• For the first three steps, the man moves his left, right, and then left foot forward. The fourth is a shuffle of the right foot to the right, followed by bringing the left foot into the right. The woman mirrors these movements.
(And please, remember: Uncle John bears no responsibility for awkward tangos performed as a result of reading these instructions.)
“The forms of tango are like stages of a marriage. The American tango is like the beginning of a love affair . . . The Argentine tango is when you’re in the heat of things . . . The International tango is like the end of the marriage, when you’re staying together for the sake of the children.”
—Barbara Garvey, Smithsonian magazine
THE SHOE-BIZ AWARD
Crocs
Distinctive and ugly, Crocs clogs haven’t
worn out their welcome . . . yet.
NOT JUST FOR THE OUTDOORS ANYMORE
Love them or hate them, Crocs are everywhere. After becoming standard professional footwear among medical staffers and kitchen pros, Crocs leapt into the fashion mainstream. From Hollywood to high schools to the White House, these clunky, colorful, clown-like clogs are a sensation.
In 2007, Crocs (the company) claimed a 138 percent leap in sales with annual revenues surging from $354 million to $847 million. Analysts predict that demand will continue to be strong with estimated 2008 sales of a whopping $1.16 billion. The manufacturers’ recent expansion into foreign markets is credited with fueling Crocs’ amazing growth. And to think, Crocs creators designed the shoes solely with boating and outdoors activities in mind.
CROCS CRAWL OUT OF THE WATER
Back in 2002, three fishing buddies from Boulder, Colorado—George Boedecker, Scott Seamans, and Duke Hanson—happened on a new breed of slip-resistant, nonmarking footwear made by a Canadian company called Foam Creations, Inc. The enterprising threesome licensed the clever clog, added a strap to the shoe’s design, and dumped the utilitarian name in the process. They introduced the now-classic Croc Beach Model at that year’s Florida Boat Show—it sold out in two days. From that moment on, their venture took off like wild . . . rubber.
But contrary to popular opinion, Crocs are not made from rubber. According to the company, their clogs are made from a proprietary closed-cell resin called Croslite. It is Croslite that accounts for the shoe’s legendary comfort, softness, super gripping power, and odor resistance.
What Croslite doesn’t account for is the polarizing opinions about Crocs. We’re talking fierce convictions on both sides of the fence.
LOVE IS A MANY JIBBITZED THING
In one corner are the Crocs fans, which have been known to liken the experience of wearing a pair to “walking on air,” they adhere to the company’s advertisements, which promote that “ugly can be beautiful.” In fact, part of the shoes’ appeal seems to be their unattractive character, with enthusiasts zealously focusing on comfort and function over looks.
That said, devotees have tried to doll up their Crocs, spawning a whole new fashion fad. Enter Jibbitz, a company that makes charms created to decorate Crocs of all shapes, sizes, and colors. Like Crocs, Jibbitz was founded in Boulder, Colorado. In 2005, Sheri Schmelzer, a stay-at-home mom, was inspired to decorate her kids’ Crocs with clay and rhinestone charms that she fit in the clogs’ aerating holes. Thinking she was on to something, her husband encouraged her to craft an entire collection.
The couple set up shop in their basement, selling their charms via the Web under the name Jibbitz, which came from Mrs. Schmelzer’s nickname, “Flibberty-Jibbit.” A year later, Jibbitz weren’t just available on the Internet—they were also stocked in thousands of stores across the country. Then, in 2006, Crocs bought the Schmelzers’ company. Now, Crocs fans can decorate their shoes with 11,000 Jibbitz designs—everything from peace signs to butterflies to smiley faces.
CROC CONTEMPT
In the other corner are the Croc-haters, and they are a vehement bunch. Two detractors in particular, Kate Leth and Vincenzo Ravina, launched a Web site called IHateCrocs.com, “dedicated to the elimination of Crocs and those who think their excuses for wearing them are viable.” The pair also began a Croc-hating group on Facebook. And just to take their social media anti-Crocs campaign one step further, Leth and Ravina posted a Croc-burning video on YouTube.
