Uncle John’s Fast-Acting Long-Lasting Bathroom Reader (10 page)

—Justin Timberlake

“I don’t mean to be a diva, but some days you wake up and you’re Barbra Streisand.”

—Courtney Love

“My name is Ted f***ing Williams and I’m the greatest hitter in baseball.”

—Ted Williams

“You got to believe in yourself. Hell, I believe I’m the best-looking guy in the world and I might be right.”

—Charles Barkley

“I am beautiful, famous, and gorgeous.”

—Anna Kournikova

“I’m very secure with the fact that I’m not black. I’m white, pink, and rosy. But I’ve got soul.”

—Bono

“I never lie. I believe everything I say, so it’s not a lie.”

—Mark Wahlberg

“I’m the high-priced dog meat that everybody wants, the Alpo of the NBA.”

—
Shaquille O’Neal

“To the people I forgot, you weren’t on my mind for some reason and you probably don’t deserve any thanks anyway.”

—Eminem

“After the holocaust, there will still be cockroaches and Cher.”

—Cher

Eeek! The longest one-syllable word in the English language is
screeched
.

BAD MUSICALS

Plenty of weird concepts make it to the Broadway stage. Some are really successful. Not these
.

M
USICAL:
Rockabye Hamlet
(1976)

TOTAL PERFORMANCES:
7

STORY:
Adolescent angst and rebellion are major themes in rock music—and in Shakespeare’s
Hamlet
. So that would make Hamlet the perfect inspiration for a rock musical, right? Wrong. Originally written as a radio play (under the title
Kronberg: 1582), Rockabye Hamlet
hit Broadway in 1976 with hundreds of flashing lights and an onstage band. Writers followed Shakespeare’s storyline but abandoned his dialogue. They opted instead for lines like the one Laertes sings to Polonius: “Good son, you return to France/Keep your divinity inside your pants.”

Notable Song:
“The Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Boogie.”

MUSICAL:
Bring Back Birdie
(1981)

TOTAL PERFORMANCES:
4

STORY:
A sequel to the 1961 hit
Bye Bye Birdie
. In the original, teen idol Conrad Birdie sings a farewell concert and kisses a lucky girl before joining the military (it was inspired by Elvis Presley being drafted in the 1950s).
Bring Back Birdie
takes place 20 years later and couldn’t have been farther from the real Elvis story—Birdie has settled down as mayor of a small town when somebody talks him into making a comeback. The only problem: audiences didn’t come back.

Notable Moment:
One night during the show’s brief run, when actor Donald O’Connor forgot the words to a song, he told the band, “You sing it. I hate this song anyway,” and walked off stage.

MUSICAL:
Via Galactica
(1972)

TOTAL PERFORMANCES:
7

STORY:
A band of hippies (led by Raul Julia) travel through outer space on an asteroid in the year 2972, searching for an uninhabited planet on which to settle “New Jerusalem.” The weightlessness of space was simulated by actors jumping on trampolines for the entire show. A rock score would have suited the 1970s counterculture themes, but for some reason songwriters Christopher Gore and Galt McDermot chose country music.

Q: What was the Lone Ranger’s name? (Hint: his first name isn’t Lone.) A: John Reid.

Notable Name:
The original title for the show was
Up!
, but producers changed it because it was being staged at the Uris Theatre and the marquee would have read
“Up!
Uris.”

MUSICAL:
Carrie
(1988)

TOTAL PERFORMANCES:
5

STORY:
Based on Stephen King’s gory novel about a telekinetic teenager who kills everybody at her high school prom,
Carrie
was full of bad taste and bad ideas. It’s regarded by many critics as the biggest flop (it lost $8 million) and worst musical of all time:

•
Newsday
called
Carrie
“stupendously, fabulously terrible. Ineptly conceived, sleazy, irrational from moment to moment, it stretches way beyond bad to mythic lousiness.”

•
The Washington Post
likened it to “a reproduction of ‘The Last Supper’ made entirely out of broken bottles. You can’t help marveling at the lengths to which someone went to make it.”

