Earlier this year, a video of national treasure and living legend Dick Van Dyke singing “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” at a Denny’s with his a capella group took the Internet by storm:
It’s really just the most recent occurrence of Dick Van Dyke being delightful. The actor, singer, dancer, and nonagenarian is often filmed busting a move or bursting into song whenever the spirit moves him. If you haven’t yet gotten your fill of Van Dyke’s contagious joy, here are a few more instances:
1. WHEN HE CELEBRATED HIS 90TH BIRTHDAY AT DISNEYLAND—AND RAPPED “A SPOONFUL OF SUGAR.”
2. THE TIME HE STARRED IN A MUSIC VIDEO FOR THE DUSTBOWL REVIVAL.
3. HIS IMPROMPTU DANCE PERFORMANCE AT A BERNIE SANDERS RALLY.
4. WHEN HE COULDN’T STOP HIMSELF FROM SINGING ALONG WITH A MARY POPPINS FLASH MOB.
5. HIS RANDOM DANCES TO SONGS PLAYING OVERHEAD AT RETAIL STORES.
6. THE TIME HE STOLE THE SHOW DURING HIS WIFE’S BELLY DANCING PERFORMANCE.
7. HIS SPIRITED DANCE MOVES DURING A MARY POPPINS TRIBUTE.
And here’s a fun, bonus throwback: Van Dyke’s interpretation of various dance crazes from a 1960 CBS special.
Though the election has been over for more than a month, yard signs still dot houses around the land. Trump/Pence. Clinton/Kaine. Humphrey/Muskie?
In November, the lawn in front of the Lefferts Historic House in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, looked a bit like it belonged to an extremely overzealous voter. In reality, Lefferts was the latest host of an art installation called “Monument to the Unelected,” a look at conquered candidates dating back to John Adams’s run against Thomas Jefferson in 1796.
Created by artist Nina Katchadourian, the 50-odd political signs have appeared in several locations around the country. Though many of the names are centuries old, the signs are designed to look fairly contemporary—Katchadourian creates them herself out of plastic sheets. That includes the latest addition to the collection, a blue sign emblazoned with “I’m With Hillary 2016.” And while you’d be forgiven for thinking the project is a response to the mania surrounding the 2016 election, Katchadourian created it in 2008 as a commission for the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art.
“Of course, it’s a project about politics and history, but it doesn’t take a position on who should win any given election,” Katchadourian toldThe New Yorker. The monument, rather, is “a statement of fact—it’s what we have collectively done, up until now.”
In an artist’s statement, she added, “At a time when the country was preoccupied with the ‘fork in the road’ moment of a major national election, the piece presented a view of the country’s collective political road not taken.”
“Monument to the Unelected” left Brooklyn shortly after the election, but will surely appear again in about three years. If you see an “Aaron Burr is my president” yard sign, you’ll know you’re in the right place.
It’s a literary mystery: Nearly 200 years after it was published in New York’s Troy Sentinel, we still don’t know who really wrote “A Visit from St. Nicholas.”
When it first appeared in the newspaper on December 23, 1823, there was no name attached to it. It wasn’t until 13 years later that Clement Clarke Moore, a professor and poet, was named as the author. A story emerged that a housekeeper had, without Moore’s knowledge, sent the piece—which he had written for his kids—to the newspaper, and in 1844, the poem was officially included in an anthology of Moore’s work.
The problem? The family of Henry Livingston, Jr., claimed their father had been reciting “A Visit From St. Nicholas” to them for 15 years before it was published. Here’s the view from both sides.
THE LIVINGSTON ARGUMENT
Livingston’s Dutch background is a key component in this mystery. His mother was Dutch, and many references in the poem are as well. For example, “A Visit from St. Nicholas” is likely where we got the popular names for Santa’s reindeer—there seems to be no reference to their names prior to the poem. A couple of the names have skewed slightly over the years; instead of Donner and Blitzen, the latter two reindeer recited were called “Dunder” and “Blixem,” the Dutch words for “Thunder” and “Lightning.” (These days, the spellings have changed slightly to “donder” and “bliksem.”)
