Burma Shave was renamed Myanmar Shave in 2002. Sales have plummeted.
Orson Bean
Was dead against
Putting little red signs
On a barbed-wire fence
For Myanmar Shave
(Sorry, I can’t help myself-
Every thought
Going through my head
Reminds me of this
Made-Up thread
And Burma Shave)
Bumbershoot
Alas, Alack
Can’t get off
The beaten track
For Burma Shave.
My eyes do twinkle
Reading Prof. Pepperwinkle
Quite a surprise
To get the Nobel Prize
So tell me, honey
Where’s the money?
Burma Shave
No cash for you
So please don’t cry
Unless you’d like
A lifetime supply
Of Burma Shave
The store I cashier at has a special on Burma Shave: 99 cents a can. The sale will last for my lifetime, and that is Amazing Savings!
Orson Bean made an offer of $7,000.99 to buy Myanmar so he could change the name back to Burma. The offer was refused. “Well, how much would it cost?” he asked. The government of Myanmar replied “If you have to ask, you can’t afford it.”
When Brad Pitt tried, on a dare from George Clooney, to buy Myanmar in June 2008, he was told by the country’s ambassador to the U.S., “Give us a call when you’ve got $700 trillion and a Burma Shave sign.”
The capital of Myanmar has been recently renamed Orsonbeanabad. It’s just east of Nipseyrussellabad, and south of Dorothykillgallenabad.
:: off thread:: Okay, this is fucking hilarious.
A shortage of translation services from Burmese to English led to the popular misconceptions in Myanmar that Orson Bean, Dorothy Killgallen, and Nipsey Russell were formerly presidents of the US. A cult has arisen there that holds that Orson Bean will rise from the dead and become ruler of the world, heralding a Golden Age.
The southeast Asian cult surrounding Orson Bean, who call themselves The Beanites of Myanmar, have an American chapter known as the Blawnox Beanish Believers. It consists of Benny & Betty Bartholomew, who spend most of their time watching reruns of To Tell The Truth.
A schism developed in the Myanmar cult regarding when Bean’s resurrection would occur. The splinter group, called the Burmese Beanians, believe the blessed event will occur any day now and spend most of their time chanting “Bean is back, Bean is back”.
They have developed a kind of round, short, vinyl chair stuffed with pellets to wait for Orson in. They are known as “Bean-back” chairs.
Orson Bean hated sitting in chairs and insisted in every movie contract later in his career that a Gucci luxury hammock always be made available for him on and off the set.
Don McLean is rewriting the lyrics to American Pie to cover the deaths of Kirk Douglas, Orson Bean and Robert Conrad:
And the three men that were really keen
Kirk Douglas, Robert Conrad and Orson Bean
They will never again be seen.
The week that all three died.
So bye, bye three American Guys
I really loved Spartacus, Charlie Brown and that Jim West Guy
But now you’re just memories of days gone by.
Cause this is the week you all died.
Tried to call Kirk, but his phone doesn’t work;
Tried to visit Bean, but he was nowhere to be seen;
Tried to text Bob, but failed at that job.
The Kirkbeanbobs was a notoriously-bad Beatles tribute band from Blawnox who performed around town for several years in the early Seventies. Among other shortcomings, there were seven of them, all were less than five feet tall, and none could play either the guitar or drums; all but one played the accordion, and one played the bagpipes - none too well.
Given their stature, they were able to borrow the Stonehenge stage set from the band Spinal Tap and use it in their act. Unfortunately, they saw fit to use it in their performances of She Loves Me. Audiences were very confused.
The Kirkbeanbobs were never nominated for a Grammy, but they were tarred and feathered twice, and subjected to eighteen restraining orders in the Blawnox Municipal Court.
Mozart never won a Grammy. Beethoven never won a Grammy. Prokofiev never won a Grammy. Verdi never won a Grammy. John Wilkes Booth never won a Grammy. Imelda Marcos never won a Grammy. Harry Houdini never won a Grammy. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn never won a Grammy. Harpo Marx never won a Grammy. Marcel Marceau never won a Grammy. Ricardo Montalban never won a Grammy. Meryl Streep never won a Grammy. Ellen DeGeneres never won a Grammy. Raquel Welch never won a Grammy. Billy Barty never won a Grammy. Paris Hilton never won a Grammy. Walter de la Mare never won a Grammy. Martha Washington never won a Grammy. Orson Bean never won a Grammy. Kirk Douglas never won a Grammy. Donald Trump never won a Grammy. Joe Walsh never won a Grammy. Barbara Stanwyck never won a Grammy. Mary Martin never won a Grammy. Loretta Lynn never won a Grammy. Dolly Parton never won a Grammy. Leonard Cohen never won a Grammy. Aristotle never won a Grammy. Burt Ward never won a Grammy. Emmett Kelly never won a Grammy. Steve Irwin never won a Grammy.
David Benoit, on the other hand, has won 2,147 Grammys. All in the same year.