1. She’s the Sheriff

She’s the Sheriff (1987-89) was a major slice of humble pie for Suzanne Somers. After spending several years on magazine covers and posters as a result of her success on Three’s Company, she found herself almost blacklisted after a salary dispute. Not only was she shown the door, the Three’s Company legal team also invoked a “cease and desist” order that essentially prevented Somers from accepting any roles that even remotely resembled Chrissy Snow. The major networks were reluctant to get involved in a potentially sticky situation, and the series offers that had been flooding her manager’s office were quietly rescinded. Desperate for work, Somers signed on for She’s the Sheriff, in which her character inherits Lakes County, Nevada’s most important law enforcement position after the death of her husband.

2. Small Wonder

Small Wonder always seems to rate tops on “bottom” lists, but the show had a four-year run (1985-89), so someone must have been watching it. Tiffany Brissette was suitably mechanical in her portrayal of Vicki, the Voice Input Child Identicant built by her robotics engineer father. Much of the humor was based on the fact that Vicki was incapable of emotion and interpreted most commands literally (a schtick Get Smart’s Hymie the Robot had already done to death). Tiffany Brissette eventually left the business and took up distance running. She has successfully placed in many marathons over the years, and is now in nursing school.

3. Out of This World

Out of This World aired from 1987-1991 and was one of many “aliens on Earth” sitcoms of that era. In this case, 13-year-old Evie Garland was the offspring of an Earthling mother (Saturday Night Fever’s Donna Pescow) and an unseen father from the planet Antareus. Evie communicated with dad via an illuminated cube similar to those decorative lights available at Spencer Gifts. Dad’s voice was provided by Burt Reynolds, who was in the midst of a “between Smokey and the Bandit Part 3 and Evening Shade” career lull.

4. Madame’s Place

Madame’s Place only ran for one season, but it seemed much longer because, unlike most sitcoms, it was filmed to air five episodes per week. The star of the show was ventriloquist Wayland Flowers’ sarcastic diva puppet, Madame. The series used an arsenal of attention-getting devices: Madame’s bawdy humor, celebrity guest stars on the talk show-within-a-show, and a scantily clad Landers sister, but it was usually banished to a late-night time slot in most markets and was never able to develop a large audience base.

5. Mama’s Family

Mama’s Family started out on NBC but was canceled in 1984 after one season. Lorimar Telepictures saw some potential in the series, however, and the show returned in syndicated form from 1986 through 1990. Rue McClanahan and Betty White were regulars during the NBC season but were unavailable for the syndicated version thanks to some other show they got involved with called The Golden Girls. Mama’s Family was actually inspired by this classic skit on The Carol Burnett Show; it was supposed to be a one-off, but was so well-received that it turned into a recurring bit:

6. Charles in Charge

Who didn’t want Charles in Charge of them? The answer is CBS apparently, since the network canned the series after one season in 1985. But Scott Baio still had enough of the teen idol vibe left over from his Happy Days stint that he was able to carry this show for an additional four years in syndication. The Pembroke Family, which had employed Charles as a babysitter during the show’s first season, moved to Seattle and sublet their home to the Powells. The Powell patriarch was in the military and consequently spent most of his time away from home, which gave Charles an excuse to continue to live downstairs rent-free. Apart from giving Meg Ryan one of her earliest TV appearances, Charles in Charge also afforded Baio the opportunity to get his feet wet as a director (which he did under the name “Scott Vincent Baio” in order to assert his Seriousness Credentials.)
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Let’s see who is brave enough to admit that they watched She’s the Sheriff just to see Suzanne in uniform, or that they know all the words to the Charles in Charge theme song.

1. The First Hamburger Chain

McDonald’s, Burger King and that girl with the braids are better known, but they were all latecomers to the game. Walter Anderson and Billy Ingram partnered up to employ Henry Ford’s assembly line model in a restaurant setting. They opened their first White Castle in Wichita, Kansas, in 1921, a time when Americans were skeptical about the wholesomeness of ground beef. Anderson put the complete “making of” story in full view of the customer; they watched as a cook formed the ground beef into a patty and placed it on the grill. The stark white and shiny chrome theme in the building’s décor was also a subliminal hint as to the purity of the food. Sales at that first restaurant were so overwhelming that they soon opened more White Castles (each with the same interior and exterior architecture), first in Kansas and then in Nebraska and Minnesota.