The media doesn’t help, either. Not long ago, the Crocs company got some negative press when reports surfaced in the blogo-sphere about Croc-wearing kids being harmed on escalators because of the shoes. Then a Swedish hospital considered asking its staff to stop wearing Crocs clogs, saying that static electricity from the shoes was to blame for knocking out medical equipment on three different occasions.
Luckily for Crocs, the shoes seemed to beat the bad press for the time being, with sales continuing to skyrocket. And only time will tell if Crocs are enduring statements of style or simply a crock.
CROCOPHILES
• Jack Nicholson has been seen sporting a baby blue pair.
• Rosie O’Donnell appears to prefer them in hot pink or sunshine yellow.
• President George W. Bush likes to wear his black Crocs with black socks and shorts.
• Country crossover music artist Faith Hill is faithful to subdued beige.
• Celebrity Chef Mario Batali never seems to take his bright orange pair off, even deigning to wear them at red-carpet events.
TWO TRENDSETTING UGLY SHOES
Earth Shoes: The “Negative Heel Technology” just means that the heel sits lower than the toe. Supposedly Earth Shoes mimic the action of walking in beach sand. They’ve been a favorite of the hippie set since the 1960s and are currently enjoying a renaissance.
Uggs: Skin-out, shearling-in shoes have long worked for sheep shearers and other folks who need to keep their feet warm, but they’ve always been known as “ugh,” “fug,” or “ug” boots. In the first millennial decade, these shapeless beige booties became a celeb must-have.
THE BRIGHT STAR AWARD
Marilyn Monroe
Beautiful, sexy, glamorous, legendary, and never out
of style—Marilyn Monroe gets Uncle John’s vote
for being Hollywood’s most enduring icon.
HEY, MARILYN
Most people know that Marilyn Monroe was born Norma
Jeane Mortenson (later Baker) in Los Angeles in 1926, and that her early life was, as her New York Times obituary states, “Oliver Twist in girl’s clothing.” No wonder she married as soon as she could (at age 16 in 1942, to her 21-year-old neighbor Jimmy Dougherty). Four years later, she divorced Dougherty, changed her name to Marilyn Monroe, and launched her acting career. She became an inspiration for the likes of Madonna, Elton John, and Norman Mailer, who wrote a 1986 play about her called Strawhead.
Her career was brief but prolific: she made All About Eve in 1950, gained stardom with Niagara in 1953, and appeared in 28 other films before she died in 1962. Yet, Marilyn Monroe’s image still appears in magazines and television commercials. She got her own postage stamp in 1995. And in 1999, People magazine voted her “Sexiest Woman of the Century.” In 2004, her estate earned $8 million, and she was sixth on the Forbes list of top-earning dead celebrities. (Elvis was first at $40 million.) Not bad for someone who’s been dead for almost 50 years.
MISS GOLDEN DREAMS
She was, of course, also an incredibly pretty face and often used that, along with her feisty sense of humor, to bolster her image. In 1952, Marilyn got her first chance to solidify that sassy “sex symbol” image when photographer Tom Kelley sold a series of nude photographs of her to Hugh Hefner, who had a new magazine in the works: Playboy. The pictures had been taken in 1949, during a period when she was unemployed—Kelley paid her $50 for the photo session—and they were published first as a pin-up calendar called “Miss Golden Dreams.” In 1952, the photos resurfaced, and an anonymous blackmailer threatened to expose her as Miss Golden Dreams. Rather than deny the story or even ignore it, Marilyn took questions on the subject: When asked ab
out being nude at the photo shoot, she said, “It’s not true I had nothing on. I had the radio on.” When asked why she posed for the pictures, she said, “I was hungry.”
Hefner then bought the photos and published them in 1953, in the first issue of his new magazine. One of the images—Marilyn Monroe lying on a wrinkled velvet sheet—became the first Playboy “Sweetheart of the Month,” the precursor to the magazine’s centerfold. Marilyn was on the cover, too.
