WIDE WORLD OF WEIRD SPORTS
Tired of baseball, basketball, and football? Your worries are over—we’ve found some unusual alternatives for you.
MAN VERSUS HORSE MARATHON
Where They Do It: Llanwrtyd Wells, Wales (the same village that invented “bog snorkeling”).
How It’s Played: Just like it sounds: people and horses run a cross-country race, on the theory that given enough distance over twisting, uneven terrain, a man can run as fast as a horse. The 21.7-mile race (real marathons are 26.22 miles), which has been run each June for more than 25 years, grew out of a bar bet. Who won the bet? The guy who bet on the horses…at least until 2004, when a man named Huw Lobb beat 40 horses and 500 other runners to win first prize. (His time: 2 hours, 5 minutes, 19 seconds.)
REAL ALE WOBBLE
Where They Do It: Would you believe Llanwrtyd Wells, Wales?
How It’s Played: It’s a grueling 35-mile mountain bike race in the rugged terrain around Llanwrtyd Wells, with three checkpoint/watering stations along the route. The only difference between this race and a regular bike race is that the checkpoints put out cups of beer for the riders instead of water. (Bikers may consume no more than 1½ quarts of beer during the race, and if you’re under 18 you need a parent’s permission to enter.) “Beer gets down to the parts that you don’t get down to with water,” says race organizer Gordon Green. “It fortifies the cyclists.”
FATHER CHRISTMAS OLYMPICS
Where They Do It: In Gallivare, Sweden, 60 miles north of the Arctic Circle. (Not to be confused with the Santa Olympics held in—you guessed it—Llanwrtyd Wells, Wales.)
How It’s Played: Fifty or more contestants dressed as Father Christmas come from all over Europe to compete in several different Santa-related categories, including sled riding, reindeer riding, chimney climbing, and gift wrapping (with points for speed and beauty). Contestants are also rated on generosity, jolliness, and their ability to Ho-Ho-Ho. Any Santa caught smoking or drinking in front of children is automatically disqualified.
Q: What is mageirocophobia? A: The fear of cooking.
HUMAN TOWER BUILDING
Where They Do It: Barcelona, Spain, during the Festa de la Merce each September
How It’s Played: Large groups climb one another to form human towers as tall as nine people high. Then, when they’ve stacked themselves as high as they can, a small child climbs all the way to the top to make it just a little bit taller. According to one account, “horrific collapses are common and many participants have ended up in the hospital.”
UNDERWATER HOCKEY
Where They Do It: All over the United States
How It’s Played: Teams of six players wearing fins, masks, snorkels, gloves, and helmets use 12-inch-long hockey sticks to push a puck across the bottom of a swimming pool. Most players can stay under water for about 20 seconds before they have to surface to breathe. The secret to winning is timing your snorkeling with your teammates so that you don’t all swim to the surface at once, leaving the playing field wide open to the opposing team. Twenty-one teams competed in the 2005 U.S. Nationals in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
CRICKET SPITTING
Where They Do It: At the Bug Bowl festival, held every April at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana
How It’s Played: Thousands of contestants compete to see who can spit a dead, intact cricket the farthest. If the cricket loses its legs, wings, or antennae, the spit doesn’t count. The world champion is Dan Capps, a mechanic at a meat-packing factory, who spit his cricket 32 feet in 1998. “It’s just a matter of blowing hard,” he says. “Crickets aren’t very aerodynamic.”
Emperor Claudius was called to join his army by a chain of bonfires from Britain to Rome.
BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE!
If you buy this Bathroom Reader right now for just $17.95, we’ll include this amazing Book-O-Matic—free of charge! Here’s the story of the Popeil family and their world of gadgets.
YOURS FREE IF YOU ACT NOW!
Since the 1950s, the name Popeil has been synonymous with gadgets sold on television, in either breathless commercials for plastic food choppers or in 30-minute “infomercials” for spray-on hair. But Ron Popeil, the guy who sells the Showtime Rotisserie (“Set it…and…forget it”) on TV, is actually a third-generation pitchman. His great-uncle, Nat Morris, started in Asbury Park, New Jersey, in the early 20th century. Like other pitchmen, Morris would set up a table at county fairs, carnivals, or along the beach and sell inexpensive items, usually kitchen utensils, to passersby. Morris was so successful at it that by the 1920s, he’d become wealthy enough to open his own metal kitchen products factory.