2. The First Social Security Card

John David Sweeney, Jr., of Westchester County, New York, was the person who was issued Social Security Number 055-09-0001 in November 1936. When the Social Security Board first started their plan to issue numbers, they worked in conjunction with the Postal Service. SS-5 forms were sent out to employers across the country for their employees to fill out. The completed forms were either mailed or returned to the local post office in person, and then a Social Security Number would be assigned and a card typed up. The first 1,000 cards were mailed out simultaneously, so there is no way to accurately determine who actually physically received the first Social Security Card. The records for those 1,000 cards were sent to the main processing center in Baltimore, where they began the process of becoming a permanent file in which the number holder’s earnings could be recorded. The head of the Division of Accounting Operations pulled the top form off of the pile (which was John Sweeney’s) and declared it to be the official first Social Security Record. Sweeney died at the age of 61 and never collected any Social Security benefits, but his widow did until she passed away in 1982.

3. Automobile Insurance

Gilbert J. Loomis, a mechanic in Westfield, Massachusetts, built his own one-cylinder steam-powered car in 1896. He had an eye on starting his own automotive manufacturing company, but in order to get the ball rolling, he needed to drive his prototype over unmarked macadam roads to meet potential investors in various states. The potential for damage to his auto, oblivious pedestrians, and horse-drawn carriages during such extended journeys was huge, so he approached several insurance companies to purchase some sort of coverage for his vehicle. One company president expressed the feeling of many in the industry when he stated, “I’m not underwriting a gasoline can on wheels!” On October 20, 1897, Travelers Insurance took a chance on Loomis and sold him an automobile policy for $7.50 (about $190 in today’s dollars) which provided $1,000 in liability coverage.

4. Class Name 101

The first recorded use of an introductory class being designated as “101” was in a University of Buffalo course catalog dated 1929. However, it wasn’t until the early 1930s—when students started regarding a university degree as a means to a better job and schools added more specialized classes to their curriculum—that universities in the U.S. started using digits to identify their courses. Students were also traveling further afield after graduation in search of work, so it became important for a potential employer to be able to compare candidates: Was a passing grade in Cost Accounting 203 at Kent State the same as one in Business Accounting 4 at the University of Michigan?

Eventually, colleges started using a more uniform three-digit designation, in which the first digit indicated the academic level (1=Freshman, 2=Sophomore, etc.). The second digit usually represented a department (English, Science, etc.) and the third the level of the class within the department. These were not hard and fast rules, and still vary from school to school. However, as the three-digit system became more commonplace, it seemed that “101” always represented a basic beginning course, no matter what the discipline. By the late 1960s, the phrase was starting to enter the vernacular at large, outside of the collegiate realm.

5. Real Person in a Feminine Hygiene Ad

Even during the scandalous Roaring 20s, when women were bobbing their hair and baring their arms, products for “that time of the month” were advertised only very discreetly in women’s magazines. And until 1928, those ads featured line drawings or pastel paintings of females, never real women. But that taboo ended when photographer Edward Steichen sold a photo he’d shot of model and Vogue cover girl Lee Miller to the Kotex Company. Miller’s modeling career in the U.S. was essentially kaput thanks to the scandalous placement of her photograph, and she fled to Paris where she studied photography and eventually became a renowned photographer in her own right.

6. Telephone Entertainment

Which came first, 1-800-PARTYON or 976-BABE? Actually, when telephone entertainment started out, it was geared toward lonely people seeking spiritual fulfillment rather than frisky young singles. On Thanksgiving Eve 1955, Rev. R.R. Schwambach, the pastor of Bethel Tabernacle Church in Evansville, Indiana, rented a grey, typewriter-sized machine from Indiana Bell. He recorded a 43-second non-denominational prayer and hooked the gadget up to the church’s telephone. An article in the November 23, 1955, edition of the Evansville Courier printed the phone number for “Dial-a-Prayer” and explained that folks feeling the need of comfort and inspiration could call at any hour, day or night. Rev. Schwambach thought he’d leave the machine up for the duration of the holiday weekend, but the service proved to be so popular (the phone company reported a backlog of some 5,000 calls and ordered the church to install additional lines) that he continued to record a new message every day. Similar services started popping up first at other churches in Indiana, then across the country.

