National
Lampoon's Big Book of True Facts:
A Brand-New Collection of Absurd-but-True Real-Life Funny Stuff,
compiled by Jay Naughton and Tom Snyders
With scores of color photos of funny signs
from all over the place, this book is great for random-page
enjoyment. Better yet, there's more! Just about every page also
has a weird-but-true news item, a funny headline ("County
Wants Money for Taking Dump"), a strange magazine ad, or
a bizarre postcard. Scattered through the book are "Ripley's
Believe It Or Not"-style cartoon revelations about famous
people including Charles deGaulle, Sigmund Freud, and Charlie
Chaplin. Did you know that Albert Einstein once walked straight
into an open manhole, or that John D. Rockefeller hired young
mothers to breastfeed him? And those two can't hold a candle
to Groucho Marx.
Among a variety of other bizarre
collections of facts, there's a page dedicated to the "maximum
allowable defects in food." It's entertainingly disgusting
to learn just how many rodent "excreta pellets"
popcorn can have, and that the average mold count in frozen
strawberries can be as much as 45 percent. Newspaper reports
of apt marriage partners (Good-Loser, Mustard-Pickels, Beaver-Trimmer)
are guaranteed chuckle inducers, and a page of excerpts from
uncolicited manuscripts sent to an unnamed editor is, too.
("He peeled his eyes from the boy's face.")
Although the variety in Big Book of True Facts
is one of its strongest points, it's Tom Snyders' collection
of funny signs, labels, ads, and gravestones that holds everything
together. "The Bicycling Comedian" has been snapping
odd signs for seventeen years while pedaling his touring bike
more than 124,000 miles in fifty states, eleven countries,
and three continents (including a trek to a small town with
the appealing name of "Dongola"). Over 200 of his
pictures are in the book, an impressive lineup that includes
such classics as "Ronald McDonald Funeral Home,"
"Big Bone Lick State Park," and "Do Not Pass
When Traffic Oncoming." Happy random-paging!
Megan
Edwards
11/6/04
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