In 1932 Morris’s nephew, Samuel Popeil, stepped in for a sick relative to demonstrate kitchen utensils at Macy’s in New York City and discovered that he, too, had a natural ability for selling. Like Morris, Popeil became a master of “the pitch,” honed over years of selling and performing product demonstrations at department stores, fairs, street corners, and boardwalks.
ISN’T THAT AMAZING!
Sam Popeil and his brother Raymond earned their living in the 1930s and ’40s by selling products that were made at their Popeil Brothers factory. Eliminating the middleman associated with selling other companies’ products meant more profits for the Popeil brothers. Raymond oversaw factory production and Sam came up with new gadgets, mostly graters and slicers that cost under a dollar. They gave the products names designed to evoke power and efficiency, like “Kitchen Magician” or “Slice-a-Way.” These simple items were presented so enthusiastically by the Popeils that consumers bought them by the millions.
In Japan, apple farmers use turkeys to guard their orchards against monkeys.
In the late 1940s, the Popeil brothers fully embraced the plastics revolution. They sold plastic versions of common kitchen items such as breadboxes, flour sifters, cookie presses, and storage canisters. They were pleasing to the eye, looked modern, and were inexpensive to make.
AS SEEN ON TV
But as television took hold in the 1950s it threatened the Popeils’ usual circuit of fairs, carnivals, and department store demonstrations. In 1956 the Grant Company, an early TV advertising agency based in Chicago, asked Popeil to sell the new Chop-O-Matic food chopper in a TV commercial. It would essentially be a four-minute, taped version of the Popeil’s department store pitch.
But Grant didn’t choose Sam or Raymond to appear in the ad. They picked Sam’s 21-year-old son, Ron Popeil, to be the pitchman. (He’d spent the previous five years doing demonstrations of Popeil products around the Midwest.)
Despite good sales for the Chop-O-Matic, the Popeils weren’t convinced of television’s power. They went back to in-store demonstrations and made more Chop-O-Matic-like products, which they contracted other companies to sell on TV. They wouldn’t make their own ad until 1961, for the Veg-O-Matic. On the strength of that TV ad (featuring Raymond Popeil), the product sold 11 million units. That convinced them.
Other Popeil Brothers items Americans couldn’t live without:
• Automatic Egg Turner (1948). A metal spatula that could flip an egg or a pancake perfectly
• Toastie Pie (1950). A toasted-sandwich maker
• Citrex Juicer (1951). A tiny juicer that plugs into the fruit and allows the juice to pour into a glass
• Plastic Plant Kit (1957). Molds liquid plastic to make plastic plants, which were very exotic at the time
• Chop-O-Matic spawned these slicers, dicers, peelers, and mixers: Dial-O-Matic (1958), The Amazing Veg-O-Matic (1961), Corn-O-Matic (1964), Mince-O-Matic Seven (1965), Peel-O-Matic (1965), and Whip-O-Matic (1974).
The Popeils churned out new products and commercials well into the 1970s. Their downfall: themselves. By being an early proponent of TV advertising, they actually demonstrated its lucrative potential to other companies, which drove up ad rates and commercial production costs. Meanwhile, the introduction of more sophisticated electric kitchen appliances was making their
simple plastic and metal gadgets look cheap and dated. The Popeil Brothers company was sold in 1979; it was dissolved and liquidated within two years.
Before 1920, it was technically legal to send children through the mail.
But there was still Ronco.
But wait, there’s more! For the rest of the Popeil story, turn to page 453. Act now! Operators are standing by!
* * *
Here are some of Samuel Popeil’s surefire sales tactics. (His son, Ron, uses many of the same methods on TV today.)
• Sales booths should be situated near makeup aisles or women’s restrooms to ensure a receptive—and captive—audience.
• Get one or two people to stop and listen. That will pique the interest of others passing by.
• Tout the product’s indispensability. Show how the item is a value because it performs multiple tasks. Memorize the spoken part of the pitch so you can deliver it flawlessly while you demonstrate the product. That will show how easy it is to use.
