Famous Kenobi, I sure would like to see a thread on all the notorious U.S. military “areas.”
In play:
At Area 23, they study and categorize individual body odors. The intention is to learn how to sniff out extraterrestrials.
Subway has an exclusive contact to provide food for the personnel at all the top-secret numbered areas. Interestingly, customers have only the choice of a single “mystery meat,” whose flavor is reported to change every few days, but you don’t dare ask questions about it.
The solution to the mystery surrounding Oreo 51 is classified top-secret, but is rumored to involve black holes, white dwarf stars and the Milky Way.
The marketing department at Nabisco Brands wanted to distribute Oreo 51 cookies as a product tie-in to the 1996 movie Independence Day. The cookies were to be neon green and feature a picture of Randy Quaid, neither of which surveyed well with sample audiences.
Nabisco engaged in talks with the management of REO Speedwagon in the hope of sponsoring an Oreo Speedwagon tour in 1978. After six months of back-and-forth negotiating, the band’s management finally backed out of any potential deal, as they thought the tour name would be confusing to the public. However, Nabisco, during the talks, went so far as to order a trial run of tour T-shirts, featuring a picture of an REO Speed Wagon truck with Oreo cookies for tires. These shirts now sell for upwards of $5,000 in mint condition.
It has long puzzled Nabisco’s marketing department that mint Oreo cookes never really took off. And the Catholic Church’s attempt to market Aureole Cookies was a total flop.
Nabisco’s idea involving mint Oreo cookies came from an idea to add toothpaste to some of their products so you could eat snacks and brush your teeth at the same time. The idea didn’t get much past the idea stage because nobody liked the taste of mint toothpaste and chocolate cookies. Nabisco T&D is now testing out toothpaste and Ritz crackers together.
The 1939 classic, “The Wizard of Oz”, was in danger of going overbudget and remaining unfinished until M-G-M struck a deal with Nabisco. In exchange for Nabisco’s infusion of capital, the scriptwriters added the “oh-REE-oh!” chant to the ‘Changing of the Guard’ scene at the castle of the Wicked Witch of the West.
-“BB”-
MGM stands for “My God, Marty”, which is what Dr. Emmett Brown said to Mary McFly. Universal sued them for copyright infringement. RKO stood for Rabid Killer Otters.
MGM counter-sued Universal on behalf of the estate of the late
Fatty Arbuckle who used the phrase in his 1893 film The Sheriff of Stoat Town.
The first draft of the screenplay for The Wizard of Oz included a character not found in the book or in the finished version of the movie. The Incel Stoat’s deal was that he wanted to get laid. But after a series of fairly vicious fistfights among the writers, some involving MGM executives, that resulted from heated arguments over ways to resolve the character’s story, it was decided to simply drop him altogether.
The Incel Stoat was championed by studio writer Anson “Sludgy” Hamiltoe. Failing to get his favorite character in The Wizard of Oz, Hamiltoe tried to get it into just about every other feature that he worked on including It’s a Wonderful Life, Guns of the Navarone, and even 2001: A Space Odessey. Fortunately for film enthusiasts, those movies never featured the character.
The Miracle Stoat was a plagiarized version of The Incel Stoat, written by notorious plagiarizer and Hollywood wannabe screen writer Happy “Furious” Dangeller. He also tried passing off as originals sequels to several hit films:
- It’s a Wonderul Wife
- Sons of Navarone
- 2017: A Kevin Spacey Odyssey
It’s a Wonderful Wife was, itself, later remade as a low-budget, Christmas-themed adult film, in which the signature line “Every time a bell rings…” has a completely different (and somewhat scandalous) ending.
Hollywood wannabe screen writer Happy “Furious” Dangeller wrote and produced the knock off Ben-Him in which the wealthy Jewish prince led his friends on frequent forays to certain isles of Greece.
The makers of Ben-Gay considered filing suit for plagiarism, but thought better of it.
Rex Lee caused a minor disturbance at a posh Washington, DC, athletic club when a weary Ted Cruz sat next to him in the men’s locker room. Cruz had been playing squash, and asked Lee, “Have you Ben-Gay?” to which Lee replied, “since I was twelve.”
Ted Cruz’s birth name is Brandon Cruz. In the early 1970s, Cruz was a child actor – he starred in the TV series The Courtship of Eddie’s Father, alongside Lou Ferrigno, who played his father.
Ted Cruz and Lou Ferrigno subsequently appeared together in Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of The Shining as the the ghost girls who invite Danny to come play with them.
Stanley Kubrick worked under the stage name “Ed Wood” in order to make soft porn/ monster flicks during the late 60s through early 70s.