Uncle John’s Slightly Irregular Bathroom Reader (44 page)

After 9/11, the episode in which Homer loses his car at the World Trade Center was briefly taken out of circulation.

Beatles reunion: Ringo Starr, George Harrison, and Paul McCartney have all made appearances on
The Simpsons
.

Michael Jackson secretly wrote the Bart Simpson novelty hit “Do the Bartman.”

Among ham actor Troy McClure’s many films:
Dial M for Murderousness, Meet Joe Blow, Leper in the Backfield, The Mediocre Journey
, and
Eenie, Meeni, Miney, Die
.

The incompetent Dr. Nick was inspired by George “Dr. Nick” Nichopoulos, the doctor who fueled Elvis Presley’s prescription drug habit.

According to Guinness,
The Simpsons
holds the record for most celebrity guest stars.

In the opening credits when Maggie is scanned at a grocery store, she “costs” $847.63.

Thanks to Lisa, the number of female saxophone players in school bands has skyrocketed.

Homer has a tattoo reading “Starland Vocal Band forever.”

Producers had to apologize for the 1992 episode in which Marge stars in a musical version of
A Streetcar Named Desire
and refers to New Orleans as “Stinking, rotten, vomiting, vile...Putrid, brackish, maggotty, foul.”

The “J” in Homer J. Simpson stands for “Jay.”

Principal Skinner is named for behavioral expert B.F. Skinner.

The only things in the world Ned Flanders hates: his beatnik parents and the post office.

Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie have traveled to every continent except Antarctica.

The Simpsons
is the longest running animated series of all time. It passed
The Flintsones
in 1997. By 2005, it will have surpassed
The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet
as the longest running TV comedy in U.S. history.

The first insurance policy in what is now the United States was written in 1721.

Canine news from around the world
.

P
UPTIALS

“Four-year-old Anju Karmakar was accident-prone. She broke her arm at the age of two, nearly drowned six months later, and burned herself in a kitchen fire in February this year. Anju’s parents consulted an astrologer, who advised them to get her married off to a dog to break the jinx. A search for a suitable dog ended with a neighbor offering his six-year-old pet’s paw to Subal Karmakar’s daughter. The marriage, which was conducted according to Vedic rites, took place last Saturday night.”

—Hindustan Times

RUFF-RUFF, BOW-WOW, BARK-BARK

“As many dog owners will attest, our furry friends are listening. Now there is scientific proof that they understand what they hear. German researchers have found a Border Collie named Rico who understands more than 200 words and can learn new ones as quickly as many children. Patti Strand, an American Kennel Club board member, called the report ‘good news for those of us who talk to our dogs.’ Rico knows the names of dozens of play toys and can find the one called for by his owner. That’s about the same size vocabulary as trained apes, dolphins, and parrots, the researchers say.”

—
CNEWS

YOGA DOGS?

“At a new yoga class in California students are chanting ‘arf’ instead of ‘ohm.’ A gym instructor in Hollywood started offering free classes for dogs and their owners. Together, they work their way through all the yoga positions. Those who have tried it say these classes help calm neurotic pets. ‘I really think all the benefits that humans get from yoga, dogs get most of them too. They get to stretch, and it relieves anxiety,’ said Heather Stevens, yoga instructor. ‘It’s definitely kind of wacky,’ said Martin Goodman, a yoga class member. “But it’s a lot of fun.’”

—ABC News

President Gerald Ford once got locked out of the White House while walking his dog.

FROM A “PARENTING” COLUMN

“
Reader
: I can’t keep my 20-month-old daughter out of the dog’s food. I’ve tried scolding, distracting, time-out, but nothing works.
Reply
: From a strictly nutritional standpoint, most dog food is superior to the diets of many Americans. A pediatrician informs me that he has yet to see a child who suffered ill effects from eating dog food (except for chunk-type that might get stuck in the throat).”

—Providence
(Rhode Island)
Journal

POST POSTIES

“Dogs chomping on mail carrier-shaped treats is no laughing matter for Canada Post. The unamused Canadian postal service, whose carriers endure more than their share of real dog bites, convinced Pet Valu Inc. stores to stop carrying Bark Bars, dog biscuits that come shaped like cats and letter carriers. ‘This is not in any way, shape, or form funny for us. I don’t see that as humorous at all, not even in the least,’ said John Caines, Canada Post’s media relations manager, adding that in the first half of 2004 there were 160 dog attacks on mail carriers across Canada.”

—Reuters

MAILDOG

“Toby arrives at the post office at 9:30 every morning, even though he’s not allowed inside. The 12-year-old golden retriever has been delivering mail to his owner, Brad Sullivan, for the past two years. He makes the three-block trek to the post office with Gordon Lewis, Sullivan’s neighbor, and waits outside until Lewis puts the mail in a green pouch around his neck. Sullivan was laid up from a vehicle accident a couple of years ago, so he started sending Toby. ‘He’s just crazy to get the mail,’ Sullivan said. ‘We put that pouch on him and he’s a different dog. It’s something important for him to do.’”

—The Beaufort
(North Dakota)
Gazette

HOW MUCH IS THAT DOGGY IN THE WHEELCHAIR?

“The Humane Society in Brookfield, Wisconsin, announced a ‘scratch-and-dent sale’ on disabled pets, offering half-off prices on animals such as a toothless cat and a blind dog.”

—
News Is Stranger Than Fiction

79% of boys and 89% of girls list acne as one of their biggest worries.

McDonald’s has the healthiest and best-tasting food in the world, and we support them in their effort to protect their good name and their attractive logo. (That’s our story and we’re sticking to it.)