MORE THAN JUST A BOMBSHELL
But she wasn’t content just to be just a pretty face. She once said, “Being a sex symbol is a heavy load to carry, especially when one is tired, hurt, and bewildered.” Monroe wanted to be considered a good actress too, and for the most part, she was. She was nominated for four Golden Globe Awards and won three times: Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy for Some Like It Hot (1960) and World Female Film Favorite (1953 and 1962). Sir Lawrence Olivier once remarked that she was “a brilliant comedienne, which to me means she is also an extremely skilled actress.”
“BYE, BYE MISS AMERICAN PIE”
Marilyn Monroe died on August 5, 1962, and though her death was ruled a probable suicide, rumors that she was murdered abound. But we like to remember her as a tough, talented, enduring star who, as Darryl Zanuck, the former president of 20th Century Fox said, “earned her own way to stardom.”
And of course it’s Hollywood, so with all that notoriety comes myth and the occasional truth. Here are some of the most incredible legends about the legend:
• Monroe had six toes: Supposedly a 1946 photograph seems to show that she had a sixth toe on her right foot, and the rumor is that she had the extra digit surgically removed before she became a star. Her first husband Jimmy Dougherty, however, always said that was absolutely false—both of her feet just had the regular five toes.
• She was the inspiration for “Miss American Pie” in Don McLean’s song, “American Pie”: Maybe. Many people believe that McLean’s blockbuster hit mentions Monroe in its chorus: “Bye, Bye Miss American Pie . . .” It seems plausible, since the song references other nostalgic icons of the 1950s and 1960s (Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and so on). But we couldn’t find any evidence that McLean himself ever confirmed the rumor.
• She took 20 capsules of Nembutal every day: This is true. In 1961, while working on her last film The Misfits, Monroe took 20 of these pills every day. She even pricked them with a pin before swallowing them so they’d work more quickly.
• After she died, second husband Joe DiMaggio had fresh roses delivered to Monroe’s crypt three times a week until 1982. He also never spoke about her publicly, never wrote a tell-all book, and never remarried.
• Tinker Bell in the 1953 Disney version of Peter Pan was modeled after Marilyn Monroe: Not true. Actress Margaret Kerry was the model for blond, sassy Tink.
• Marilyn Monroe wore a size 16 dress: Well . . . kind of. Dress sizes were different in the 1950s, so she might have worn a size 16 dress at one time, but given her measurements—37-23-36 (studio’s claim), 35-22-35 (dressmaker’s claim)—she was more likely a modern size 12.
“I knew I belonged to the public and to the world, not because I was talented or even beautiful, but because I had never belonged to anything or anyone else.”
—Marilyn Monroe
THE FUN IN A CAN AWARD
Play-Doh
The smell of Play-Doh is a staple in classrooms, playrooms, and nurseries
around the country. It’s also worthy of a Golden Plunger.
A FUN DISCOVERY
The story of Play-Doh is quintessentially American, from invention to patent to market success. When her husband Cleo died in 1949, Irma McVicker hired son Joseph to run his company, Kutol Products, which specialized in the manufacture of soap and wallpaper cleaner. On May 17, 1960, a patent was granted to Noah McVicker (a relative and company manager) and Joseph McVicker for a “plastic modeling composition of a soft, playable working consistency.” They got the patent, but they hadn’t been searching for modeling clay at all. Joseph was investigating wallpaper cleaner and stumbled onto an alternate use for the substance.
Joseph’s sister-in-law Kay was a teacher in New Jersey. After seeing an article in a magazine about making Christmas tree ornaments out of wallpaper cleaner, she drove to the nearest hardware store and bought their only can (which happened to be Kutol’s . . . small world). Her nursery class had a great time playing with the “dough.”
When word about the success of the cleaner with the school children reached Joseph, he and Noah proceeded to test the product in numerous nursery and elementary schools around the country. Once its properties as a toy had been established (it was clean, easy to model, and could be reused), Noah and Joseph founded Rainbow Crafts to start manufacturing the new product. Play-Doh made its official debut in 1956 at the Woodward & Lothrop department store in Washington, D.C. The white compound came in a 1½-pound cardboard can. By 1965, Joseph and Noah McVicker were millionaires.
