Bathroom Readers' Institute's Blog, page 46

No Winter Olympics Here

The Winter Olympics are getting underway in Pyeongchang, South Korea. There might be just a little bit of jealousy coming from these other cities, all of whom wanted to host the winter games…and didn’t get to.

Winter and Summer Locations

The first modern Olympics were held in 1896, but those were for “summer” sports. Things like skiing and skating had to wait to be contested at the highest international level until 1924, when the IOC started up the Winter Olympics, held the same year (but earlier) as the Summer Games. To make planning somewhat easier, countries that won their bid to host the Summer Olympics also won the right to host the Winter Olympics. That’s why the first winter ones were held Chamonix, France—because Paris was the site of the 1924 summer games.

World War II Locations

The spread of World War II in the late 1930s put an end to the possibility of either the Summer or Winter Olympics being held in 1940. (Not only were major worldwide cities in ruins, and not able to host sporting events, but people weren’t in an “international brotherhood” kind of mood.) That meant the Japanese capital of Tokyo wouldn’t host the Summer Olympics, nor would Sapporo, Japan, host the cold-weather counterparts. Tokyo would ultimately get the 1964 and 2020 Summer Olympics, while the Olympiad would finally reach Sapporo in 1972.

Before the 1940 Winter Olympics were canceled altogether, they were moved—from Sapporo to the Garmish-Partenkirchen area of Germany. When World War II raged on—in very large part due to Germany, to say the least—the IOC canceled them completely.

Similarly, World War II ended the possibility of the 1944 Winter Olympics, granted in the late ‘30s to Cortina d’Ampezzo in Italy. With World War II raging in Europe, Cortina d’Ampezzo wouldn’t get to host until 1956.

Denver

Denver is one of the most wintry, Olympic-ready places in the U.S., so it’s surprising the Colorado city has never hosted the Winter Olympics. Well, they were awarded the 1976 Winter Olympics…until voters in 1972 rejected a referendum to pay for them. The IOC had to rescind their deal, and offered them to Whistler, British Columbia, which also said no. Salt Lake City (host of the 2002 Winter Olympics) was interested, but the IOC chose Innsbruck, Austria.

Montreal

Another seemingly logical locale: Montreal. The French-Canadian routinely bid on the games in the mid-20th century, but lost all four times: for the 1932, 1936, 1944, and 1956 games. More recently, Jaca, Spain has also been rejected four times: for the 1998, 2002, 2010, and 2014 games.

 

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Failed TV Reboots

Everything old is new again—many TV shows are reboots of old hits, such as Will & Grace, Roseanne, American Idol, and Dynasty. Here’s a look at some attempted reboots of some old hits that never even made it to the idiot box.

Murder, She Wrote

In 2013, NBC announced that it was reviving Murder, She Wrote, the hit CBS series that ran for 12 years featuring Angela Lansbury as Jessica Fletcher, a small-town Maine mystery novelist who solved a murder in every episode. A top 10 hit for almost its entire run that made Lansbury a TV legend, it was a hard act to follow. Willing to try: Oscar-winner Octavia Spencer. In this version, Spencer would’ve played a hospital administrator who also wrote mysteries and who also solved mysteries. Fans of the original series were not happy, including Lansbury, who said it was “a mistake to call it “Murder, She Wrote”” because it would never live up to the original series. NBC ultimately scrapped the series before a pilot was even shot.

The Munsters

Inexplicably, there were two monster-themed family sitcoms on network TV in the mid-1960s: The Addams Family and The Munsters. Both have been revisited several times; the former with a couple of hit movies starring Raul Julia and Anjelica Huston; the latter in the ’80s as The New Munsters. In 2011, NBC ordered a pilot for a dark, gritty re-imagining of the goofy sitcom in which the horror outweighed the comedy. Retitled Mockingbird Lane (after the spooky street where the Munsters’ mansion was based), a two-hour pilot was shot starring Jerry O’Connell as Herman Munster and Eddie Izzard as Grandpa. Unlike the old show, elaborate makeup wasn’t used to transform the actors into familiar movie monsters. Also unlike the old show, the Munsters weren’t afraid to kill people. It wasn’t ordered to series, but NBC aired the pilot as a special around Halloween 2012 to high ratings…and it still wasn’t picked up.