According to proponents of this hypothesis, Blixem first became Blixen to better rhyme with Vixen, and then, in 1844, Moore changed it to the more German Blitzen. Dunder would become Donder, and then, in the early 20th century, was changed to Donner to match Blitzen’s new German name. (Clement Moore proponents counter that the original editor of the poem may have altered the names to better fit a pseudo-Dutch framework, and Moore was simply changing them back to the original.)
Also piling up in the case against Moore is the fact that at least four of Livingston’s children and even a neighbor girl said they remembered Henry telling them the tale of St. Nick as early as 1807. They even said they had evidence—a dated, handwritten copy of the original poem with revisions and scratch marks all throughout. Unfortunately, the house containing this gem burned down, taking the Livingston family’s proof with it.
When a professor from Vassar analyzed poetry by both authors, he declared that there was virtually no possible way Moore could have written “A Visit from St. Nicholas.” According to the professor, the style of the Christmas favorite was completely different—both structurally and content-wise—than anything else Moore had ever written. But the anapestic scheme used matched up with some of Livingston’s work perfectly.
Earlier this year, a New Zealand professor wrote a book where he tackled this question by applying complex statistical analysis to works by both authors. He found that “if we did not know whether the poems in Moore’s manuscript notebook were by him or by Livingston, our full range of tests would, in combination, categorize every one of them as much more probably Moore’s. In this they contrast sharply with ‘The Night Before Christmas,’ which is consistently associated more closely with Livingston.” But the Moore camp usually argues that these studies are constructed in such a way that they would always discount Moore, especially through ignoring works like “The Pig & The Rooster,” which is anapestic. The Livingston camp dismisses it and another anapestic poem by saying, “If Moore wrote ‘The Night Before Christmas’ he displayed in it a facility that deserted him in his efforts in the same meter both at about the same time and a decade later.”
THE MOORE ARGUMENT
Aside from the obvious fact that Moore stepped forward to take credit first, one big key seems to be his relationship with Rip Van Winkle author Washington Irving.
In Irving’s A History of New York, he referred to St. Nick as “riding over the tops of the trees in that self-same wagon wherein he brings his yearly presents to children.” And “when St. Nicholas had smoked his pipe, he twisted it in his hatband, and laying his finger beside his nose,” he got in his wagon and disappeared.
Familiar, huh? Clement Moore being good friends with Irving might help explain some of the Dutch references in the poem—Irving was quite involved in the Dutch culture and traditions of New York state.
There’s still no definitive proof for either writer, though. To this day, it’s just one family’s word against the other’s. Clement Clarke Moore is the author who usually gets the credit for the classic, and it will likely remain that way unless Livingston’s descendants can prove otherwise.
Legendary Yankee center fielder Joe DiMaggio and equally illustrious actress Marilyn Monroe had one of the most famous and tumultuous relationships in modern celebrity history. After countless ups and downs, including marriage and divorce, the two had reconciled again and were reportedly planning to remarry when she died in 1962.
Stacy Conradt
Devastated, DiMaggio stepped in and planned the whole funeral, banning almost all of Monroe’s Hollywood contacts from attending (as well as the public). He had her buried at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles, in a crypt they had originally purchased together while they were married—his was located directly above hers. Afterward, DiMaggio had flowers delivered to her grave multiple times a week, a practice that continued for 20 years.
Despite their his-and-hers crypts, however, Joltin’ Joe’s eternal resting place isn’t near Marilyn. It’s not at the same cemetery, or even in the same city. He ended up nearly 400 miles away at Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma, California.
Stacy Conradt
Though most of us associate the Yankee Clipper with New York, he actually grew up in San Francisco, arriving in the Italian neighborhood of North Beach when he was just a year old and spending his entire childhood there. In 1939, after baseball success had brought him fame and fortune, he bought his parents a home in the Marina district. When they died, his widowed sister Marie moved in, and eventually, so did Joe. He was involved with the community, even helping his brother when he opened a restaurant on Fisherman’s Wharf.
Stacy Conradt
When he passed away from lung cancer in 1999, DiMaggio’s funeral was held at San Francisco’s St. Peter and Paul Catholic Church, where he had been baptized, taken his first communion, and was confirmed and married. Given his personal ties with San Francisco, it’s not that surprising that he ended up spending eternity in the area—especially since he sold his crypt at Westwood Village Memorial Park after Marilyn filed for divorce just nine months into their marriage.
