Bathroom Readers' Institute's Blog, page 67

Five Very Strange Super Bowl Halftime Shows

The Super Bowl is the most-watched TV event of the year, so the halftime show must be something spectacular that also has wide appeal. In the last decade or so, organizers have had success with getting a major singer or band, and just letting them perform a medley of their songs—the Rolling Stones, Tom Petty, the Who, Bruce Springsteen, Prince, or Lady Gaga, for example. Before that…well, pretty much anything could happen at the Super Bowl halftime show.

1987

The theme of the 1987 halftime show was “A Salute to Hollywood’s 100th Anniversary,” and was produced by Disney. That made for actors in Disney character costumes walking around while movie songs like “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” (from The Wizard of Oz) and “When You Wish Upon a Star” (from Pinocchio) played. The whole thing was introduced by George Burns, who awkwardly flirted with the actress playing Snow White, saying that she was “a pretty girl. Little too old for me.”

1989

The 1989 halftime show was called “Be Bop Bamboozled in 3-D,” and it was one of the first major network broadcasts to be presented in 3-D. The star of the show was a performer named “Elvis Presto,” an Elvis impersonator (and former Solid Gold dancer) who also did magic tricks. All the while, classic ‘50s songs were performed, such as “Great Balls of Fire” and “Devil with a Blue Dress On,” neither of which were actually Elvis songs.

1990

New Orleans-style jazz and the characters of Charles Schulz’s Peanuts comic strip have absolutely nothing to do with each other. But the 1990 Super Bowl halftime show merged the two concepts, because the game was held in New Orleans that year, which was also the 40th anniversary of Peanuts. Joining fiddler Doug Kershaw, clarinet player Pete Fountain, a 500-person choir, and three local marching bands…were costumed Peanuts characters jumping around to the music.

1991

The 1991 Super Bowl was one of the most exciting in history, with the New York Giants beating the Buffalo Bills by a score of 20 to 19. Its halftime show was a little less memorable. Boy band New Kids on the Block performed, along with Mickey Mouse, hundreds of children dressed in the traditional clothing of nations from around the world (who sang a medley of “It’s a Small World,” “We Are the World,” and “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing”). Also, NFL quarterback Warren Moon shows up on stage for some reason.

1992

CBS carried the 1992 Super Bowl, and the network used the halftime show to promote its next big televised sporting the event, the Winter Olympics. The show featured Gloria Estefan singing, and then figure skaters Brian Boitano and Dorothy Hamill doing a brief figure skating routine. Meanwhile, rival Fox scheduled a new episode of its hit sketch comedy show In Living Color to air during halftime, which lured 22 million people away from Gloria Estefan and figure skating.

 

 

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It’s Groundhog Day!

Here’s a look at the origins, history, and accuracy rates of Groundhog Day, the most important meteorologically psychic animal-based holiday on the calendar.

It’s obviously not the most scientific barometer to predict six weeks of weather patterns based on what a giant rodent does (or at least what a giant rodent does on one morning), but a lot of people still take it for the truth that

Why February 2?

Before it was Groundhog Day, February 2 was Candlemas, a Christian holiday. While no longer widely celebrated, it was an important “feast day” in the early church, and falls on the 40th day after Christmas. As traditions and folk wisdom emerge about most all holidays, so too did that happen for Candlemas. Because it falls smack dab in the middle of winter, Europeans started to use the day as a predictor about how the rest of winter could transpire. In Germany, folklore held that if it was cloudy when a hedgehog emerged from its bunker in the morning, then the people were in for an early spring. But if it was sunny out, well, the hedgehog would cast a shadow, and then get so spooked it would run right back into its burrow, indicating another six weeks of winter, as scheduled, through the end of March.

Why a groundhog?

Also, what even is a groundhog? It’s a gray-furred North American marmot. They weigh about nine pounds and live in underground burrows. It’s the weather-predicting animal not because it can actually predict the weather, obviously, but because settlers had no choice. When large numbers of German immigrants settled in Pennsylvania in the late 1800s, the Candlemas tradition came, too. One problem: There weren’t many hedgehogs in Pennsylvania. But there were plenty of groundhogs.

Why Punxutawney?

Because that’s who made the biggest deal out of it. In 1887, the Pennsylvania town of Punxsutawney became the home of Groundhog Day, staging a huge celebration to see what a groundhog (“Phil”) would do. Now, each February 2, Phil emerges from a temporary burrow built atop a hill called Gobbler’s Knob.