7. Mainstream Use of “Gay” to Mean Homosexual

It’s not quite clear when “gay” began to mean more than just happy. As early as the 18th century, the word was used to describe a person or place of looser-than-the-standard morals. “Gay Paree” and “gay divorcee” were common phrases of the time, which described the uninhibited fun had in the City of Lights and by recently unentangled folks. By the 1800s, a “gay house” had become a synonym for a brothel. In the early 1920s, both Gertrude Stein and Noel Coward had used the word “gay” to imply a homosexual in their prose, but the references were pretty much lost on anyone outside of the literary intelligentsia of that time. Mainstream America was formally introduced to the term in 1938, courtesy of the film Bringing up Baby. In one scene, Cary Grant is virtually being held hostage by Katharine Hepburn, who has sent all of his clothes to the cleaners. She provides him with one of her frilly dressing gown to wear, and when he later answers a knock at the door in that garb, he explains to the startled visitor, “I just went gay all of a sudden!”

8. Wet T-Shirt Contest

The first wet T-shirt contest wasn’t held in some tropical sunny clime; it took place in January at a ski resort in Idaho. In 1969, a sales rep for a company called K2 hired a filmmaker to shoot some footage of professional skiers “hotdogging” on the slopes in Sun Valley. The 12-minute film was used as a promotional tool to sell K2’s new line of skis, and the distributors loved it. They clamored for a new film the next year, and the next. In January 1971, production on the third film was wrapping up when a K2 rep informed the filmmaker that the following week was “airline week” at Sun Valley, and gave him 200 K2 T-shirts to give away to the stewardesses (as they were still called at the time) who would be attending. Officials got together and decided to award a prize to whomever looked the “best” in a T-shirt.

After a few rounds of drinks, they decided to add a degree of “difficulty” to the contest—the ladies would have to dive into the resort’s heated pool clad in the shirt, and extra points would be awarded if she did so sans brassiere. Not surprisingly, the event was a roaring success. K2 staged a similar event later that year at the Red Onion in Aspen, and that time Playboy had photographers on the sidelines. Many of the participants were later featured in a full-color spread.
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Have you ever wondered about the origin of some mundane or ordinary (or even unusual or disturbing) item or concept? My equally inquiring mind is at your service!

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31 Unbelievable High School Mascots

1. Bill Cosby

Cosby Show fans will see a lot of Dr. Heathcliff Huxtable in Bill Cosby’s biography. In 1956, Cosby dropped out of high school and joined the Navy. While he trained as a medical corpsman, he also earned his high school diploma via a correspondence course. He was assigned for a time at Bethesda Naval Hospital, helping rehabilitate wounded Korean War veterans. He also excelled in basketball and track, and toured nationally with the Navy teams. When he left the Navy, it was with a scholarship to Temple University in hand.

2. James Doohan

James Doohan, Star Trek’s Scotty, was just 19 years old when he enlisted as a gunner in the Royal Canadian Artillery. He studied diligently and had worked his way up to the rank of Command Post Officer by the time he was sent to Normandy as part of the D-Day invasion. In command of 120 men in the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division, Doohan sustained machine gun wounds to his chest (a metal cigarette case saved his life), leg and hand. The hand wound resulted in a partial amputation of his right middle finger, an injury that was visible (despite his attempts to conceal it) in several episodes of Star Trek.

3. Ernest Borgnine

Who would’ve guessed that the conniving, wise-cracking Lt. Commander McHale (of McHale’s Navy fame) had actually served in the U.S. Navy? Ernest Borgnine enlisted not once, but twice: his first tour of duty was from 1935 to 1941, during which time he served aboard the USS Lamberton. When the United States entered World War II, he re-upped and was promoted to gunner’s mate first class. He was assigned to the USS Sylph, which patrolled for U-Boats and also tested new equipment.

4. Brian Keith

The benevolent (and wealthy!) uncle any kid wanted to call their own in the late 1960s was Family Affair’s Uncle Bill, played by Brian Keith. Keith joined the Marines after graduating from high school, and received an Air Medal after serving as a rear gunner in several actions on Rabal in the Pacific Theater during World War II.