Though he wasn’t buried with her as originally planned, Marilyn was still on DiMaggio’s mind when he left this world. According to Morris Engelberg, Joe’s lawyer, his final words were, “I’ll finally get to see Marilyn.”
Peruse all the entries in our Grave Sightings series here.
Whether you’re a Griswold fan or prefer the retro allure of Bedford Falls, there are certain movies that just make the holidays complete—but not all of them were always so popular. Here’s what the critics originally thought of 10 classic Christmas movies.
1. IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946)
It seems that the Jimmy Stewart-Donna Reed classic was beloved from the start. Variety was positively ebullient when it reviewed the film on December 18, 1946, saying”
“It’s a Wonderful Life will enjoy just that at the b.o., and eminently deserves to do so. In the wake of the billowing ballyhoo which has preceded the first entry from Liberty Films, will come resurging word-o’-mouth to accelerate the whirring of theatres’ wickets. After a somewhat clammy cycle of psychological pix and a tortured trend of panting propaganda vehicles, the April-air wholesomeness and humanism of this natural bring back vividly the reminder that, essentially, the screen best offers unselfconscious, forthright entertainment.”
In fact, Variety’s critic had kind words for everyone. Frank Capra “again proves he can fashion what ordinarily would be homilizing hokum into gleaming, engaging entertainment for all brows—high, low or beetle,” Jimmy Stewart “hasn’t lost a whit of his erstwhile boyish personality (when called to turn it on) and further shows a maturity and depth he seems recently to have acquired,” and Donna Reed “will reach full-fledged stardom with this effort.” He was even impressed with the new simulated snow technology.
2. MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET (1947)
It’s no miracle that this film has endured the decades: Like It’s a Wonderful Life, moviegoers and critics alike have loved the plight of Kris Kringle since its 1947 debut. It was even nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. Though it didn’t win that category, Edmund Gwenn won for Best Actor; Valentine Davies won for Best Writing, Original Story; and George Seaton won for Best Writing, Screenplay. It seems the only people who didn’t like the movie were those in the Catholic League of Decency, who downgraded the film to a “B” rating due to the “morally objectionable” fact that the mother was divorced.
3. WHITE CHRISTMAS (1954)
Since the smash song “White Christmas” came from Holiday Inn, a 1942 Bing Crosby movie scored by Irving Berlin, everyone had big hopes for White Christmas, a similarly-themed movie that came out 12 years later. Bing Crosby and Irving Berlin were both on board as before, but “Oddly enough,” The New York Times critic Bosley Crowther wrote, “the confection is not so tasty as one might suppose. The flavoring is largely in the line-up and not in the output of the cooks. Everyone works hard at the business of singing, dancing, and cracking jokes, but the stuff that they work with is minor. It doesn’t have the old inspiration and spark.” He concedes that the film looks great, in part thanks to “VistaVision,” a then-new process of projecting onto a large screen. “It is too bad that it doesn’t hit the eardrums and the funnybone with equal force,” Crowther concluded.
4. A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS (1965)
Snoopy and his pals overcame a lot of troubles to make it to the small screen in 1965. Executives didn’t like the slow pace of the show. They didn’t want Linus to recite Bible verses. They hated that there was no laugh track. And they thought having the children be voiced by real children instead of adult voice actors was the worst idea in broadcast history.
Turns out they were wrong about all of it. It’s been estimated that nearly 50 percent of households with televisions tuned in to watch A Charlie Brown Christmas that November, and they’ve been coming back ever since.
5. HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS (1966) / (2000)
The original TV special got mixed (if apathetic) reviews. One critic shrugged that it was “probably as good as most of the other holiday cartoons. I can’t see why anybody would dislike it.” The Jim Carrey remake wishes the reviews were that kind.
The reason Dr. Seuss’ original “How the Grinch Stole Christmas!” is a slender classic of antimaterialism comes down to one line: “‘Maybe Christmas,’ he thought, ‘doesn’t come from a store.'” The season, Ted Geisel was saying, is not about stuff. Ron Howard’s “Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas” is all about stuff. From the bric-a-brac Styrofoam sets to the ugly “Twilight Zone” faces of the Whos to Jim Carrey’s hairy man-breasts, the movie substitutes audiovisual megakill for emotion. And that’s just on screen; act now, and you can buy the “Grinch” video-and-plush-doll pack, or the Collector’s Edition DVD with fold-out sets and Faith Hill video, or the Grinch Shower Radio! … But listen, go ahead and let the kids watch it eight times a week. Just turn up the volume so you can’t hear Ted spinning.