Wonder Woman

A big-screen version of Wonder Woman was one of the most well-received box office hits of the year, but TV viewers almost had a Wonder Woman revival in 2010. Written by veteran TV writer and show creator David E. Kelley (The Practice, Ally McBeal), it starred Friday Night Lights actress Adrienne Padilici as the titular superhero in the modern era. With its familiar premise and creator pedigree, it seemed like Wonder Woman was a shoot-in for NBC’s fall schedule, but the network passed. The only major Wonder Woman TV show remains the iconic 1970s iteration starring Lynda Carter.

Coach

Barry Kemp has created a bunch of TV shows, such as Newhart and Coach. In 2015, he signed with CBS to develop a show, but NBC was so mad they didn’t get a chance at the show that the network offered him a chance to reboot Coach. The affable 1989 to 1997 series starred Craig T. Nelson as Hayden Fox, the coach of a college football team, and while a hit was never a cultural phenomenon; Kemp has said he never once thought about bringing it back until NBC asked him to. So, he worked out a surprisingly elaborate, two-season plot arc for the sitcom in which Fox signs on as an assistant coach at a college where his son is the coach. Season 1 would’ve focused on the Foxes building a team; season 2 would’ve focused on game by game details. Kemp was going to use social media to have fans weigh in on team colors and even a fight song. Then, a few months later, NBC called Kemp and told him the show was canceled, even though they’d already contracted him to air a full season.

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How Did the Romans Turn Death into Daytime Entertainment?

The Romans loved spectacle, and nowhere was this more apparent than in the public shows organized by their rulers. To remain in favor, Rome’s emperors built vast venues, including the famous Colosseum and Circus Maximus, where animal hunts, public executions, and even naval battles were staged-at the cost of many human lives. (This article was first published into Who Knew? )

Ludi Meridiani

Held in the empire’s amphitheaters at midday, after the animal hunts (venationes) and before the gladiatorial battles, the ludi meridiani were considered a necessary form of social control. These public executions showed the people that the powers that be were running the show. Condemned criminals were the unlucky “performers” in this spectacle, where they could face a number of horrifying ends. Those sentenced to death would be led into the arena partially clothed or completely naked, and often shackled to await their fate. This could come in the form of wild animals, an executioner (confector), or a fight to the death with other prisoners. In “fatal charades,” these unlucky souls were forced to reenact mythical stories before they were killed.

Water Sports

The naumachia, or water shows, were extreme even for the Romans. While some naumachia took place in the Colosseum itself, flooded with water, many of these epic reenactments were held in costly artificial basins built specially for the event. One impressive show put on by Augustus in 2 BCE saw 30 ships re-create the Battle of Salamis (480 BCE), with 3,000 men fighting to the death. It was set in a basin that measured approximately 445 feet by 1,170 feet-around the length of five football fields-and filled with about 460,000 cubic yards of water. That’s enough to fill over one hundred Olympic-size swimming pools.

The men who played the parts of oarsmen and soldiers in these shows were usually prisoners of war or criminals. In another water show, staged by Julius Caesar in 46 BCE, 4,000 oarsmen rowed 2,000 soldiers into the fake battle, dressed in costumes as Egyptians and Tyrians. But while the battle was largely choreographed to reflect history, the fighting was real. Thousands died, either in combat or by drowning, to keep the Roman hordes entertained.

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Watch Out For ‘Groundhog Day,’ It’s a Doozy

Let’s talk about everybody’s favorite part of Groundhog Day: Groundhog Day, the 1993 Bill Murray movie that takes place on Groundhog Day…a lot of them.

Filmmakers originally wanted Tom Hanks for the lead role of Phil, the Pennsylvania weatherman stuck in a time loop until he becomes a decent person. Director Harold Ramis ultimately rejected that notion, finding Hanks to be too “nice,” and lacking the sarcastic edge that only Bill Murray (his Ghostbusters co-star) could bring.