5. Dennis Weaver

Dennis Weaver has carved out several niches in TV-land – he won an Emmy for playing Chester on Gunsmoke, he played Marshall Sam McCloud as part of the NBC Mystery Movie wheel series, and he was pursued by a faceless truck driver in the classic made-for-TVer Duel. He joined the Navy right out of high school and served as an F4U Fighter Pilot during World War II. When the war ended, he enrolled at the University of Oklahoma where he excelled in track and just missed qualifying for the 1948 Olympic team.

6. Ed McMahon

Ed McMahon will forever be remembered as Johnny Carson’s second banana on TV, but let the record show that he bested Johnny in terms of military service. Ed dropped out of Boston College when Pearl Harbor was attacked and joined the Marines with hopes of becoming a fighter pilot. He went through the necessary training and worked as a flight instructor for two years in Pensacola before finally getting his orders for the Pacific fleet in 1945. His orders were cancelled, however, when the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. McMahon was called back to active duty during the Korean War, where he flew unarmed single-engine spotter planes.
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These are obviously just a handful of famous veterans. Please feel free to share others in the comments.

1. Leatherface

Portions of the classic horror film The Texas Chainsaw Massacre were based on the crimes of serial killer Ed Gein, but the trademark Leatherface mask was inspired by a far more personal (and equally grisly) experience. Writer/director Tobe Hooper had a doctor friend who’d once confided to him that, while a pre-med student, he’d sneaked into the morgue and harvested the skin from the face of a cadaver to make a Halloween mask. Bob Burns, the movie’s art director, took several of Leatherface’s props home with him after filming wrapped, including one of the three original “killing” masks, which he mounted on a Styrofoam head and sprayed with a transparent sealant. He kept the head in a shoebox in his closet for many years before selling it to a friend, who then auctioned it on eBay for an undisclosed sum. The successful bidder was a horror film fanatic who now proudly displays the mask in his home in a specially built air-tight case.

2. Guy Fawkes

British actor James Purefoy was the original freedom fighter in the 2005 film V for Vendetta, but he quit the project after a few weeks because of the Guy Fawkes mask required for the role. Not only did he find it hot and uncomfortable, as filming progressed he realized that he would never be seen onscreen without it. His own face would be completely incognito throughout the picture, which is a bitter pill for any actor to swallow. “Even Spiderman gets to take his mask off once in a while,” he complained. Hugo Weaving replaced him and earned a Best Actor nomination from the Australian Film Institute for his work.

3. Robin

The Lone Ranger-style mask that “Robin” wore on TV’s Batman exposed more of his face on-camera, which meant extra work for actor Burt Ward. Batman’s cowl was concealing enough that a stuntman could easily step in for Adam West during vigorous fight scenes. But Burt had to roll with most of the punches thrown his way, as a stunt double would be immediately noticeable without a lot of extra (read: expensive) editing. Luckily Ward had a black belt in karate and had previously worked as a professional figure skater, so he not only had the moves, but also a high pain threshold.

4. Ghostface

The “Ghostface” mask from the film Scream only debuted 13 years ago, but since that time it has consistently ranked right up there with Frankenstein and Dracula in terms of sales every Halloween. Even though Ghostface made its big screen debut in 1996, the actual original mask was created back in 1991 by Tony Gardner of Alterian Effects (the same studio responsible for the ghoulish make-up in Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video).

5. Darth Vader

When the evil Darth Vader was finally unmasked in Return of the Jedi, the face revealed was not that of British bodybuilder David Prowse, who’d worn the costume for the first three films. It was actor Sebastian Shaw, whom George Lucas allegedly chose because he looked more “paternal.” Prowse claims, however, it was to keep his face off screen (even though the villain’s mug was covered with disfiguring make-up) to discourage him from negotiating a higher salary for future films.