6. A CHRISTMAS STORY (1983)
Siskel and Ebert both loved everything about this Jean Shepherd adaptation. “It’s the kind of movie that everyone can identify with,” Ebert said, and judging by the annual 24-hour marathon on TBS, he was right.
7. SCROOGED (1988)
You know who’s immune to the charms of Bill Murray? Critics. The Los Angeles Times said the modern day adaptation of A Christmas Carol was “as over-inflated as its own Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come and as funny as a mugging.” All of the fine actors in the movie, critic Sheila Benson mused, were “Wasted, all wasted, some of them under circumstances that make you squirm for them.” And she’s not alone in her opinion. Ebert called it “disquieting, unsettling” and “forced and depressing,” with scenes that are “desperate” and “embarrassing.”
8. NATIONAL LAMPOON’S CHRISTMAS VACATION (1989)
Suffice it to say that The New York Times movie critic Janet Maslin isn’t among the millions of us who gather around the TV every year to giggle at Clark Griswold and his 25,000 twinkle lights:
The screenplay for “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation,” by John Hughes, makes no pretense at being anything other than a disjointed collection of running gags; if it weren’t for a calendar that marks the approach of Christmas Day, the film would have no forward momentum at all. The film also looks tacky, what with flimsy props and occasionally blurry cinematography, and the direction by Jeremiah S. Chechik displays comic timing that is uncertain at best.
She did see one bright spot, though: “The best thing the new film does is to bring back Cousin Eddie, the wily, scene-stealing slob whose disgusting habits are a source of considerable amusement.”
The plot is so implausible that it makes it hard for us to really care about the plight of the kid. What works in the other direction, however, and almost carries the day, is the gifted performance by young Macaulay Culkin, as Kevin. He’s such a confident and gifted little actor that I’d like to see him in a story I could care more about.
“Home Alone” isn’t that story. When the burglars invade Kevin’s home, they find themselves running a gamut of booby traps so elaborate they could have been concocted by Rube Goldberg—or by the berserk father in “Last House on the Left.” Because all plausibility is gone, we sit back, detached, to watch stunt men and special effects guys take over a movie that promised to be the kind of story audiences could identify with.
10. ELF (2003)
Unexpectedly, Ebert really enjoyed Elf—and no one was more surprised by that turn of events than Ebert himself:
If I were to tell you “Elf” stars Will Ferrell as a human named Buddy who thinks he is an elf and Ed Asner as Santa Claus, would you feel an urgent desire to see this film? Neither did I. I thought it would be clunky, stupid and obvious, like “The Santa Clause 2” or “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.” It would have grotesque special effects and lumber about in the wreckage of holiday cheer, foisting upon us a chaste romance involving the only girl in America who doesn’t know that a man who thinks he is an elf is by definition a pervert.
That’s what I thought it would be. It took me about 10 seconds of seeing Will Ferrell in the elf costume to realize how very wrong I was. This is one of those rare Christmas comedies that has a heart, a brain and a wicked sense of humor, and it charms the socks right off the mantelpiece.
He ends the review with, “… Let’s hope Buddy persuades enough people to believe. It should be easy. He convinced me that this was a good movie, and that’s a miracle on 34th street right there.”
We’ve all chewed Juicy Fruit gum at some point, enjoying the sweetness for about 20 seconds before it completely dissipates and turns into a rubbery wad devoid of all flavor.
But what exactly is that distinctively delicious flavor that briefly tickles our taste buds? Wrigley has kept the secret ingredient under wraps for decades; a wrapper from 1946 describes the unique taste as “a fascinating artificial flavor.”
One fan allegedly emailed the company in 2002 and got this response:
“I’m afraid we can’t be very specific because, for competitive reasons, we consider our Juicy Fruit flavoring formula to be a trade secret. I can, however, tell you that the mixture of fruit flavors in Juicy Fruit is comprised of predominately lemon, orange, pineapple, and banana notes.”
