Uncle John’s Legendary Lost Bathroom Reader (24 page)

THAT SUITS ME FINE

• The four modern suits—hearts, clubs, spades, and diamonds—originated in France around 1480, at a time when card makers were beginning to mass-produce decks for the first time.

• The simple single-color designs were easier to paint using stencils and cheaper to produce than the more elaborate designs that had been popular in the past.

Mighty Mouse’s girlfriend was named Pearl Pureheart.

• Not all today’s cards use diamonds, hearts, spades, and clubs as suit symbols. Traditional German cards use hearts, leaves, acorns, and bells; Swiss cards use roses, shields, acorns, and bells; and Italian cards use swords, batons, cups, and coins.

CARD FACTS

• For more than 500 years, playing cards were much larger than today’s versions and didn’t have the
indices
(the numbers, letters, and suit marks on the top left corners) that let you read the cards in a tightly held hand. Card players either had to hold their cards in both hands to read them (which made them easy for other players to see), or else had to memorize them and then play with none of the cards showing. In the mid-19th century, card makers began adding the indices in decks called “squeezers” (which let you hold the cards closely together).

• It was in “squeezer” decks that the jacks became a part of the deck. Earlier they had been called knaves, which, like kings, started with the letter “K”. To avoid the confusion of having two types of cards with the letter “K”, card makers changed
knaves
to
jacks
(a slang term for the knaves already) and used the letter “J” instead.

• The first face cards were elaborately painted, full-length portraits. While beautiful, they posed a serious disadvantage: when they were dealt upside down, novice players tended to turn them right-side-up—telling experienced players how many face cards were in their hand. Card makers corrected this in the 19th century, when they began making decks with “double-ended” face cards.

• The joker is the youngest—and the only American—card in the deck. It was added in the mid-19th century, when it was the highest-value card in an American game called Euchre. From there it gained popularity as a “wild” card in poker and other games.

• In November 1742, an Englishman named Edmond Hoyle published a rule book on the popular game of Whist. The book was so successful that dozens of writers plagiarized it, even using the name “Hoyle’s” in the pirate editions. Today’s “Hoyle’s” rule books are descendants of the
plagiarized
versions, not the original.

• The word “ace” is derived from the Latin word
as
, which means the “smallest unit of coinage.”

Ruling class: Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt were seventh cousins once removed.

Alvin, Simon, and Theodore are the most famous chipmunks in the world. This min-biography was taken from
Behind the Hits,
by Bob Shannon and John Javna.

T
HE WITCH DOCTOR

In 1957, a 38-year-old songwriter named Ross Bagdasarian (stage name: David Seville) was sitting in his study when an idea for a new song came to him.

“I looked up from my desk and saw a book called
Duel with the Witch Doctor,”
he recalled. “All the teenage records seemed to have one thing in common back then—you couldn’t understand any of the lyrics. So I decided to create a ‘Witch Doctor’ who would give advice to the lovelorn in his own language—a kind of qualified gibberish.”

Bagdasarian quickly wrote and recorded the song...but was stumped about what kind of voice to use for the witch doctor (Whose advice consisted of: “Oo-ee, Oo-ah-ah, Ting-tang, Walla-walla Bing-bang.”)

FINDING A VOICE

One day Bagdasarian was fooling around with a tape recorder, playing with the speeds. He sang into the machine while it was running at half-speed...and then played it back at full-speed. The result: It sounded like he’d swallowed helium...or played a 45-rpm record at 78 rpm. It was exactly the voice he’d been looking for. (
Note:
Remember this was 1957; today’s sophisticated recording equipment hadn’t been invented yet.)

Bagdasarian brought his finished tape to Liberty Records. “They flipped,” he said. Before 24 hours had elapsed, “The Witch Doctor” was on its way to record stores. Within weeks it was the #1 song in the nation. In all, it sold about 1.5 million copies.

THE SINGING CHIPMUNKS

A year later, Liberty Records found itself in financial trouble. So they asked Bagdasarian to come up with another song like “The Witch Doctor.” He agreed to try.

According to astronaut Neil Armstrong, the moon’s surface is “fine and powdery.”

He decided to turn the Witch Doctor’s voice into several different characters. As his son recalls: “He didn’t know whether to make them into hippos or elephants or beetles or what. He came up with the idea of chipmunks when he was driving in Yosemite National Park and this chipmunk almost dared him and his huge car to drive past. My dad was so taken with their audacious behavior that he decided to make these three singing characters chipmunks. He named them after three executives at Liberty Records. (Alvin: Al Bennett, the label president; Simon: Si Waronker, vice-chair; Theodore: Ted Keep, chief recording engineer.)

“Then he took the song he’d written, The Chipmunk Song,’ to Liberty and the president, Alvin’s namesake, said, ‘We need hits, not chipmunks.’ My dad said, ‘You have nothing to lose, why don’t you put it out?’ In the next seven weeks they sold 4.5 million records.”

Ultimately, the first Chipmunk record sold more than 7 million copies; at the time, it was the fastest-selling record in history.

LIFE AFTER DEATH

The Chipmunks outlived Bagdasarian. He died in 1972 of a heart attack; 11 years later, in 1983, the Chipmunks emerged as stars of their own Saturday morning TV cartoon show. Today they rank as three of the most lucrative characters ever created in a pop song.

THE “PURPLE PEOPLE EATER”

In 1958 a friend of actor/singer Sheb Wooley told him a riddle he’d heard from his kid: “What flies, has one horn, has one eye, and eats people?” The answer: “A one-eyed, one-horned people eater.” Wooley thought it was funny, and wrote a song based on it.