• Describe the product’s usefulness repeatedly, using words like “magic,” “fantastic,” and “miracle.” Ask rhetorical questions like “Isn’t that amazing?” when demonstrating the product.
• Never reveal the price until the end of the pitch. This builds suspense. Say to the audience, “You’re probably asking yourself what a product like this costs.” Then give a high round number, like $40. Then say that the item is well worth that price, but right now it’s much cheaper. Progressively move the price down: It’s not $10; it’s not $5. It’s the low, low price of $3.98! To encourage immediate purchase, tell the crowd that “supplies are limited.”
• But wait, there’s more! Before allowing anyone to purchase it, suddenly introduce and demonstrate a smaller product, noting its “retail” value, and give it away for free with purchase.
Artist Paul Cézanne taught his parrot to say “Cézanne is a great painter.”
DUMB CROOKS
Here’s proof that crime doesn’t pay.
SAY WHAT?
“In 2002 Blair MacKay, 32, was fined $600 for invasion of privacy by a court in Dingwall, Scotland. The court had heard testimony that he had barged into a female neighbor’s apartment and asserted, ‘I don’t listen to phone conversations!’ The woman testified that she had just told her friend over the phone that MacKay was probably listening to them.”
—The Scotsman
MAZDA LIGHT POLE 3000
“It wasn’t the Mazda RX-7’s speed that caught the eye of Redondo Beach Police Officer Joseph Fonteno. It was the hood ornament—a 9-foot light pole draped across the hood. Minutes earlier, the car’s driver had clipped a three-phase traffic signal from its concrete base and proceeded about seven miles to Pacific Coast Highway, where Fonteno pulled him over. When the officer asked about the traffic signal, the driver replied. ‘It came with the car when I bought it.’ The motorist was booked on charges of drunk driving, hit-and-run, and ‘excessive sarcasm,’ said police.”
—Los Angeles Times
STUPID FOR 15 MINUTES
“A day after they told their tale of buried treasure on national television, two men were charged with stealing the 1,800 antique dollar bills (estimated value: more than $100,000) they said they found in their back yard. As Timothy Crebase, 24, and Barry Billcliff, 27, of Methuen, Mass., recounted their story on Good Morning America, Today, Fox, and CNN, police noticed the details changed with each appearance. There were discrepancies about when they found the money, how deep it was buried, why they were digging, and the exact site.
“When Crebase and Billcliff returned from the New York media blitz, police and the Secret Service were waiting to question them. When it turned out they had found the bills in a barn they were roofing, the two were charged with receiving stolen property and conspiracy to commit larceny. Ironically, the men were unable to raise the $5,000 cash bail.”
Life imitates architecture: The ancient Assyrians cut their hair in the shape of a pyramid.
—Lawrence (Mass.) Eagle-Tribune
FEELING WANTED
“A suspect in two taxicab robberies walked into a New York City police station and failed to notice his picture in a ‘wanted’ photo on the wall, giving cops an opportunity to make one of their easiest busts ever. An alert detective noticed the resemblance and immediately arrested Awiey ‘Chucky’ Hernandez, 20. Hernandez had gone to the station to inquire about a friend, Huquan ‘Guns’ Gavin, who had been arrested in another investigation, said Det. Sgt. Norman Horowitz of the New York Police Dept., adding that he had ‘never seen anything like it in 30 years on the force.’”
—Reuters
HE BLEW IT
“A Warrensburg man burned himself and is facing criminal charges after he used a lighter to check on his efforts to steal gasoline from a dump truck, causing a fire that destroyed a forklift. Glen Germain, 19, suffered minor burns in the blaze when he lit a lighter to see how full the gas can he was filling had become, sheriff’s investigators said. The lighter ignited gas on his hands and in the can; the gas can fire then spread to the forklift, destroying the vehicle. Germain admitted he was responsible for the fire, telling investigators he was trying to see the progress of the siphoning process.”
—Post Star (N.Y.)
QUICKIES
• A couple rushing to make a high school graduation ceremony led police on a high speed chase that ended when they sped through a train crossing and crashed into a nearby home (no one was hurt). The wrecked car was going to be a surprise present for the graduate.
