The song “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” was performed by Thurl Ravenscroft, who was also the voice of Tony the Tiger.

Sorry about getting this one to you at the end of the Christmas season.  You’ll just have to strike up conversation about Frosted Flakes, and try to work this one in backwards.

And one more thing…

Mr. Grinch…?

So Grinch was his last name?  I guess that makes sense.  His first name was “The.”

Until the early 1930s, the only day of rest in America was typically the Sabbath (for Christians Sunday, for Jews Saturday).  During the Depression there was a demand for “sharing the work,” which resulted in codes of fair competition, which created the 40-hour, 5-day work week.  These codes were adopted in the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933.  This act was later deemed unconstitutional, but the practice remained.  In 1938 the Fair Labor Standards Act renewed the 40-hour week’s basis in law by stipulating that hours worked in excess of 40 were to be compensated at one and one-half times the normal rate.

Now I finally understand the lyrics of that one song…  “Everybody’s working for the weekend (thanks to the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933, which, although unconstitutional, created the weekend that we are working for)!”

It’s in parentheses because only the background singers sing it.

Often when a radio station changes ownership or format, they use Christmas songs, often out of season, to capture listeners’ interests.

Then the listener can make an active decision to avoid that particular station.

The mullet is undoubtedly one of the most painfully enchanting haircuts of all time.  There are hundreds of epithets for the mullet: “Business in the front, party in the back,” “The Tennessee Top Hat,” “The Kentucky Waterfall,” and my favorite “The Missouri Compromise,” to name just a few.  But the Oxford English Dictionary credits the term “mullet” to the Beastie Boys, and their 1994 song “Mullet Head.”  Just recently, in attempt to thwart westernization, the Iranian government issued a catalog of acceptable male haircuts.  The mullet has officially been banned.  Hmm… Iran actually got that one right.  Maybe we should try to thwart westernization too… 

NOT! 

The mullet is proof of the duality of the human soul. 

The earliest known recorded song was made possible through the phonoautograph, which was a recording device invented in 1857 by Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville.  A recording of a French folksong, “Au Clair de la Lune” has been dated to April 9, 1860, making it the earliest recognizable recording of a human voice.  Here it is:

http://www.firstsounds.org/sounds/1860-Scott-Au-Clair-de-la-Lune.mp3

Wow.  That sounds really good.  I’m going to turn up the bass in the car and bump that jam!!!

Somniloquy is better known as sleep-talking.  Sleep-talking is very common in young children and decreases in prevalence with age.  I found this interesting: people who speak sign language have been known to sign in their sleep.  Sleep-talking is so boring compared to sleep-signing. If you’re sharing a bed with someone who’s sleep talking, you can just play some music on your headphones and ignore them.  But if you’re sharing a bed with someone who is sleep-signing, you can put on headphones and imagine that they’re rapping.

To me, an orchestra, symphony, and philharmonic mean the same thing.  But that’s because they don’t mean very much.  I need to be more cultured, so I learned the differences between the groups.  In today’s terms, an orchestra is a musical ensemble that includes a percussion, wind, and string section.  A chamber orchestra is a smaller orchestra.  A symphony orchestra (or simply, “symphony” for the cool kids) has 4 sections—strings, brass, woodwinds, and percussion.  An orchestra can be considered a symphony if the group has enough instrumentation to play an entire symphony (a longer piece with a bunch of other boring stipulations).  A philharmonic is basically another word for a symphony.  If a town already has a symphony, the new group will often distinguish itself by adopting the title of philharmonic.  It’s really great to learn these differences and all, but I don’t feel more inclined to attend one of these in particular.  I just want to know which one’s the shortest.  Not because I’m bored, but because brevity is a by-product of vigor.  Okay, it’s because I’m bored.

This is really stupid.  Just warning you…

But today, I learned that there used to be another member of Chuck E. Cheese’s animatronic band—you know, those creepy robots at the Chuck E. Cheese restaurants.  Well, there used to be a character named Crusty the Cat.  Crusty was replaced by Mr. Munch (the purple pizza eater). 

Now the band consists of Chuck E. Cheese, Helen Henny, Jasper T. Jowls, Pasqually (the singing chef), and Mr. Munch.

Hmm, I wonder why they kicked Crusty the Cat out of the band.  Oh, wait, I know.  Because the idea of a crusty cat is disgusting.  Not to mention, I doubt parents want their children playing around the said crusty cats.

Worst marketing ever.

When I’m watching a movie and a character dials a 555 phone number, it always kind of takes me out of the movie.  555 was officially set aside for movies in 1973, after the production companies started getting complaints from innocent people who were being harassed by a constant ringing telephone.  For example, that song “867-5309/Jenny” led to a bunch of (drunk) people calling the number and asking for Jenny.  But the 555 is only restricted in North America, as Gary Larson, creator of the cartoon The Far Side, once drew a 555 number which people could dial to prank call Satan.  Well, in Australia, the 555 number isn’t a fake one, so some guy tried to sue him, because he got a ton of calls from people wanting to speak to Satan.  I guess the Number of the Beast is now 555. And Satan is Australian, which gives “Down Under” a whole new meaning. 

This is truly the most worthless fact to date.  But I am doing it anyway.  Get ready to have your face melted.  You know those FreeCreditReport.com commercials with that guy singing about various lame jobs he works?  Well, the guy’s name is Eric Violette, a Canadian singer.  In the United States, however, we are not hearing his real voice.  His Canadian-French accent is so strong that we dub his voice over with a more American sounding singer.  This is such a useless fact.  But for some reason I feel like this will come up in conversation more than anything else I’ve learned.  What a world.

Most of us are familiar with Big Ben, one of the most famous landmarks in the United Kingdom.  Peter Pan flew by it (why does Peter Pan keep coming up whenever I try to explain a fact?— sorry). What I didn’t realize was that Big Ben referred to the massive bell inside the clock tower of the Palace of Westminster in London, not the clock itself.  23 feet in diameter, the clock first started ticking on May 31, 1859.  Behind the clock face, we find Big Ben (officially known as the Great Bell).  There are a couple theories behind the nickname.  One is that it’s named after English boxer Ben Caunt, but the most commonly accepted theory is that it’s named after Sir Benjamin Hall, a politician and civil engineer who oversaw the installation of the bell.  There have been instances since its creation, when the clock tower had to slip under the radar.  For 2 years during World War I, the bells were muted and the clock was darkened at night to thwart German zeppelin attacks.  In World War II, the clock was again darkened so it wouldn’t guide the Blitz pilots.  In 1978, the clock was again dimmed following an unexplained infestation of werewolves (of London).