In the original script by Danny Rubin, It’s revealed that Phil lives out Groundhog Day over and over again for about 10,000 years. Eagle-eyed fans have carefully gone through the movie and reckon that in the final cut of the film, Phil is stuck doing February 2 for anywhere from eight years to 40 years.

In the movie, human Phil has a rocky relationship with actual groundhog Punxsutawney Phil. Off-screen, they didn’t get along at all: During filming, the groundhog bit Bill Murray. Twice.

The scene where Phil reads to Rita (Andi MacDowell) while she’s sleeping wasn’t in the script—it was suggested by Bill Murray. He’d done this with his former wife on their wedding night, after she’d had too much champagne and fell asleep early.

In Sweden, the movie was released as Monday the Entire Week.

Three people associated with the movie have been named honorary Grand Marshal for the real-life Groundhog Day festivities in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, the official “home” of Groundhog Day: Ramis, Murray, and Stephen Tobolowsky, the writer and actor who plays annoying insurance salesmen Ned Ryerson.

Groundhog Day wasn’t filmed in Pennsylvania at all, but rather Woodstock, Illinois, near where Ramis and Murray grew up. There’s a plaque in the town commemorating shooting, right at the spot where Phil stepped in a puddle over and over again while trying to get away from Ned Ryerson.

This makes no sense: The film was released to theaters in 1993…on February 12, 10 days after Groundhog Day.

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Behind the Album Cover

 You’ve probably stared at a few of these covers while you listened to the music with your headphones on and grooved, man. If you ever thought there was more than meets the eye to these pieces of classic album artwork…you were right.

The one with the dancing witch and the dangling balls

Just about everybody bought a copy of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours in the late ‘70s, in spite of (or maybe because of) its bizarre album art. Singer Stevie Nicks dances around in dark robes, holding hands with drum Mick Fleetwood, who rests his foot on a stool and displays two wooden balls dangling in front of his crotch. What does it all mean? Well, Nicks is in character as Rhiannon, the mythical Welsh witch she came about in the band’s hit “Rhiannon.” Fleetwood’s little balls were his personal good luck charm. Years earlier, he saw them dangling off of an old-school chain-flush toilet in a bar and stole them, and adorned his drum kit with them.

The one with the guys in suits shaking hands, one of whom is on fire

In the ‘70s, Pink Floyd frequently employed a British design studio called Hipgnosis. Designers there thought the band’s 1975 album Wish You Were Here was about how the music industry chews up and spits out creative people, such as original Pink Floyd member Syd Barrett, who left the band in 1968 because of mental health concerns. Hipgnosis exploited that idea with a cover that depicted the phrase “I’ve been burnt,” which means “ripped off.” Thus the cover became an image of two guys in suits — businessmen — making a deal with one of them literally engulfed in flames.

The one with the angel and the naked woman

Abraxas, the second album by Santana, Carlos Santana’s band, features two of its most famous songs: “Oye Como Va” and “Black Magic Woman.” The album cover is a chaotic, collage of reds, pinks, blues, and greens…which we can’t public here because one of the two human figures in it is a topless woman. Santana simply took an entire painting, unaltered, and used it as the cover for Abraxas. It’s called Annunciation, and it was made in 1961 by German artist Mati Klarwein. Carlos Santana picked it because it “signifies the annunciation of this angel Gabriel to Mary,” which reflects the album’s spiritual themes.

The one with half of a jet

The rap-rock trio Beastie Boys burst onto the scene in 1986 with their album Licensed to Ill. The cover depicted the back half of a jet adorned with the band’s name — implying that they’re such huge stars as to have their own private plane. They didn’t — the group’s producer Rick Rubin had just read a book about Led Zeppelin and thought it was ridiculous and excessive that that band had its own jet. So he had an artist mock up a Beastie Boys jet as a joke to poke fun at rock n’ roll excess. Furthering the joke: When the gatefold is opened, the rest of the jet is shown crashed into the side of a mountain — the end result of rock n’ roll excess.