Despite the company’s response, some people think the gum tastes less like common citrus and banana, and more like an exotic fruit called jackfruit; it even has a similar aroma. However, this probably isn’t the case because, as Today I Found Out points out, there don’t seem to be any records of Wrigley ever importing the fruit or its juice.
Instead of actual fruit or even fruit extracts, some chemists believe that the gum smells like jackfruit because they both contain a chemical called isoamyl acetate. Isoamyl acetate, sometimes referred to as banana oil or essence of pear, is a common ingredient in bubble gum, and some fruits produce it naturally as they ripen.
When Juicy Fruit first appeared on store shelves back in 1893, isoamyl acetate was most commonly produced by whiskey distilleries as a byproduct—and at the time, Illinois, also home to Wrigley, produced more than 18 million gallons of the hard stuff every year. Smells Like Science speculates that Wrigley purchased isoamyl acetate from local distilleries until a synthetic process became available some years later.
Much like the Colonel’s 11 secret herbs and spices, or Coke’s “7x” flavoring, we may never know what, exactly, is in Juicy Fruit gum. But there is one thing we do know: it’s delicious—for 20 seconds.
Have you got a Big Question you’d like us to answer? If so, let us know by emailing us at bigquestions@mentalfloss.com.
Unless you’re claustrophobic, stepping into an elevator is no big deal; many of us do it several times a day. But prior to 1854, people weren’t exactly lining up to use them, no matter how convenient they were—cables snapped frequently enough that the public viewed them as death traps.
Then, along came mechanic Elisha Otis and his miracle invention, the safety elevator. Thanks to his clever engineering, the cable could snap and the elevator would still hold. Make: has a great demo of how it worked:
However, elevators carried such a stigma that no one was willing to give Otis’s safety elevator a chance. Sales were practically nonexistent. To show the public that his invention worked, Otis orchestrated a stunt that would change the way we build, work, and live.
In 1854, he constructed a 50-foot elevator at the Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations in New York, getting P.T. Barnum himself to hype up the crowd. Otis made a show of riding the elevator all the way to the top, then severing the cable that tethered the elevator car to the frame. Shocked onlookers prepared for the inventor to plummet to a particularly ugly death—but when the rope snapped, the elevator dropped only a few inches. “All safe,” he assured the crowd.
Just to get his point across, Otis repeated his demonstration over and over for months, proving to thousands of onlookers that a safe elevator had finally arrived. Today, there are approximately 2.5 million Otis elevators in operation [PDF].
So, the next time you step into an elevator, imagine the cable being cleaved in two—and then breathe a sigh of relief, knowing that if that happened you would be fine.
There’s a lot more to Thanksgiving than just the turkey and the Pilgrims. And though most celebrations will break out the cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie, there are a number of other customs that you might be less aware of (and some that are becoming too ubiquitous to miss).
1. THE TURKEY TROT FOOTRACE
Many towns host brisk morning runs to lessen the guilt about the impending feast (distances and times vary from race to race, but the feel-good endorphins are universal). The oldest known Turkey Trot footrace took place in Buffalo, New York, and has been happening every year since 1896. Nearly 13,000 runners participated in the 4.97 mile race last year.
2. THE GREAT GOBBLER GALLOP IN CUERO, TEXAS
During their annual TurkeyFest in November, they gather a bunch of turkeys and have the “Great Gobbler Gallop,” a turkey race. It started in 1908 when a turkey dressing house opened in town. Early in November, farmers would herd their turkeys down the road toward the dressing house so the birds could be prepared for Thanksgiving. As you can imagine, this was quite a spectacle—as many as 20,000 turkeys have been part of this “march”. People gathered to watch, and eventually the first official festival was formed around the event in 1912. The final event of the celebration is the Great Gobbler Gallop, a race between the Cuero turkey champ and the champ from Worthington, Minnesota (they have a TurkeyFest as well). Each town holds a heat and the best time between the towns wins. The prize is a four-foot trophy called “The Traveling Turkey Trophy of Tumultuous Triumph.”
3. FRANKSGIVING
From 1939 to 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved Thanksgiving up by a week. In ’39, Thanksgiving, traditionally held on the last Thursday of November, fell on the 30th. Since enough people would wait until after Thanksgiving to start their Christmas shopping, Roosevelt was concerned that having the holiday so late in the month would mess up retail sales at a time when he was trying hard to pull Americans out of the Great Depression. It didn’t entirely go over well though—some states observed FDR’s change, and others celebrated what was being called the “Republican” Thanksgiving on the traditional, last-Thursday date. Colorado, Mississippi, and Texas all considered both Thanksgivings to be holidays. Today, we’ve basically split the difference—Thanksgiving is held on the fourth Thursday of November, regardless of whether that’s the last Thursday of the month or not.
