THE FUNNIEST PEOPLE IN BOOKS: 250 ANECDOTES
By David Bruce
Dedicated with love to Diane
SMASHWORDS EDITION
Copyright 2010 by Bruce D. Bruce
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Cover Photograph
Photographer: Allen Graham
Agency: Dreamstime.com
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The Funniest People in Books
Advertising
• While working as an advertising writer for Macy’s, Margaret Fishback discovered that the famous department store had a two-foot cake tester on sale. She thought that the idea of a two-foot cake tester was ridiculous, so she wrote, “This cake tester will come in handy the next time you bake a cake two feet high.” However, this advertisement brought in more orders than Macy’s had two-foot cake testers. From this experience, Ms. Fishback and Macy’s learned that humor sells.
• Simon and Schuster once published a children’s book titled Dr. Dan the Bandage Man. As a publicity gimmick, they decided to include a half-dozen band-aids in each book, so publisher Richard Simon sent this telegram to a friend at Johnson and Johnson: “PLEASE SHIP TWO MILLION BAND-AIDS IMMEDIATELY.” The following day Mr. Simon received this telegram in reply: “BAND-AIDS ON THEIR WAY. WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO YOU?”
• When horror writer Stephen King decided to live in England for a year, he knew exactly the kind of house he wanted to live in, so he put this advertisement in an English newspaper: “Wanted, a draughty Victorian house in the country with dark attic and creaking floorboards, preferably haunted.”
• G.K. Chesterton visited Broadway and Times Square at night when the scene was brightly lit by advertising signs. He gazed at the sight for a while, then said to a friend, “How beautiful it would be for someone who could not read.”
Alcohol
• In their book, The Perfect London Walk, writers Roger Ebert (the movie critic) and Daniel Curley (a short-story writer) describe what they consider to be the best walk in London—one that lasts for hours and takes the walker through the Hampstead Heath, the Spaniards Inn, Highgate Cemetery, etc. However, Mr. Curley warns the reader that the walk will take you past several pubs, and so you may be tempted away from your walk. In one memorable case, a man named John McHugh stopped at a pub and abandoned the walk after covering scarcely 150 yards.
• While traveling abroad, Mark Twain heard of an American student who had struggled to learn German for three whole months, but who had learned to say only “zwei glas,” which means “two glasses” (of beer). Still, the student reflected, he had learned those words very thoroughly.
• Percy Hammond, the drama critic, grew up in Cadiz, Ohio, in the late 19th century. One of his favorite memories was marching in a temperance parade as a small child and carrying a banner inscribed with the slogan, “Tremble, King Alcohol, for I shall grow up.”
Animals
• As a teenager, Gary Paulsen, author of the young adult novel Hatchet, was the favorite victim of a bullying street gang. Late one night, as he left his job at a bowling alley, he tried to find a new route home by leaving from the roof. As he climbed from the roof into an alley, he stepped on a ferocious dog. Frightened, he threw the dog half of a hamburger he was carrying, then he ran from the alley—right into the hands of members of the bullying street gang, who immediately started to beat him. Suddenly, the ferocious dog jumped out of the alley and began biting gang members. Gary gave the dog the rest of his hamburger, and after the dog bit the gang leader in another encounter, the gang left Gary strictly alone. (Eventually, Gary found the dog, now friendly to everyone except Gary’s enemies, a new life on a farm.)
• E.B. White may be most famous for his children’s book Charlotte’s Web, in which a spider named Charlotte befriends a pig named Wilbur and saves his life by writing words in her web. The idea for the book came partly from Mr. White’s discomfort at raising a pig each year at his farm in Maine, only to butcher it when it was fully grown. In addition, one day he noticed a spider building a web in an outhouse, so he brought out a lamp and a long extension cord and watched the spider. From these experiences, and more, came Charlotte’s Web. By the way, sometimes people try to find hidden meanings in Charlotte’s Web, but Mr. White says, “Any attempt to find allegorical meanings is bound to end disastrously, for no meanings are in there. I ought to know.”
