Uncle John’s Giant 10th Anniversary Bathroom Reader (31 page)

(1) All in the Family

(2) The Flip Wilson Show

(3) Marcus Welby, M.D.

(4) Gunsmoke

(5) ABC Movie of the Week

(6) Sanford and Son

(7) Mannix

(8) Funny Face

(9) Adam-12

(10) The Mary Tyler Moore Show

1972-1973

(1) All in the Family

(2) Sanford and Son

(3) Hawaii Five-O

(4) Maude

(5) Bridget Loves Bernie

(6) NBC Sunday Mystery Movie

(7) The Mary Tyler Moore Show

(8) Gunsmoke

(9) The Wonderful World of Disney

(10) Ironside

At one
time
or
another just about everyone has owned a car that they thought was a lemon. But chances are, your car was nothing compared to these losers.

T
HE WOODS SPIDER (1900)

In 1900, the Woods Motor Vehicle Company of Chicago came out with a carriage powered by a tiny electric motor. Like in horse-drawn taxicabs of the day, the driver sat in an elevated back seat, behind the passengers (who sat in the front seats). But instead of using reins, the driver steered with a “tiller,” or steering stick, that was connected to the front wheels via two long rods running underneath the passenger seats.

Fatal Flaw:
The steering. Horses
pulled
a carriage, so they easily turned the wheels when they changed direction. But in the Woods Spider, the driver had to wrestle the wheels himself to get them to turn—which was nearly impossible, since he was sitting in the rear of the car, behind the center of gravity. Bad weather was another problem. The passenger seat had its own convertible top. When it was closed, it blocked the driver’s view—he had to crouch and peek through a tiny window, over the passengers’ shoulders, to see the road ahead. If passengers were too tall or fat, he couldn’t see at all. In 1901, Woods succumbed to logic and moved the driver up front.

THE MACDUFF AEROPINION/ PNEUMOSLITO (1904)

Impressed by early aeroplanes, the folks at MacDuff designed a propeller-driven
car.
(The prop was placed in back, like a giant fan.) In heavy snow, you could slap small wooden skis onto each tire and—viola! The Aeropinion became the Pneumoslito, a propeller-driven sled that flew over frozen turf.

Fatal Flaw:
First and foremost, it was tough to handle. But it was a menace, too. In summer, the propeller kicked up enough dust on dirt roads to blind everyone behind it for about a block and a half—a big problem when nearly all roads were unpaved. And the whirling blades were also potential disasters: they could make sausage out of any pedestrian who walked into them, or easily fly off in a car accident. The car was produced for just one year.

THE ARTHUR SELDEN CAR (1908)

The Arthur Selden Car was a front-wheel-drive car with an unusual feature: the front wheels didn’t turn…and neither did the rear wheels. Instead, the car itself was hinged in the middle, with the steering connected to the hinge instead of the wheels.

Fatal Flaw:
The car jackknifed easily, and the hinges wore out quickly. Besides, the car was so goofy-looking that nobody would have bought it even if it was easy to steer. Selden made a couple of prototypes, then quickly went out of business.

THE LE ZEBRE (1916-1920)

The Le Zebre was a cheap, stylish two-seat convertible that appealed to drivers who wanted expensive sports cars but couldn’t afford them. It had a four-cylinder engine, slender lines, a fancy horn, and a spare wheel that sat on the running board. Ooh-la-la!

Fatal Flaw:
Quality control at the factory was so bad that the car was like a prop in a slapstick comedy—it fell apart, piece by piece. For example, the axles shattered like clockwork every 200 miles, and the wheel nuts—frequently followed by the wheels themselves—popped off even at low speeds. People bought them anyway, because they were low-priced. The model lasted for four years.

THE DAVIS (1947-1949)

Produced by the Davis Motor Car Company of Van Nuys, California, the Davis was a three-wheeled car, shaped like a gumdrop, that looked like something out of “The Jetsons.” Power was provided via the two rear wheels; the driver steered the single front wheel. The company also made a special military version. (No word on whether the Pentagon actually bought any.)

Fatal Flaw:
Bizarre looks and unconventional design would surely have killed the Davis, but they didn’t have the chance. Misleading claims made by the company’s founder, G. G. “Gary” Davis, beat them to it. Davis swore the car got 116 mph on the highway, and that it could make sudden, sharp turns at speeds as high as 55 mph. Actual fuel economy turned out to be 65 mpg (not bad, but not as advertised). And in high-speed turns, one of the rear wheels lifted off the ground and spun freely, causing the speedometer to register artificially high speeds. The company was shut down following a financial scandal in 1949.

At some time, all bathroom readers have found themselves in a public stall with nothing to read. Your eye starts to wander…and then you spot—graffiti! Here’s a tribute to that emergency reading material.

Y
ou might be surprised to learn that graffiti aren’t new…or even recent. The term comes from the Italian word for “scribbling”…and it was coined by archeologists to describe wall-writing found in ancient ruins. It has been discovered in the catacombs of Rome, the Tower of London, medieval English alehouses, and even Mayan pyramids.

Some of the earliest examples of graffiti were preserved on the walls of Pompeii when Mt. Vesuvius erupted in 79 A.D. As you can see from the following examples, it hasn’t changed much in nearly 2,000 years:

Appolinaris, doctor to the Emperor Titus, had a crap here

NO ONE’S A HANDSOME FELLOW UNLESS HE HAS LOVED

Whoever loves, goes to hell. I want to break Venus’ ribs with blows and deform her hips. If she can break my tender heart, why can’t I hit her over the head?

