Uncle John’s Giant 10th Anniversary Bathroom Reader (9 page)

Dagmar had an even smaller job on the show than Ed McMahon had on “The Tonight Show”—all she had to do was look stupid on camera. She didn’t even talk. “For the first two or three months,” Robert Metz writes in
The Tonight Show
, “Dagmar sat on a stool right in front of the band with an off-the-shoulder dress and an enormous overhang that may have influenced the wit who dubbed television the boob tube. Dagmar seemed to fit that phrase on both counts. She was a stereotypical dumb blonde. A large sign under the stool read, ‘Girl Singer,’ but she never opened her mouth and never sang.”

BOOM…AND BUST

“Broadway Open House” quickly built a following. Within two months, Jerry and Dagmar were national celebrities. When the show made a trip to Cleveland, 45,000 people turned out to watch the taping, paying $2.50 apiece for the privilege.

But NBC still had problems with the show: Morey Amsterdam’s performance didn’t measure up to Lester’s, and in November 1950, he quit. Lester still refused to work more than three days a week, so NBC had to find someone to fill in on the other days. They tried a number of young comics, but none of them caught on.

Then Lester and Dagmar—who turned out to have true comic talent—began feuding. The fight got so bad that Lester added a second, less threatening blonde named Agathon to the show to help with the magic tricks.

“Open House” became increasingly stale. Critics who’d lauded it a few months before started attacking it. Finally, in May 1951, Lester quit. The show limped along for three more months as NBC searched frantically for another host…but they never found one. It went off the air on August 23, 1951. Three more years would pass before NBC would attempt another late-night show.

That’s just the beginning. See
page 133
for Part
II.

Even if you’re not superstitious, it’s hard to resist tales of “cursed” ships, tombs, and so on. Who knows—maybe there’s
something to
them. Here are some of our favorites.

T
HE CURSE OF JAMES DEAN’S PORSCHE

Curse:
Disaster may be ahead for anyone connected with James Dean’s “death car.” It seems to attack people at random.

Origin:
In 1955, Dean smashed his red Porsche into a another car and was killed. The wreckage was bought by George Barris, a friend of Dean’s (and the man who customized cars like the Munsters’ coffin-mobile for Hollywood). But as one writer put it, “the car proved deadly even after it was dismantled.” Barris noticed weird things happening immediately.

Among Its Victims:

• The car slipped while being unloaded from the truck that delivered it to Barris, and broke a mechanic’s legs.

• Barris put its engine into a race car. It crashed in the race, killing the driver. A second car in the same race was equipped with the Porsche’s drive shaft—it overturned and injured its driver.

• The shell of the Porsche was being used in a Highway Safety display in San Francisco. It fell off its pedestal and broke a teenager’s hip. Later, a truck carrying the display to another demonstration was involved in an accident. “The truck driver,” says one account, “was thrown out of the cab of the truck and killed when the Porsche shell rolled off the back of the truck and crushed him”

Status:
The Porsche finally vanished in 1960, while on a train en route to Los Angeles.

THE PRESIDENTIAL DEATH CYCLE

Curse:
Between 1840 and 1960, every U.S. president elected in a year ending in a zero either died in office of natural causes or was assassinated. By contrast: Since 1840, of the 29 presidents who were
not
elected in the 20-year cycle, only one has died in office and not one has been assassinated.

Origin:
The first president to die in office was William Henry Harrison, elected in 1840. In 1960, when John Kennedy was shot, people began to realize the eerie “coincidence” involved.

Victims:

• William Henry Harrison, dead in 1841 after one month in office

• Abraham Lincoln (elected in 1860), fatally shot in 1865

• James Garfield (1880), assassinated in 1881

• William McKinley (re-elected in 1900), fatally shot in 1901

• Warren G. Harding (1920), died in 1923

• Franklin D. Roosevelt (elected for the third time in 1940), died in 1945

• JFK (1960), assassinated in 1963

• Ronald Reagan (1980) was nearly the eighth victim. He was shot and badly wounded by John Hinckley in 1983

Status:
Astrologers insist that 1980 was an aberration because “Jupiter and Saturn met in an air sign, Libra.” That gave Reagan some kind of exemption. They say we still have to wait to find out if the curse is over.

THE CURSE OF THE INCAN MUMMY

Curse:
By disturbing a frozen mummy’s remains, authorities brought bad luck to the region where it had been buried.

Origin:
Three Andean mummies were discovered by an archaeologist/mountaineer in October 1995. They had been undisturbed in snow at the top of 20,000-foot Mount Ampato, in Southern Peru, for at least 500 years. Then an earthquake exposed them. One of the mummies was the remains of a young woman, referred to by local shamans as “Juanita.” She had apparently been sacrificed to Incan gods.

Among Its Victims:

• Within a year of the discovery, a Peruvian commercial jet crashed and killed 123 people near the discovery site.

• Thirty-five people were electrocuted when a high-tension cable fell on a crowd celebrating the founding of the city of Arequipa (which is near the discovery site).

Status:
Local shamans said these were the acts of the angered “Ice Princess.” To break the curse, they gathered in the city of Arequipa in August 1996 and chanted: “Juanita, calm your ire. Do not continue to damn innocent people who have done nothing to you.” Apparently it worked—we’ve heard nothing of it since 1996.