6. Halloween

Halloween, like most indie horror movies, was filmed on a shoestring budget, with precious little money available for expensive props. Back in the 1960s, a particular episode of Star Trek required the studio’s prop department to make a death mask of Captain Kirk (William Shatner). Once that episode was in the can, some bean counter at Paramount decided to capitalize on the cult popularity of Star Trek and authorized a Halloween mask to be manufactured and available in stores. Of course, by the time the Halloween propmaster was scouring shops for discounted scary items, the Shatner mask was on the 99-cent rack. Spray paint it white, cut the eye holes a little larger and voilà – the perfect murder mask for Michael Myers.

1. Candy corn has been around since the late 1800s. At that time, there was no air conditioning, and even electric fans were a rare luxury. Beginning in March each year, men worked over steaming kettles slurring together sugar, water and corn syrup. Butter crème was added for texture, and marshmallow to give the candy a softer bite. Men carrying 45 lb. buckets of the hot mixture would then walk slowly backwards, pouring the candy into the kernel-shaped molds. Three passes were necessary, one for each color. Six days per week, 10 hours per day, for a weekly salary of just over $5.
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2. At the Spangler Candy Company factory, as the run of one Dum-Dum flavor is close to completion in the factory, a second flavor is set up for the next run. Rather than shut down to clean out the flavor vats and equipment, Spangler made “Mystery Flavor” pops out of the combination of flavors—the tail end of the old, and the beginning of the new.
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3. M&M’s actually stands for “Mars & Murrie’s,” the last names of the candy’s founders, Forrest Mars Sr. & William F. R. Murrie. (Now you know.)
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4. Necco Wafers are made by the same company that produces Conversation Hearts for Valentine’s Day.
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5. Canadians are less possessive about their candy, apparently; in the Great White North, those peanut butter cups are simply called “Reese,” not “Reese’s.”
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6. The Snickers candy bar was named after a racehorse owned by Frank Mars (of the Mars candy family).
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7. It didn’t become a Halloween tradition for parents to have their children’s candy inspected and X-rayed until 1975. The previous year, a Texas father in quest of insurance money deliberately gave his own son a poisoned Pixy Stix. Until his plan was uncovered, however, no one knew exactly where the tainted candy had come from.

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From Milt to Soup

He was born Milton Supman to parents who had a habit of bestowing nicknames on their offspring. Milt’s older brothers had been dubbed “Hambone” and “Chicken Bone,” so when he came along he was unofficially christened “Soup Bone.” Soup Bone was eventually shortened to “Soupy,” and when he got his first professional job as a disc jockey he adopted “Hines” as his surname. As he gained popularity, management was worried that “Hines” sounded too much like Heinz, a company that sold soup. Soupy forestalled any potential conflict of interest entanglements by changing his last name to “Sales.”

White Fang

Soupy originally created the character of White Fang (later known as the meanest dog in all of Dee-troit) when he was in the Navy. Stationed aboard the USS Randall, he’d put together an onboard entertainment show broadcast via the ship’s PA system. Someone had an LP of The Hound of the Baskervilles, and Soupy used a sound effect on that record of a dog’s growl as the “voice” of White Fang. Soupy continued to use that growl after he left the Navy and landed a spot on WXYZ-TV in Detroit with the show that eventually evolved into Lunch with Soupy. Sound effects at that time were all provided by vinyl records, and it was the responsibility of the Electronic Transcription person to have all the records cued up and ready to play. One afternoon, the ET frantically mouthed down from his booth to stagehand Clyde Adler “I can’t find the record!” Adler, whose right arm encased in an elbow-length glove fashioned from an old winter coat served as White Fang on-camera, spontaneously uttered gutteral “Ruh-O-Row-O-Ruh” noises while manipulating the puppet. This new version of White Fang was an immediate hit, and added a new dimension to Soupy’s interaction with the character, since Adler (who was promoted from stagehand to puppeteer) could alter his grunts and growls to “reply” appropriately to Soupy’s dialogue.

X-Rated Soup

The atmosphere on Soupy’s set was relaxed, to say the least. The crew did their best to throw the boss off-guard, especially in the days when the show was broadcast live. One classic example occurred in 1959, when the crew arranged a very special surprise “present” for Soupy’s birthday. A woman’s scream prompted Soupy to open a stage door to see what was wrong. The TV audience could only guess at what was going on from his reaction and the musical cue (David Rose’s “The Stripper”). However, thanks to the uncut “blooper” reel that was eventually leaked, part two of this YouTube clip lets all of us in on the secret. (Warning: If black-and-white nude breasts are verboten at your place of employment, this clip is not safe for work.)

