Sybil Bruncheon's "Aren't People Funny?"... The Forlornly Almost-Famous...
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Top row – left to right…
1) Kiki Karloff - distant great grandniece twice removed from Boris Karloff: She became famous (among Iowans!) as the Vegan Jams & Jellies champion at state and county fairs across the state. Her specialties involved taking any green vegetables and fruits and turning them into nutritious and faintly appetizing spreadables for her own gluten and flavor-free pastry “Non-Bakeables”! Her latest foray into licensing?... a facial mask, exfoliator, and make-up line made out of kale and peas… two unfortunate side-effects; an almost permanent green tinge to her users’ complexions… and severe gas…
2) Skip Colgate - nephew, endlessly removed, through court interventions from his ancestor William Colgate (January 25, 1783 – March 25, 1857) founder of Colgate soaps and personal care products: Skip decided, after several unfortunate cases of tooth-extraction, often involuntary and during tricycle and dunking booth accidents, to develop the actual packaging of toothpaste. He felt that it could be more easily stacked in rectangular cardboard boxes. Sadly, the famously fresh Colgate flavor was adversely affected by damp, brown corrugated paper pulp… though it WAS more easily squeezed… if one didn’t mind minty hands…
3) Wanda Wright – possible(?) great grand-niece of Wilbur and Orville Wright, pioneers of aviation and the airplane: Wanda had attended the Muriel Purt Academy of Fashion and Tasteful Accessorizing. After graduating with a straight C- average (with an emphasis on the word “average”) Wanda tried to honor her famous ancestors with a line of “Fly-able Fashions”. She designed an entire Fall line of flowing capes, big-sleeved cable-sweaters, chiffon trench-coats, helium-filled puffer parkas, and winged hats and shoes. Sadly, during her first outdoor fashion review, while modeling her own “Let’s Fly Away Chapeau”, a passing breeze lifted her off the literal “runway” and dropped her 40 yards away… into oncoming traffic. The critic from Vogue snarked that it was a “FALL” fashion review after all…
4) Clint Chanel – claimant (unsuccessfully!) to the Chanel fortune: Clint spent most of his college years at the Hillsboro Institution of Advanced Pet-Grooming in partying, hosting marathon “keggers”, and annoying small dogs… and possibly rodents. He was introduced to the world of fashion by his older sister who happened to be a roommate of Wanda Wright at the Muriel Pert Academy (see above). Wondering out loud if there might be connection (and a lucrative one at that!) to a “Coco Chanel” he heard about, Clint gave up his animal grooming major and explored textile design and manufacture… first with animal clippings, lint, and dust bunnies and finally on himself. He was particularly focused on turning himself into a bouclé jacket… but without the itch factor. It seemed like a brilliant idea, and a solution for all the women who adored the aesthetic beauty of bouclé but were allergic to it… Unfortunately, poor Clint was mocked by his fraternity brothers and Lacrosse mates as being a “big mo”, and he gave up fashion innovation completely. His idea was later stolen and patented by Beth-Ann Versachi, a bearded lady in the Hepplemeyer Traveling Novelty Carnival. She netted about $111.89 from it… as wearable placemats… for picnics.
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5) Billy-Joe Tell – probably no relation to William Tell, folk hero of the Swiss legend and much-satirized cartoon overture. Billy-Joe nevertheless would sit in open spaces during lunch-breaks from his office-drudgery to invite other office workers in Akron, Ohio to throw fruit at his head for a small fee. He would charge them $5.00 for three chances with any fruit of their choice… tragically, while he was temporarily distracted by an agent for clowns and dunking booth careers, a semi-professional pitcher from the Toledo Mudhens hurled an over-ripe pineapple at Billy-Joe… he was killed instantly, hideously pricked and juiced to death.
6) Oscar Mayer – (NO! REALLY!)… this Oscar Mayer claimed that he was somehow related to someone in the company and spent weeks camped out on the corporate headquarters steps in Chicago trying to get an appointment in the marketing division. Riffing on the company’s brilliant early idea of the Wiener Mobile (a giant hot dog and bun vehicle) driving around the country to major sporting and social events, THIS Oscar offered (for a fee!) to simply walk around the country promoting Oscar Mayer pure beef hot dogs. He suggested that he could invite himself to ball parks, shopping center openings, highway ribbon-cuttings, and 3rd grade birthday picnics… It seemed like a great idea, and the board of directors began to actually draw up the contract (with INDEED a hefty fee!) until the Summer of 1983… when an entire batch of over 3000 hot dogs was discovered with pubic hair inside the frankfurters! The recall nearly bankrupted the company, and it took years to recover its fine reputation. They failed again with their short-lived mustard cologne, “Je m’appelle Dijon”…
7) Doug Von Trapp – pretender to the SOUND OF MUSIC Von Trapp legacy: Doug (later renaming himself Gahnef Von Trapp) made a marginal living claiming to be “the Unknown Von Trapp Child” at Vaudeville houses and on the burlesque comedy and carny circuits. Prancing about in baggy lederhosen and giant floppy clown-shoes he would yodel popular Patty Page songs in a screechy tenor while comically pickpocketing audience members he would invite onstage for pranks. After several years of struggle and inspired by the drag-example of Milton Berle on early television, Ganef-Doug changed his name and his costume to a female Von Trapp; Streudel Von Trapp, “the one with the eating disorder”. Struedel would still yodel, pickpocket and prank, but now she would conclude each performance by eating massive quantities of Austrian foods often brought by the audience; sacher tortes, cream puffs, sausages, chocolates, bratwursts, pots of cabbage soup, and on and on! Though now famous and fairly well-off, “Struedel” eventually weighed over 612 pounds and was a full diabetic. His career ended a week before he was to appear on the Ed Sullivan Show in NYC along with the McGuire Sisters and Señor Wences, when he exploded while eating his tenth plate of Wienerschnitzel… the police were convinced it was the lingonberry jam that caused the fireball.
