Uncle John’s Giant 10th Anniversary Bathroom Reader (7 page)

Area man wins award for nuclear accident

International Scientific Group Elects Bimbo As Its Chairman

Storm delayed by bad weather

LEGISLATORS TAX BRAINS TO CUT DEFICIT

DEAD GUITARIST NOW SLIMMER AND TRIMMER

Study Finds Sex, Pregnancy Link

Include Your Children When Baking Cookies

Trees can break wind

RANGERS TO TEST PEETERS FOR RUST

Cockroach Slain, Husband Badly Hurt

Living Together Linked to Divorce

ECUADOR’S PRESIDENT DECLARES HE’S NOT DEAD

LACK OF BRAINS HINDERS RESEARCH

Two Sisters Reunited After 18 Years At Checkout Counter

Man,
Shot Twice in Head, Gets Mad

MISSOURI WOMAN BIG WINNER AT HOG SHOW

Teacher Dies; Board Accepts His Resignation

PANTS MAN TO EXPAND AT THE REAR

You’ve watched them work, you’ve heard them speak—but you’ve probably never heard their names. They’re the actors inside the gorilla suits, the voices of talking animals, etc. We think they deserve a
little
credit.

T
HE VOICE OF E.T.

• E.T.’s voice was created by combining the voices of three people, a sea otter, and a dog. But the person who spoke the most famous lines—“E.T. phone home” and “Be good”—was Patricia A. Welsh, a former radio soap opera star who’d only been involved in one other movie (
Waterloo
, with Robert Taylor, in 1940).

• By contract, she was forbidden to say her lines (which are copyrighted) even casually in conversation; Steven Spielberg said he “didn’t want kids to get confused about E.T.’s image.” Her name isn’t even listed in the credits.

DARTH VADER

• David Prowse is a 6′ 6″, 266-pound former heavyweight wrestling champion. George Lucas saw him in
A Clockwork Orange
and offered him his choice between two parts—Chewbacca or Vader. Prowse chose Vader because he didn’t like the idea of going around in a “gorilla suit” for six months.

THE “LOST IN SPACE” ROBOT

• Bob May, a stuntman, had a few small parts in a TV series called “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.” The producer, Irwin Allen, told May he was the right size for a part in a new TV series and asked if he’d be interested. May said yes; Allen said: “Fine, you have the part, go try on the robot costume.”

• Cast members goofed on May a lot. One time they locked him in the robot suit and left him there during a lunch break. He tried yelling, but no one was around…so he had a cigarette. Irwin Allen wandered in, saw smoke coming from the robot and thought it was burning up. He went to get a fire extinguisher while May yelled from inside the suit. Later, Allen decided he liked the effect and had May smoke a cigar in the suit for a story about the robot burning out.

MR. ED’S VOICE

• When “Mr. Ed” debuted in 1960, the horse’s voice was credited to “an actor who prefers to remain nameless.”

•
TV Guide
sent a reporter to the studio to figure out who it was. The reporter found a parking space on the “Mr. Ed” set assigned to an old 1930s movie cowboy named Alan “Rocky” Lane.

• Lane admitted it was his voice (he’d been too embarrassed to let people know). He dubbed Ed’s voice off-camera, while the horse was “mouthing the words.” A nylon bit concealed in Ed’s mouth made him move his lips.

R2-D2

• Kenny Baker, 3′8″ tall, was hired simply because he fit into the robot suit. “They made R2-D2 small because Carrie and Mark were small….My agent sent me down. They looked at me and said, “He’ll do!’”

• “I thought it was a load of rubbish at first. Then I thought, ‘Well, Alec Guinness is in it; he must know what’s going on.’”

THE VOICE OF THE DEMON IN
THE EXORCIST

• Mercedes McCambridge, an Academy Award-winning actress, was a Catholic. So when she was offered the role, she was uncertain about whether to take it. She consulted Father Walter Hartke at Catholic University, and he approved.

• In the film, the demon’s voice is heard as Linda Blair vomits green gunk. According to one report: “A tube was glued to each side of Blair’s face and covered with makeup. Two men knelt on either side of Blair holding a syringe filled with the green stuff, ready to shoot on cue.”

• “McCambridge had to coordinate her sound effects with the action. A prop man lined up a row of Dixie cups in front of her containing apple pieces soaking in water, and some containing whole boiled eggs. McCambridge held the soft apple chunks in her jaws as she swallowed a boiled egg. On cue, in precise coordination with the screen action, she flexed her diaphragm and spewed everything on the microphone….‘It was hard,’ she said. ‘I sometimes had to lie down after those scenes.’”

How much do you know about the early days of rock ’n’ roll? Here’s a test to find out. Answers are cm
page 492
.

1.
The song that made Elvis a mega-star was the 1956 smash “(You Ain’t Nothin’ but a) Hound Dog.” How did he come up with it?

a) He used to sing it to his real hound dog, “Buster.”

b) He copied it from a Las Vegas lounge act.

c) He overheard a woman singing it in a Memphis bus station.

2.
The flip side of “Hound Dog,” “Don’t Be Cruel,” was also a big hit. Elvis not only sang it, but co-wrote it with Otis Blackwell. How did Elvis and Otis wind up working together?

a) They were sitting next to each other on an airplane in 1955. To kill time, they started playing a rhyming game that turned into a hit song.

b) Otis was a nephew of Colonel Tom Parker (Elvis’s manager) and needed money to get married. Elvis co-wrote the song with him as a “wedding present.”

c) They didn’t. Elvis just insisted on getting a writing credit (and half the royalties) as his “reward” for singing the song.

