“A great social success is a pretty girl who plays her cards as carefully as if she were plain.”

“It is sadder to find the past again and find it inadequate than it is to have it elude you and remain forever a harmonious conception of memory.”

“The world only exists in your eyes. You can make it as big or as small as you want.”

“What people are ashamed of usually makes a good story.”

Pac-Man
concerned a tiny, pie-shaped creature who ate power pills so that he could catch ghosts. An odd premise, but nothing compared to these
.

•
SOCKS THE CAT ROCKS THE HILL (
1992). Socks, the pet cat of President Bill Clinton, must get to the Oval Office to warn the president about a stolen nuclear bomb. To do that, he must defeat villains including Russian spies, the press corps, and former presidents Richard Nixon and George H. W. Bush.

•
CHAOS IN THE WINDY CITY
(1994). Basketball superstar Michael Jordan battles an army of basketball-headed zombies that has invaded Chicago. To defeat them, he uses an arsenal of magic basketballs (including fiery-hot basketballs and ice-block basketballs).

•
TOOBIN’
(1988). At the beginning of the game, the player floats down a backwoods river in a inner-tube race. Things suddenly take a turn for the worse as the player is chased by dinosaurs, ancient Inca warriors, and angry hillbillies.

•
BILL LAIMBEER’S COMBAT BASKETBALL
(1991). Basketball is supposed to be a noncontact sport. Not the way Laimbeer played it. As a Detroit Piston in the 1980s, he was well-known for frequent flagrant fouls and starting fights on the court. His notoriety led to this futuristic basketball game in which players punch, kick, push, and throw bombs at each other.

• COOL SPOT
(1993). In the early 1990s, 7-Up created a mascot—an anthropomorphic dot (with arms, legs, and sunglasses) based on the red dot in the 7-Up logo. The Spot was licensed for this game, which was essentially one long 7-Up ad in which the character wanders around a beach firing soda bubbles at enemies.

•
MICHAEL JACKSON’S MOONWALKER
(1990). A drug dealer named Mr. Big has kidnapped some children and takes them to the Moon, where he plans to use a laser cannon to destroy the Earth. As Michael Jackson, you have to defeat Mr. Big and his cronies by using dance moves that shoot “magic rays.”

•
THE TYPING OF THE DEAD
(2000). This semi-educational game is supposed to teach kids to type and spell. In order to fend off hungry zombies, you have to accurately type words. Get them right, the zombies leave you alone. Misspell, and the zombies will eat your b-r-a-i-n.

•
EXODUS
(1991). After solving some difficult logic puzzles, you have to answer questions about the Bible. Get those right, and you get to control Moses. The goal is to spread the word of God by shooting large
W
s (for “word of God”) at ancient Israelites.

•
THE FANTASTIC ADVENTURES OF DIZZY
(1991). A walking egg named Dizzy must save his family from an evil wizard by solving puzzles. One of the puzzles: Dizzy must pick certain plants and mix them in a bottle to make a medicine for his sick grandpa egg.

•
DRUM MASTER
(2006). In the game Guitar Hero, you get a plastic guitar and play along with well-known rock songs. Drum Master is made for the handheld Nintendo DS—you get to drum along with popular songs with two toothpick-sized sticks.

•
JOHN DEERE’S HARVEST IN THE HEARTLAND
(2007). Using various John Deere tractors and farm implements, you have to plant crops, fertilize crops, harvest crops, and milk cows. (And it’s one giant ad for John Deere.)

•
FACE TRAINING
(2007). Using a small camera that attaches to the TV, you have to copy the facial expressions the game tells you to make.

•
PRINCESS TOMATO IN THE SALAD KINGDOM
(1991). On a mission from the dying King Broccoli, the noble knight Sir Cucumber has to rescue Princess Tomato from her captor, Minister Pumpkin. Sir Cucumber is assisted by Percy, a baby persimmon.

•
TOILET KIDS
(1992). A little kid gets up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and is sucked through the toilet into another dimension populated by creatures who look like bathroom fixtures. The Toilet Kid must then do battle with tough toilet bodyguards and an evil giant urinal.

Mrs. Uncle John loves to call Uncle John out of the house (guess where he usually is at the time) to look at the stars. But he’s always amazed at the beauty and wonder of the sky. Turns out he’s not the only one
.

S
TARGAZERS
When ancient humans looked up at the night sky, why did they start making conceptual pictures based on the pattern of stars? Were they bored? Were they simply being creative? No, at least not all of them. According to historians, they were charting the stars primarily as a way to keep time—as important a thing in ancient times as it is today. Ancient peoples knew for many thousands of years how to keep time generally. They could, of course, keep track of passing days, seasonal changes, and lunar phases. But more precise measurements weren’t made until they discovered something that they could measure more precisely: the stars.

An example: The Australian aboriginal
Boorong
people noticed at some point that a particular group of stars disappeared for a long portion of the year—and that their reappearance happened to coincide with the beginning of the nesting season of the
neilloan
, a bird known today as the mallefowl. The eggs of the neilloan were an important food source for the Boorong, so charting the movement of those stars also became important. They began to associate the stars with the bird, which had a very practical effect: What better way to remember them than to draw a mental picture (of a bird) based on their configurations and to tell stories and develop traditions based on it?

That’s exactly what they did. The constellation
Neilloan
became one of many (including ones for a possum, an eagle, and an evil emu) in a system that was passed down by word of mouth for…who knows how long? The Boorong had no writing system, so no records exist, but some people think it may have been many thousands of years, longer than any other culture in the world. (
Neilloan
corresponds to our constellation
Lyra
, and it becomes
visible in the Southern Hemisphere in March, which is still when the mallefowl begin nesting.)

In many parts of the world the emergence of farming and permanent settlements brought about serious star study and hence, the creation of more constellations. Ancient farmers all over the world noted, for example, that when three particularly bright stars rose above a particular point on the horizon, it was time to harvest the crops. Those three bright stars became central in constellations in virtually every part of the world, and are the “warrior’s belt” on the constellation we know as
Orion
.

The history of our modern constellations goes back to the writings of Greek scholar Claudius Ptolemy, who in the second century wrote
The Almagest
, or “The Great Book.” In it he catalogued 1,022 stars and the 48 constellations that held them, including Cancer, Cassiopeia, Gemini, and Leo
. The Almagest
would be the foundation of Western astronomy for more than a thousand years. Hundreds of constellations were added over the centuries, including many by sailors, who used them for navigation. But not all of them lasted: Here are a few notable “extinct” constellations that can be found on some early 19th century star maps:

The Battery of Volta
.
Created in 1806 in honor of Alessandro Volta, inventor of the first electric battery.