The Coffee Place's Joke Stack

• Gilligan of Gilligan's Island had a first name that was only used once, on the never-aired pilot show. His first name was Willy.
• Dr. Seuss and Kurt Vonnegut went to college together. They were even in the same fraternity, where Seuss decorated the fraternity house walls with drawings of his strange characters.
• The Les Nessman character on the TV series WKRP in Cincinnati wore a band-aid in every episode. Either on himself, his glasses, or his clothing.
• John Larroquette of "Night Court" and "The John Larroquette Show" was the narrator of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre."
• Beelzebub, another name for the devil, is Hebrew for "Lord of the Flies", and this is where the book's title comes from.
• The term "devil's advocate" comes from the Roman Catholic church. When deciding if someone should be sainted, a devil's advocate is always appointed to give an alternative view.
• Before Prohibition, Shlitz Brewery owned more property in Chicago than anyone else, except The Catholic Church.
• It is believed that Shakespeare was 46 around the time that the King James Version of the Bible was written. In Psalms 46, the 46th word from the first word is 'shake' and the 46th word from the last word is 'spear'.
• In 1986 Danny Heep became the first player in a World Series to be a designated hitter (DH) with the initials "D.H."
• In the four major US professional sports, (Baseball, Basketball, Football, and Hockey), there are only seven teams whose nicknames do not end with an "S:" Basketball: The Miami Heat, The Utah Jazz, The Orlando Magic. Baseball: The Boston Red Sox, The Chicago White Sox. Hockey: The Colorado valanche, The Tampa Bay Lightning. Football: None.
• In 1963, baseball pitcher Gaylord Perry remarked, "They'll put a man on the moon before I hit a home run." On July 20, 1969, a few hours after Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon, Gaylord Perry hit his first, and only, home run.
• When the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers play football at home to a sellout crowd, the full stadium becomes the state's third largest city.
• Kermit the Frog is left-handed.
• The lifespan of a tastebud is ten days.
• Non-dairy creamer is flammable.
• The dial tone of a normal telephone is in the key of "F".
• If you put a raisin in a glass of champagne, it will keep floating to the top and sinking to the bottom.
• Many years ago in England, pub frequenters had a whistle baked into the rim or handle of their ceramic cups. When they needed a refill, they used the whistle to get some service. "Wet your whistle," is the phrase inspired by this practice.
• In Shakespeare's time, mattresses were secured on bed frames by ropes...when you pulled on the ropes the mattress tightened, making the bed firmer to sleep on. That's where the phrase, "good night, sleep tight" came from.
• The term "the whole 9 yards" came from W.W.II fighter pilots in the Pacific. When arming their airplanes on the ground, the .50 caliber machine gun ammo belts measured exactly 27 feet, before being loaded into the fuselage. If the pilots fired all their ammo at a target, it got "the whole 9 yards."
• It was the accepted practice in Babylon 4,000 years ago that for a month after the wedding, the bride's father would supply his son-in-law with all the mead he could drink. Mead is a honey beer, and because their calendar was lunar based, this period was called the "honey month" or what we know today as the "honeymoon."
• In English pubs, ale is ordered by pints and quarts. So in old England, when customers got unruly, the bartender would yell at them to mind their own pints and quarts and settle down. It's where we get the phrase "mind your P's and Q's."
• The longest place-name still in use is Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakap-ikimaungahoronukupokaiwenuakit anatahu, a New Zealand hill.
• Los Angeles's full name is "El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula" and can be abbreviated to 3.63% of its size, "L.A."
• A cat has 32 muscles in each ear
• An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
• Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.
• In most advertisments, including newspapers, the time displayed on a watch is 10:10. Alfred Hitchcock didn't have a belly button. It was eliminated when he was sewn up after surgery.
• Telly Savalas and Louis Armstrong died on their birthdays.
• Donald Duck's middle name is Fauntleroy.
• Al Capone's business card said he was a used furniture dealer.
• The muzzle of a lion is like a fingerprint - no two lions have the same pattern of whiskers.
• A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.
• There is a seven letter word in the English language that contains ten words without rearranging any of its letters, "therein": the, there, he, in, rein, her, here, ere, therein, herein.
• Duelling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are registered blood donors.
• John Larroquette of "Night Court" and "The John Larroquette Show" was the narrator of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre."
• The characters Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street were named after Bert the cop and Ernie the taxi driver in Frank Capra's "Its A Wonderful Life"
• A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.
• It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.
• It was discovered on a space mission that a frog can throw up. The frog throws up its stomach first, so the stomach is dangling out of it's mouth. Then the frog uses its forearms to dig out all of the stomach's contents and then swallows the stomach back down again.
• Cranberries are sorted for ripeness by bouncing them; a fully ripened cranberry can be dribbled like a basketball.
• The male gypsy moth can "smell" the virgin female gypsy moth from 1.8 miles away.
• The letters KGB stand for Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti.
• The name for Oz in the "Wizard of Oz" was thought up when the creator, Frank Baum, looked at his filing cabinet and saw A-N, and O-Z, hence Oz."
• The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.
• "Stewardesses" is the longest word that is typed with only the left hand.
• The combination "ough" can be pronounced in nine different ways. The following s entence contains them all: "A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed."
• The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable.
• Facetious and abstemious contain all the vowels in the correct order, as does arsenious, meaning "containing arsenic."
• Emus and kangaroos cannot walk backwards, and are on the Australian coat of arms for that reason.
• Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds, while dogs only have about ten.
• The word "Checkmate" in chess comes from the Persian phrase "Shah Mat," which means "the king is dead".
• The reason firehouses have circular stairways is from the days of lore when the engines were pulled by horses. The horses were stabled on the ground floor and figured out how to walk up straight staircases.

Changes were last made on 11-20-2001

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