What’s the score?

Since 1887, Phil has seen his shadow 102 times—in other words predicted the continuation of winter. Just 18 times was an early spring forecast. That’s a downright abysmal accuracy rate of 39 percent.

Does Phil have a rival?

Yes—Phil isn’t the only furry weatherman out there. The Staten Island Zoo in New York has its own forecasting groundhog named Chuck. Zoo officials claim he’s ultimately been right 80 percent of the time, including from 2010 up through last year.

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Here’s the Story, of a Lovely Free Bird

While, Florence Henderson will forever be associated with The Brady Bunch, she also factors into one of the dumbest—and most enduring—traditions in rock n’ roll.

It’s a cliché at this point, and one you’ve probably seen go down if you’ve been to a concert in the past 30 years or so. During a lull, or between songs by the band, some fool will shout out “Free Bird!” or “Play ‘Free Bird’!” This is a reference to “Free Bird,” one of the best-known songs by 1970s Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd. Now, it’s highly unlikely that the people who shout out “Free Bird” want to hear the song—nor does the band want to play it, or know how. It’s just something people do at rock concerts.

Back in 1976, Lynyrd Skynyrd recorded a live album in Atlanta called One More from the Road. At one point, the crowd is getting restless, and singer Ronnie Van Zandt inquires why, asking “What song is it you wanna hear?” The audience responds, loudly, “Free Bird.” And so the band plays it.

Flash-forward 12 years, to 1988. A popular Chicago radio DJ named Kevin Matthews announces on his show that Florence Henderson is coming to town for a concert. Henderson actually has a wonderful singing voice—she sang often on The Brady Bunch, and before her TV days she starred in a number of musicals. While her repertoire consisted of show tunes and easy listening standards, Matthews thought it would be funny if his listeners went to the Florence Henderson and demanded a song the same way Lynyrd Skynyrd fans had. And so, a few people went to Florence Henderson’s concert and heckled her by shouting “Free Bird.” From there, it spread.

Sorry, Mrs. Brady.

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This Song’s For You, Dr. King

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a civil rights pioneer and American hero. Naturally, quite a few songs have been written about him.

“Happy Birthday” (1980)

Martin Luther King’s birthday has now been an official federal holiday for more than 30 years, observed on the third Monday of January. The concept was first proposed in 1968 as a bill by Michigan congressman John Conyers after Dr. King was assassinated. There was support for the holiday throughout the ’70s, but the movement really took off when superstar Stevie Wonder recorded a song in favor of the idea in 1980. “Happy Birthday” is a song both about Dr. King and the need to honor him. The song was a huge hit, which led to a petition signed by six million Americans demanding a King holiday. On November 2, 1983, President Ronald Reagan signed a bill creating Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

“By the Time I Get to Arizona” (1991)

Even though Martin Luther King, Jr. Day became a federal holiday, not every state government supported the idea. New Hampshire and Arizona politicians resisted the idea for many years, prompting Chuck D of the political rap group Public Enemy to write and record “By the Time I Get to Arizona” in 1991. It’s a direct attack on those politicians.

“Pride (In the Name of Love)” (1985)

U2 has recorded a lot of songs about political and social issues, but few are as bombastic as “Pride (In the Name of Love).” The first few verses of the song, which hit the top 40 in nearly a dozen countries around the world, celebrate the life and courage of Dr. King in his civil rights crusades…and it ends with a recounting of the details of his 1968 assassination.

“One Vision” (1985)

After performing at Live Aid, the massive 1985 benefit concert to relieve African famine, Freddie Mercury of Queen was reinvigorated to perform music again, particularly music with a message. He got the band back together to write an uplifting song, and the result was “One Vision,” which became the lead-off song on the band’s album A Kind of Magic. The nugget of the song came from drummer Roger Taylor, who thought the band should write about King, who was on a lot of people’s minds at the time due to the upcoming celebration of the first Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in 1986.

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R.I.P., Mary Tyler Moore

She could turn the world on with her smile, and take a nothing day and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile. So long to Mary Tyler Moore, a pop culture icon for more than 50 years.

One of Moore’s first paid acting gigs: as Happy Hotpoint, a buoyant elf in a 1956 commercial for the Hotpoint Automatic Dishwasher.