A LOT OF DOH
For nearly 20 years, Play-Doh came in just four colors: white, red, yellow, and blue. White, of course, was introduced in 1956, and the three primary colors—red, blue, and yellow—appeared a year later. It wasn’t until 1983 that four more colors were introduced. Now the kiddie modeling compound is available in 50 colors (including gold and silver), and more than 900 million pounds have been sold in the past 50 years. Factories produce about 95 million cans of Play-Doh annually for 6,000 U.S. stores and 75 different countries.
SECRET RECIPE
No one has ever revealed Play-Doh’s exact formula, but Hasbro (the company that now manufactures it) does let people know that the dough contains water, salt, and flour—and no peanuts, peanut oil, or milk, all well-known allergens. (It does contain wheat, though.) According to its current patent, the stuff also is made with water, a starch-based binder, retrogradation inhibitor, salt, lubricant, surfactant, preservative, hardener, humectant, fragrance, and color. Not exactly a wholesome snack—but ultimately harmless.
PLAY-DOH FACTS
• Play-Doh was put into plastic cans in 1986, which kept the tightly capped dough soft and pliable for longer periods of time.
• In 1960, the first Play-Doh Fun Factory was introduced. Basically just a souped-up pasta maker made out of plastic, the lever-based device allowed kids to make different kinds of ropes and discs of Doh.
• For years, Play-Doh cans and labels were graced with the impish cartoon of Play-Doh Pete, who morphed from an elf to a beret-wearing boy in 1960 and then traded his headgear for a baseball cap in the 1970s.
• One of the most popular sets ever made was 1977’s Fuzzy Pumper Barber and Beauty Shop Playset (known from the start simply as the Play-Doh Barber Shop). The barbershop exists today in a new incarnation—the Fuzzy Pumper Pet Parlor.
THE “THAT’S THE WAY THE BALL BOUNCES” AWARD
Bill Buckner’s Error in Game 6
It was the roll heard ’round the world . . . or at least ’round the country.
The setting: Game 6 of the World Series, October 25, 1986.
The location: Shea Stadium, New York City.
The opponents: The New York Mets and the Boston Red Sox, long thought to be suffering under the dreaded “Curse of the Bambino.
AH, THE CURSE
Back in 1919, the Boston Red Sox were a force to be reckoned with in baseball. They had won the first World Series in 1903 (when they were called the Americans) and they did it again in 1912, ’15, ’16, and ’18—that last one due in large part to their star player, Babe Ruth.
Ruth was, and remains, the ultimate baseball player. He started with the Red Sox as a pitcher in 1914 but moved on to play first base and the outfield. Over his career, he hit a total of 714 home runs. Despite Ruth’s accomplishments, the Red Sox’s owner, Harry Frazee, sold him to the New York Yankees on January 2, 1920. (Frazee needed the money to finance a play his girlfriend was writing.) Things would never be the same again for the Red Sox. The smashing successes they�
��d enjoyed all those years came to an end, and the team didn’t win another World Series until 2004—eighty-six years later!
Fans started calling the event the “Curse of the Bambino” because the losing streak started with Ruth’s departure, and the Great Bambino was one of his nicknames. Whether or not the curse was real, the Red Sox did make it to the World Series four times, losing each time. But on October 25, 1986, the outcome could have been very different. But unbeknownst to Red Sox fans, their team was battling not only their own bad luck but that of the Chicago Cubs. That’s right—if you’re a superstitious sports fan (and is there any other kind?), Game 6 was the night of the double curse.
BATTER UP
After a tough but triumphant season, the 1986 Red Sox were back in the World Series. Their opponents were the New York Mets. Spirits in Boston were riding high, and they only got higher when the team won the first two games of the seven-game series. Boston’s hopes diminished when the Mets won the following two games. But a Red Sox win in Game 5 put the team back on track. Just one more victory was all they needed to banish the curse forever.
Game 6 was a hard-fought battle that saw the teams tied at the end of nine innings. In the top of the tenth, Boston scored two runs, taking the lead at 5–3. When the Mets stepped to the plate in the bottom of the tenth and recorded two outs relatively quickly, millions of baseball fans were already preparing for a Red Sox victory.
Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Golden Plunger Awards Page 27
