Uncle John's Fully Loaded 25th Anniversary Bathroom Reader (Uncle John's Bathroom Reader) Read online

  Go with the Flow!

  —John Javna

  FROM UNCLE JOHN #2

  PASSING A MILESTONE

  When my brother John called me in 1987 to tell me he had an idea for a book called The Bathroom Reader, I did what you probably did the first time you heard about this book series: I laughed.

  But it made perfect sense: John and I both read in the bathroom and so did most people. John recognized that “the reading room” really is the reading room, and if you don’t mind my bragging about my brother, it was genius.

  “But call it Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader,” I said. And he did.

  Over the next 12 years I wrote and edited a ton of articles for the BR—from the Beach Boys to the Buick, GI Joe to Godzilla, Mustangs to Mini-skirts. It was a nutty combination, but amazingly, it worked. Then, in 1999, John decided it was time for him to move on and he asked me to take over the reins. I suggested he find someone else. “There is no one else,” he said. Still I refused. No, I said. No. No. No. Yes. It was the best decision I’ve ever made.

  Now, here I am, 13 years later, and 25 years after that first phone call, putting the finishing touches on the silver anniversary edition of Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader. Nobody—not me, not John, nobody—ever dreamed we’d still be doing this after so many years.

  But there’s a very simple reason that we are: You.

  Over the years, we’ve received thousands of letters from people of all ages and all walks of life telling us how important the Bathroom Reader has been to them—kids and adults, teachers and students, people who’ve been reading our books for 25 years and people who’ve just discovered us. They tell us they love the short facts, the long stories, the history, the science, the wordplay, the humor. They love that they can learn something new and be entertained at the same time, and it only takes a few minutes.

  So here’s the question: How can a book with a toilet on the cover be that important to anyone? That’s pretty simple, too. It’s because “they” is actually “us.” We write Uncle John’s Bathroom Readers because we love reading about the same things you do—and we love sharing it.

  A final note: We couldn’t have put together a book like this without a fantastic team. So a sterling silver Thank You to the writers, editors, researchers, and designers who helped make this book shine: John D. (23 years), Jay (14 years), Brian (9 years), Kim (2 years), Thom (10 years), Sharilyn (22 years), Trina (half a year), Jahnna and Malcolm (10 years), Brandon (1 year), Michael C. (2 years), Jill (2 years), Jack Mingo (22 years), Angie (9 years), Michael B. (25 years!), Claudia (4 years), Joan (1 year), Jolly Jeff Cheek (12 years), and Mary (newbie).

  And a 25-flush salute to the dozens of people who have contributed to Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader over the years. We wouldn’t be here without them…or you.

  Happy reading. And as always…

  Go with the Flow!

  (What? John already said that? Okay.)

  Keep on Flushin’

  —Gordon “Uncle John” Javna,

  Felix the Dog,

  and the BRI Staff

  YOU’RE MY INSPIRATION

  It’s always interesting to see where the architects of pop culture get their ideas. Some of these may surprise you.

  EDWARD SCISSORHANDS. Screenwriter Caroline Thompson based the character’s mannerisms on her dog: “She was the most soulful, yearning creature I ever met. She didn’t need language—she communicated with her eyes.”

  THE BIG LEBOWSKI. The Coen brothers’ cult classic was an update of Raymond Chandler’s 1939 noir novel The Big Sleep. They used the L.A. setting and many of the characters, but changed Philip Marlowe, P.I., to Jeffrey “The Dude” Lebowski.

  THE HUNGER GAMES. Suzanne Collins’s inspiration for her 2008 novel about teenagers forced to fight each other in a dystopian future came to her while she was watching TV. She was flipping back and forth between Survivor and coverage of the Iraq war when the two “began to blur in this very unsettling way.”

  PHILIP J. FRY. The lead character on the cartoon Futurama wears the same clothes—blue jeans, red jacket, and white T-shirt—and has the same blond hair as Jim Stark. Who’s that? James Dean’s character in the 1955 film Rebel Without a Cause.

  THE BIG BANG THEORY. Show creator Chuck Lorre named the two leads—Sheldon and Leonard—after legendary producer Sheldon Leonard (The Andy Griffith Show and The Dick Van Dyke Show).