• Pioneer life could be difficult. In 1875, Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of Little House on the Prairie, was outside when she thought she saw a storm spring up on the horizon, then move closer. It wasn’t a storm—it was a cloud of grasshoppers. While Laura and her family hid in their house, the grasshoppers ate everything green, including the crops, the garden, the grass, and even the leaves in the trees. After eating everything, the grasshoppers moved west. Because the grasshoppers had destroyed his crops, Laura’s Pa walked 200 miles to eastern Minnesota to find work to support his family.
• John Steinbeck, author of The Grapes of Wrath, once left a setter puppy named Toby alone for a few hours. Unfortunately, he left Toby alone with a manuscript. By the time Mr. Steinbeck returned to the room, Toby had destroyed half of the only copy of the manuscript—two months’ worth of writing. Nevertheless, Mr. Steinbeck did not become upset, saying later, “I didn’t want to ruin a good dog for a manuscript I’m not sure is good at all.” Instead, he sat down and rewrote the manuscript, which was published with this title: Of Mice and Men.
• In New York City, a photographer asked humorist Erma Bombeck to move slightly. She moved where the photographer wanted her to go, then posed—but the photographer had wanted her to move out of the way so he could photograph a dog which was appearing in the movie Down and Out in Beverly Hills.
Autographs
• R.L. Stine, the writer of the Fear Street and Goosebumps children’s book series, started out as a writer of comedy; for a while, he edited Scholastic’s humor magazine, which was titled Bananas. When his first book for children, How to Be Funny, was published, he went to a book signing, at which he wore rabbit ears. During the entire afternoon of the book signing, he autographed exactly one book!
• Being a best-selling author can be hazardous to one’s health. Horror writer Stephen King spoke at a library in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, then he signed hundreds of autographs. Even so, some people were not able to get their books autographed—Mr. King’s hand developed so many blisters that he was forced to stop signing his autograph.
• In 1975, Quentin Crisp’s book The Naked Civil Servant, was published, and this very out and very effeminate gay man became a celebrity. Suddenly, taxi drivers who had driven by him even though their taxi was empty not only stopped for him, but they also began to ask for his autograph, saying, “The wife’s never going to believe this!”
• Saul Bellow and his wife had an argument one day, so she threw several eight-by-ten glossy photographs of him in the garbage. A few days later, a knock sounded on his door. Standing in the doorway was the porter. He was holding one of the glossy photographs, and he asked Mr. Bellow to sign it.
Automobiles
• Michael Moore, author of Stupid White Men and a native of Flint, Michigan, drove Toyotas and Volkswagens. Occasionally, a friend would ask him why he didn’t buy a car that was built in the USA. When that happened, Mr. Moore would have his friend open the hood of his “American” car, and then he’d show his friend that the engine had a sticker saying “MADE IN BRAZIL” and the fan belt bore the lettering “MADE IN MEXICO.” In addition, the radio had a label saying, “MADE IN SINGAPORE.”
• Noted author C.G. Norris developed engine trouble and was standing helplessly by his car on the side of a road when a teenage boy came pedaling up to him on his bike. The teenage boy lifted the hood, fiddled with the engine for about 15 seconds, then started the car right up. Mr. Norris looked at the boy and asked, “Do you know what a split infinitive is?” The teenage boy admitted that he didn’t, and Mr. Norris said, “Thank God!”
• Children’s book author/illustrator David McPhail sometimes writes as he drives. Actually, that’s not quite true. He will think of a couple of sentences while driving, then stop the car and write the sentences down. While he was writing The Cereal Box, a trip that usually took 90 minutes turned into a three-and-a-half-hour trip.
Books
• In 1922, playwright Lillian Hellman graduated from high school, and her Uncle Jake gave her a ring as her graduation gift. Ms. Hellman, however, cared little for rings, so she sold it for $25 and used the money to buy something she really cared for—books. Later, she told her uncle that she had sold his gift to buy books. He looked at her for a moment, then said, “So you’ve got spirit after all. Most of the rest of them are made of sugar water.”
• As a boy, critic Orville Prescott very quickly learned to love books. While attending a dude ranch that was laughingly called a “school,” he was startled by the shout of “Fire!” At first he was pleasantly excited—until he discovered that his own cabin was burning. At that point, he startled everyone by rushing inside the cabin and coming out with an armload of singed books. The astonished onlookers burst into applause.
