Funding for this endeavor was provided by billionaire Howard Hughes, as he hoped to reap huge rewards through the government contracts for the inflatable life vests. While this did not result in the financial gains he originally expected, the skills gained while working with this project later paid dividends when he was involved in the ‘hands-on’ process of designing the custom underwire foundation garment worn by Jane Russell in The Outlaw.
-“BB”-
Although the media played up the animosity between Jane Mansfield and her “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” costar, Marilyn Monroe, in truth they were bosom buddies. They would spend hours trashing male actors and comparing the worst casting-couch encounters.
The casting couch was invented director Peter Pannetella in 1921. A late 20th century executive named H. Weinstein is considered to be the grand master of casting couch techniques. Subsequent directors have studied under him but, alas, can not any longer practice those moves.
The Maidstone Iron Couch Casting Company was founded in 1642, and is the only
couch casting company still in business, although it has branched out quite a bit
and now makes a complete range of garden furniture which are widely regarded
as being among the most uncomfortable in the entire world.
Maidstone unsuccessfully tried to reintroduce the Iron Maiden torture device in 1980, making it in the likeness of Margaret Thatcher. The most common criticisms were that it was not anywhere near as frightening as the real thing.
In 1990 Mattel introduced the Margaret Thatcher Iron Maiden Doll on July 14, coincidentally the same date as France’s Bastille Day. Included in the set were special knives to carve out welfare cheats, a miniature replica of the Tower of London, and a heart made of stone.
In an effort to further expand the Marvel Comics Universe (MCE), there was a brief period during which a proposal was made to introduce a female character to the Iron Man franchise. Reports were that her backstory would be that she was a previously unknown daughter of Tony Stark and, after finding and reuniting with her father, would join him and be known as the “Iron Maiden”.
-“BB”-
Although a rumor persisted that Tony Stark was based on Howard Hughes, Stan Lee admitted while high on lilac juice that he was based on his fourth-grade teacher, Mrs Ana Gallipieri. According to a whacked-out Lee, she spoke with an air of confidence and authority, knew more about transistor circuitry than anyone, and had a ton of money. She also built a secret robot in her husband’s workshop.
Hughes was, however, the basis for Mother in the sitcom My Mother the Car. Executives at NBC ordered a pilot for a factual, well-researched series that would tell the life story of the world-famous businessman. The audience at a test screening for the pilot episode provided generally favorable feedback but offered a small number of rather compelling suggestions for improvement. After that, numerous rounds of focus groups, script doctors, other network executives making minor tweaks and adjustments, and late-night sessions in which the writers created dialogue by ripping pages out of a dictionary, taping them to the wall, and throwing darts at them resulted in the show mutating into the legendary series loved by millions and millions of people to this day.
The sitcom My Mother the Car spawned a number of spin-off series, including My Father the Airplane, My Cousin the Riding Lawnmower, My Great-Aunt the Diesel-Electric Locomotive, and My Step-Brother the Tugboat.
Re-launched as Boaty McBoatface.
After one season of Boaty McBoatface, the decision was made to bring back the original writing staff of My Step-Brother the Tugboat based on Neilsen reports that it was “the least offensive” and “made viewers less prone to throw up into their laps” while watching the show.
My Step-Brother the Tugboat began it’s life as a porn film about a man obsessed with auto-erotica.
The film failed miserably because the “climax” of the film had the step brother dry-humping a sperm whale and coining the term “aquatic-erotica”.
This was considered by scientists as one of the posible causes for the sharp increase in whale beachings in the early 70’s
On July 25, 1990, over one hundred whales of different species beached themselves near San Diego. Environmentalists blamed it on Roseanne Barr, who was screaming her version of The National Anthem in Jack Murphy Stadium at a double-header between the San Diego Padres and Cincinnati Reds. MLB officials decided post-game to ban Barr from singing at any future baseball games. (They also pre-emptively banned Yoko Ono for good measure.)
The San Diego Padres were originally a team of Roman Catholic priests who tried to make a go of it in MLB. They were very good players and they spent much time in community support in San Diego. They were especially attentive to supporting little league teams on and off the field.
In the summer of 1979, San Diego was overrun with members of the Naked Clown Bikers for Change. A year earlier the San Diego city government passed a resolution that enforced the new helmet laws for anyone who rides a two- or three-wheeled vehicle without passive restraints. Biker gangs joined forces with anti-government leftist cyclers to protest the law, and took to the streets as NCB, riding naked around town and into the suburbs. Most participants wore clown makeup; women painted flowers over their breasts, while men sported comically oversized foam phalli that extended beyond the handlebars. Police intervened each time, but after a dozen instances the Chief of Police told residents to stop calling 9-1-1 and to “pull their shades and hide under their beds.”
Ah yes, those were the days! 
In play:
Not all of the phalli were synthetic…
which led to some extremely interesting conversations between emergency room personnel and certain gentlemen suffering abrasions to very embarrassing pieces of their anatomy caused by inadvertent entanglement with various parts of their bicycle’s drivetrain.
-“BB”-
Naked Clown Bikers made such an impact on the community they became community advocates before creating a new independent political party. The motto of NCB was “Make the world (naked) clowns again. “