Wide Right Productions

Dan, Zimbu, Vince, and Munro

"If it's no good, you know it's Wide Right"

#3

Welcome to this, the third fantastic fact-filled file from the freaky folks at WRP. We have many things to discuss in this column, so let's cut right to the chase, starting with the top five headlines of the year:

5) "Flaming Croutons Blamed in Restaurant Fire"
4) "Man, 54, Holds Up Store Wearing Only Sports Bra"
3) "Mysterious "toilet gopher" Claims Yet Another Victim"
2) "Man Assaults Elderly Couple With Frozen Turkey"
1) "Parents and Children Dissect Sheep Eyeballs on Family Fun Night"

And now, an intriguing study into why American students today all detest history. First, an we will analyze an excerpt from an American History book.

EARLY EXPLORATIONS

"The region was first explored by the Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Rigeur (1534-1579), who in 1541 was commissioned by King Charles "Chuck" IV of England (1512-1583) under the terms of the Treaty of Weems (1544) as authorized by Pope Bilious XIV (1511-1598) to end the Nine Years, Three Months, and the Better Part of a Week War (May 4, 1534-August 8, 1543, at about 1:30pm), under which France (1243-present) would cede an area "north of the 17th parallel, west of the 163rd longitude, and convenient to shopping" to England in exchange for those lands originally conquered by Denmark during the Reign of Large Unattractive Feathered Hats (1387-1396) and subsequently granted to Italy under the treaty of. . . "

Well, we can clearly see why people hate history. If I was writing history, it might read something like this:

. . . Meanwhile, way the hell far away in someplace like Finland, Vikings were forming. These were extremely rugged individuals whose idea of a fun time was to sail over and set fire to England, which in those days was fairly easy to ignite because it had a very high level of thatch, this being the kind of roof favored by the local tribespeople-the Klaxons, the Gurnseys, the Spasms, the Wasps, the Celtics, and the Detroit Pistons. No sooner would they finish thatching one when the Vikings, led by Eric the Red, would come charging up, Zippos blazing, and that would be the end of that roof. This went on for thousands of years, during which time the English tribespeople became very oppressed, not to mention damp.

Then there arose among them a young man who many said would someday become the King of all of England because his name was King Arthur. According to legend, one day he was walking along with some onlookers, when he came to a sword that was stuck in a stone. He grasped the sword by the handle and gave a mighty heave, and to the amazement of the onlookers, he suddenly saw his shadow, and correctly predicted that there would be six more weeks of winter. This so impressed the various tribes that Arthur was able to unite them and drive of the Vikings.

Thus it was that the Vikings set off across the Atlantic in approximately the year 867, to (a) try to locate North America and (b) see if it was flammable.

We like our approach better, don't you? And now, the eagerly anticipated

1997: the Year in Review

JANUARY:

The year gets off to a less-than-ideal start aboard the troubled Russian space station Mir as cosmonaut Yuri Hackov opens a bottle of champagne to celebrate the New Year, only to have the cork blast through the space station wall, leaving a hole that would have sucked out all the air in minutes if cosmonaut Vladimir Fishkillnakov had not alertly plugged it with a wad of gum he had been chewing since August.

Mattel is forced to recall its popular motorized Cabbage Patch Snacktime Kids doll because of its tendency to chomp on children's hair and not let go. (There is no truth to the rumor that the doll was originally called "Snacktime Marv.")

FEBRUARY:

Bad luck once again strikes the troubled Russian Space Station Mir when the main navigational computer is eaten by a rat. Fortunately, the plucky Cosmonauts are able to navigate the craft manually, taking star sightings by holding their breath and sticking their heads out the cabin window for what a Russian space agency spokesperson describes as "very brief periods."

In a Los Angeles courtroom, OJ Simpson's legal fortunes take a turn for the worse when members of a civil-trial jury, after carefully weighing the evidence, attempt to kill him with a chair.

MARCH:

A 60-year-old mystery is solved when pilot Linda Finch, retracing the route of Amelia Earhart in an exact replica of the famous aviatrix's plane, finds Earhart herself still waiting for clearance to take off from La Guardia.

APRIL:

April sees one of the hugest stories in world history when Ellen DeGeneres, in a televised event that receives more worldwide attention than the first lunar landing, courageously reveals, on the air, that the letters in her name can be rearranged to spell "Slender Eel Gene."

The medical world is stunned when a 63-year-old California woman gives birth to a baby; what makes this event even more amazing is that the baby is 27 years old.

MAY:

Astronomers are treated to a once-in-a-lifetime celestial extravaganza as the comet Hale-Bopp, having rounded the Sun and now leaving the solar system at 40,000 miles per hour, slams into the problem-plagued Russian space station Mir, seriously damaging the only piece of equipment on the craft that was still working, a Magic Eight Ball.

JUNE:
Problems continue to plague the troubled Russian space station Mir when both the main and auxiliary toilets become clogged, possibly because for eight straight months the crew members' diet has consisted exclusively of a special "space food" mixture of Spam and Tang, called "Spang."

American Baptists vote to boycott Disney after a Church investigation shows that Huey, Duey, and Louie are not really Donald's "nephews."

JULY:

The NASA Mars probe Pathfinder lands on the Red Planet after a harrowing approach in which it narrowly misses the problem-plagued Russian space station Mir, which has wandered several billion miles off course after losing power to its thruster rockets, forcing the plucky Cosmonauts to steer the craft by squirting condiment packets into space.

SEPTEMBER:

In education, Chelsea Clinton enrolls in Stanford, where authorities insist that she "will be treated no differently from any other student whose father has the authority to launch nuclear strikes."

In baseball, the Atlanta Braves defeat the New York Mets when, in a dramatic ninth-inning development, the entire New York outfield is captured at gunpoint by a multinational peacekeeping force.

In Scotland, researchers announce that they have cloned a sock, which they name "Bob."

OCTOBER:

The United States launches the Cassini Space Probe despite vocal opposition by protesters who are concerned that if something goes wrong, the probe could crash in a populated area and spew out its deadly cargo of "fenphen." Fortunately, the launch goes off without a hitch, and the mission proceeds flawlessly for several minutes, at which point the probe, now traveling at 17,000 miles per hour, somehow-in what astronomers later describe as a "one in a billion chance"-manages to miss the troubled Russian space station Mir.

NOVEMBER:

The month ends with a heart-warming "high-tech" updating of the traditional Thanksgiving story as astronauts aboard the space shuttle Columbia successfully complete the first orbital transfer of a frozen turkey to hungry cosmonauts aboard the troubled Russian space station Mir. Unfortunately, the Mir oven is not working, and the cosmonauts make the questionable decision to cook the bird by exposing it to cosmic radiation until it is glowing like a beer sign. Within minutes after eating it, they begin to experience what Russian space officials describe as "a case of the nuclear trots"; cosmonaut Nikolai Wankov is also reportedly suffering from "a tapeworm the size of the late Nikita Khrushchev."

DECEMBER:

The burgeoning campaign finance scandal takes an alarming turn when Vice President Gore is arrested for selling crack at the Lincoln Memorial. An indignant President Clinton tells the press that he has "no so-called knowledge of any so-called Vice President Gore." Attorney General Reno vows to drive a pickup truck across the country, sleeping in the back under a tarp.

Well that's it for this issue. Look for another tantalizing issue of Wide Right Productions next week, and until then, good night.