When Moore was just 25, she got the role of Laura Petrie on The Dick Van Dyke Show. She told producers she was older than she was to get the part—costar Dick Van Dyke, who played her husband, was 36 at the time.


Producers of The Dick Van Dyke Show balked when Moore wanted her character to wear Capri pants. Up until that time, women who didn’t work outside of the home were seen exclusively in dresses or skirts. But Moore pointed out that all of the women she knew wore pants at home, so the executives relented. Result: Moore became a trendsetter, as Capri pants became a major early ’60s fads.


Between the end of The Dick Van Dyke Show in 1966 and the start of The Mary Tyler Moore Show in 1970, Moore tried out a movie career, appearing in a big-screen adaptation of the musical Thoroughly Modern Millie, and the very last Elvis Presley movie, Change of Habit. It was also the last movie Moore would have to the time to make for more than a decade, until Ordinary People in 1980. For that one, Moore won a Golden Globe and was nominated for an Academy Award. Not so for Change of Habit—she played a young nun that Elvis tried to romance.


It was tricky for CBS to launch The Mary Tyler Moore Show because of the strong associations Moore had with her hit ’60s TV series The Dick Van Dyke Show. Steps were taken to carefully differentiate the two shows. For example, Moore’s character of Mary Richards was rewritten to be a single woman living on her own—she was initially divorced, but network executives worried viewers would think that she was playing Laura Petrie from Dick Van Dyke, and that she’d divorced Van Dyke’s character, Rob Petrie. Further, Moore wore a dark wig for the entire first season of The Mary Tyler Moore Show to make her look as physically different as possible from Laura Petrie.


The opening sequence of The Mary Tyler Moore Show is among TV’s most memorable, with Moore walking around famous sites in Minneapolis, where the series was set. It sends with a jubilant Moore throwing her hat up in the air as the soundtrack intones, “you’re gonna make it after all!” In 2002, the TV Land cable network commissioned a statue of Moore in that moment, and they placed it at the corner of 7th Street and Nicollet Mall in downtown Minneapolis—the very spot that the shot was captured.

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It’s a New World Record!

It’s a new year, so the new world record books are out. Here are some people who in the last days of 2016 and the early days of 2017 set some very impressive (and very weird) world records.

Biscuit Dunking

24-year-old Simon Berry of Sheffield, England has set a new world record in something so specific that his record is probably safe for the time being. With a bungee cord tied to his body, he leapt from a platform 246 feet in the air with a chocolate cookie in his hand (or biscuit, because he’s English). As he plummeted into the ground, he dunked his biscuit into a mug of tea. Berry is now the Guinness World Record holder for “highest bungee dunk.”

Skydiving Magic Tricks

Berry isn’t the only record-setting multi-tasking thrill-seeker out there. Magician Martin Rees is also a skydiver, and in November 2016, he set the record for “most magic tricks performed during a skydive.” During his 15,000-foot descent, he did ten magic tricks involving cards, money, and scarves.

Lacrosse Playing Siblings

First of all, did you know that there’s a professional lacrosse league? There is, and the Georgia Swarm are one of its top teams. At the team’s first home game of the 2017 National Lacrosse League season, a record was set for “most siblings to compete in the same professional lacrosse game.” Brothers Lyle, Jerome, and Miles Thompson all play for the Swarm, while Jeremy Thompson suits up for the Saskatchewan Rush.

Head-to-Head Stair Climbing

We can all agree that climbing stairs is hard work. But can you imagine doing it with somebody balancing themselves on your head? Vietnamese circus performers Giang Quic Nghiep and Giang Quoc Co climbed the 90-stair staircase at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Girona, Spain—head to head. Meaning that one of the duo walked while the other balanced his head on top of the other guy’s head.

14-Mile Bicycle Ride

Riding 14 miles on a bike in one hour is an impressive athletic achievement at any age. But it’s especially impressive for world record holder Jean-Michel Richefort. He did the 14 miles in a Paris velodrome (that’s 92 laps) in January 2017. It’s a record because Marchand is 105 years old.

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Academy Awards Myths and Legends

The Oscars are the biggest awards ceremony in Hollywood, and they stretch back 80 years. That’s bound to generate some controversy…and rumors.