  “CALIFORNIA GURLS.” Katy Perry’s 2010 hit single was going to be called “California Girls” until Perry’s manager asked her to change the spelling to honor Alex Chilton, lead singer of the band Big Star, who’d recently died. The title is a nod to the band’s 1974 song “September Gurls.”

  SEVERUS SNAPE. J. K. Rowling based the character on her short-tempered high school chemistry teacher, John Nettleship, who had long dark hair and a “malodorous laboratory.” Said Nettleship, “I knew I was strict but I didn’t think I was that bad.”

  Count ’em: On average, an adult human has about five million body hairs.

  THE BRI ANTHEM

  To mark our 25th anniversary, here’s the very first article from the very first Bathroom Reader: the story of a classic song, a classic controversy…and Uncle John’s favorite room.

  SOUL MEN

  In the 1960s, Memphis’s Stax Records had the most talented lineup of studio musicians and singers in the South: There was Otis Redding, Rufus Thomas, Booker T. and the M.G.’s, Carla Thomas, Eddie Floyd, and Sam and Dave.

  Sam Moore and Dave Prater joined the Stax family in 1965. They were assigned to the writing/production team of Dave Porter and Isaac Hayes, and the partnership clicked big, producing a string of Soul masterpieces, including “You Don’t Know Like I Know” and “Soul Man.” In between was a song that almost made the top 20—a record that would have been a much bigger hit if it hadn’t been for radio censorship.

  White Top 40 stations were just getting used to playing black soul records in 1966 when “Hold On, I’m Comin’” was released. Because of the suggestive title, many radio stations refused to air it at all. And those that did often made the situation worse as DJs drooled over the sexual implications of the song. In reality, the lyrics were simply about one lover giving the other support “when times are bad.” “Coming” just meant “coming to the rescue.” Sam and Dave’s macho, boastful delivery and sly laughs throughout the song didn’t help their case, although it did help to make it a great record. Stax changed the title to “Hold On, I’m A-Comin’” to placate the FCC, but the damage was already done.

  WHEN YOU GOTTA GO

  If only the radio jocks had known the true story of the song’s conception: Hayes and Porter were in the studio, writing some songs. Porter left for a minute, and when he didn’t come back, an impatient Hayes went looking for him. His room-to-room search finally ended at—you guessed it—the bathroom door. Porter was taking his time in there, and Hayes yelled at him to hurry. Porter’s irritated reply: “Hey man, hold on. I’m comin’!” And a song was born.

  The New Jersey coast was once part of Africa.

  ADVERTISING FIRSTS

  “You’ve come a long way, baby.”

  First print ad in the United States: Tobacco company Lorillard placed one in the New York Weekly Journal in 1789. It showed the company’s logo: a Native American standing over a barrel and smoking a large pipe.

  First “spam” message: As early as 1864, telegraph offices and private citizens who owned a telegraph were receiving letters offering dubious investments and other scams. The first “spam” was sent in May 1864 by a London dentist named Gabriel, announcing that his office would be open shorter summer hours.

  First “I’m not a doctor, but I play one on TV” ad: The line was first used in a 1984 Vicks Formula 44 cough syrup commercial. It’s notable in the advertising world for blurring the line between celebrity endorsement and professional opinion…but clearing the advertiser of any legal claims. First actor to say the line: Chris Robinson, who played Dr. Rick Webber on TV
’s General Hospital.

  First movie product placement: In the 1927 silent movie Wings, which won the first Academy Award for Best Picture, the characters eat a Hershey’s chocolate bar and mention it by name.

  First product placement in a video game: In the 1982 car-racing game Pole Position, the driver speeds past billboards that advertise other games made by Pole Position’s maker, Atari. In 1983 Pole Position II’s billboards were for Tang, 7-Eleven, and Dentyne.

  First movie inspired by a TV commercial: Space Jam (1996), in which Michael Jordan plays basketball against Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and other cartoon characters. The idea came from a 1993 Nike ad in which Jordan plays one-on-one against himself.

  First sitcom based on a TV commercial: Baby Bob (2002). It was based on a popular series of television ads in 2001 for the Internet service provider FreeInternet.com, featuring a talking baby named Bob (a baby with superimposed moving lips, voiced by actor Ken Hudson Campbell). Baby Bob ran for 14 episodes.