3.
In the 1950s, Pat Boone was known as a “cover artist”—which meant he copied black artists’ new songs and usually outsold them (because white artists’ records got more airplay). In 1956, he covered Fats Domino’s classic “Ain’t That a Shame.” How did he try to change it?

a) He tried to take the word “ain’t” out and replace it with “isn’t” because he thought it would reflect badly on his education.

b) He tried to slow it down. “It sounds too much like jungle music,” he explained.

c) He tried to turn the sax solo into a tuba solo because his parents were polka fans.

4.
The Platters were one of the biggest vocal groups in the early days of rock. Their hits were often new versions of old standards. Their biggest hit was the 1955 version of Jerome Kern’s “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.” Kern was dead when the song was released, but his wife…

a) Threatened a lawsuit to stop the record.

b) Helped the group become the first rock artists with their own TV show.

c) Tried to get them to record three songs
she’d
written.

5.
Chuck Berry is one of the fathers of rock ’n’ roll. He had more than a dozen hits…but only one of them hit #1 on
Billboard’s
charts. It was…

a) “Johnny B. Goode”

b) “Roll Over Beethoven”

c) “My Ding-a-Ling”

6.
Jerry Lee Lewis was one of the wildmen of early rock ’n’ roll. His first hit, “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” (1957), was banned from the radio because…

a) His line, “All you gotta do is stand in one place and wiggle your hips,” was considered obscene.

b) It was creating riots. Whenever it played on the radio—even in school—teenagers would jump up and start doing a new dance they called “The Shake.”

c) A fundamentalist minister claimed he’d played it backward and heard satanic messages—the first time anyone ever said that.

7.
Another crazy man of 1950s rock ’n’ roll was Little Richard, who recorded classics like “Tutti Frutti” and “Rip It Up.” When he recorded “Long Tall Sally,” he had one particular thing in mind. What was it?

a) He sang it as fast as he could, so censors wouldn’t be able to distinguish the “dirty” lyrics.

b) He sang it as fast as he could, so Pat Boone wouldn’t be able to do a cover version of it.

c) He sang it as fast as he could, because he had to go to the bathroom.

A
few tidbits of obscure history from
Keep Up with the World,
a 1941 book by Freling Foster.

X
-
RAY-PROOF UNDERWEAR

“A short time after X-rays were discovered in 1895 and news of their penetrating power had spread throughout the world, the women of England believed—and were horrified by—the rumor that a British firm was about to make X-ray spectacles that would enable the wearer to look right through clothing. Within a few months, a manufacturer and a London department store made a small fortune with their new ‘X-ray-proof underwear.’”

APE HANGED AS A FRENCH SPY

“In 1705, during Queen Anne’s War between France and England, a small vessel was wrecked in the North Sea off the English coast village of West Hartlepool and the sole survivor, a pet ape belonging to the crew, was washed ashore on a plank and captured by fishermen. The villagers had never before seen such a peculiar character, but they were not to be fooled by his hairy disguise and outlandish chatter. The following day, the monkey was tried by court martial, found guilty and hanged as a French spy.”

THE FIRST MOVIE STAR

“The first film star was John Bunny of New York City, who made approximately 100 one-reel comedies for the Vitagraph Company between 1911 and his death in 1915. As his pictures were shown in numerous countries, Bunny’s short fat figure soon became more widely known than that of any other living individual. When he went on a world tour in 1913, he became the first movie star ever to be recognized and surrounded by huge crowds in every city he visited.”

THE AMPERSAND

“The oldest symbol representing a word is “&,” known as the
ampersand
. Originally, it was one of the 5,000 signs in the world’s first shorthand system, invented by Marcus Tiro in Rome in 63 B.C.”

If you want to know something important, ask a kid. These quotes about love were submitted by BRI member Alan Reder, who got them from the Internet and e-mailed them to us.

H
OW DO TWO PEOPLE WIND UP FALLING IN LOVE?

Andrew, age
6:
“One of the people has freckles and so he finds somebody else who has freckles too.”

Mae, age
9:
“No one is sure why it happens, but I heard it has something to do with how you smell….That’s why perfume and deodorant are so popular.”

Manuel, age
8:
“I think you’re supposed to get shot with an arrow or something, but the rest of it isn’t supposed to be so painful.”

WHAT IS FALLING IN LOVE LIKE?

John, age
9:
“Like an avalanche where you have to run for your life.”

Glenn, age
7:
“If falling in love is anything like learning how to spell, I don’t want to do it. It takes too long.”

HOW IMPORTANT IS BEAUTY IN LOVE?

Anita, age
8:
“If you want to be loved by somebody who isn’t already in your family, it doesn’t hurt to be beautiful.”

Brian, age
7:
“It isn’t always just how you look. Look at me. I’m handsome like anything and I haven’t got anybody to marry me yet.”

Christine, age
9:
“Beauty is skin deep. But how rich you are can last a long time.”

WHY DO LOVERS HOLD HANDS?

Gavin, age
8:
“They want to make sure their rings don’t fall off because they paid good money for them.”

John, age
9:
“They are just practicing for when they might have to walk down the aisle someday and do the matchimony thing.”

WHAT’S YOUR PERSONAL OPINION ABOUT LOVE?