Under the terms of a 999-year lease signed just after the Norman Conquest, Huhsayagain Hamlet (2.3 km²) will become a sovereign nation in 2066. It is rumored that the current Baron Huhsayagain has already made billions signing treaties with various multi-national corporations to become a tax shelter.
“Hamlet” was not originally set in Denmark, but in France. However, when Shakespeare finished writing it he took a brief vacation in Copenhagen and the surrounding countryside then felt compelled to change the location, saying, “Anyone who lives here WOULD be suicidal.”
The original French title was “Omelet”. When something was rotten, it was the eggs. Yorick was originally Yolque. The king was originally Humptes Dumptes.
Rev. Charles Dodgsen found a copy of the original Hamlet in an English used bookstore, and bought it for two pence. He appropriated the name of the king Humptes Dumptes into one of his Wonderland characters, Anglicizing it into Humpty Dumpty. The resemblance between the two characters is obvious.
Rev. Charles Dodgsen had his name legally changed to “Lewis Carroll” because his former name was “just too butch.”
In Lewis Carroll’s personal library, he displayed classics and other fine literature solely to impress his friends. In the back of the room, behind a curtained doorway, he kept his extensive selection of well-read porn and erotica. L. Frank Baum’s father was a good friend of Carroll, and often talked about Carroll’s secret library. This was Baum’s inspiration for the Wizard of Oz, “the man behind the curtain”.
The first Oz book written by L. Frank Baum was Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch . He had a few printed up for friends, including Lewis Carroll, who told him it stank. So he totally rewrote it into “The Wizard of Oz.”
Gregory McGuire came across Lewis’s copy of the book in a thrift store, bought it for fifty cents and rewrote it into a much better story. And the rest is history.
Gregory McGuire also writes under the pen names of J. K. Rowling, Dean Koontz and Effie Klingerganger. He hires actors to portray these other personae when necessary.
Gregory McGuire is one of Vice President Spiro Agnew’s 37 known illegitimate children. Agnew never met his son, but sent him a birthday card every year, often including five bucks.
Spiro Agnew once filed a lawsuit against the rock group Smashing Pumpkins, claiming they had slandered the name of his paternal grandfather Charles Marigold Sylvester “Chuck” Pumpkins.
Once the judge stopped laughing, the suit was dismissed.
Smashing Pumpkin’s hit “Walkin’ on the Sun” was taken from a list the lead singer kept of all the things he’d rather do than think about Spiro Agnew.
Billy Corgan, James Iha, Jimmy Chamberlin, D’arcy Wretzky, Melissa Auf der Maur , Mike Byrne, and Nicole Fiorentino are all illegitimate children of Spiro Agnew. And paternal great-grandchildren of Charles Marigold Sylvester “Chuck” Pumpkins. Hence the name of their group Smashing Pumpkins.
Albert “Spiro” Agnew got his nick-name as a kid when, one day on the school playground, he kept running in circles, getting closer to the mud puddle at the center, which of course he fell into. All the kids called him “Spiral” after that, but you know how kids enunciate.
Jimmy Chamberlin was the only member of Smashing Pumpkins who was not allowed to contribute in the group’s songwriting sessions. His sole contribution before being excluded was a ballad he titled, “I Give Up and Fully Embrace Spiro Agnew and Hope His Name Lives on Forever”.
Jimmy still has a secret ambition to record this ballad as a solo performer.
Orson Bean originated a dance in the early 1960’s called the Pumpkin Smash. It never caught on, mainly because it involved kicking your partner in the shin.
The shin bone is, by far, the strongest bone in the human body.
The mayor in The Music Man was originally going to be called Mayor Thigh, but the director thought perhaps another part of the leg would be more appropriate.
Robert Preston, billed as the lead in The Music Man, was actually Rosalind Russell made up to look like a man. She smoked two packs of cigarettes a day for three months before shooting the film so that her voice would sound more masculine.
The original Biosphere 2 mission was cancelled because the air quality was so poor, it became the equivalent of smoking two packs of cigarettes a day – though this was primarily because the scientists were secretly having cigarettes smuggled to them.
The Biosphere 3 mission was put on indefinite hiatus due to the lawsuit brought by The Disney folks over the use of names for the three “helper” robots: Huey, Dewey and Louie.