• During a dinner Cyril Clemens had with G.K. Chesterton, the question of “If one were stranded on a desert island, what book would one like to have?” came up. Mr. Chesterton answered, “If I were a politician who wanted to impress his constituents, I would take Plato or Aristotle, but if I did not want to show off, I would take Thomas’ Guide to Practical Shipbuilding so that I could get away from the island as quickly as possible.”
• In the 1800s, many people did their own doctoring. A book titled Dr. Gunn’s Domestic Medicine even explained how to perform an amputation, saying that “any man, unless he was a fool or an idiot, could amputate an arm or a leg.” First, you needed the book and a few instruments. In addition, since this was in the days before anesthesia, you needed “half a dozen men to hold the victim down.”
• A man had the opportunity to publish Mark Twain’s first book, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, and Other Sketches, but declined it. Years later, the man chanced to meet Mr. Twain, and told him, “I refused a book of yours and for this I stand without competitor as the prize ass of the 19th century.”
• After Lord Avebury published a list of what he regarded as the 100 Best Books, Oscar Wilde was asked to name the books that would appear on his own list of the 100 best books ever written. Mr. Wilde replied, “I fear that would be impossible.” When he was asked why, he replied, “Because I have written only five.”
Censorship
• Civil rights leader W.E.B. Du Bois was harassed by the United States government. During the Communist scare of the 1950s, the federal government refused to renew his passport unless he signed a statement stating that he did not hold membership in the Communist Party. Mr. Du Bois declined to sign the statement, and he protested to the passport officials, “My beliefs are none of your business. I repeat my demand for a passport in accordance with the Constitution of the United States, the laws of the land, and the decision of the courts.” Eventually, the Supreme Court ruled that requiring people to sign such an oath as Mr. Du Bois had been asked to sign before he could get a passport was against the Constitution, and Mr. Du Bois was able to travel abroad again. Even inside the United States, Mr. Du Bois had been censored. He had wanted to speak at a rally sponsored by the American Labor Party on Long Island, New York, but local officials would not let him because they felt that he was a Communist. Interestingly, Mr. Du Bois joined the Communist Party in 1961—partly in response to the way he had been treated when people thought he was a member of the Communist Party.
• James Joyce’s Ulysses was almost never published. Portions of Ulysses had been published in America in the Little Review, but the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice filed charges of obscenity against its publishers, Margaret Anderson and Jane Heap, who were subsequently convicted and forbidden to publish any more excerpts of Ulysses in their magazine. Meanwhile, in England Harriet Weaver wanted to publish Ulysses but was unable to find a printer who was willing to set the book in type. Fortunately, Mr. Joyce met Sylvia Beach of Shakespeare and Company in Paris, who plunged into publishing the book although she had no experience. How scandalous was Ulysses thought to be? On the floor of the Senate, Senator Reed Smoot of Utah said that he had spent 10 minutes skimming the book and that 10 minutes was “enough to indicate that it was written by a man with a diseased mind and soul so black that he would even obscure the darkness of Hell.”
• Many citizens of the USSR hated the government and consequently hated the works of propaganda that praised the government. That meant that many people read underground literature instead of the literature officially approved by the government. In one underground joke, a husband discovered that his wife was typing the novel Anna Karenina and asked her why, since the novel was in print. “Yes,” his wife replied, “but you know our son will not read anything that has been published.”
• As a young woman, ballerina Margot Fonteyn wished to educate herself and so she read many books, including James Joyce’s Ulysses, which was banned in Britain when she read it. While she was reading the novel on a bus, Ninette De Valois asked what she was reading, then almost had a heart attack after seeing the title. She told young Margot, “For God’s sake, child, don’t read that in public—you could be arrested!”
• L. Frank Baum’s books, including The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, have occasionally been censored. In 1957, Ralph Ulveling, the Detroit Library Director, ordered the book taken off library shelves because, he charged, it had a “cowardly approach to life.” The Detroit Times had an interesting response—it serialized the children’s novel, adding a notation that this book had been banned.
Children
• Zelda Fitzgerald, the wife of F. Scott, was named after a character—a gypsy queen—in a novel. Throughout her life, she liked to have attention drawn to her. When she was a little girl, she telephoned the fire department, told them that a little girl was stuck on a roof, and gave her own address. She then hung up the telephone, crawled out on the roof, and enjoyed all the commotion she had created. When she was a young unmarried woman, her house was still the center of commotion—young military pilots used to perform aerial stunts over her house to get her attention.