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Rejected Super Bowl Commercials

Super Bowl ads are big business—the network airing the big game can charge a fortune for a 30-second spot because more than 100 million people are watching the broadcast. Companies clamor to get those commercial slots, but the NFL (and the network) can still say no.

GNC

Just four days before the 2017 Super Bowl, the NFL nixed an already approved ad by nutrition and vitamin store GNC. The reason: Some of the store’s products contain the stimulant synephrine and a steroidal hormone called DHEA. Both ingredients are on the NFL’s list of banned performance-enhancing substances.

Sodastream

The broadcast of the 2014 Super Bowl did not include an ad that depicted Scarlett Johansson taking off a bathrobe. That’s not why it was rejected. The commercial for home carbonated water machine Sodastream included Johansson making a direct dig at the company’s competition: “Sorry, Coke and Pepsi.” The NFL didn’t want to insult those companies…two of its biggest advertisers.

Ashley Madison

Ashley Madison is an online dating site that is specifically and explicitly geared toward people who want to have an extramarital affair. That business model isn’t why Fox wouldn’t air an ad for the company during a 2011 Super Bowl. It’s because the ad starred Savanna Samson, an actress known for her body of work in “adult films.” 

Daniel Defense

A company called Daniel Defense was denied ad time on the 2013 Super Bowl. The ad itself was fairly innocuous: It shows a military veteran talking about the need to protect his family, and then the company logo appears. What was wrong? Daniel Defense is a gun manufacturer, and the NFL doesn’t allow gun advertising on its broadcasts. 

Smart Beep

In 1999, a beeper service (remember beepers?) called Smart Beep couldn’t get its ad on Fox’s broadcast of the Super Bowl. Why? A fart joke. The plot: A woman farts in a car just before a date, not realizing that there are two other people in the car already. (Nine years later, Fox rejected a Bud Light ad on similar grounds—in it, two deli workers have a conversation about “cutting the cheese.”)

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Welcome to Book Island

Where are books loved more than anywhere else on Earth? It just might be the tiny Scandinavian nation of Iceland.

In the U.S., the biggest gifts tend to change each Christmas. There’s often a “hot ticket” item that adults want, or a fad toy that every kid asks for; for example, this year millions of adults are getting an Instant Pot, and building up to Christmas in 1996, there were near-riots as parents tried to secure their children a Tickle-Me-Elmo doll, respectively. In Iceland, however, the most popular holiday gift since World War II has been books — any kinds and all kinds of books. In fact, it’s a national tradition for Icelanders to gift each other books — they’re exchanged on Christmas Eve, and then people stay up late reading their new books.

The History

Icelandic historians believe that the Christmas book tradition began during World War II. Import restrictions limited gift and luxury items coming into the country, but imported paper wasn’t much regulated at all. That meant more books could be printed, and so people started buying each other more and more books during the holiday season.

Holiday Gifts

Because books are such a popular Christmas gift, Icelandic book stores are inundated with new books in the lead-up to the holidays. The majority of books in Iceland are sold between late September and November, and the frenzy is nicknamed Jolabokaflod, or “The Christmas Book Flood.” The official beginning of the Christmas Book Flood comes with the mailing of the Bokatidini. The Iceland Publishers Association lists every new book available in this catalog and then sends it to every home in the country, free of charge.

Book Publishing Per Capita

Thanks in large part to the love of reading and the subsequent book flood to feed that desire, Iceland publishes more books per capita than any other nation on Earth. Five books per 1,000 Icelanders are made available each year. Still, because Iceland is such a small country, volume-wise it’s not a huge market for books — just an enthusiastic one. There are only about 320,000 people in the whole country, and two-thirds of them live in the Icelandic capital of Reykjavik. Sill, the city library loans out more than 1.3 million books a year. Statistics show that nearly every Icelandic adult buys at least one book a year.

Books as a Physical Object

This love of books as a physical object determines what kinds of books are sold. Up until the early 2000s, paperback books couldn’t compete with hardbound books — that suggested Icelanders wanted to keep and hold on to their books for as long as possible. Also, e-books haven’t caught on there at all — mainly because they can’t be gifted as easily as a physical book.

