The Oddity Awards

Weird Things Happened Last Year...

Dear friends,
     It was the best of times, it was the weirdest of times. 
There were certainly some odd things that happened last year, and
now that we have a little perspective on 1996, maybe we should
look back.  After all, 1997 looks to be even stranger.  After
all, it looks like Michael Jackson will be announcing any day now
that he has the lead in the Broadway revival of 'Life With
Father'.  
     Special thanks this week to Peter Adler, Dale Frederickson
and Dan Butler.  And Thanks, of course, to Carol, for helping out
last week.  We've been laughing together for over 20 years now.  
Now, Back to the recent past as we present the 1996 awards...
     Have a fun week!


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Worst '96 Public Relations Mistakes
     Source: PR Newswire

Following is a list of the year's worst public relations gaffes
as reported by Fineman Associates Public Relations.

  1) America West Airlines: One of its flights was turned back in
     mid air to pick up the California Angels baseball team whose
     flight has been grounded. The passengers didn't seem to mind
     the delay and looked forward to sharing their plane with the
     Angels. That is until they were kicked off the plane to make
     room for the team.

  2) R.J. Reynolds Tobacco chairman Charles Harper: The chairman
     was asked about children and second-hand smoke. He responded
     that children don't like smoky rooms and they leave. When
     told that infants can't leave, Harper said, "At some point,
     they will learn to crawl." This statement brought outrage
     from the public.

  3) WPYX-FM, Latham, New York: The radio station was sued for
     $300,000 for airing the name and place of employment of the
     woman who won the "Ugliest Bride" contest organized by the
     station.

  4) Southwest Elementary School, Lexington, North Carolina:
     School officials charged a first-grade boy with sexual
     harassment for kissing a girl classmate.

  5) Joe Klein, Newsweek, CBS reporter, anonymous author: Klein
     lied to fellow journalists and the world when he denied
     being the author of the book "Primary Colors." Later, he
     admitted being the author and as a result got fired.

  6) Marge Schott, Cincinnati Reds baseball team owner: During
     the team's opener one of the empires collapsed and died of a
     heart attack in the first inning. Schott was quoted as
     saying: "Why are they calling the game? Why can't they play
     with just two empires?!"

  7) Mitsubishi Motor Manufacturing of America: The Equal
     Employment Opportunity Commission sued Mitsubishi for
     repeated violations of sexual harassment practices.
     Mitsubishi gave its employees a choice: picket (with pay)
     the EEOC office or spend the day in a sexual harassment
     workshop. More than 2,000 employees opted to join the
     parade. Their strategy backfired in the eyes of the public.

  8) American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers
     (ASCAP):  ASCAP sent out a letter to all Girl and Boy Scouts
     summer camps requesting that a fee be paid for the use of
     ASCAP's songs, which include nearly every song you've ever
     heard.  Some Scouts camps refused to pay and stopped all
     their campfire singing.  Thanks to national media exposure,
     ASCAP retracted their original intention.

  9) Nationwide Mutual Insurance, Columbus, Ohio: David Mears won
     the grand prize by submitting the best slogan in a contest
     sponsored by Nationwide. The prize: two Mercedes and a trip
     around the world. 
     However, Nationwide refused to hand Mears the prize,
     claiming it was all a joke. Mears sued the company and is
     now enjoying his around the world voyage.


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Esquire Magazine - Dubious Achievement Awards of 1996

CONGENIALITY AWARD WINNER -
     +++ Upset over the fact that Muhammad Ali was given the
     honor of lightning the Olympic flame, Joe Frasier was quoted
     as saying: "If I'd have been with him, I would have pushed
     him in the fire."

BAD ACTOR -
     +++ "(He) began sucking my toes and moaning, 'Feed me, feed
     me,'" said nursing student Christa Barke referring to what
     happened after she arrived at actor Kelsey Grammar's house.

WELCOME TO THE 19th CENTURY -
     +++ Italy's highest appeals court claims it's perfectly
     legal for a husband to beat his wife from time to time. A
     Sicilian man went free because he did not beat his wife on a
     daily basis.

POLITICAL DEBATE -
     +++ Lazarus Nzarayebany chewed off Levy Gwarda's lip and
     part of his beard during a heated argument. They are both
     members of the Zimbabwen Parliament.

EVEN MORE DISGUSTING THAN HIS MUSIC -
     +++ "I like to lick girls' sweaty armpits in the summer. The
     smell really turns me on, especially if they have hair,"
     said singer Iggy Pop in an interview with Rolling Stone
     magazine.

TRY NOT TO ACT GOOFY AROUND THEM -
     +++ Going to Disney amusement parks with the intention to
     pull Pluto's tail or squeeze Snow White's breasts may get
     you in trouble. Disney has inserted miniature cameras inside
     their characters' costumes.

THE THINKING MAN'S FIGHTER -
     +++ Boxer Mike Tyson told the media he now likes to read
     comic books. "When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all
     those deep books. That Tolstoy crap. People shouldn't read
     that stuff," Tyson told reporters.

PROBLEM CHILD -
     +++ Mikey Sproul is only six-years-old but his record is
     impressive: crashed the family car when he was three,
     accidentally burned the family's house and burned down his
     mother's home in Tampa, Florida.

POP GOES THE -
     +++ A man in New Jersey filed for divorce claiming his wife
     had several cybersex affairs with a man known as Weasel.

THIS LITTLE PIGGY WENT BOOM -
     +++ Trying to remove a callus, Bonnie Booth of Indiana fired
     a .410-gauge shotgun at her foot. [That'll do it...]

NOBODY KNOWS YOU WHEN YOU'RE DOWN AND OUT -
     +++ Princes Diana's credit card was rejected while trying to
     purchase two lipsticks worth $37.

PAPER OR PLASTIC? - 
     +++ Taleban leaders in Afghanistan have banned paper bags   
     in their effort to impose pure Islamic law on the country.
     "We respect paper, whether it is written on or not," said
     the Taleban administration's information minister. "We have
     announced that people should not use paper for bags or put
     paper on the garbage heap."  Shopkeepers in Kubul report
     that the decree has resulted in a run on toilet paper, as
     some Afghans are unsure how far the ban will be extended. 

IMPROVING HEALTH IN NEW YORK -
     +++ "It gives a poor image of the city and some of these
     people who run on the field are very large, very fat,
     actually," said New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani referring to
     those New York Yankee fans running onto the field during the
     World Series.

COOL RAP FROM THE ICE AGE -
     +++ 'Mistress of Time' was the name of a rap album released
     by a 121-year-old French woman.

A REAL HANDICAP -
     +++ Five friends were playing a round of golf in Fife,
     Scotland. One of them, Jimmy Hogg, died of a heart attack
     midway through their game.  The remaining four men continued
     and finished their game without him.

OVERBITE -
     +++ As a McDonald's employee Cathy Shepard was entitled to
     only six chicken McNuggets for her lunch break. She was
     fired when her managers found out she's been eating eight.

AND WE THOUGHT THEY WERE JUST WASTING THE MONEY -
     +++ $100 million since 1991 was unsuccessfully spent by the
     CIA in an effort to oust Saddam Hussein of Iraq.

REACH OUT AND TOUCH SOMEONE? -
     Florida State Senator John McKay resigned from the Senate
     Regulated Industries Committee, which oversees such
     monopolies as the phone company, after his wife charged in a
     divorce proceeding that McKay had been having an affair with
     the lobbyist for the Sprint telephone company.

     [ And he was only paying her 10 cents a minute... ]

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