The Best Supporting Actress Curse

Myth: According to this legend, it’s actually not a career boost for a female actor to win an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. In fact, it puts some kind of hex on careers. Perhaps it’s because while the leading actress Oscar often goes to huge movie stars, the supporting Oscar often goes to character actresses and newcomers. Case in point: past winners like Olympia Dukakis (Moonstruck), Brenda Fricker (My Left Foot), Mercedes Ruehl (The Fisher King), Marcia Gay Harden (Pollock), Mira Sorvino (Mighty Aphrodite), and Mo’Nique (Precious) failed to set Hollywood on fire.

Truth: Recent winners include Renée Zelweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Judi Dench, Cate Blanchett, Whoopie Goldberg, Angelina Jolie…

The Oscar Love Curse

Myth: A disproportionate number of women who won the Academy Award for either Best Actress or Best Supporting Actress saw their marriages end very soon after finding Oscar glory. Examples go all the way back to the 1930s: Winners like Claudette Colbert, Bette Davis, and Luise Rainer all wound up divorced. More recent victims of the curse include Kim Basinger, Sandra Bullock, Kate Winslet, Reese Witherspoon, and Hilary Swank (who was widely maligned for forgetting to thank her husband in her victory speech for Boys Don’t Cry).

Truth: This might just speak more to the old clichê that Hollywood marriages don’t last. After all, three-time Academy Award winner Meryl Streep has been married to artist Don Gummer since 1978.

Marisa Tomei Didn’t Really Win an Oscar

Myth: Oscar prognosticators did not expect Marisa Tomei to win the Best Supporting Actress award in 1992 for her work in the broad comedy My Cousin Vinny. In fact, Judy Davis was widely expected to win for Husbands and Wives. But when the envelope was opened by presenter Jack Palance, who seemed a little confused and stumbled over his lines, Tomei won. Palance’s odd behavior, coupled with the fact that Tomei’s was the last name on the TelePrompter clearly meant that Palance hadn’t read the name in the envelope, but had repeated Tomei’s name.

Truth: Those accountants that they show on every awards ceremony guarding a briefcase full of the envelopes with the winners’ names inside? They really do maintain the security and accuracy of the Oscars. Had Palance read the wrong name, one of the representatives of the accounting firm Price Waterhouse would have stepped in to announce the real winner.

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It’s Talk Like a Grizzled Prospector Day, Dadburn It!

Today is one of those silly holidays we all love. Sort of like how September 19 is “Talk Like a Pirate Day,” make sure to talk like an old timey prospector each January 24. Here’s a primer.

Dadburn

An all-purpose curse word.

Consarn

It meant both the entirety of something, as well as an all-purpose curse word.

Hornswoggled

Got embarrassed.

Dumfungled

If a claim is dumfungled, it’s been all used up—no gold to be found.

Bonanza

A productive mine that gave lots of gold.

Borrasca

A mine that was a total dud—no gold to be found.

Underground savages

Underground gold mines.

Grubstake

A claim could only be, well, claimed, if somebody was working it. That meant a lot of wealthy investors from the East Coast would buy a claim out in California and hire a laborer to dig for gold on it. Workers were paid for their efforts in food (grub) and a share (stake) of any gold they discovered.

Baby Buggy

A wheelbarrow.

Groundhog

A hand-truck used to move ore out of mines.

Tick Hole

A promising cavity in a rock formation—a half-dug hole, in other words.

Muck

To dig with a shovel.

Powder Monkey

No mucking for these guys—this phrase describes a miner who made holes quickly with the use of dynamite.

Cackler

A lazy gold miner.

Johnny Newcome

A miner new to the camp.

Old Pills

A mining camp doctor.

Sizzler

The mining camp cook.

Blackjack and Sow Bosom

These two slang terms refer to breakfast foods: coffee and bacon, respectively.

Strawberries

Beans.

Nosebag

A lunch break. (What was on the menu? Probably strawberries.)

Red

Gold.

There are a bunch of other gold mining terms that are a lot more familiar, because they’re still in use today. For example:

Paydirt. As in “hitting paydirt.” Today it means “to be successful,” but in the Gold Rush it meant land that was rich in gold.
Panned out. Miners would sift through dirt to find bits of gold with a mining pan. If they found any, then things had “panned out.”
Flash in the pan. If during that panning period, a miner spotted something shiny that ultimately turned out to be nothing, or just a small bit of gold, it was a “flash in the pan.”
Stake a claim. A claim was a section of land you claimed as your own or purchased in which to look for gold. They were marked with wooden stakes, and when you got there, you had to stake your claim.