• While attending school in Berkeley, California, Yoshiko Uchida was a member of the Girl Reserves, along with several white girls. One day, a photographer from the local newspaper arrived to take a photo of the Girl Reserves, and he tried to move Yoshiko out of the photo. Fortunately, a white friend, Sylvia, saw what was happening and said, “Come on, Yoshi. Stand next to me.” The two friends linked arms and stood firmly together, forcing the photographer to photograph them. Later, Ms. Uchida became the renowned author of Journey to Topaz.
• The first of the two most important events in Orville Prescott’s life (the other was becoming daily book critic for The New York Times in 1942) occurred when he was six years old and his Grandmother Sherwin offered him a $5 gold piece if he would learn how to read. Although he didn’t quite know what a $5 gold piece was, he knew that it was desirable, and therefore, a few days later, he read a few pages out of a first grade primer to his grandmother and received his rewards—the $5 gold piece and the discovery of the joy of reading.
• Playwright Lillian Hellman was born in 1905, and she was a young girl when the United States fought Germany in World War I. Determined to help the war effort, she and a friend went looking for German spies in Manhattan. They spotted two men wearing raincoats. One of the men carried a violin case, which young Lillian thought might hold a machine gun. She reported the two men to a police officer, who investigated and discovered that the two men were a concert violinist and a college professor.
• In addition to being a practical joker, Hugh Troy was a writer and illustrator of children’s books. Often, he made up series of stories to tell his little niece. One series starred the popular child actress Shirley Temple, but eventually Mr. Troy got tired of his heroine, so he ended the series by having Shirley Temple run over by a steamroller and flattened like a pancake. His niece loved the ending.
• As a school child, Madeleine L’Engle Camp entered one of her poems in a school contest. She won first prize, only to have a teacher accuse her of plagiarizing the poem. Young Madeleine’s mother successfully defended her by showing the teacher other poems and stories that Madeleine had written. As a grownup, Madeleine became famous as Madeleine L’Engle, the author of A Wrinkle in Time.
• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was a poet so popular for such a long time that schoolchildren were made to memorize and recite such poems of his as “The Village Blacksmith” and “Paul Revere’s Ride.” In the old days, a schoolchild who heard a friend accidentally make a rhyme would say, “You’re a poet and don’t know it, but your big feet show it—they’re long fellows!”
• Oscar Wilde’s two boys, Cyril and Vyvyan, preferred to dress in sailor suits, but Mr. Wilde and his wife often dressed them in Little Lord Fauntleroy costumes, especially before showing them off to guests in the drawing room. The boys objected to this, so one day they stripped off the costumes and pranced stark naked into the drawing room.
• The Curious George children’s books about an inquisitive monkey are written and illustrated by H.A. Rey. Children get so involved with the main character of the book that they are sometimes disappointed when they meet Mr. and Mrs. Rey. One small, disappointed boy told them, “I thought you were monkeys, too.”
• When she was very small, children’s book author Patricia McKissack toured the house of a former President during a field trip. Later, she was asked to describe what she had seen to a PTA group. Young Patricia reported that her personal guides for the tour had been a rabbit and a mouse.
• When F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of The Great Gatsby, was seven years old, he invited some children to come to his birthday party, and he was very disappointed when no one showed up for the party. To make up for his disappointment, his mother let him eat all of the birthday cake.
• When L. Frank Baum, author of the Oz books, was traveling in Egypt, he met a little Algerian girl who had traveled across the desert with her family on camel. Her family had allowed her to choose one book to bring with her, and she had chosen The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
• Some children are more precocious than others. When he was age 12, Edward Albee had already written his first three-act play, Aliqueen—it was a sex farce.
• Hilaire Belloc wrote quickly and published much. When asked why he wrote so quickly, he replied, “Because my children are howling for pearls and caviar.”
Christmas
• When nonconformist American poet Emily Dickinson was a teenager attending the Mount Holyoke Seminary in South Hadley, Massachusetts, the head of the school, Miss Mary Lyon, told the students that Christmas would be celebrated in a spiritual way. The students would fast in their rooms and pray all day without eating. Miss Lyon then asked the students to stand if they agreed with her plan. Ms. Dickinson remained seated. After the students had sat down again, Miss Lyon asked any students to stand if they disagreed with her plan. Ms. Dickinson was the only student who stood.
