Read Online Uncle John’s Legendary Lost Bathroom Reader by Bathroom Readers’ Institute - Free Book Online Page A

natural habitats.
    There are more plastic flamingos in America than real ones.

GIVE ’EM HELL, HARRY
    Here are a few words from President Harry Truman.
    “I never did give anybody hell. I just told the truth, and they thought it was hell.”
    “The C students run the world.”
    “The only things worth learning are the things you learn after you know it all.”
    “You know what makes leadership? It is the ability to get men to do what they don’t want to do, and like it.”
    “You want a friend in this life, get a dog.”
    “The best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and advise them to do it.”
    “Men don’t change. The only thing new in the world is the history you don’t know.”
    “It’s a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it’s a depression when you lose yours.”
    “If you can’t convince them, confuse them.”
    “A politician is a man who understands government—and it takes a politician to run a government. A statesman is a politician who’s been dead ten or fifteen years.”
    “Whenever you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship.”
    “Whenever a fellow tells me he’s bipartisan, I know he’s going to vote against me.”
    “Polls are like sleeping pills designed to lull voters into sleeping on election day. You might call them ‘sleeping polls.’”
    “I think there is an immense shortage of Christian charity among so-called Christians.”
    “I look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens who, reading newspapers, live and die in the belief they have known something of what has been passing in the world around them.”
    “Secrecy and a free, democratic government don’t mix.”
    On average, twins are born 24 days earlier than single babies.

SECRETS OF
DISNEYLAND
    Well, they’re not really secrets—more like gossip. But most people don’t know much about the history and operations of the original mega-theme park. And it’s pretty interesting stuff.
    I NSPIRATION
In the 1940s, a couple of Walt Disney’s top animators were real train buffs. They got Uncle Walt interested in the hobby and he set up a miniature steam railroad that circled his house and gardens (note: see Bathroom Reader #2, p. 62), big enough to ride. After several train-theme parties, Walt got the idea that if his friends got such a kick from this one ride, maybe a whole amusement park would lure vacationers who were visiting Hollywood to star-gaze.
    HOW WALT GOT THE MONEY
    Walt proposed the idea to his brother Roy, the Disney stockholders, and their bankers...but they rejected it. In fact, they thought he was nuts. (In those days, amusement parks were sleazy places full of carnival side-shows, rip-off games, and cheap mechanical rides.)
    So Disney was on his own. He went on a relentless search for financing. He sold his Palm Springs home and cashed in his $100,000 life insurance policy to finance his research. He lined up corporate sponsors, who were willing to pay for exhibits and restaurants in exchange for name recognition.
    But the turning point came when he made a deal with ABC-TV. At the time ABC, a relatively new network, was a distant third in the ratings. It was desperate for the high-quality, high-name-recognition programming Disney could provide. But Disney had already turned down offers from other networks. Why should he join forces with a loser like ABC? The answer: financing for his amusement park. In exchange for doing the show, Disney received a substantial sum of money and ABC agreed to call the show “Disneyland,” virtually making the weekly show a one-hour commercial for the park. But perhaps more important, later, in an “unrelated” deal, ABC purchased a 34% interest in Disneyland, Inc., the company set up to build the park. (Ironically, Disney now owns ABC.)
    Alexander the Great was buried in a vat of honey.
    When Roy saw the package Walt had put together, he changed his mind and hopped on the Disneyland bandwagon.