Iceland is also the only market in the world for Icelandic books. There’s such a demand for books in that language that self-published books routinely make the bestseller list there.

Books really do make a great gift. Check out the Portable Press books.

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Let’s Put on a Show…Again? Check Out These Failed Musical Sequels

Movie sequels succeed. Book sequels succeed. TV reboots do just fine. What’s the one thing in pop culture where a continuation of the story has almost never worked: stage musicals.

Bring Back Birdie

Bye Bye Birdie was a smash on the stage and the screen in the 1960s. A very thinly veiled adaptation of the real-life story of Elvis Presley getting drafted into the Army at the height of his fame and influence, it’s about a similar hip-swingin’ early rock n’ roll idol named Conrad Birdie who gets drafted and agrees to a publicity stunt before he ships off: He’ll kiss a female fan and debut a new song. So what happened to Conrad Birdie? Did he come back from the military, and eventually semi-retire to nightly shows in Las Vegas before dying in the bathroom in his early 40s? (You know, like Elvis?) Not exactly. In 1981, Bring Back Birdie debuted on Broadway, positing the story that after the events of Bye Bye Birdie, Birdie went bye-bye, in that he disappeared off the face of the Earth. Characters from the first musical must, well, bring back birdie. The show closed after just four performances, making it one of the biggest bombs in Broadway history.

The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public

The country music-inflected The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas was a massive Broadway hit in 1978, striking just when country music was experiencing a major boom period. Inspired by a real-life Texas brothel called the Chicken Ranch, the risqué musical concerned a historic, beloved den of iniquity and the plucky working girls who ply thy their trade there. After running for 1,700 performances, a film version was made in 1982 starring Dolly Parton — and it made $70 million at the box office, at the time, the second-biggest movie musical gross of all time (after Grease). A sequel might have been a good idea, but creators might have waited way too long…and went with a bizarre premise. Opening in May 1994, The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public found the original musical’s madam, Miss Mona, coming out of retirement to save a Las Vegas brothel that owes millions in back taxes. The solution: Miss Mona sells shares of the brothel on the New York Stock Exchange. An equal and incongruous mix of sex jokes and finance jokes, Public shut down after 16 performances.

Love Never Dies

The Phantom of the Opera holds the unique distinction of being the longest-running Broadway show of all time — it opened in January 1988 and it’s still playing nightly at the Majestic Theatre after more than 12,400 performances, and it’s based on Gaston Leroux’s 1909 gothic romance about a disfigured man who haunts the Paris Opera House only to fall into a love he cannot have with a singer named Christine. Webber started working on a sequel in 1990, which unlike its predecessor, isn’t based on a Leroux novel. The sequel, Love Never Dies, wasn’t ready for the stage until 2010, when it debuted on London’s West End. The plot: Christine receives a mysterious invite to perform on Coney Island. (Guess who sent the invite? Hint: It’s the Phantom.) The new musical was not well-received; Webber closed the first production down after a handful of performances for rewrites. Critics still didn’t like it, and neither did audiences. While it’s never even hit Broadway, Love Never Dies has been moderately successful as a touring production.

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Girl Scout Cookie Facts

It’s that time of year again—when the Girl Scouts show up at your front door determined to ruin your New Year’s Resolution to eat less sweets. Here’s a little about the wonderful world of Girl Scout Cookies.

The Beginning: 1922

Girl Scout Cookies began in earnest in 1922. The director of the Girl Scouts of Chicago published a sugar cookie recipe in an issue of the organization’s national newsletter, American Girl. Every one of the 2,000 or so Girl Scout troops dutifully made some cookies and sold them as a fundraiser.

The War Years

Only year after the program launched that the Girl Scouts didn’t sell cookies: 1942. World War II-related shortages and rationing of sugar, flour, and butter made it impossible, so the organization sold calendars instead.

Girl Scout Cookies: Made by Elves

Today, Girl Scout Cookies are made by elves—Keebler elves. The organization contracts an industrial baking company called Little Brownie, which is a division of Keebler. To meet demand for Girl Scout Cookies in the mid-to-late winter, Little Brownie churns out 4.9 million a day of the most popular variety, Thin Mints.