Notable Songs:
Carrie’s mother sings about being sexually molested in “I Remember How Those Boys Could Dance,” and Carrie serenades a hairbrush in “I’m Not Alone.”

MUSICAL:
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
(1966)
TOTAL PERFORMANCES:
0 (Closed in previews)
STORY:
It had the highest advance sales of any show in 1966, primarily because of its cast—TV stars Mary Tyler Moore and Richard Chamberlain—but also because audiences expected a light, bouncy stage version of the popular movie. Unfortunately, they got a musical more like Truman Capote’s original novella: dark and tragic. After a disastrous trial run, playwright Edward Albee was hired to rewrite the script. He did little to improve it, removing nearly all the jokes and making Moore’s character a figment of Chamberlain’s imagination. Audiences were so confused that they openly talked to and questioned the actors on stage. The show ran for four preview performances before producer David Merrick announced he was closing it immediately to save theatergoers from “an excruciatingly boring evening.”

Is it a red state? Tomato juice is the state beverage of Ohio.

STRANGE LAWSUITS

It seems people will sue each other over practically anything. We can’t always find the verdicts for these real-life lawsuits, but they’re so funny, we knew they’d make great bathroom reading, anyway
.

P
LAINTIFF:
Norreasha Gill of Lexington, Kentucky
DEFENDANT:
Kentucky radio station WLTO-FM
LAWSUIT:
In June 2005, Gill was listening to the station when she heard the host offer to give “one hundred grand” to the tenth caller at a specified time. Gill listened for several hours, called at the right time…and won! The next morning she went down to the station to pick up her $100,000, but was told by the station manager that she hadn’t won $100,000—she’d won one Nestle’s 100 Grand candy bar. Obviously, Gill was upset. After numerous complaints, the station offered to give her $5,000, but Gill refused and filed suit, demanding the $100,000 (she’d already promised her kids a minivan). “What really hurts me,” Gill said, “is they were going to get me in front of my children, all dressed up, and hand me a candy bar.”

PLAINTIFF:
Luiz Fernandes Peres

DEFENDANT:
The Taverna Pub Medieval Bar in Natal, Brazil

LAWSUIT:
When Peres got sick and threw up in the bar’s rest-room, the bartender added a “puke tax” to his bill. So Peres sued the bar for charging him the extra fee. “I consider this extortion,” he told the local newspaper. The bar’s owner defended the fee, saying they’ve been charging it to people who vomit on the premises for years.

PLAINTIFF:
Marina Bai, a Russian astrologist

DEFENDANT:
NASA

LAWSUIT:
In July 2005, NASA sent a car-sized probe, dubbed “Deep Impact,” on a successful collision course with Tempel 1, a comet that passes Earth every 5½ years. Scientists were hoping to determine the makeup of the ancient comet, and possibly learn the makeup of the solar system billions of years ago. Bai sued the American space agency for $300 million, claiming that the collision had changed her horoscope. “It is obvious,” Bai told Russia’s
Izvestia
newspaper, “that elements of the comet’s orbit, and correspondingly the ephemeris, will change after the explosion, which interferes with my astrology work and distorts my horoscope.”

Smart move: In 1977 Ben and Jerry took a $5 correspondence course in ice cream making.

PLAINTIFF:
Patricia Frankhouser of Jeannette, Pennsylvania

DEFENDANT:
The Norfolk Southern Railway

LAWSUIT:
Frankhouser sued the railroad in 2004 after she was hit by a train…while walking on the tracks. Frankhouser’s suit blamed the railroad company for her injuries, claiming it should have posted warning signs, notifying people that the train tracks were being used by trains. (She wasn’t badly hurt.)

PLAINTIFF:
Bernd Naveke of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

DEFENDANT:
The Brahma Brewery

LAWSUIT:
Naveke, 40, worked as a brewer and beer taster for 20 years until being forced to leave his job because he had become an alcoholic. In 2000 he sued the company, saying that for the 20 years in their employ he had to drink eight liters (about two gallons) of beer daily and even more during holiday seasons. “I left work drunk every day,” Naveke said. Was it the brewery’s fault that he was an alcoholic? The court thought so: Naveke was awarded $30,000 and a monthly pension of $2,600 for the rest of his life. But he thought it wasn’t enough. In 2004 the appeals court agreed…and awarded him a lump sum of $2 million.