Fans in High Places

Soupy’s show moved from Detroit to Los Angeles in the early 1960s, and one of his biggest fans turned out to be Frank Sinatra, by way of his daughter Tina. Frank was a huge fan of slapstick comedy, and when Tina told him about this guy on TV who was as funny as the Three Stooges, he began tuning in daily. Frank appeared on Soupy’s show more than once (Sammy Davis Jr. even joined him once) and gamely accepted a pie in the puss each time.

Here Comes the Science

The pie-in-the-face schtick that became Soupy’s trademark originally featured real pies. Eventually budget restrictions dictated the switch to shaving cream-filled pie crusts. But the crusts had to be real. That was Soupy’s secret—real crusts exploded upon impact, and fell away from the victim’s face. The recipient’s dignity crumbled away, piece by piece, as the crust did. A pie that fully stuck to the face simply wasn’t funny. It became something of a status symbol to get pied by Soupy—even the most unlikely celebrities stopped by for a faceful of pastry.

Nanny State Rules

On January 1, 1965, Soupy was a bit put out at having to work on a holiday. During the closing moments of his show, he encouraged the kids who were watching to sneak into Mommy and Daddy’s bedroom and take those little green pieces of paper from their purses and wallets with pictures of presidents (like George Washington and Abraham Lincoln) on them and mail them to their ol’ pal Soup. He concluded by giving out the TV station’s address and promising to send the kids a postcard from Puerto Rico in exchange. Sales considered his remarks just another tossed-off ad-lib, meant to make his crew laugh. What he didn’t count on was the outrage of the many parents who’d been watching. The station received so many angry phone calls that Soupy was put on a two week suspension. In reality, very few children had the wherewithal to copy down the station’s address, get a postage stamp and actually mail a dollar bill to Soupy. His “punishment” was more or less a gesture on the part of management to appease the parents who’d been appalled at the possible anarchy Soupy Sales had inspired among their children.

Crash Test Dummies Put Cadavers Out of Work

Until the Anthropomorphic Test Device – that’s a Crash Test Dummy to you and me – was invented, human cadavers were routinely used for collision testing in the automotive industry. The first Dummy was invented in 1949 for use by the U.S. Air Force to test ejection seats. “Sierra Sam,” as the first model was dubbed, had articulated joints but a rigid neck and spine, so he wasn’t very useful in automotive crash simulations. Mark I debuted in 1952, and he not only came equipped with ball-and-socket joints to simulate the motion of a human spine, but also computerized sensors in his skull to measure acceleration and force of impact. Most of the technological updates in Dummies were left to NASA until 1966, when the Big Three started adding shoulder restraints to some models. The automotive industry plunged in and started designing all sorts of state-of-the-art Dummies, including a variety of children’s models since the dolls had to be able to simulate the many positions and situations toddlers got into during family drives, including standing on the back seat and laying across mom’s lap. As a youngster, I was always fascinated by the Dummies’ demonstrations of what happened when you didn’t buckle up for safety:

When Seat Belts Were Strictly an Option

Before the IIHS started studying car crashes and their effects on passengers, the main concern design-wise of the automobile industry was producing a stylish car that looked good. Darned good. As a result, the majority of American cars in the 1950s and 60s were three-ton behemoths with mile-long hoods and trucks, all made of solid steel. Seat belts were still strictly an option on most models, so the consequences of a head-on collision could be particularly gruesome. Cornell University took the time to break down the events that occurred in first second of a 55 mile-per-hour typical accident into tenths of seconds. In the first tenth, the front bumper and hood collapse. During the second tenth….oh heck, Jack Webb can describe it much better:

Cars that Crumple

Once passenger safety started figuring into the equation, automotive engineers approached design from a different angle, and the crumple zone was born. The crumple zone actually causes the front end of the vehicle to be more malleable; that is, unlike the solid protective barriers of yesteryear, the steel surrounding the front of your car is now designed to yield when hit head-on, so that it absorbs energy upon impact and slows down the deceleration rate within the passenger compartment. To put it more simply, take a look at this IIHS video of a 1959 Chevrolet Bel-Air smashing into a 2009 Chevrolet Malibu. One vehicle far outweighs the other, but guess which Crash Test Dummy suffers less “injury” thanks to a combination of the crumple zone, seat belts, airbags and wrap-around seat design.