HULLO, WE’RE WINESKINS

Artimetus got me pregnant

In Nuceria, near Porta Romana, is the district of Venus. Ask for Novellia Primigenia

He who sits here, read this before anything else: If you want to make love ask for Attice. The price is 16 asses.

LOVERS, LIKE BEES, ENJOY A LIFE OF HONEY

              
Wishful thinking

O Chius, I hope your ulcerous pustules reopen and burn even more than they did before

IN NUCERIA VOTE FOR LUCIUS MUNATIUS CAESARNINUS: HE IS AN HONEST MAN

Romula tarried here with Staphylus

A RECORD OF HISTORY

People have been studying and collecting graffiti for centuries. Hurlo Thrumbo, an English publisher, put out the first printed collection in the 1700s. In the early 1900s, German sociologists collected scrawls from public toilets and turned them into the first academic study of graffiti. In America, the Kinsey researchers collected bathroom messages as part of their study of men’s and women’s sex habits. But it wasn’t until the 1960s, when graffiti became an outlet for the counterculture and anti-Vietnam protest movement, that academics really started to pay attention.

Now these “scribblings” are regarded as important adjuncts to the “official” history of a culture. They provide a look at what the average person was thinking and give evidence of the social unrest, political trends, and inner psychology of a society.

COLLECTING INFO

After decades of study, experts have decided that graffiti fit into four major categories.

•
Identity graffitists
:
Want to immortalize themselves or a part of their lives (a romance, an accomplishment)

•
Opinion
or message
graffitists
:
Want to let the world know what they think: “UFOs are real—the Air Force doesn’t exist.”

•
Dialogue graffitists
:
Talk back to other graffitists. “I’ve got what every woman
wants”…(underneath:)
“You must be in the fur coat business.”

•
“Art” graffitists:
The most recent trend, with spray cans of paint used to create intricate designs signed with pseudonyms. Either vandalism or modern design, depending on your point of view.

THE GRAFFITI HERO

The most famous graffitist in history was Kilroy. Beginning in World War II, the line “Kilroy was here” started showing up in outrageous places. Kilroy left his signature on the top of the torch of the Statue of Liberty, on the Marco Polo Bridge in China, and even on a Bikini atoll where an atomic bomb was to be tested. The original Kilroy was an infantry soldier who was sick of hearing the Air Force brag about always being first on the spot. But the phrase has appeared for so many years in so many places that “Kilroy was here” has become synonymous with graffiti.

A sampling of contemporary graffiti, collected since the 1960s.

Q: How do you tell the sex of a chromosome? A: Pull down its genes.

If Love is blind, and God is love, and Ray Charles is blind, then God plays the piano.

Mafia: Organized Crime

Government: Disorganized Crime

Flush twice, it’s a long way to Washington.

Death is just nature’s way of telling you to slow down.

How come nobody ever writes on the toilet seats?

Things are more like they are now than they have ever been before.

I can’t stand labels, after all, I’m a liberal.

Although the moon is smaller than the earth, it’s farther away.

Free Chile!

…Free tacos!

…Free burritos!

Only Jackie knows what her Onassis worth.

Did you ever feel like the whole world was a white wedding gown, and you were a pair of muddy hiking boots?

Standing room only.

[written on top of a men’s urinal]

The chicken is an egg’s way of producing another egg.

If you think you have someone eating out of your hands, it’s a good idea to count your fingers.

The typical Stanford undergrad is like a milkshake: thick and rich.

Blessed is he who sits on a bee, for he shall rise again.

Please remain seated during the entire program.—The Management

There are those who shun elitism. Why?

…Because it is there.

…It’s the elitist thing to do.

Please do not throw cigarette butts in the toilet, as they become hard to light.

You can lead a horticulture, but you can’t make her think.

They say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover—and sometimes, as these hoaxes reveal, you can’t even judge them by what’s inside.

N
AKED CAME THE STRANGER

The Book:
In 1966 Mike McGrady, editor of the Long Island newspaper
Newsday,
interviewed “sex-novelist” Harold Robbins and was shocked to learn that Robbins had received a $2 million advance for a book he hadn’t even written yet. McGrady decided to see if he could repeat Robbins’s success: he deliberately set out to write a bad book, just to see how it would be received by publishers and the public. He came up with a title:
Naked Came the Stranger
, and a pen name: Penelope Asche.

Next, McGrady wrote up a story outline about a suburban house wife who gets even against her philandering husband by seducing married men. He recruited twenty-four
Newsday
reporters to write one chapter apiece, complete with two sexual encounters per chapter, one of which had to be bizarre. “There will be an unremitting emphasis on sex,” he explained. “Also, true excellence in writing will be blue-pencilled into oblivion.”

When the book was finished, McGrady gave it to his sister-in-law, who, posing as Penelope Asche, shopped it around to several New York publishing houses. Dell Publishing paid $37,500 for it, and published it in 1970.

What Happened:
Naked Came the Stranger
became a bestseller—it sold 20,000 copies in the first month alone, thanks in part to McGrady’s sister-in-law, who made TV and radio appearances promoting the book. McGrady eventually revealed the hoax, but sales remained strong, eventually topping well over 100,000 copies. McGrady, et al. were offered $500,000 to write a sequel; instead, he wrote a book called
Stranger Than Naked, or How to Write Dirty Books for Fun and Profit.