To a lot of us, microwave ovens are “magical mystery boxes.” We’re not sure how they work…but after a while we can’t live without them. Uncle John swore he’d never use one—until he had children. Now he blesses it every time he hauls out an emergency frozen pizza and manages to feed the kids before they kill each other. If you use a microwave, you might be interested to know more about it.

C
hances are, you’ll use a microwave oven at least once this week—probably (according to research) for heating up left-overs or defrosting something.

Microwave ovens are so common today that it’s easy to forget how rare they once were. As late as 1977, only 10% of U.S. homes had one. By 1995, 85% of households had
at least
one. Today, more people own microwaves than own dishwashers.

MICROWAVE HISTORY

Magnetrons, the tubes that produce microwaves, were invented by British scientists in 1940. They were used in radar systems during World War II…and were instrumental in detecting German planes during the Battle of Britain.

These tubes—which are sort of like TV picture tubes—might still be strictly military hardware if Percy Spencer, an engineer at Raytheon (a U.S. defense contractor), hadn’t stepped in front of one in 1946. He had a chocolate bar in his pocket; when he went to eat it a few minutes later, he found that the chocolate had almost completely melted.

That didn’t make sense. Spencer himself wasn’t hot—how could the chocolate bar be? He suspected the magnetron was responsible. So he tried an experiment: He held a bag of popcorn kernels up to the tube. Seconds later they popped.

The next day Spencer brought eggs and an old tea kettle to work. He cut a hole in the side of the kettle, stuck an egg in it, and placed it next to the magnetron. Just as a colleague looked into the kettle to see what was happening, the egg exploded.

BRINGING MICROWAVES TO MARKET

Spencer shared his discovery with his employers at Raytheon and suggested manufacturing magnetron-powered ovens to sell to the public. Raytheon was interested. They had the capacity to produce 10,000 magnetron tubes a week…but with World War II over, military purchases had been cut back to almost nothing. “What better way to recover lost sales,” Ira Flatow writes in
They All Laughed,
“than to put a radar set disguised as a microwave oven in every American home?”

Raytheon agreed to back the project. (According to legend, Spencer had to repeat the egg experiment in front of the board of directors, splattering them with egg, before they okayed it.) The company patented the first “high-frequency dielectric heating apparatus” in 1953. Then they held a contest to find a name for their product. Someone came up with “Radar Range,” which was later combined into the single word—
Radarange.

DEVELOPING THE PRODUCT

Raytheon had a great product idea and a great name, but they didn’t have an oven anyone could afford. The 1953 model was 5 1/2 feet tall, weighed more than 750 pounds, and cost $3,000. Over the next 20 years, railroads, ocean liners, and high-end restaurants were virtually the only Radarange customers.

• In 1955, a company called Tappan introduced the first microwave oven targeted to average consumers; it was smaller than the Radarange, but still cost $1,295—more than some small homes.

• Then in 1964, a Japanese company perfected a miniaturized magnetron. For the first time, Raytheon could build a microwave oven that fit on a kitchen countertop. In 1967, they introduced a Radarange that used the new magnetron. It sold for $495. But that was still too expensive for the average American family.

• Finally, in the 1980s, technical improvements made it possible to lower the price and improve the quality enough to make microwave ovens both affordable and practical. By 1988, 10% of all new food products in the United States were microwaveable. Surveys showed that the microwave oven was America’s favorite new appliance—and it still is today.

How does a microwave oven work? See
p. 235
to find out.

Everyone’s got a question or two they’d like answered. Here are a few of those questions, with answers from some of the nation’s top trivia experts.

H
OLY COW!

Q:
Why are there holes in Swiss cheese?

A:
Because of air bubbles. “During one of the stages of preparation, while it is still ‘plastic,’ the cheese is kneaded and stirred. Inevitably, air bubbles are formed in the cheese as it is twisted and moved about, but the viscous nature of the cheese prevents the air bubbles from rising to the surface and getting out. As the cheese hardens, these air pockets remain, and we see them as the familiar ‘holes’ when we slice the wheel of cheese.” (From A
Book of Curiosities,
compiled by Roberta Kramer)

PHOTO FINISH

Q:
Why do eyes come out red in photographs?

A:
“The flash from the camera is being reflected on the rear of the eyeball, which is red from all the blood vessels.” The solution: “Use a flash at a distance from the camera, or get your subjects to look somewhere else. Another trick is to turn up the lights in the room, making them as bright as possible, which causes the subject’s pupil to contract and admit less of the light from the subsequent flash.” (From
Why Things Are
, by Joel Aschenbach)

READ OIL ABOUT IT

Q:
What do the numbers (like 10W-30) mean for motor oil?

A:
“Oil is measured in terms of
viscosity
, which is a measure of a liquid’s ability to flow. There are 10 grades, from 0W to 25W for oils…meant for winter weather use (the W stands for winter), and from 20 to 60 for oils rated to work at 212°F. The lower the number, the thinner the oil. Multigrade oils, like 10W-30, were developed to stay thin at low temperatures and still work well at high temperatures. Most experts recommend 5W-30 for very cold weather, 10W-30 for warmer weather.” (From
Numbers
, by Andrea Sutcliffe)

HOT STUFF

Q:
How can you cool off your mouth after eating hot peppers?

A:
“Drink milk, says Dr. Robert Henkin, director of the Taste and Smell Clinic in Washington, D.C. Casein, the main protein in milk, acts like a detergent, washing away capsaicin, the substance in hot peppers responsible for their ‘fire.’” (From
Parade
magazine, November 14, 1993)

SOMETHING FISHY