Uncle John’s Impossible Questions & Astounding Answers (23 page)

That’s the opening line to Ian Fleming’s 1954 novel
Casino Royale
, the book that introduced the world to Bond…James Bond.

David Mamet (
Glengarry Glen Ross
) adapted Federal Agent Elliot Ness’ autobiography,
The Untouchables
, which chronicled his efforts to bring down notorious Chicago gangster Al Capone in the 1920s. Other films you may not know were written by the prolific playwright:
The Verdict, Hannibal
, and
Heist
, which he also directed. (Whenever Mamet directs a film, he has a strict rule for his actors: no ad-libbing!)

They’ve all played Zorro. The masked vigilante was created in 1919 by New York pulp writer Johnston McCulley. The following year, Hollywood power couple Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford decided that a Zorro picture would be the perfect project to launch their new movie studio, United Artists (which they owned with Charlie Chaplin and D. W. Griffith).

Footnote:
Holy swordplay, Batman! Bob Kane, who created Gotham City’s caped crusader in 1939, based Batman on Zorro. The play that young Bruce Wayne’s parents saw just before they were murdered:
The Mark of Zorro
.

It’s a little-known fact that
Star Trek
creator Gene Roddenberry wrote lyrics to the show’s theme song. (First two lines: “Beyond the rim of the star-light, My love is wand’ring in star-flight!”) What’s even less well known is why he wrote them, and why they were never used on the show. Do you know?

Roddenberry’s
Star Trek
lyrics were never meant to be heard on the show, but that’s not because the network (NBC) nixed them. Neither did the studio (Paramount). Roddenberry nixed them himself. In fact, he only wrote them as a money grab.

The familiar melody was written by respected film and TV composer Alexander Courage. In his contract, it was stipulated that, as composer, he would receive royalties every time the show aired and the theme song played. If
Star Trek
made it into syndication (reruns), which it ultimately did, Courage stood to make a lot of money. Roddenberry wanted a piece of those profits. So he wrote the hokey lyrics solely to receive a “co-writer” credit. (Two more lines: “I know he’ll find in star-clustered reaches / Love, strange love a star woman teaches.”) As one of the composers, Roddenberry received half the royalties…leaving Courage with only half the royalties that he had expected to get.

Not surprisingly, Courage was disgusted by the deal. Though it was legal, he said, it was unethical because Roddenberry made no contribution to the reason the music was successful. Roddenberry was remorseless, saying, “I have to make money as well—it’s not like I’m going to get it from the broadcasts.” (At the time,
Star Trek
was floundering in the ratings.) Courage quit the show, vowing never to write another piece of music for Gene Roddenberry. And he didn’t.

Don Draper, the lead character on the hit AMC drama
Mad Men
, was inspired by a real-life 1950s ad man named Draper Daniels. Daniels’s claim to fame: He convinced men to use a product that, until then, was primarily used by women. What product?

Marlboro cigarettes. Daniels invented the Marlboro Man, a popular ad campaign that ran for 45 years from 1954 to ’99.

Like
Mad Men
’s Don Draper (played by Jon Hamm), the clean-cut Draper Daniels chain-smoked, womanized, and often drank his lunch. While working for the Leo Burnett advertising agency in Chicago in the 1950s, Daniels and his team were hired by Phillip Morris to solve an image problem: Since the 1920s, filtered Marlboro cigarettes had been marketed toward women with the slogan “Mild as May.” The common perception was that “real men” didn’t smoke filtered cigarettes. But new medical studies in the early ’50s linked smoking to lung cancer, prompting cigarette companies to promote filtered cigarettes as “safer.” That’s exactly what Phillip Morris executives wanted Leo Burnett to do.

Daniels had another idea: Don’t even mention the safeness of filters. Instead, he rebranded Marlboros as manly. Inspired by a photo of a cigarette-smoking cowboy from a 1949 issue of
Life
magazine, Daniels created an ad campaign featuring “Marlboro Men,” which included cowboys, sea captains, construction workers, and weightlifters. But it was the cowboy that caught on. Within two years, Marlboro’s profits increased by 300 percent; it soon became the world’s best-selling cigarette brand.

Final twist:
Two of the cowboys who modeled for Marlboro Man billboards, Wayne McLaren and David McLean, later died of lung cancer.

From neighborhood volunteers to world leaders, here are some questions about politics and the people
.

What’s unusual about the gavel used by the United States Senate since 1954? And who broke the one before that?

On June 17, 1986, Canadian MP John Nunziata said in the House of Commons, “We consider this to be an item of national concern, and have pulled out the magnifying glass to have a closer look.” What was he talking about?

It has no handle…and never did. The Senate’s hourglass-shaped, ivory gavel is wielded by the vice president in his role as president of Senate. He uses the gavel to begin and end meetings, as well as to maintain order. The original gavel, first used in 1789 by Vice President John Adams, lasted 165 years until 1954, when Vice President Richard Nixon got angry during a late-night nuclear debate and accidentally smashed it to bits. Later that year, an exact replica was given to the Senate by the vice president of India, who said, “I hope this will inspire the lawmakers to debate with freedom from passion and prejudice.” By contrast, the wooden gavel used in the U.S. House of Representatives
does
have a handle…and has been shattered and replaced numerous times.

Nunziata’s announcement came after a concerned constituent wrote to him and claimed that the Canadian five-dollar bill had a small American flag hidden in its design. Conspiracy theorists called it a subliminal attempt to convince Canucks to be more like Americans. Printed in black and white, the tiny engraving
sort of
resembled the Stars and Stripes, but it turned out that the object on the bill was actually a British maritime flag. Nevertheless, rumors have a life of their own, and as such, accusations of American flags hidden on Canadian currency persist to this day.

What profession was legalized in Romania in 2011, and why did that make many of its practitioners protest?

Who was the lowest-paid U.S. president, adjusting for inflation?

Witchcraft. The cash-strapped Romanian government legalized the profession in order to generate income. Now every Romanian witch must pay a 16 percent self-employment tax. Some of the occultists were so incensed that they protested by throwing poisonous mandrake plants into the Danube River. A witch named Alisia complained to reporters, “First they come to us to put spells on their enemies, now they steal from us!” “Queen Witch” Bratara Buzea claimed that she used a dead dog and some cat feces to put a curse on lawmakers. However, at least one witch, Mihaela Minca, was thrilled with the new policy: “It means that our magic gifts are recognized!”

Bill Clinton. The presidential salary has been raised intermittently since George Washington was offered $25,000 in 1789, equal to about $1 million today (he turned it down). In 1969 the presidential salary was raised from $100,000 to $200,000. Adjusted for inflation, that netted Clinton around $230,000 in today’s money—by far the lowest amount of any president. (When Nixon made that same amount in 1969, it would have been equal to $930,000 today.)