The Most Popular

After Thin Mints, the most popular varieties, in order, are: Samoas, Tagalongs, Do-si-dos, Savannahs, and Trefoils.

Peak Baking Season

During peak baking season, the amount of ingredients required to make a week’s worth of Girl Scout Cookies is astounding, such as 750,000 pounds of flour, 438,000 pounds of sugar, and 145,000 pounds of peanut butter

Bestsellers

The bestselling cookie in the United States from April to December: Oreos. The bestselling cookie in the United States from January through March: the various varieties of Girl Scout Cookies.

The Profit

A box of Girl Scout Cookies costs about $5. After various expenses are accounted for, the troop that sold them gets around 50 cents. Altogether, Girl Scout Cookies are a $700 million-a-year business.

The Recipes

While Girl Scout Cookies are made without trans fats and several varieties are vegan, arguably the “healthiest” variety is also the newest: Mango Cremes, introduced in 2013. It’s made with a proprietary nutritional blend called “Nutrifusion.” It’s primarily a blend of cranberries, pomegranates, organs, grapes, strawberries…and shiitake mushrooms.

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Celebrity Kickstarters That Failed

Kickstarter, GoFundMe, and other online “crowdsourcing” sites have been used to fund everything from inventions to charities to movies. It must be something about the unique way that creators take their pitch directly to “the people” that’s so enticing. But it doesn’t work as a fundraising tool for everybody — sometimes not even famous people can launch a successful online crowdfunding effort.

Good Times

Lots of recent TV show revivals have been big hits, such as Will & Grace, Twin Peaks, and The X-Files. One show that won’t be coming back: Good Times, the Norman Lear ‘70s hit about a working class African-American family. To use cast member Jimmy Walker’s catchphrase, a Good Times revival seems like it would be”Dyn-o-mite!” But when Walker, along with original cast members such as John Amos, Ja’Net DuBois, and Ralph Carter got together in 2016 to pitch a full-length reunion movie, it wasn’t such good times. The project racked up an inexplicably low $8,700 out of the requested $1 million.

Creed

Creed was one of the biggest bands on the planet in the very early 2000s…and then the world moved on from their spiritually-influenced hard rock and the band split up. Most of the group moved on to a new band called Alter Bridge while lead singer Scott Stapp pursued a solo career. In 2014, he used a service called Fundly to generate the cash he needed to make an album and publish a novel. He aimed for nearly half a million dollars…and took in about 500 bucks.

Darci’s Walk of Shame

In 2013, former teen start Melissa Joan Hart attempted a career overhaul and image reboot. She was (and still is) best known for her TV work — she starred on kid-oriented ‘90s sitcoms Clarissa Explains It All and Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and more recently acted on the ABC Family hit Melissa and Joey (alongside fellow ‘90s teen idol Joey Lawrence). But she wanted to do something different, and went for it with a raunchy romantic comedy called Darci’s Walk of Shame. Apparently, Hart’s fans wanted to see their star stick to the sitcoms, because her Kickstarter raised just $51,000 out of a required $2 million.

Zosia Mamet

Zosia Mamet is one of the top young actors working in TV — she had a recurring role on Mad Men and played Shoshanna on HBO’s recently ended Girls. She’s also a musician, having formed a folk duo with her sister, Clara, called the Cabin Sisters. She aimed to raise a relatively modest $32,000 on Kickstarter to film a video for the song “Bleak Love.” When it was all over, only 80 people in all chipped in for a grand total of $2,783.

Darryl McDaniels (aka DMC from Run-DMC)

If the name Darryl McDaniels doesn’t ring a bell, his stage name probably does: He’s DMC of the legendary rap group Run-DMC. In addition to being one of the all-time greatest MCs, he’s also a budding comic book artist. In 2013, he set out to accumulate $100,000 from Kickstarter patrons to start his own comic book publishing company, Darryl Makes Comics, which would publish a 64-page graphic novel called DMC. He only wound up pulling in $5,537.

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