H
E SAID:
Edoardo Raspelli, one of Italy’s leading culinary critics, reviewed McDonald’s for the newspaper
La Stampa
in 2002. “The ambience was mechanical,” he wrote, “the potatoes were obscene and tasting of cardboard, and the bread poor. I found it alienating and vulgar.” The restaurant, he said, “symbolized oppression of the palate.”

McTROUBLE:
In 2003 the McDonald’s legal team heard about the article and filed a $25 million lawsuit against the critic. The unfavorable review, they said, amounted to defamation that “dented the company’s image and profits.”

McOUTCOME:
Pending. But Raspelli won’t back down. “I was only saying what I thought of fast food.” he said. “I find it repulsive.”

THEY SAID:
Steve Brown and Jenny Fraser wrote a play for a children’s theater in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1991. It was a satire of the hamburger industry called
MacBurgers: Real Neat Scotch Fare
, but it never mentioned the name “McDonald’s.”

McTROUBLE:
On the day it was scheduled to open, McDonald’s reviewed the script and promptly threatened legal action. “The play,” they charged, “is riddled with anti-McDonald’s propaganda.”

McOUTCOME:
The authors didn’t have the money to fight back, so they agreed to make script changes. They also had to promise that the play would be performed only twice—and then never again. (The original version of the play is still available online.)

THEY SAID:
In 1994 Vegan Action, an activist group in Berkeley, California, decided to sell “McVegan” T-shirts to promote their cause. The shirts had the famous golden arches logo, but instead of “Billions Served,” it said “Billions
Saved
.”

McTROUBLE:
McDonald’s demanded that Vegan Action halt production of the shirts and send them the receipts of every one sold. They also demanded that the University of California, Berkeley student store, where most of the shirts were sold, immediately stop selling them (they did). But Vegan Action didn’t give in so easily—they got pro-bono legal services and developed “a defense based on the First Amendment’s protection of parody.”

The average human body contains 10 to 20 billion miles of DNA.

McOUTCOME:
The press turned it into a David-and-Goliath battle. Two weeks later, McDonald’s backed down.

HE SAID:
In 1983 German filmmaker Peter Heller made a documentary called
Jungleburger
, examining the impact of fast food on Third World countries. In one interview, one of McDonald’s Costa Rican suppliers implies that his beef comes from cattle farmed on ranches created by deforestation.

McTROUBLE:
American McDonald’s couldn’t do much about a German documentary...until it was released in England, where the laws make it much easier to win a libel suit. When British TV aired the film in 1990, the McLawyers sprang into action, threatening the network with a lawsuit for showing the film.

McOUTCOME:
The threat worked. Channel Four issued an apology for showing the film and promised never to air it again.

THEY SAID:
The 2003 edition of
Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary
had some new words in it. One of them was
McJob
. Definition: “A low-paying job that requires little skill and provides little opportunity for advancement.”

McTROUBLE:
McDonald’s CEO Jim Cantalupo wrote Merriam-Webster an open letter calling the definition a “slap in the face” of all restaurant employees. “A more appropriate definition of a ‘McJob,’” he wrote, “might be ‘teaches responsibility.’” Bottom line: “We are confident Merriam-Webster will eliminate its inaccurate definition of restaurant employment in the next edition.”

McOUTCOME:
No dice. Merriam-Webster refused to be cowed, and the word will appear in the next edition. “We stand by the accuracy and appropriateness of our definition,” they said.
(Note: Editors of the
Oxford English Dictionary
had planned to include McJob in 1997 but changed their minds when lawyers, fearing legal action from McDonald’s, advised them not to.)

The average sedentary human burns 104 calories per hour.

These morbid “Willie” poems were popular in the 1950s, although most were written in the 1890s. Either way, they’re still funny (if you have a sick sense of humor...like you-know-who)
.

Little Willie hung his sister,
She was dead before we missed her.
Willie’s always up to tricks!
Ain’t he cute? He’s only six!

Willie poisoned Father’s tea.
Father died in agony.
Mother was extremely vexed.
“Really, Will,” she said, “What next?”

Into the family drinking well
Willie pushed his sister Nell.
She’s there yet because it kilt her.
Now we have to buy a filter.

Little Willie, on the track,
Didn’t hear the engine squeal.
Now the engine’s coming back,
Scraping Willie off the wheel.

The ice upon our pond’s so thin
That Little Willie’s fallen in!
We cannot reach him from the shore
Until the surface freezes more.
Ah me, my heart grows weary waiting—
Besides, I want to do some skating.

Willie saw some dynamite,
Couldn’t understand it quite;
Curiosity never pays:
It rained Willie seven days.

Willie with a thirst for gore
Nailed his sister to the door.
Mother said with humor quaint,
“Willie dear, don’t scratch the paint.”

Little Willie fell down a drain;
Couldn’t scramble out again.
Now he’s floating in the sewer
The world is left one Willie fewer.

Willie, in one of his nice new sashes,
Fell in the fire and was burnt to ashes.
Now, although the room grows chilly,
We haven’t the heart to poke poor Willie.

Willie coming home from school,
Spied a dollar near a mule.
Stooped to get it,
quiet as a mouse.
Funeral tomorrow at Willie’s house.

Dracula
author Bram Stoker also wrote children’s stories. Critics called them “morbid.”

How big are the world’s biggest trees? Imagine something as wide as a house and as tall as a football field
.

S
TRATOSPHERE GIANT & GENERAL SHERMAN

One hundred forty million years ago, redwoods flourished throughout the northern hemisphere. Today only three species remain: the coast redwood, the giant redwood, and the dawn redwood. The coast redwood of Northern California and southern Oregon grows to heights of over 300 feet, aided by heavy rainfall and fog that condenses on the tree’s tallest branches (so it doesn’t have to move water the full length of its trunk). The tallest, named Stratosphere Giant, is located in Humboldt Redwoods State Park. It stands 369 feet—five stories taller than the Statue of Liberty.