Because he was the last of the great swingers. Him and Errol Flynn used to go on the pull together. He once got caught in a foursome with Betty Boop, Mae West and an eiderdown pillow. Never wore pants, ever, said it was just a waste of time, and had it written into his contract that he could appear on film like that. He went through starlets like there was no tomorrow and kept three abortionists on retainer. Even so there was an epidemic of duck-billed, web-footed children. Egg-births. Big scandal in the 40s. Mixed-race sex, unacceptable in those days. Warnings from the Ku Klux Klan and various small-town morality groups. Headline in Variety: 'Dux Fux Sux - Klux'. He snorted his own body-weight in coke every day before breakfast and washed it down with a quart of whiskey. Completely lost it in the end, got delusions of grandeur and tried to force Disney to let him star in a version of Leda And The Swan. Instead was sacked, ended up in pantomime playing Mother Goose, hit the skids, eventually shot to death in a motel room over gambling debts. He was the forgotten duck of American comedy until the late 1950s when people like Lenny Bruce and Mort Sahl acknowledged him as the first real 'angry' comedian.
Why did Superman and Batman wear underpants on the outside?
It was an early example of product placement. DC Comics were sponsored by Skid-Pruf Underbreeks.
Does masturbation really lead to a loss of eyesight?
I suppose if you were very well-endowed you could put your eye out if you leaned too close.
Shouldn't world governments commission a scientific inquiry into this?
Good Christ no! Let the government get involved and they'll start taxing it. Or worse, they'll privatize it, and you'll have to pay Richard Branson every time you touch it. And it won't come on time and you'll be three hours late for work every day. Or they'll harmonize it to EU standards and you'll have to do it the same way as the Europeans. I think they wank on the other side over there.
It is undeniably one of the most important yet largely overlooked social problems facing the world today.
Social? You move in broad-minded circles.
What is the appeal of Big Brother?
Personally, I'm watching in the hope they'll go back to Orwell's original concept and put their heads in rat-cages.
Why would anyone think watching a group of talentless no-hopers locked up in a posh house is entertaining?
People watch 'Live From Westminster', don't they?
23rd June 2002
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