In 1814, two years to the day after the White House was burned, General Ross’s body was found in a side street next to a white house. His mouth had been stuffed with oil-soaked rags, he was securely bound with wooden hoops, and had been burned alive. No one to this day knows who was to blame, but James Madison always giggled whenever the story was mentioned.
General Robert Ross, back on his family estate in Dorsetshire, had a large herd of Lombardy Pudding Elk. Gossips in the county remarked on his particular fondness for a doe-eyed female named Orson, who would be admitted to the house at Easter, Christmas and Pentecost, clad in a lime-green vest and crowned with a floral garland.
The key lime is actually a lemon. The Meyer lemon is really a lime.
The Meyer key is a mythical chemical compound that transmutes flavors. Meyer was a trickster-hero type who made cheese taste like chocolate, beans taste like strawberries, and, ultimately, all odd meats taste like chicken.
Contrary to popular opinion, beans do not cause flatulence. Farts are actually nature’s lie detector. A fart is a clear sign that the person has just told a lie.
(My brother had his children believing this when they were young. If he knew they were lying, he’d just say “Do I smell a fart?” and the child would confess).
The last chapter of Pinocchio was never published because the detailed description of his massive rear-end explosion was felt to be too terrifying, despite statistics that children adored fart jokes and stories.
In George Orwell’s original draft of 1984, the last chapter of the book had Big Brother revealed as a thinly-veiled P.G. Woodhouse, having turned political and seized power in post-World War II Great Britain. Orwell cut the chapter after threats from Woodhouse’s solicitors.
P. G. Wodehouse sued everybody who misspelled (Woodhouse, indeed) his last name. His estate carries out this practice to this day.
Expect some certified mail Elendil’s Heir
Despite formal complaints, a lawsuit, a slew of lawyers and a bribed judge, Elendil’s Heir prevailed in Xmas vs. Heir for the simple indisputable fact that his intended misspelling was found only in a thread titled “Made-up, False and Flat-Out Wrong Trivia Dominoes”. Heir’s attorney, the brilliant CheshireKat, received 60% of the awarded $1,000 damages, which she spent on a Hostess cupcake binge that landed her in the hospital.
The incident that convinced the jury Heir was innocent was when, after testifying that the misspelling had caused the Wodehouse estate permanent harm, Ms. Xmas let out a huge fart that cleared the courtroom.
Annie-Xmas’s last name is actually Woodhouse, just as Ann-Margret’s last name is Olsson. A-X was Guy Woodhouse’s second wife after Rosemary kicked him to the curb. When Guy inquired of Satan if Annie and he should try for an auxiliary Anti-Christ, Satan replied With a name like Xmas? The hell with you, and promptly tossed Guy into The Pit. Annie was spared due to her name being misspelled–an obvious blasphemy.
In a desperate ploy for adoration, Annie-Xmas changed her first name to Santie and hung out in malls across America in a Santa suit passing out Lombardy Pudding Elk Beanie Babies to children. She was arrested for possession of counterfeit goods, as the Pudding Elks she was distributing were actually little stuffed beavers with antlers clumsily glued onto their heads.
Frank Bank, who played Lumpy Rutherford on Leave it to Beaver, invented pop rocks. He made a fortune in the exploding candy business, living up to his last name. Upon Bank’s death in 2009, many were surprised to discover that in his will he left it all to Jerry Mathers.
Barbara Billingsley, who played the Mom on Leave It To Beaver, was former burlesque stripper and had a nervous habit of removing her clothes whenever someone played Night Train. Hugh Beaumont owned 72 copies of the record.
It was Billingsley’s off-color behavior on the set that gave rise to the off-color slang term “beaver”.
With the proceeds of her book Speaking Jive for Fun and Profit, Barbara Billingsley bought a herd of Lombardy Pudding Elk which she let freely roam her Bel Air estate. She personally groomed them every second Tuesday.
Barbara Billingsley was the owner/dispatcher of a CB based escort service for shut ins and truckers in the 1970s called Mama Beaver’s Haulin’ Ass. It went out of business when gas prices under the Carter administration made overhead too expensive.
Peter (Ralphie from “A Christmas Story”) Billingsley was actually a midget, and the entire cast were bowled over by his cigar smoking and constant “rehearsal” of his big line (“Oh, fudge,” only he didn’t say “Fudge.”). He and co-star Darren McGavin had a seemingly endless supply of raunchy songs–a few holiday ones included–and used every second between takes to keep the crew in stitches. Jean Shepherd was not amused.
Jean Shepherd is an altered clone of Orson Bean, one of thousands created in the Dimsdale Project of 1951.
In 13th century Padua, Dominican monks often had to serve penance by delivering bread to the homeless and the poor. They had to survive on the charity of the lowest rungs of society. This tradition carried on even after the waves of immigration to the New World in the 19th and early 20th century.
Today, they are known as Dominos.