Uncle John’s Giant 10th Anniversary Bathroom Reader (23 page)

END OF THE ROAD

As “The Tonight Show” grew in popularity, Allen began to feel constrained in his late-night hours. He wanted to prove himself in prime time. So NBC created “The Steve Allen Show” in October 1956 and ran it directly against the popular Ed Sullivan’s “Toast of the Town” on Sunday night at 8:00 p.m. on CBS.

Allen kept working at “The Tonight Show” three nights a week, with comedian Ernie Kovacs and announcer Bill Wendell (who also announced “Late Night with David Letterman”) replacing him on Monday and Tuesday. NBC also cut “The Tonight Show” from 90 to 60 minutes.

By the end of the year, Allen recalls, “I realized I’d bitten off more than I could chew. One show had to go.” The choice was simple: “The Tonight Show” had an audience of about 3 million; “The Steve Allen Show” had an audience of 35 million, and paid five times as much. Besides, Allen admits, “in those days none of us connected with ‘The Tonight Show’ thought it was a big deal at all. It’s amazing. It seems a big deal now. It’s now part of the national psychological furniture.”

“The Tonight Show” went off the air on January 25,1957. No one knew if it would return.

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INTERLUDE

In 1956, Pat Weaver had been forced out of NBC. The reason: General David Sarnoff, head of RCA (NBC’s parent company), wanted to make his son, Robert, chairman of the network.

When Steve Allen quit “The Tonight Show,” the new chairman replaced it with his own idea—“America After Dark,” a combination news and entertainment show. It was a disaster. Sleepy viewers just couldn’t get used to the jarring shifts between light entertainment and hard news reports. “A typical night might have coverage of a new jazz club, followed by a live report from the site of an airplane crash,” Ronald Smith writes in
The Fight for Tonight.
“It was as if someone was flicking the dial back and forth between David Letterman and Ted Koppel….At that hour of the night, bewildered viewers simply turned the set off and went to sleep.”

Chastened, Robert Sarnoff decided to resurrect “The Tonight Show” with a new host. But who was the right person for the job?

To find out, turn to
page 199
for Part III of the story.

Many Americans are worried about the growing threat of crime, but the good news is that there are plenty of crooks who are their own worst enemies. Want proof? Check out these news reports.

C
AREFUL, THIS FINGER’S LOADED

MERCED, Calif.—“A man tried to rob a bank by pointing his finger at a teller, police said.

“Steven Richard King just held up his finger and thumb in plain sight and demanded money. The Bank of America teller told Mr. King to wait, then just walked away. Mr. King then went across the street to another bank…jumped over the counter, and tried to get the key to the cash drawer. But an employee grabbed the key and told him to ‘get out of here.’

“Police officers found Mr. King sitting in the shrubs outside the bank and arrested him.”

—New York Times
, April 1997

STRANGE RESEMBLANCE

OROVILLE, Calif.—“Thomas Martin, former manager of a Jack In the Box restaurant, reported that he’d been robbed of $307 as the store was closing. He provided police sketch artist Jack Lee with a detailed description of the suspect. When Lee put his pad down, he observed that the drawing looked just like Martin. When questioned, Martin confessed.”

—Parade
magazine, December 1996

KEYSTONE KROOK

OAKLAND, Calif.—“According to the Alameda County District Attorney’s office, in 1995 a man walked into an Oakland bank and handed the teller a note reading:
This is a stikkup. Hand over all yer mony fast.

“Guessing from this that the guy was no rocket scientist, the teller replied, ‘I’ll hand over the cash as long as you sign for it. It’s a bank policy: All robbers have to sign for their money.’

“The would-be robber thought this over, then said, ‘I guess that’s OK.’ And he signed his full name and address.

“That’s where the cops found him a few hours later.”

—Jay Leno’s Police Blotter

SHAKE YOUR BOOTIES

WICHITA, Kan.—“Charles Taylor was on trial for robbing a shoe store at knifepoint, accused of taking a pair of tan hiking boots and $69. As he listened to testimony in court, he propped his feet on the defense table. He was wearing a pair of tan boots.

“‘I leaned over and stared,’ the judge told a reporter later. ‘I thought, Surely nobody would be so stupid as to wear the boots he stole to his own trial.’ But when an FBI agent called the shoe store, he found out that the stolen boots were size 10, from lot no. 1046—the same size and lot number as the boots Taylor was wearing. The jury found Taylor guilty, and officers confiscated the boots. ‘We sent him back to jail in his stocking feet,’ the judge said.”

—From wire service reports, March 1997

NEXT WEEK HE’S COMING BACK FOR BRAINS

“In March 1995, a twenty-six-year-old inmate walked away from his community release facility in South Carolina. He was recaptured a week later when he went back to pick up his paycheck.”

—Knuckleheads in the News,
by John Machay

OH, JUST BAG IT

“Not wishing to attract attention to himself, a bank robber in 1969 in Portland, Oregon, wrote all his instructions on a piece of paper rather than shouting.

‘‘This is a hold-up and I’ve got a gun,’ he wrote and then held the paper up for the cashier to read.

“The bemused bank official waited while he wrote out, ‘Put all the money in a paper bag.’

“This message was pushed through the grille. The cashier read it and then wrote on the bottom, ‘I don’t have a paper bag,’ and passed it back. The robber fled.”

—The Book of Heroic Failures
, by Stephen Pile

Public service is only a part of our presidents’ importance to us—they’re also pop icons. Their clothes, their hobbies, and so on have an impact on our lives, too. Here are some examples.