A short time later, he met with the president of MGM Records to decide on his next record. Wooley played every song he’d written, but there was nothing the guy liked. “You got anything else?” the president asked. “Well, yeah,” Wooley said, “one more thing—but it’s nothing you’d want to hear.” The president insisted, so Wooley reluctantly played him “Purple People Eater.” Three weeks later it was the #1 song in the country.

There isn’t any sand in sandpaper.

Romance novels account for a hefty chunk of the paperback book market. If you’re looking for a few extra bucks, writing one may be a way to pick them up. So, for you aspiring “writers,” here are some facts and guidelines about Harlequin Romances.

V
ITAL STATS

History:
Harlequin Books was founded in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in 1949 to reprint romance novels put out by the British publisher Mills & Boon. In 1958 Richard and Mary Bonnycastle bought the company, rechristened it Harlequin Enterprises, and set up headquarters in Toronto. Now, with more than 10 billion romances sold, Harlequin is the McDonalds of paperback publishing. They print books in some 17 languages and ships to more than 100 different countries.

Sales:
In 1970 Harlequin sold 3 million books. Now it sells more than 200 million a year. The company estimates that every six seconds, another Harlequin romance is sold.

Market:
Romance is the biggest-selling area of the paperback book market—25% to 40% of all mass-market paperback sales...and Harlequin has an estimated 80% of that market. Surveys show that romance addicts will spend up to $60 a month on romances (and read them in less than two hours apiece).

Audience:
More than 100 million people worldwide read romances regularly—mostly in the U.S., Germany, France, and the U.K. But Harlequin reports that sales are growing steadily in Asia. Company surveys indicate that 50% of its North American readers are college-educated, and a third make more than $30,000 a year.

YOU CAN WRITE A ROMANCE

Tired of reading other people’s fantasies? Think you’ve got what it takes to pen prose powerful enough to promote palpitations? Want to try your hand at writing a romance novel? Here are excerpts from the editorial guidelines for a basic Harlequin romance. This is the information Harlequin supplies to all prospective writers, and we provide it here as a service to you
.

To avoid being trapped in a burning building, Hans Christian Anderson always carried a rope.

Guidelines:
“What we are looking for are romances with...strong believable characters, not stereotypes; stories that center on the development of the romance between the heroine and hero, with the emphasis on feelings and emotions.”

Style:
“Keep ‘strong’ language (swear words) and highly provocative, sensual language to a minimum.

“Descriptions of sex or sexual feeling should be kept to a minimum in Romances. Love scenes are fine, but the descriptions of such, which should not go on for pages, should deal with how the heroine feels (perhaps the hero, too)—her emotional responses, not just purely physical sensations. Leave a lot to the imagination. A kiss and an embrace, if well told, can be just as stimulating to the reader as pages of graphically described sensual scenes.”

Heroine:
“Generally, younger than the hero, relatively inexperienced sexually, though this fact need not be stressed. She should hold traditional (not to be equated with old-fashioned) moral standards....The heroine need not be a career woman, nor even a woman with a fascinating, different job....She may hold just an average job, earning average income; she may be unemployed. If she works in a traditional woman’s job—secretarial, nursing, teaching, etc.—that’s okay, too.

Hero:
“Try to avoid excessive age difference; for instance, the 17-year-old heroine and the 37-year-old hero. He should be very attractive, worldly and successful in his field and, unlike the heroine, quite sexually experienced, and this fact may be implied.”

SEND NOW!

Want more info? Send for complete guidelines. Enclose a self-addressed, stamped envelope to Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd., 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9. (Don’t quit your day job: Publishers receive up to 1,000 unsolicited manuscripts every month. For the few books they do buy, they pay advances between $1,000 and $15,000, with royalties of 7% to 8%.)

Ride on: 10% of Californians own convertibles.

Imagine inventing America’s most popular comic character...and getting only $130 for it. That’s what happened to these guys.

T
HE HEROES:
Jerry Siegel and Joseph Shuster

WHAT THEY DID:
Created Superman, the most popular comic book character in American history.

One night in 1934, 17-year-old Jerry Siegel, an aspiring comic book writer fresh out of high school, came up with the idea for Superman. He was so excited that at dawn he ran 12 blocks to his tell his friend and partner, Joseph Shuster.

The pair began drawing up cartoon panels showing their hero in action. They sent samples to newspaper comic strip editors all over the country, but no one was interested. Finally, in 1938, DC Comics agreed to print a Superman comic and paid Siegel and Shuster $130 ($10 a page for 13 pages of work) for it. In addition, the two were hired as staff artists to draw future Superman comics.

Superman made his first appearance in June 1938. He was an instant smash. Over the years he inspired a radio show, animated cartoons, a TV series, movies, and licensed products. In the 1970s alone, Superman products grossed about $1 billion.

THE SAD FACTS:
When Siegel and Shuster sold the first comic to DC for $130 and signed on as staff artists, they effectively signed away all rights to Superman. From then on, all the money went to DC Comics.

They continued drawing the strip for DC until 1948, when the company fired them for asking for a share of the profits. Both men filed suits against DC...which they ultimately lost. By the 1970s, both were broke, living on money made by selling old comic books and other memorabilia they still owned. Shuster was unemployed, nearly blind, and living in a tiny apartment in Queens, New York.

Finally, in 1975, Warner Communications (owner of DC) voluntarily gave them pensions of $20,000 a year. In 1981 these were increased to $30,000—plus a $15,000 bonus after the first
Superman
film grossed $275 million. That was all the compensation the two men ever received for their creation.

Emergency rooms treat twice as many left-handed people for accidents as right-handed people.

The Roman Catholic Church has more than 5,000 saints, many of whom are “patron saints”—protectors of certain professions, sick people, even hobbies. Here are a few of the more interesting ones.