Uncle John's Ahh-Inspiring Bathroom Reader (65 page)

• On the one-year anniversary, Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien traveled to Gander to honor the townsfolk. “You did yourselves proud,” he told a crowd of 2,500 people who had gathered on the tarmac. “And you did Canada proud.”

Here is a great letter we found posted on the Internet from Gander resident Scott Cook, reprinted with his permission
.

“I
t's been a hell of a week here in Gander. The stories are amazing. We had 38 aircraft with a total of 6,656 people drop by for coffee. They stayed for three or four days. Our population is just under 10,000, so you can imagine the logistics involved in giving each of these people a place to sleep and a hot meal three times a day.

“Many of us spent our time bringing people home so they could get a shower or, once the rain started on the third day, driving them to the mall or sightseeing to relieve their boredom. The diversity of the people who have been in my car and in my shower over the past few days is pretty wild.

“You should have seen the look on my little girl's face when three Muslim women came home with me for a shower. With their robes, she could only see their faces, hands and feet. Their hands and feet were covered with henna paint and two of them didn't speak English. There was a king from the Middle East here, a British MP, the Mayor of Frankfurt, Germany, etc., etc.

“There were also immigrants from all over the world, some of whom didn't have two pennies to rub together. They all slept side by side in schools and church halls. Except the Irish, of course! A flight from Ireland was put up at a couple of local drinking establishments! The Royal Canadian Legion and the Elks Club. One woman here gave a driving tour to a fellow from the U.S. When she brought him back to his gymnasium cot, they exchanged cards. She looked at his and said, ‘So you work with Best Western?' He replied, ‘No, I own Best Western.'

“You should have been here, but of course, there wouldn't have been room.”

“We make a living by what we've got, but we make a life by what we give.”
—Winston Churchill

More of our all-time favorite TV catchphrases. There are so many good ones that we can't list every one. (If we left your favorites out, let us know and we may add them to next year's book.)

C
atchphrase:
“Yadda yadda yadda.”

From:
Seinfeld
(1990–98)

Here's the Story:
The phrase has been around since the 1940s; but then it showed up on
Seinfeld
in the 1990s and, yadda yadda yadda, now it's in the dictionary.

Catchphrase:
“I've fallen and I can't get up!”

From:
TV commercials selling LifeCall personal emergency response systems in the 1980s

Here's the Story:
Advertisers also try to come up with catchy catchphrases (remember the “Where's the beef?” lady from the Wendy's ads?). The “I've fallen…” plea, however, was never intedned to be catchy—or funny. But somehow it outlasted the company that advertised it (bankrupt) and the woman who said it (died). More than a decade after its debut, “I've fallen and I can't get up!” is still being used by comedians from Jay Leno to Carrot Top.

Catchphrase:
“Oh my God, they killed Kenny!”

From:
South Park
(1997–)

Here's the Story:
A big part of what made
South Park
a hit was the tasteless but innovative routine of killing off the same character in nearly every episode. Asked why, the show's creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone admitted, “We just like to kill him.…And we really like the line ‘Oh my God, they killed Kenny!'” A few years later, Stone retracted: “We got sick of figuring out ways to kill him.…It was funny the first 38 or 40 times we did it. Then it turned into, ‘OK, how can we kill him now?'” So in December 2001 they killed Kenny for good…but the phrase lives on.

Catchphrase:
“Yabba-dabba-doo!”

From:
The Flintstones
(1960–66)

Here's the Story:
Just like Homer's “D'oh!” (see page 105) this one came from the man who voiced the character, Alan Reed.
Flinstones
co-creator Joe Barbera tells the story: “In a recording session, Alan said, ‘Hey, Joe, where it says “yahoo,” can I say “yabba-dabba-doo?'” I said yeah. God knows where he got it, but it was one of those terrific phrases.” Reed later said that it came from his mother, who used to say, “A little dab'll do ya.”

Catchphrase:
“Just the facts, Ma'am.”

From:
Dragnet
(1952–59/1967–70)

Here's the Story:
Sergeant Joe Friday's (Jack Webb) deadpan delivery made this statement famous…sort of. He actually never said it. Friday's line was “All we want are the facts, Ma'am.” Satirist Stan Freberg spoofed the popular show on a 1953 record called “St. George and the Dragonet,” which featured the line: “I just want to get the facts, Ma'am.” The record sold more than two million copies, and Freberg's line—not Webb's—became synonomous with the show. According to Freberg: “Jack Webb told me, ‘Thanks for pushing us into the number one spot,' because after my record came out, within three weeks, he was number one.”