PLAINTIFF:
Jesus Christ

DEFENDANT:
West Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles
LAWSUIT:
A man who changed his name to Jesus Christ sued the West Virginia DMV in 2005 because they wouldn’t issue him a driver’s license with the name on it. Officials said they couldn’t issue the license because his birth certificate shows his birth name, Peter Robert Phillips Jr., and he never obtained a legal name change. He did, however, have a passport, a Social Security card, and a Washington D.C. driver’s license, all of which showed the name “Jesus Christ.” His attorney said he had changed his name 15 years earlier and had never had a problem. When asked if his client would comment on the case, his lawyer said, “Christ is not speaking to the press at this time.”

Cold cash: McMurdo Station in Antarctica (winter population: 200) has its own ATM.

WACKY TV

Every year TV executives hear hundreds of ideas for new shows. We all know the great ones; here are a few of the clunkers. Believe it or not, these actually made it to the tube
.

S
IT OR MISS
(1950)
A fast-paced daytime game show in which five contestants competed for cash and prizes by playing musical chairs.

TONI TWIN TIME
(1950)

Basically a 15-minute commercial trying to pass itself off as a talent show. Hosted by a young Jack Lemmon, it featured pairs of teenage twin girls. First came the talent portion: girls would sing a song, perform a dramatic recital, or play an instrument. Next, though completely unrelated to the talent portion, the audience would guess which girl had had her hair done professionally and which had used a Toni Home Permanent kit. The program aired in prime time.

THE UGLIEST GIRL IN TOWN
(1968)

In order to stay in London with his British girlfriend, an American man dresses in drag and lands work as a fashion model. Despite looking nothing like a woman (his face wasn’t even shaved), he becomes the toast of the swinging ’60s fashion world because of his “unique” appearance. It ran for 20 episodes.

LANCELOT LINK / SECRET CHIMP
(1970)

A parody of secret-agent shows like
The Man From U.N.C.L.E
. but with an all-chimpanzee cast. The plot: the members of a chimpanzee rock band, the Evolution Revolution, have a sideline—
they’re spies!
So, cut between footage of chimps “playing” guitars and drums are scenes of chimp gun battles, chimps jumping out of airplanes, and chimps crashing cars. Special effects weren’t used to make the chimps “talk”; producers gave them gum to chew to mimic talking and voices were dubbed by humans. A goofy show like this would have worked fine on Saturday mornings as a kids’ show, but
Lancelot Link
was broadcast in prime time. And it bombed. So it was moved to Saturday mornings, where it thrived. (It was also successful on Nick at Nite as a rerun in 1988.)

Most school buses in America are painted “National School Bus Chrome Yellow.”

THE BRADY BUNCH VARIETY HOUR
(1977)

Three years after their sitcom went off the air, the cast of
The Brady Bunch
returned in this weekly hour of songs, skits, and water stunts (yes, water stunts), performing in character as the Brady family. The original Jan (Eve Plumb) didn’t want to do the show and was replaced with actress Geri Reischl, who didn’t look like her. It lasted nine episodes.

GREAT DAY
(1977)

Al Molinaro (“Al” in
Happy Days
) and Billy Barty play two homeless alcoholics trying to survive on the streets of New York City. A compelling tragic drama? No—
Great Day
was a comedy. It aired only once.

MANIMAL
(1983)

An animal behavior studies professor can turn himself into any animal he wishes, whenever he wishes, and uses his power to fight crime. What was an intriguing premise didn’t work. Why? Because the special effects needed to turn man into animal turned out to be very expensive. So producers cut corners, using poorly trained animal actors. Result: the show’s handful of episodes featured birds, tigers, dogs, snakes, and cougars moving the wrong way, attacking the camera, looking directly into the camera, or sitting completely still when they should have been running. NBC’s most-hyped show of 1983 was gone after eight episodes.