  Space-suit underwear is water-cooled.

  THE TALENTED MISS AMERICA

  The Miss America Pageant added the talent portion to the contest in 1935. Most contestants sing or dance, but some display more unusual skills.

  1957: Amanda Whitman (Miss Tennessee) did a gymnastic tumbling and trampoline routine to the theme from The Third Man.

  1959: Elizabeth Holmes (Miss New York) did an impression of French singer and actor Maurice Chevalier. Miss New Jersey, Beverly Ann Domareki, did an impression of a beatnik.

  1960: Ann Susan Barber (Miss New Jersey) did a comic routine about a hillbilly attending her first baseball game.

  1961: LaVerda Garrison (Miss Idaho) gave a dramatic reading of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s feminist short story “The Yellow Wallpaper.”

  1967: Jane Jayroe (Miss Oklahoma) conducted the orchestra in a rendition of the #2 hit “1-2-3” (and she won the pageant!).

  1973: Ellen Meade (Miss Florida) did a ballet sequence from Swan Lake…on roller skates.

  1977: Julie Houston (Miss Alabama) played the banjo. The song: the theme from The Beverly Hillbillies.

  1981: Angelina Johnson (Miss Tennessee) did impressions of the lead characters from TV’s Laverne and Shirley…with ventriloquist dummies.

  1982: Laura Matthys (Miss Oregon) twirled a rifle to the tune of a traditional folk march from Herzegovina.

  1987: Aurelie McCarthy (Miss Massachusetts) played “Hava Nagila” on the marimba.

  1989: Tammy Kettunen (Miss Arizona) performed a “freestyle roller-skating” routine to “Amazing Grace.”

  1992: Shannon Boy (Miss Arkansas) played the theme from Star Wars on the flute.

  2011: Lauren Cheape (Miss Hawaii) performed acrobatic jump roping to the Hawaii Five-O theme.

  The expression “in a pickle” was coined by Shakespeare.

  OOPS!

  Over the past 25 years, we’ve shared hundreds of outrageous blunders. We’d like to take this opportunity to say a big THANK YOU to all the people who made them. Embarrassing as it may have been for you, you’ve given a smug sense of superiority to millions of bathroom readers.

  NOK IT OFF!

  In 2011 a photographer and his assistants arrived at the Manhattan home of antiquities collector Corice Arman to take pictures of her most prized pieces for Art+Auction magazine. Arman had one rule: “Don’t move any of the pieces.” But for some reason, while Arman was out of the room, one of the assistants picked up a large terra cotta figurine and moved it across the room…where it fell to the floor and “smashed to smithereens.” When Arman returned, she was horrified. The statue, made in Nigeria by the ancient Nok people, was more than 2,600 years old and was valued at $300,000. She is suing the magazine for the full amount. “I raised two kids around all this artwork,” exclaimed Arman, “and they never broke anything!”

  IS GLORIOUS KAZAKHSTAN ANTHEM…NOT!

  Kazakhstan’s champion sharpshooter, Maria Dmitrienko, was standing on the award platform at the Arab Shooting Championships in Kuwait in 2012. She’d just won a gold medal: Kazakhstan’s national anthem began to play over the P.A. system. Only it wasn’t the real anthem—it was a fake one written for the 2006 mockumentary Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. Sample lyrics: “Kazakhstan’s prostitutes are the cleanest in the region, except, of course, for Turkmenistan’s.” (And dirtier lyrics that we can’t print here.) The Kazakhstan government—which had banned Borat—demanded an apology. Kuwait apologized and blamed the goof on a staffer who downloaded the wrong anthem off the Internet.

  NEVER THERE WHEN YOU NEED ONE

  Here’s a fun prank you can try: Dial a random phone number and send a text that says, “I hid the body…now what?” That’s what a 15-year-old girl from Rogers, Arkansas, did. Only problem: The random number she dialed happened to belong to a police detective. She got the scare of a lifetime when the police showed up at her house asking about the dead body. Officers let her off with a warning—and issued this warning to the general public: “While the text was intended as a prank, the Rogers Police Department has no sense of humor when it comes to public safety.”