4. THE PRESIDENTIAL TURKEY PARDON
TIM SLOAN / AFP / Getty Images
The story goes that since at least Harry Truman, it has been tradition for the President of the U.S. to save a couple of birds from becoming someone’s feast. Records only go back to George H.W. Bush doing it, though some say the tradition goes all the way back to Abraham Lincoln pardoning his son’s pet turkey. (Lincoln is also the President who originally declared that the holiday be held on the last Thursday of November.) In recent years, the public has gotten to name the turkeys in online polls; the paired turkeys (the one you see in pictures and a backup) have gotten creative names such as Stars and Stripes, Biscuit and Gravy, Marshmallow and Yam, Flyer and Fryer, Apple and Cider, and Honest and Abe last year.
5. THANKSGIVING PARADES
Getty
Everyone knows about the Macy’s Parade, but for a more historically accurate parade, check out America’s Hometown Thanksgiving Parade in Plymouth. The parade starts with a military flyover and continues with floats and costumed people taking the parade-goers from the 17th century to the present time. There are nationally recognized Drum and Bugle Corps, re-enactment units from every period of American history, and military marching units. And military bands play music honoring the men and women who serve in each branch: the Army, the Navy, the Marines, the Air Force, and the Coast Guard.
6. BLACK FRIDAY
Black Friday, of course, is the day-after sales extravaganza that major (and minor) retailers participate in. Most people think that the term comes from the day of the year when retail stores make their profits go from red to black, but other sources have it originating from police officers in Philadelphia. They referred to the day as Black Friday because of the heavy traffic and higher propensity for accidents. Also, just because you hear that it’s “the busiest shopping day of the season” on the news, don’t believe it. It’s one of the busiest days, but typically, it’s hardly ever the busiest, though it typically ranks somewhere in the top 10. The busiest shopping day of the year is usually the Saturday before Christmas.
7. CYBER MONDAY
Black Friday is quickly being rivaled in popularity by Cyber Monday. It’s a fairly recent phenomenon—it didn’t even have a name until 2005. But there’s truth to it—77 percent of online retailers at the time reported an increase in sales on that particular day, and as online shopping has continued to grow and become more convenient, retailers have scheduled their promotions to follow suit.
8. BUY NOTHING DAY
And in retaliation for Black Friday, there’s Buy Nothing Day. To protest consumerism, many people informally celebrate BND. It was first “celebrated” in 1992, but didn’t settle on its day-after-Thanksgiving date until 1997, where it has been ever since. It’s also observed internationally, but outside of North America the day of observance is the Saturday after our Thanksgiving.
9. FOOTBALL
JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP/Getty Images
It’s a common sight across the U.S.: parents, cousins, aunts, and uncles passed out on the couch watching football after dinner. Well, we have the first Detroit Lions owner, G.A. Richards, to thank for the tradition of Thanksgiving football. He saw it as a way to get people to his games. CBS was the first on the bandwagon when they televised their first Thanksgiving game in 1956. The first color broadcast was in 1965—the Lions vs. the Baltimore Colts. Since the 1960s, the Dallas Cowboys have joined the Lions in hosting Thanksgiving Day games, and the NFL Network now airs a third game on that night.
10. NATIONAL DOG SHOW
Of course, if football isn’t your thing, there’s always the National Dog Show. It’s aired after the Macy’s Parade on NBC every year. Good luck telling your dad that he’ll be enjoying Springer Spaniels instead of the Lions or Cowboys, though.
A version of this story originally published in 2008.
Later today, as many presidents before him have done, President Obama will pardon a couple of turkeys. “The office of the presidency—the most powerful position in the world—brings with it many awesome and solemn responsibilities,” Obama said in 2013. “This is not one of them.”
Gifting a turkey to the president is certainly nothing new. The tradition dates back at least to 1873, when Ulysses S. Grant benefited from the poultry present. But until the past couple of decades, the presentation of a bird was more or less a private photo op for representatives of the Poultry and Egg Board or the National Turkey Federation. And—surprise, surprise—the presidents typically ate the birds, with the exception of Kennedy.