• The parents of Jerry Spinelli, author of the Newbery Medal-winning Maniac Magee, spent very little money on themselves, but out of love they made sure that their children enjoyed very nice Christmases. One Christmas, Jerry had unwrapped what he thought was his final present. His father told him, “Well, I guess that’s it. Looks like you did pretty good this year.” Later, Jerry was sent on an errand to the kitchen, and he found his real final present: a Roadmaster bicycle. Mr. Spinelli describes the gift in a memorable way: “Love leaning on a kickstand.”
Comedians
• When visiting Robert Graves, comedian Terry-Thomas felt that perhaps he had offended the famous poet with his sense of over-confidence, because instead of having an intellectual discussion about Greek mythology, all Mr. Graves talked to him about was compost, frequently sticking a fork into various maturing piles and making Terry-Thomas smell them.
• Anne Beatts, a writer for Saturday Night Live, used to keep a hospital bed in her office at Rockefeller Center. She used it for writing (her typewriter sat where the food tray would normally sit), instead of a desk and chair.
Couples
• At age 40, children’s book author Lois Lowry got divorced and started dating, a process she hated, mostly because the men who took her out told her things like they had a wife but were thinking seriously of getting divorced or they had a problem with alcohol but were thinking seriously of quitting drinking. One day, she wore an expensive dress on a date with a rich man who opened the door on what she thought was the driver’s side of his car and motioned for her to get in. She said, “I’d really prefer that you drive,” and he replied, “I’m going to. The steering wheel’s on the other side of a Rolls [Rolls-Royce].” Later, she was watching an episode of Kate and Allie when one of the stars took out a dress from a closet—the same dress that she had been wearing on the date with the rich man—and the other star made fun of it. After that, she still wore the dress, but she didn’t like it as much. Fortunately, on another date she met another man, Martin, who quoted the Babar the Elephant books and who grew a beard after she said that she preferred men who had beards. Today, she shares her life with Martin.
• Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Meyer Berger used to do odd jobs around the house while thinking about how to write an article. One day, the deadline was approaching for a difficult magazine article, so his wife decided to leave him at home so he could write. She entertained some visitors, taking them to a movie and dinner, and when she returned, she discovered that her husband hadn’t typed a single word—but he had polished the silver and run the vacuum cleaner. However, the time spent doing housework was also time spent planning the article. The next day, Mr. Meyer sat down before the typewriter and quickly wrote a very good article.
• As a young man, Dean Koontz kept writing novels and also worked to earn a living, but although he published some books, his writing career seemed to be going nowhere. His wife, Gerda, saw that her husband was worried, so she offered to support him for five years as he wrote, saying, “If you can’t make it in five years, you never will.” Mr. Koontz accepted her offer, and after quitting his job, he started writing for sixty hours a week. At the end of the five years, Mr. Koontz had succeeded to such an extent that his wife quit her job to manage the business end of her husband’s writing career.
• When Kate Mostel and Madeline Gilford decided to write a book of autobiography and anecdotes in conjunction with their famous husbands, Zero Mostel and Jack Gilford, Mr. Mostel was reluctant at first and thought his wife was wasting her time, but after reading a few pages of her writing, he became enthusiastic. In fact, he made a writing room for Kate in their home, and he bought her a writing desk. When a salesman showed him a little writing desk, he said, “No, no. That’s too small. We need a serious writing desk. My wife’s a writer.”
• Humorist H. Allen Smith made a trip with his wife to visit places he had lived at as a young man. He and his wife went to visit a dance club where Mr. Smith had very happy memories of squiring his girlfriends. They discovered that the dance club had been torn down and its foundation was in the middle of a pasture where a goat was grazing. Mr. Smith’s wife told him, “I see one of your old girlfriends is left.”
• English critic Sir Max Beerbohm and his aging wife went to a party. Sir Max was immediately surrounded by many beauties who wanted to impress him, but as soon as it was proper for him to leave the party, he turned to his wife and said, “Darling, let’s go to a restaurant and find a quiet corner. You are looking so charming tonight that I want to talk to you alone.”