Uncle John’s 24-Karat Gold Bathroom Reader®
Page 61
22. Sunset Boulevard (1950)
23. The Princess Bride (1987)
24. Carrie (1976)
Picky eaters: Each of the world’s 1,600 flea species prefers a different animal.
KNOW YOUR BOATS
(Answers for page 347)
1. j) Argo. Jason and his Argonauts were the heroes of Greek mythology who searched for the Golden Fleece aboard the Argo.
2. d) Pequod. In Herman Melville’s 1851 novel Moby Dick, Captain Ahab hunted for a vicious white whale aboard the Massachusetts-based Pequod. The novel says the ship took its name from “a celebrated tribe of Massachusetts Indians; now extinct as the ancient Medes.” The tribe’s name is actually “Pequot,” but they are indeed a New England-based nation that was nearly obliterated by English settlers during the 1600s.
3. g) Nautilus. Captain Nemo skippered this submersible in Jules Verne’s 1869 novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Verne named his fictional ship after American engineer Robert Fulton’s Nautilus—the first workable submarine in history, built in 1800.
4. e) African Queen. Charlie Allnut was in charge of this supply ship on Central Africa’s Ulanga River in the 1935 C. S. Forester novel The African Queen. The character is better known from the 1951 film of the same name, played by Humphrey Bogart (which won him his first and only Oscar, for Best Actor).
5. o) Belafonte. Captain Zissou (Bill Murray) captained this ship in 2004’s The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, an affectionate sendup of the famed French conservationist Jacques Cousteau. The name of Cousteau’s ship: Calypso. Zissou’s ship was called Belafonte... after singer and actor Harry Belafonte, who became famous in the 1950s for singing calypso music.
6. t) Jolly Roger. Captain James Hook—the villain in J. M. Barrie’s 1904 play, Peter Pan—was the skipper of this pirate ship, named after the famous “Jolly Roger” pirate flag bearing the skull-and-bones emblem.
7. i) Black Pearl. Johnny Depp plays the role of Jack Sparrow, the captain of the Pearl, in Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean film franchise. According to the story, the ship was originally the Wicked Wench, but then it sank and Sparrow had to make a deal with Davy Jones to save it. When he did, Sparrow renamed it the Black Pearl. Why? That’s never explained. But one Hollywood screenwriter claims to know where the name came from: Royce Matthews says he came up with “Black Pearl” in a pirate story he wrote in the 1990s, and he’s been trying to sue Disney over the claim—without success—since 2006.
20,000 leagues equals about 69,000 miles. The deepest spot in any ocean: about 6 miles.
8. h) Lydia. Hornblower was the unhappy, self-doubting, prone-to-seasickness British Navy captain made famous in the series of novels by (once again) C. S. Forester, as well as the films and television shows based on them. The most famous of his many ships was Lydia, featured in the classic 1951 film Captain Horatio Hornblower, starring Gregory Peck in the title role.
9. p) Orca. Quint (according to the script, that’s his last name—his first name: Sam) was the irascible skipper of the too-small boat in the 1975 film Jaws. The shark-obsessed Quint gave his boat the name because orcas, or killer whales, are the only known animals that prey on great white sharks. In real life, the Orca was a modified version of the Warlock, a Nova Scotia-based lobster boat bought by Jaws producers for the film.
10. v) Ferry of the Dead. In Greek mythology, Charon was the ferryman who took the souls of the newly dead across the river Archeron to the Underworld—but only if they had a coin to pay him. (This is why the ancient Greeks buried their dead with a coin placed under their tongue.)
11. a) St. Vitus’ Dance. Sonny Crockett (Don Johnson) was the lead character on the TV series Miami Vice, and he lived aboard his yacht. St. Vitus’ Dance, also called Sydenham’s chorea, is a disease characterized by uncontrollable jerking motions of the face, feet, and hands. (It was named after Saint Vitus, the Christian patron saint of dancing.) Why the yacht has that name is never explained.
12. c) Yellow Submarine. In the 1968 Beatles film Yellow Submarine the undersea world of Pepperland is attacked by the Blue Meanies. The Lord Mayor orders Old Fred, whom he has appointed admiral, to take the submarine to the surface to seek help. (It should be noted that the Lord Mayor, who is very, very, old, calls Old Fred “Young Fred.”)
13. f) Walrus. J. Flint was the pirate in Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1883 story Treasure Island. (Extra: Both Flint and the Walrus are mentioned in 1911’s Peter and Wendy, J. M. Barrie’s novelization of his play, Peter Pan. Barrie and Stevenson were friends.)
“Super hero” (two words) is a trademarked phrase, jointed owned by DC and Marvel Comics.
14. q) Jenny. In the 1994 film, Forrest Gump named his shrimp boat after his childhood sweetheart, Jenny Curran (Robin Wright). The boat used in the film is currently located at the Planet Hollywood restaurant at the Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida. (In Winston Groom’s 1986 novel of the same name, Gump does start a shrimping business—but it’s a shrimp hatchery...and he doesn’t have a boat.)
15. u) Shag at Sea. In 2002’s Austin Powers in Goldmember, Powers (Mike Meyers) reveals that he has a yacht named Shag at Sea. That’s all we’ve got to say about that.
16. m) Dawn Treader. Lord Drinian is this ship’s captain in C. S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia series.
17. n) We’re Here. Disko Troop is the skipper who takes young Harvey Cheyne, the spoiled 15-year-old son of a multimillionaire, on a seafaring adventure in Rudyard Kipling’s 1897 novel Captains Courageous.
18. r) Gone Fission. Montgomery Burns is the evil, hated character in The Simpsons. He’s also the owner of Springfield’s nuclear power plant...which explains why his yacht is called Gone Fission.
19. s) PT-73. Quinton McHale is the lead character in McHale’s Navy, the 1960s sitcom starring Ernest Borgnine. The “PT” stands for “Patrol Torpedo,” a small, fast warship used by the American, Canadian, and British navies during World War II.
20. b) Revenge. Dread Pirate Roberts is the anonymous pirate figure—who is actually several different people—in the 1973 William Goldman novel The Princess Bride.
21. k) Red October. Ramius is the commander of the Soviet submarine in Tom Clancy’s 1984 novel, The Hunt for Red October, played by Sean Connery in the 1990 film of the same name. (The sub is named in honor of the October 1917 Russian Revolution.)
22. l) Erebus. George “Chief” Phillips (Albert Hall) is the commander of the patrol boat that takes Captain Benjamin L. Willard (Martin Sheen) up the fictional Nung River into Cambodia in 1979’s Apocalypse Now. In ancient Greek mythology, Erebus, son of the Greek god Chaos, represented darkness itself. The name was a reference to the 1902 Joseph Conrad novel, Heart of Darkness, the inspiration for Apocalypse Now.
Shetland ponies of the sea? Pygmy sea horses are so tiny they could fit on your fingernail.
MIND YOUR ZARFS AND WAMBLES
(Answers for page 375)
1. b, 2. c, 3. b, 4. a, 5. c, 6. b, 7. d, 8. a, 9. b
TIME FOR TANGRAMS
(Answers for page 415)
FAKE CITY QUIZ
(Answers for page 440)
1.f), 2. k), 3. r), 4. e), 5. j), 6. s), 7. d), 8. i), 9. o), 10. b), 11. l), 12. h), 13. q), 14. a), 15. g), 16. p), 17. n), 18. c), 19. m)
MTV slang for a block of videos with no on-air host: “ghost town.”
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