Catchphrase:
“Let's get ready to…(something that rhymes with ‘mumble' but starts with an ‘R').”

From:
Sports announcer Michael Buffer

Here's the Story:
This one wins out over many other famous TV sports sayings because of the controversy it created. After hearing others imitating his famous battle cry, Michael Buffer and his brother Bruce decided to trademark it, a decision that made them both millionaires. Michael now charges $15,000 to $30,000 just to show up, say it, and leave. But if you feel like yelling the “rumble” phrase out loud, do it quietly; the Buffer brothers will sue the pants off of you if you say it at an event without paying them. (They even sued Ollie North.) Why such big safeguards on such a trite saying? “It's probably the most famous phrase said by a human being in history,” Michael explains.

Although he stood only 5'6", Napoleon Bonaparte was one of the most important figures in history. Emperor of France and conqueror of Europe, he created new standards for civil law, the French educational system, and much more. Here are some snippets of his wisdom
.

“History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon.”

“There is no place in a fanatic's head where reason can enter.”

“The best way to keep one's word is not to give it.”

“The most dangerous moment comes with victory.”

“In politics…never retreat, never retract…never admit a mistake.”

“In politics stupidity is not a handicap.”

“A man will fight harder for his interests than for his rights.”

“From sublime to ridiculousness there is only one step.”

“If you wage war, do it energetically and with severity. This is the only way to make it shorter and consequently less inhuman.” “Public morals are the natural complement of all laws: they are by themselves an entire code.”

“An order that can be misunderstood will be misunderstood.”

“If you wish to be a success in the world, promise everything, deliver nothing.”

“Ten people who speak make more noise than ten thousand who are silent.”

“Adversity is the midwife of genius.”

“The word ‘impossible' is not in my dictionary.”

“Men are moved by only two levers: fear and self-interest.”

“Governments keep their promises only when they are forced, or when it is to their advantage to do so.”

“He who fears being conquered is sure of defeat.”

More proof that truth really is stranger than fiction
.

“Philip Buble, 44, was denied permission to bring his ‘wife' into a main courtroom because she is a dog. Buble wanted the dog, who he calls Lady Buble, to sit with him in the courtroom while his father was being sentenced for attempted murder (the elder Buble tried to kill the younger Buble when he learned his son had married a dog). In Buble's plea to the court, he said, ‘I'd like my significant other to attend by my side, as she was in the house during the attack, though not a witness to it, thank goodness.'”

—FHM

“The African country of Swaziland has been thrown into a political crisis after Mgabhi Dlamini, the speaker of parliament, stole a piece of royal cow dung out of the royal corral. Dlamini's opponents say he wanted to use the stuff in a ritual that would improve his standing with the king. The theft was detected by witch doctors who had foreseen it in a vision. Dlamini admits to having taken a handful of dung but insists he did not intend to use it for personal profit.”

—The London
Telegraph

“In July 2001, political activists in France ‘liberated' 105 garden gnomes and put them in the middle of a traffic circle. The gnomes were discovered after being stolen from the gardens of several homes in Chavelot during the night. Police say the French Liberation Front for Garden Gnomes is responsible.

“The activist group—which in French is called the
Front de libération des nains de jardin
—has undertaken similar stunts in the past. Its stated aim is to free all garden gnomes and ‘return them to the wild.'”

—
Ananova.com

So how did the Spanish master painter Francisco de Goya die? Modern analysis suggests that he literally painted himself to death
.

Claim to Fame:
Art historians consider Goya a master painter—one of the greatest who ever lived. He became a “court” painter for Spanish royalty in 1786. But after an illness in 1792 he abandoned his conventional portrait-painting style and his work became cynical and dark; it is this later work that made him famous and inspired later painters like Edouard Manet and Pablo Picasso.

How He Died:
He was killed by his own paints.

Postmortem:
In 1792 Goya, 46, was struck by a sudden mysterious illness that manifested itself in symptoms including convulsions, paralysis of the right side of his body, poor balance, alternating giddiness and chronic depression, ringing in his ears, hallucinations, mental confusion, blindness (temporary), deafness (permanent), and impaired speech.

He almost died. In fact, he was so incapacitated that he had to give up painting for a time. Then, after a period of convalescence, the symptoms disappeared just as mysteriously as they had appeared, and he was able to resume his work.