The whole pardoning event is fairly new, though, and giving the fortunate turkeys monikers is even newer. Here’s what we know about the names of those lucky suckers:
1863: Jack, allegedly. As one story goes, Abraham Lincoln’s son, Tad, became a little too attached to the gift that was destined to end up on the dinner table, naming him Jack. His father agreed to let the turkey live, and Jack ended up as part of the menagerie the Lincoln boys had at the White House. 1873: The Vose Turkey. Turkey farmer Horace Vose formally started the tradition of presenting the president with the main entree for his meal. We’re sure Grant was grateful. 1987: Charlie 1994: Tom (how original) 1999: Harry 2000: Jerry. You can see Bill Clinton dutifully performing the pardon here:
Beginning in 2001, two turkeys were always on tap—the one that would look best on camera, and a backup in case the first choice got skittish in front of the crowd. Traditionally, both the main turkey and the understudy have been pardoned.
2001: Liberty and Freedom, in the wake of 9/11. 2002: Katie and Zack, named after the children of the chairman of the National Turkey Federation. 2003: Stars and Stripes, which narrowly won over Pumpkin and Cranberry in an online poll. 2004: Biscuits and Gravy 2005: Marshmallow and Yam 2006: Flyer and Fryer 2007: May and Flower 2008: Pumpkin and Pecan 2009: Courage and Carolina 2010: Apple and Cider 2011: Liberty and Peace 2012: Cobbler and Gobbler 2013: Caramel and Popcorn 2014: Mac and Cheese 2015: Honest and Abe
The 2016 turkeys, Tater and Tot, come from Storm Lake, Iowa; their names were suggested by the classmates of the children of Chris and Nicole Domino, the turkey farmers who raised the birds. Tater and Tot will live out the rest of their days at Virginia Tech, in a specially built enclosure called Gobblers Rest.
You can read more about the history of the presidential turkey pardon here. Whether or not you agree with John Oliver that this is a particularly ridiculous American tradition, we can all be thankful that at least we’ve come a long way from the Nixon era, when one doomed bird had his feet nailed to the table because he wouldn’t behave for the press.
It’s 8 a.m. on Thanksgiving Day and you just realized you forgot to thaw your turkey. What do you do?
Don’t panic. You just need to call 1-800-BUTTERBALL. Yes, it’s real, and yes, they really do have poultry experts standing by to help you with your last-minute snafus, flubs and foul-ups. And they’re open 24/7. If you wake up in a cold sweat at 2 a.m. thinking about salmonella or whether you can bathe your turkey with your toddler (see below), never fear—Butterball is there for you. And it’s not just about Thanksgiving. The line is open in December to help you with those holiday feasts as well.
When the hotline first opened up to panicked chefs in the early ‘80s, a mere six “home economists” responded to 11,000 phone calls during November and December. These days, their staff has expanded to more than 50 and they answer more than 100,000 calls.
Those 50 staff members have heard it all. They get the typical questions you’d expect turkey experts to get, of course: how long will it take to thaw the turkey, how do I stuff a turkey, are there any allergens in Butterball products?
THE QUESTIONABLE
But there’s also the, um, unexpected: “Can I brine my turkey in the washing machine?” and “The family dog is inside the turkey and can’t get out.” It was a chihuahua, in case you’re wondering, and the Butterball expert did manage to help the owners get the dog out safely.
Another inexperienced caller worried that her turkey wouldn’t come out of the oven because she figured it was going to rise like bread does.
One Butterball employee actually stayed on the line while her caller walked through a grocery store and painstakingly picked out ingredients for his Thanksgiving dinner.
More recently, a hotline employee was surprised to hear from a wife who came home to find the turkey floating in the tub while her husband gave the kids a bath. Believe it or not, because the turkey hadn’t been removed from the package, it was salvaged, but the kids complained about the chilly water.
Don’t feel bad if you have to call the Butterball hotline for assistance, though. Even President Bartlet knows when to call in the experts:
By the way, there’s also an option for those of you who prefer assistance in the form of written word: talkline@butterball.com. This year, between November 17 and November 24, they’ve also added a texting option.