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The 2020 Presidential Race is On!

Well, the Inauguration has happened, so the long election of 2016 is now officially over. Time to start looking ahead to 2020! A handful of candidates have already at least sort of declared their intention to make a run for the White House in four years’ time.

Jack Fellure

He didn’t waste any time: On the day after the 2016 presidential election, Fellure, a retired engineer from West Virginia, filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission declaring his candidacy for 2020. He’s ran for high office before; in 2012, he was the nominee of the small Prohibition Party, which aims to ban alcoholic beverages.

Rocky De la Fuente

The former car dealer and owner of a chain of currency exchange offices has run for office quite a few times. In 2016, he ran for the Democratic nomination for president but failed to secure any delegates or primary victories. He concurrently ran an unsuccessful campaign to be a senator from Florida (he came in fourth in the primary). But De La Fuente managed to get the presidential nomination for the Reform Party, and amassed 33,000 votes nationwide—eighth place overall.

Geoffrey Fieger

If the name sounds familiar, it’s because he’s been an off-and-on presence on newsmagazine shows for more than 20 years. Fieger is a Michigan-based attorney whose most famous client was assisted-suicide doctor Jack Kevorkian. He parlayed that into work as a legal commentator for news shows on MSNBC and NBC. In the political sphere, Fieger ran unsuccessfully to be the governor of Michigan in 1998. In January 2017, Fieger started running 2020 campaign ads in his home state.

Dwayne Johnson

Johnson has already made the difficult jump from one career to another—the former professional wrestler known as The Rock is now one of the biggest movie stars and legitimate actors in Hollywood. While promoting the Disney movie Moana in 2016, he told Vanity Fair that he “wouldn’t rule” out a move into politics. (Or a bigger move into politics: He was a featured speaker at the 2000 Republican National Convention.) “It would be a great opportunity to help people, so it’s possible. This past election shows that anything can happen.”

Kanye West

He’s almost as known for making bold pronouncements as he is for his hugely successful rap career, so we’re still not sure if he’s being serious or not. But at the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards, Kanye West announced during his acceptance speech for a lifetime achievement award that he planned to run for president. “It’s not about me. It’s about ideas. New ideas. People with ideas. People who believe in truth,” West told the crowd and millions of TV viewers. “And yes, as you probably could’ve guessed by this moment, I have decided in 2020 to run for president.”

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They Performed at the Inauguration

The quadrennial presidential inauguration is one of highest profile gigs in music, and many musicians have gotten a huge boost performing for the new president on his first day in office. Here’s a look back at some past galas.

1941

This marked Franklin Roosevelt’s third straight presidential election, so his vowing to uphold the Constitution was old hat by 1941. Nevertheless, the president still had a party. Pint-sized movie musical star Mickey Rooney performed.

1961

While opera singer Marian Anderson performed at the actual Inauguration ceremony, the gala was presided over by Old Blue Eyes, Frank Sinatra, a close personal friend of new president John F. Kennedy.

1981

Former 1940s movie star Ronald Reagan brought with him another 1940s movie star. Ethel Merman sang “God Bless America” during the Inauguration.

1989

While today she’s an outspoken supporter of Democratic candidates and liberal causes, it was a different world more than 29 years ago—Barbra Streisand sang at the Inauguration Gala of President George H.W. Bush.

1993

The incoming presidency of Bill Clinton triggered nothing less than a reunion of one of the most contentiously split rock groups of all time. Clinton’s campaign song had been Fleetwood Mac’s 1978 hit “Don’t Stop.” The band’s classic lineup, which had gone their separate ways in 1982, reformed to play the Inauguration Gala. Meanwhile, Bob Dylan played “unofficially” nearby—alone, with an acoustic guitar, in front of the Lincoln Memorial.

2001

The Inauguration of George W. Bush was a multi-genre musical extravaganza, boasting more and more varied names than a Grammys broadcast. Ricky Martin and Jessica Simpson performed, as did boy band 98 Degrees—per the request of his teenage daughters.

2005

During the ceremony, soul legend Aretha Franklin sang “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee.” Following her was a performance of film composer John Williams’ “Air and Simple Gifts,” performed live by violinist Itzhak Perlman…to a track pre-recorded by cellist Yo-Yo Ma.

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