• A five-time burglar from Detroit found himself back in the can, charged with yet another burglary. How’d they catch him? He played with some Silly Putty in the home he’d just robbed and left his fingerprints.
October 10th (10/10) is National Metric Day.
D. B. COOPER
Modern-day Robin Hood? Or high-flying robber? He hijacked an airplane, stole a small fortune, then parachuted out of sight…and straight into legend.
DAREDEVIL
On Thanksgiving Eve, November 24, 1971, a nondescript man wearing a conservative dark suit, white shirt, narrow black tie, and sunglasses stepped up to the Northwest Orient Airlines ticket counter in Portland, Oregon. He paid $20 in cash for a one-way ticket to Seattle on Flight 305.
Once the 727 was airborne, the man summoned the flight attendant, Tina Mucklow, introduced himself as “Dan Cooper,” and handed her a note. It said he had a bomb in his briefcase and would blow up the plane if they didn’t grant his demands. He wanted two parachutes and $200,000 in $20 bills. When the plane landed in Seattle, Cooper kept the pilot and crew hostage but let the passengers off in exchange for the chutes and the loot. Then he ordered the pilot to take off again and set a course for Mexico with some special instructions: Keep the landing gear down, and the flight speed under 170 mph. Somewhere over the Lewis River, 25 miles northeast of Portland, Cooper strapped on a parachute, tied the money around his waist, and jumped out the rear stairway of the plane. He was never seen or heard from again.
THE BIGFOOT OF CRIME
In the ensuing investigation, the FBI questioned a man named Daniel B. Cooper. Although that person was never a serious suspect, the FBI reported to the press that they’d interrogated a “D. B. Cooper.” And those initials became forever linked with the skyjacker.
The FBI manhunt that followed was unprecedented in scope and intensity. It was a showcase investigation, meant to display the competency and professionalism of the world’s greatest law enforcement agency. Every inch of ground in the vicinity of the purported landing site was searched from the air and land, with teams of trackers and dogs, for 18 days. So it was a humbling moment when, after weeks of tracking down leads, the FBI admitted that they had come up with…nothing. No credible suspect. No trace of the loot or the parachute. No further leads to follow. A complete dead end. One frustrated FBI agent referred to Cooper as the “Bigfoot of crime” because there was no proof of his existence anywhere.
It is illegal to
walk a pet snake on a leash in Osnago, Italy.
If Cooper survived, he’d pulled off the crime of the century.
A STAR IS BORN
Something about the hijacking caught the public imagination, as the media reports raved about the audacity of the crime and the calm, competent way in which Cooper carried it out. According to the flight attendants, Cooper behaved like a gentleman throughout the ordeal, even requesting that meals be delivered to the crew while they were stuck on the ground in Seattle, waiting for the ransom money to be delivered.
He became a folk hero, a latter-day Jesse James. Songs were written about him, and a movie was made, starring Treat Williams as Cooper and Robert Duvall as the FBI agent on his trail. Half a dozen books, mostly by former FBI agents, published theories about what happened to him. He was living the high life on a beach in Mexico. Or he’d slipped back into his former life somewhere in the States, undetected, unnoticed, and forgotten.
On February 13, 1980, a family picnicking on the Columbia River, 30 miles west of Cooper’s landing area, found three bundles of disintegrating $20 bills ($5,800 total). The serial numbers were traced to the ransom. The rest of the cash has never been found.
…SO WHO DUNNIT?
• Possible Suspect #1. On April 7, 1972, four months after Cooper’s successful hijacking, another hijacker stole a plane in Denver, using the same M.O. as D. B. Cooper. The Denver flight was also a 727 with a rear stairway, from which the hijacker made his getaway by parachute. A tip led police to Richard McCoy Jr., a man with an unusual profile: married with two children, a former Sunday school teacher, a law enforcement major at Brigham Young University, a former Green Beret helicopter pilot with service in Vietnam, and an avid skydiver. When FBI agents arrested McCoy two days after the Denver hijacking, they found a jumpsuit and a duffel bag containing half a million dollars. McCoy was convicted and sentenced to 45 years.
Uncle John’s Fast-Acting Long-Lasting Bathroom Reader Page 15