The Birth of Signal 30

Depending upon when (and where) you took your driver’s education class, you may be familiar with the “scare” classic Signal 30. This film featured a compilation of very graphic aftermath film footage/photos of a variety of traffic accidents. How such scenes came to be captured on film can be traced back to a case of being in the right place at the unfortunate right time. In the mid-1950s an accountant, amateur photographer and police enthusiast named Richard Wayman happened to be nearby when a fatal accident involving a motorcyclist and a train occurred. He grabbed his camera, snapped some on-scene photographs, and offered them to the Mansfield (Ohio) Police Department to aid in their investigation. The Mansfield cops were so enthusiastic in their thanks that Wayman made photographing accident scenes a hobby. During his various “shoots” he met Phyllis Vaughn, another photographer with a police scanner. The two eventually joined forces, added a 16mm movie camera to their equipment and formed the Highway Safety Foundation. Until video cameras flooded the market, the HSF’s movies were the only source of real-life gore for training films.

Devotees of online “cuteness overload” sites are probably familiar with Knut, the polar bear born in 2006 at the Berlin Zoological Garden. Little Knut was rejected by his mother and was subsequently hand-raised by zookeeper Thomas Dörflein, who slept on a mattress next to Knut’s crate at night in order to provide 24-hour care. Both Knut and his caretaker became reluctant celebrities and regularly greeted visitors at the zoo at set times each day.

As fluffy and adorable as baby Knut was, he was destined to grow up into a full-fledged adult polar bear, considered by biologists to be the most dangerous species of the bear kingdom. Adult Knut was just recently introduced to a three-year-old female on loan from the Munich Zoo. The humans involved hope that the pair will eventually have amour on their minds, and they’re encouraged by Gianna’s initial reaction: she smacked Knut on his snoot, a not uncommon practice among female polar bears and potential suitors. Just in case you’re unfamiliar with polar bear behavior in general, here are a few quick facts:

Polar bears know no boundaries when it comes to hunting for food. They travel from Alaska to Russia to Canada to Greenland, and even parts of Norway. They’re not really land animals, but they travel from place to place across the ice when the ocean freezes. Seal meat is the favorite food of polar bears, and they prefer to stay out at sea on giant ice floes where seals are plentiful. “Still hunting” is a polar bear’s preferred method of catching its favorite dinner, a ringed or bearded seal. The bear finds an air hole in the ice, lies next to it, and keeps very still. When a seal pops his head up for a breath of air, the bear grabs it and flips it onto the ice.
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Polar bears possess one of the most sensitive noses in the animal kingdom. Researchers believe that polar bears can smell a seal from up to 20 miles away, or even a seal den that’s been buried under three feet of snow. When they stand on their hind legs, they’re usually sniffing the air around them, trying to hone in on the closest food source.
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Underneath its fur, a polar bear’s skin is just as black as its nose. Scientists used to believe that the black skin of the polar bear helped it to absorb heat, but recent studies have shown that its fur actually absorbs most of the UV rays and transmits very little energy to the flesh. Polar bears actually have two layers of fur, which insulates the creatures so well that they tend to get overheated when running a long distance.
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Their fur is oily and water repellent. When polar bears climb out of the water after a swim, one or two good shakes dries them off almost completely.
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The wild polar bear population has diminished in recent years due to global warming and their overall loss of habitat, so breeding in captivity has been encouraged in order to perpetuate the species. As a result, scientists have learned a great deal about the mating patterns of polar bears. They’ve noted, for example, that polar bears don’t seem to mind “courting” in full view of visitors, but mama bears won’t carry a cub to term unless she has her own private, secluded den. Adult female polar bears usually give birth once every three years, and the cubs stay with their mothers until they are about two and a half years old. The mother bear nurses them for up to 30 months, even though the youngsters start sprouting very sharp teeth at only two months of age. The cubs look bald at birth, but they actually have a very fine layer of fur. They are, however, unable to see or hear when they’re first born.