T
HE ROCKING CHAIR

President:
JFK

Influence:
Until the 1960s, Americans only thought of rocking chairs as furniture for old folks or porches. Then Kennedy’s physician recommended he use a rocking chair whenever possible, for back therapy. In 1961 he was photographed at the White House sitting in an “old-fashioned cane-backed porch rocker.” Overnight, the company that made the chair was inundated with orders. Sensing a hot fad, furniture makers started cranking out rockers. B. Altman, a New York department store, even devoted an entire floor to them. The result: rocking chairs became furniture for living rooms.

BROCCOLI

President:
George Bush

Influence:
In 1992, Bush commented that he didn’t like broccoli when he was a kid, and he didn’t like it now. “I’m president of the United States,” he said, “and I’m not going to eat any more broccoli.” The story was reported worldwide. Feigning outrage, a major broccoli producer shipped the White House 10 tons of the veggie. The arrival of the truck was carried
live
by CNN.

Campbell’s Soups and
Women’s Day
magazine co-sponsored a recipe contest called “How to Get the President to Eat Broccoli.” With all the publicity, broccoli sales shot up 40%. “I can’t begin to tell you how wonderful this has been for us,” a broccoli industry spokesperson said. “The asparagus people were saying they wished Bush had picked on them instead.”

PAINT-BY-NUMBERS

President:
Dwight D. Eisenhower

Influence:
Painting-by-numbers was already becoming popular when Ike was elected in 1952. He helped turn it into a national craze. As the media reported, Ike loved to paint, but didn’t care about originality (his paintings were copied from postcards, photos, etc.) or results (“They’re no fun when they’re finished,” he said). Plus, he couldn’t draw—so he often had other artists outline pictures on his canvas. Naturally, he thought paint-by numbers kits were great, and gave them his “official” endorsement in 1953 by handing out sets to his staff as Christmas presents. The craze peaked around 1954, but thanks in part to Ike, they’re still with us.

GOING HATLESS

President:
JFK

Influence:
Believe it or not, kids, in 1960 “respectable” men were still expected to wear hats in public. (Not baseball caps but fedoras—the kind you see in old movies). JFK ignored tradition and usually went hatless. When other men began copying him, there were storms of protest from the fashion industry. The
New York Time
s, for example, reported on July 6,1963:

      
A British fashion magazine today stepped up its campaign to persuade President Kennedy to wear a hat and pointedly asked him how a hatless man could properly greet a lady. “How does the president acknowledge such an encounter?” asked
Tailor & Cutter
in an editorial….“The deft touch of a raised hat, politely pinched between thumb and forefinger …would bring a bright spark of gallantry to modern diplomatic moves.”

JFK ignored their entreaties, and the hat industry ultimately bowed to the inevitable.

THE SAXOPHONE

President:
Bill Clinton

Influence:
When he was running for office, Clinton played his sax on TV—and received a ton of favorable publicity. At his inauguration he did it again, playing “Your Mama Don’t Dance.” In 1993, the
Wall Street Journal
noted that “thanks in part to President Clinton’s willingness to toot his horn on national television, sales of saxophones are way up.” Music teachers also reported a big increase in sax students…and CD sales of sax music—from Kenny G to John Coltrane—have been booming.

FASHIONABLE MATERNITY CLOTHES

First Lady:
Jacqueline Kennedy

Influence:
Before I960, most pregnant women resigned themselves to staying out of public, and to looking embarrassingly dowdy when they ventured out. In the early 1960s, Jackie Kennedy brought maternity clothes out of the closet. Although she was pregnant, she remained visible in public life, wearing stylish clothes adapted for her. As
Newsweek
commented:

      
Vogue
and
Harper’s Bazaar
view [pregnancy] as mere plump frumpery, too impossibly unchic and rarely, if ever, mentionable. But with Jacqueline Kennedy being [as important as she is], the issue can hardly be obscured much longer. Pregnancy is fashionable; at the very least, it is no longer an excuse for looking unfashionable.

Clothesmaker Lane Bryant cashed in on the publicity with their new First Lady Maternity Fashion Ensemble. It was a hit, and maternity clothes have never been the same.

MISCELLANEOUS INFLUENCE

• George Bush loved playing horseshoes. During his presidency, sales of the game went up 20%.

• In 1962,
Newsweek
wrote: “When Jackie Kennedy sported Capri pants, women raced to buy them. When Jackie appeared in a roll-brimmed hat, millinery shops were rocked with orders or copies. So it was inevitable that when the president’s wife took to wraparound sunglasses, a fad would follow. Indeed, despite a recent White House request that merchants not use the presidential family to push products, many of the fast-selling wraparounds still managed to focus their promotion on the First Lady. A big seller, for example, is the $15
Jaqui.”

• President Eisenhower helped popularize TV trays. Every night, reporters told the nation, Ike and his wife “eat supper off matching tray-tables in front of a bank of special TV consoles built into one wall of the White House family quarters.” Ordinary families followed suit.

• President Kennedy publicized the fact that he had taken the Evelyn Woods speed-reading course. For a time, enrollment at Evelyn Wood—and other courses—boomed.

How many times have you found yourself at a video store staring at the thousands of films you’ve never heard of, wondering which ones are worth watching? It happens to us all the time
—so
we decided to offer a few recommendations for relatively obscure, quirky videos you might like.