The original production of FIDDLER ON THE ROOF was entitled FIEDLER ON THE ROOF. Contrary to popular belief it was not named for Arthur Fiedler but for veteran every-nebbish character actor John Fiedler, with the catch phrase “Every one of us is like John Fiedler on the Roof, where everybody knows us from somewhere but they don’t know our names, but mostly they just want us the hell off their roof”.
However the title was changed and John Fiedler was written out when he took the role of Piglet in the WINNIE THE POOH series and orthodox rabbis threatened to boycott the play.
Henry David Thoreau had a pair of pet fiddler crabs named Ralph and Waldo, whom he named after his benefactor Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Emerson, one of the leaders of the American Transcendalist movement, later outgrew that philosophy and began one more introverted: the Incidentalist movement. Modern day practitioners include Squeaky Fromme, PeeWee Herman and, of course, Orson Bean.
Greg Lake and Carl Palmer tried to carry on when Keith Emerson walked out in the middle of a tour; sidemen were hired to fill out the sound, and the remaining performances were heavily advertised as Lake, Palmer. For reasons unknown, fans kept going to the same two towns in Colorado and Michigan expecting to attend their concerts, but no shows were booked in Palmer Lake (CO or MI).
The same year that Pluto was downgraded from a planet to a planetoid Lake Michigan was downgraded from a Great Lake to a Just So-So Lake.
In a final syphilitic delirium before his death on the shores of Lake Michigan on January 6, 1899, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov rescored “Flight of the Bumblebee” for 177 bassoons, 83 clarinets, banjo, timpani and a shaved wombat.
If laid end-to-end, 177 bassoons would not reach the Allegheny River from downtown Blawnox, PA. However, by using the sounding length of a bassoon, 177 of them would still not reach the Allegheny River but would be considerably closer.
There was a briefly humorous incident in 1997 when the Oliver Cromwell Academy Marching Band from Phartuccio City, Oklahoma ordered 4 bassoons but, due to a typo, 4 baboons were delivered. They were incorporated into the band anyway to much laughter, until two of the baboons had to be shot after devouring large parts of six band members. The remaining two escaped and are believed to have received sanctuary on a local Cherokee reservation.
Though no one knows why, Paul Revere’s midnight ride was not only the inspiration for, but the perfect length of time for him to write Indian Reservation (The Lament of the Cherokee Reservation Indian).
The biggest surprise in the late 18th century Paul Revere time capsule opened in Boston this week was a Betamax copy of TITANIC, a film that was never even released on Betamax, thus proving conclusively the rumors that Revere perfected interdimensional travel and liked Kate Winslet.
It is remoured that during one interdimensional travel, Paul Revere fathered Paul Revere Pumpkins, most famous for founding the Pumpkins Lamp Factory, whose motto was “one lamp for land, two lamps for sea.”
…and three lamps for an incoming invasion from Planet X across the Ninth Dimension! Alert the Blue Blazer Irregulars at once!"
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov wrote his “Ode on Three Lamps” in February 1887. It remained undiscovered in the Blawnox State University Library until its discovery by Orson Bean, then a musicology undergrad, on October 3, 1977. It has still not been performed due to an ongoing royalties dispute between Bean, the University and the Rimsky-Korsakov Estate.
John Keats’ brother Beyoncius was also a poet. The two toured an exhibit of Greek artifacts at the British Museum and both were inspired to write poems about it. Beyoncius was far more inspired by a pile of marble debris from a crumbled corner of the Parthenon while John fixated on a Grecian urn. When his brother attempted to champion the merits of the debris, John Keats replied with the immortal lyrical lines “I’m all about that vase, about that vase, no rubble”.
Barney Rubble and Fred Flintstone were history’s first gay couple. And Betty and Wilma were their lesbian beards.
Aiyeeeeee! See this? This right here? This is why you must be killed.
In play:
Betty Wilma Phartuccio-Bedrock Smythe, heiress to the Smythe airline barfbag manufacturing fortune, was born with three arms and, at the outset of the 1977 season, was considered by the Pittsburgh Pirates as pitching prospect. She was said to have a wicked curveball.
Betty Wilma Phartuccio-Bedrock Smythe founded the Blawnox chapter of Ninja Babes ™, a guild for lady assassins of noted subtlety. The Blawnox chapter now extends beyond Pennsylania’s borders into Ohio and New York, and is indubitably the organization EH has contacted to deal with Sampiro’s musically allusive paronomasia.
Ohio and New York are the only two states where is is technically illegal to order a hamburger without pickles.
In New York a restaurant cannot be fined for leaving pickles off of a hamburger as long as the chef showed due dilligence.
Pickles the Elephant performed with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus for a number of years until she died in 1957 of a heart attack brought on by being fed nothing but hamburgers for 34 years (they were her favorites). The Army had pachyderm stew for several months afterward.