WWTBAM Bored

For the record, the story mis-spells Shepherd's first name- it was "Jean."

He was named after his father, upon whom one of the characters in "Studs Lonigan" was based, or so claimed Shepherd.

Shepherd's father named him Jean because he felt it would help him to grow up tough, just as he had.

Shepherd told this story to his friend Shel Silverstein, who found it hysterically funny, and who then went out and wrote "A Boy Named Sue."

Or so claimed Shepherd.

For a time, IMDB listed Daniel Pinkwater as the adult narrator of A Christmas Story, not Jean Shepherd as the credits showed. It has since been removed from IMDB; Jean Shepherd is re-installed, and Pinkwater is absent.

SSS posted a clarification a while back, but now I can't remember what it was.

March 27th, 2007
From: Larry Tuxbury
The folks at the Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com) think that you--in an uncredited role--narrated the Jean Shepherd film, "A Christmas Story." I had always assumed it was Jean Shepherd, himself. Where do you stand on this issue?
Daniel replies:
Yes, sure, of course, it was Shepherd himself. I don't even sound much like him--similar regional accent and pitch maybe. No doubt the people who compiled that database had at best a foggy recollection of what Shepherd sounded like on radio, but had heard me. Shepherd was, or thought he was, often ripped off. He claimed that the Jason Robards character in A Thousand Clowns was him, and the filmmakers had stolen his life. (Why anyone would identify himself as similar to the character, charmingly played by Robards, but a selfish, immature, annoying pain-in-the-neck, is beyond me). Also there was a TV series that bore certain similarities to A Christmas Story with no credit to Shep. There's a certain consistency in the IMDB people getting it wrong.

I'm not about to go out and actually try it (because I'm not 8 years old!) -- but wouldn't pouring a little bit of warm (or, body-temperature!) water over the tongue-pole junction melt the ice long enough to unstick the tongue? In fact, a little warm salt-water would probably do the trick even better!

Anyone know? Anyone ever tried this?

Aha -- I was right!

At least according to the "Fun Science" guy:

http://www.videojug.com/interview/fun-s ... cold-metal

VAdame wrote:I'm not about to go out and actually try it (because I'm not 8 years old!) -- but wouldn't pouring a little bit of warm (or, body-temperature!) water over the tongue-pole junction melt the ice long enough to unstick the tongue? In fact, a little warm salt-water would probably do the trick even better!

Anyone know? Anyone ever tried this?

Apparently, a six year-old in Omaha decided to touch his tongue to a metal pole in way-below zero temps yesterday morning, and Mom did free him by pouring water.

http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_page=2 ... d=10539060

Appa23 wrote:Apparently, a six year-old in Omaha decided to touch his tongue to a metal pole in way-below zero temps yesterday morning, and Mom did free him by pouring water.

Then did she see what would happen if she tossed the rest of the hot water into the air?