  France’s nuclear weapons program was called the Force de Frappe (Strike Force).

  IMPRESSIVE IMPRESSIONIST

  Steve Comrie, 20, was invited to a field party in Manlius, New York. He showed up at 11:30 p.m. and saw a sign at the property entrance instructing people to walk through the woods to the field because the driveway was muddy. As Comrie approached the edge of the woods, he thought it would be fun to scare some partiers, who were gathered around a bonfire, so he started making animal noises. Apparently, they were very realistic. One of the partiers, Jeremy Messina, 21, responded by pulling out his shotgun and firing into the forest, hitting Comrie in the face, arm, chest, and thigh. Thankfully, the injuries weren’t life-threatening. Police charged Messina with reckless endangerment.

  SWINGIN’

  One night in October 2011, a group of friends was hanging out at a playground in Vallejo, California. Around 9:00 p.m., a 21-year-old man (name not released) bet his buddies $100 that he could fit into a toddler’s swing. So he greased his legs with liquid laundry detergent and then started shimmying into the tiny leg holes. Good news: He won the bet! Bad news: He couldn’t get out. Unable to free him, his friends left, and he ended up spending the entire night stuck in the swing. Shortly after sunrise, a groundskeeper heard the young man yelling for help. He couldn’t pry the man out, either, so he called firefighters, who used bolt cutters to cut the chains. The man was transported to a hospital where a doctor used a cast saw to remove the swing from the embarrassed man’s seat.

  * * *

  “Looking foolish does the spirit good.” —John Updike

  Hot stuff: Some homes in Oslo, Norway, are heated by raw sewage.

  LET ME WRITE SIGN—I GOOD SPEAK ENGLISH

  When signs in foreign countries are written in English, any combination of words is possible. Here are some real-life examples.

  A sign in China (instructing people to keep off the grass): “I like your smile but unlike you put your shoes on my face”

  Outside a restaurant in Istanbul: “Sorry We’re Open”

  Outside a Thai building: “Welcome to visit elephant dung factory & souvenir shop”

  On the border between Paraguay and Argentina: “The paths to our resort are only passable by asses. Therefore, you will certainly feel at home here”

  At a Hong Kong train station: “The toilets will be partially suspended for use”

  Next to a staircase in Japan: “Please be careful about a step in a head”

  Outside a restaurant in the Philippines: “Try Our Fresh Deli Sandwiches Made with Imported Europeans Meat and Cheese”

  Outside a Singapore restroom: “A nearby toilet should be used for the direction of hurry”

  On a path in Hiroshima: “10 Min. Walk (7 if run a little) to Ropeway Stn.”

  Inside Afghanistan’s Kabul Museum: “Please Do
Not Use the Flashy Cameras During the Photography”

  On a winding road in India: “Be Soft on My Curves”

  At a French ski resort: “Skiers: Entrance Through the Bottom is Compulsory”

  At a zoo in China: “Please do not feel or scare the animals”

  Outside a church in Costa Rica: “Please no explanations inside the church”

  On a vending machine in Tokyo: “Because I Do Not Have A Tissue Always Ready in This Restroom, Please Buy Used One”

  Cookie Monster has five fingers; all other Sesame Street Muppets have only four.

  CANDY HOLIDAYS

  Hallmark swears there’s no such thing as “Hallmark holidays”: holidays created solely for the purpose of selling more greeting cards. But what about “candy holidays”?

  SWEETEST DAY (third Sunday in October) Billed as a “Second Valentine’s Day” in the early 1920s, Sweetest Day was invented by 12 Cleveland candy companies that wanted to create a holiday around the giving of candy to orphans, shutins, the homeless, and other people unlikely (or unable) to buy it for themselves. Their Sweetest Day of the Year committee distributed nearly 20,000 boxes of free candy, hoping to jump-start the holiday and spread it nationwide. No dice: It’s still observed in the Great Lakes region, but never caught on anywhere else.

  JAPANESE VALENTINE’S DAY (February 14)

  It was introduced to Japan in the 1950s by a chocolate-company executive who was trying to increase February sales. Because he didn’t understand how Valentine’s Day worked in the West, he set it up so that women gave candy to men, a practice that continues to this day.

  WHITE DAY (March 14)