8) Fabrizio Chesterfield – (no known relation to anyone famous): Young Fabrizio was raised mostly on the streets of Detroit’s Brightmoor ghetto. He started smoking at four, and drinking at 8, and distilling and distributing his own chocolate milk vodka at 14. His brilliance with chemicals and the process of making various household products inspired him to invent his own air-freshener. He took an assortment of alcohols he’d brewed, and then substituted the cigarettes for Binaca breath-sprays and… well… you get the idea. Sadly, the name “Fabreze” was too close to “Febreze”… but they DID buy his idea for a wall-mounted plug-in… for about $200.00… and change. He spent it all on Aqua-Velva.
9) Margaret Nayvocks – claiming to be the rightful (but wronged!) heiress to the famous Magnavox television and appliance empire, Maggie became a runaway at 17 to NYC’s East Village and styled herself as an electrical “event artist”. She’d plug herself into a nightclub’s wall sockets with a series of taped together extension cords she’d shoplifted from going-out-of-business hardware stores along the Bowery, and then pole dance barefoot while haranguing the audience to spray her with seltzer bottles. It was during a particularly stormy night on Avenue C at the Caffé Pathetique Lounge, when she was simultaneously hosed, plugged in, and struck by lightning that her hair-braids suddenly became a fabulous TV antenna and people could watch the finals of the Poka-Ma-Hola Bowling Finals on the old Magnavox over the bar. The bowling match completely distracted everyone’s attention from her gyrations on the pole. The crowd only returned to her when Maggie’s head turned into a burning haystack.
Bottom row – left to right…
10) Debbie Galileo - great, great, great, great… oh lots of greats… grand daughter of Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642) one of the earliest developers of the first telescope: As a tribute to her ultra-famous ancestor, Debbie has spent most of her life exploring alternatives to the traditional telescope.
11) Fred McMahon – claiming to be the brother of famous infomercial and TV-Sidekick yuck-meister Ed McMahon, Fred tried to glom onto Hollywood’s b-list at vegan barbecues, topless Weight-Watchers meetings, and backyard puppet-show fund-raisers for paraplegic pet charities. It was only when Johnny Carson, the great star himself, mistook Fred for Ed during a Tournament of Roses Parade that all Hell broke loose. Johnny called up his pals in the Rat Pack, specifically Frank Sinatra and took out a contract on him.
12) Jackie Koostow – next door neighbor to a woman who claimed to be the college roommate of the cleaning lady that Jacque Cousteau hired to keep his ship, the Calypso… um… shipshape: Jackie had been a child champion at the swimming and diving club at Kootchie-Koomie Summer camp and had dozens of medals and ribbons for her wins, but as she grew older, her competition began to out-race her. She didn’t seem to mind. She spent more time on her collection of aquariums and raising her exotic fish. Around the time she entered high school, she watched a special on TV called “The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau”. She became obsessed with his weekly adventures and the developing science of Oceanography, and she wrote to his production company to apply for a job. Amazingly, Jacques Cousteau actually responded himself… he suggested that she come to their central offices and have lunch with him and the board of directors. He had some ideas for the expanding options that were coming his way; magazine interviews, important press conferences with political leaders, and appearances on network television! That specifically was where she might fit in! Can you imagine? Little Jackie Koostow! On television!! Well, she made the trip (all expenses paid!) to Cousteau’s home! And she sat with all the people who worked with him on his expeditions and projects… and they asked her about her life and background… and then… they suggested that she take all her experience and talent with swimming, aquariums, exotic fish and turn it all into a dream come true! And so, on prime time television, in scientific symposiums, and in Senate hearings and at state dinners with the President and foreign dignitaries, Little Jackie Cousteau (the spelling of her name was easily changed!) became “The Fabulous Fish Lady”!... her talent was to do impressions of the world’s most rare and endangered fish! And in classrooms across the country, children everywhere cheered her as their beloved “Guppy Girl”!!
13) Nick Roomenefski – long-lost (according to him!) heir to the Russian throne: Mr. Roomenefki, after a slight blow to the head during a Summer camp dodge-ball tournament, began claiming that he was not only Russian but also had survived the basement executions of Czar Nicholas II and his family in 1918. Okay… so firstly, the Roomenefskis had immigrated to NYC from Bulgaria as a nice Jewish tailoring family… in 1883! Secondly, young Nick was born in 1968 in Cedar Sinai Hospital!... with witnesses!!... and without a Russian accent!... which he only managed to come up with 15 minutes after the bump on his head at age ten… and NOT a very convincing accent at that!... and lastly; this whole notion of royalty only occurred to Nick after a tv showing of the film THE WIZARD OF OZ on an NBC affiliate station in Queens, NY. Poor impressionable Nick raided his mom’s bathroom for her hot rollers and her kitchen for a pair of oven mitts, and… well, the photo from the local children’s welfare agency says it all… On the other hand, Nick did rule over the children in his neighborhood with an even and compassionate hand, and, during his lengthy and peaceful reign, a new jungle-gym and swing set were allocated to their local playground.
14) Hiram Hires – self-styled inventor of the bottle-opener.
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