1987 Bum Steer Awards
(Page 4 of 4)
TODAY’S SPECIAL: SURF ‘N’ HEARSE
The Red Lobster restaurant in Mesquite promoted its opening with a drawing for a free dinner consisting of Conan, a 22-pound, 154-year-old lobster. After Houston radio station KFMK broadcast the story, a public outcry forced Red Lobster to change its plans and ship Conan to Sea-Arama Marineworld in Galveston. One month later Conan died anyway.
HIIIIII YAHHHHH . . . OWWWWWWWWW
A ten-year-old San Antonio boy who suffered a stab wound told police that a man had stabbed him in the leg while he was practicing karate. Later the boy retracted his story and said that he had stabbed himself while practicing karate with a knife.
HIS DECORATOR LIKES THE WAY IT COMPLEMENTS BLACK AND WHITE STRIPES
Dickinson police chief Wayne Broussard directed that the town’s two jail cells be painted pink.
READY, AIM, FLUNK
Professor Richard Swope of Trinity University in San Antonio teaches the principles of engineering design to freshman engineering science students by having them lob water-filled balloons at him.
SHE MUST BE A MEMBER OF THE 2,629,440-MINUTE WOMEN
Kilgore College officials ordered the removal of Night Winds, an abstract outdoor sculpture, from the Longview campus after Katherine Blackson wrote a letter to the Longview Morning Journal, calling the sculpture a “perfect example of a communist policy to erect ugly and meaningless objects instead of artworks of beauty and inspiration.” The sculpture was placed on campus five years ago.
MAN IS SEPARATED FROM THE BEASTS BY HIS ABILITY TO REASON
Houston’s Theater on Wheels asked Mrs. Mikhail Gorbachev to be honorary chairwoman of the theater group’s fundraising ball, a position last held by Carolyn Farb. “We figured that Mrs. Gorbachev has probably heard of Carolyn since they both wear designer clothes,” said Jan Norris, chairman of the board.
WHERE THERE'S SMOKE, THEY FIRE
The Ponderosa Volunteer Fire Department dismissed Janet Hightower after she was featured in a nude pictorial in Playboy magazine.
CARTER IMMEDIATELY GAINED FIVE POINTS IN THE POLLS
Former president Gerald Ford agreed to make two campaign speeches in Dallas on behalf of Republican congressional candidate Tom Carter, but when he learned that the rallies would be outside in the middle of the summer, he canceled.
FIRST THE METS, AND NOW THIS
Brute, a singing Chihuahua from Vidor, was defeated by Willie and Brandy, two mutts from New York performing “dognastic” routines, in a national contest to determine America’s most wonderful pets.
THE ARRESTING OFFICER WAS CAPTAIN QUEEG
Security officers at the Audie Murphy Memorial Veterans Hospital in San Antonio filed criminal charges against patient James Wash for “willful removal of government property without authorization” after Wash took a slice of strawberry shortcake from a dining hall cart.
A GREAT UNIVERSITY DEMANDS GREAT ICE CREAM
The University of Texas licensed H.E.B. grocery stores in Austin to sell Longhorn Ice Cream, a mixture of orange sherbet and vanilla ice cream.
WHO SAYS HE'S NOT TOUGH ENOUGH TO DEAL WITH THE RUSSIANS?
On his sixtieth birthday, Vice President George Bush told his wife, Barbara, “I am never going to eat broccoli, brussels sprouts, cauliflower, or cabbage again.”
IT WAS THAT TIME OF THE MOUTH
When defendant Christopher Masters interrupted his trial for aggravated robbery in Houston with repeated outbursts, court bailiffs gagged him with tape and a sanitary napkin.
SOMETIMES IT'S SO HARD TO SAY GOOD-BYE
A Texarkana jail inmate was hospitalized after he simulated sexual intercourse with a metal bunk and then couldn’t get free.
MR. PISTOL PETE WAS HOME WASHING THE DISHES
Ms. Pistol Pete, a 41-pound pit bullterrier from San Antonio, demonstrated why she won the title of Strongest Dog in the World by pulling a full-sized automobile.
ONCE A SERVANT OF THE PEOPLE, ALWAYS A SERVANT OF THE PEOPLE
Former House Speaker Gus Mutscher, who was convicted of conspiracy to accept a bribe in 1972, was reported to owe $90,000 in delinquent taxes in Washington County, where he is the county judge.
“NOW WAIT HERE, OUTSIDE THIS BANK, AND I’LL GIVE YOU A REAL BIG TIP”
Austin cabdriver Pete Salazar picked up a man wearing a dark ski mask, who then robbed him at gunpoint and forced him to drive to Corpus Christi.
TO ENTRAILS, INC.
HNG/Internorth announced that it was changing its name to Enteron Corp. after four months of research by a New York consulting firm. When the pipeline company discovered that “enteron” is defined in the dictionary as “the intestine,” it changed its name again sixteen days later.
WHATEVER YOU MEANT, NO
Jack Wilborn of Fort Worth told the Associate Press that T. Cullen Davis approached him after a Sunday night church service and said, “Could you forgive me for what I did?” Speaking through his attorney, Davis later said that he was not referring to the murder of his stepdaughter and Wilborn’s daughter, Andrea Wilborn, for which he was acquitted in 1977.
This is Dallas
TO PASS YOU HAVE TO PRACTICE SUDDEN STOPS AT NEIMAN'S
Driving-education instructors Jim and Marsha Kirchmeier opened the Classic Driving School, using only three 1986 Porsche 944s.
PREREQUISITE: A DEGREE FROM THE CLASSIC DRIVING SCHOOL
As part of its continuing-education curriculum, the University of Dallas offered a course entitled “Existentialism for Yuppies: Coping With Being and Nothingness in the Lifestyle of the Eighties.”
FIRST WE TOLD EACH OTHER. THEN WE TOLD OUR FRIENDS. THEN OUR FRIENDS TOLD . . .
East/West Network sponsored “The Best of Dallas” luncheon, during which Bum Bright, Trammel Crow, Herb Kelleher, Rodger Meier, and Mayor Starke Taylor spoke on how Dallas has transformed itself into a world-class city.
WHERE'S JAMES EARL RAY WHEN YOU REALLY NEED HIM?
An SMU student, using the pseudonym of Biff Sudcliff, wrote a parody of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech in the Daily Campus: “I have a dream that echoes in the valleys, screaming about the Brotherhood of White Men…. I have a dream, nay, I have a vision that my children will be able to play in the streets of this city, realizing their potential as God-fearing, heterosexual conservatives who will rule the country hand-in-hand with other little white children.”
IS IT THAT BLINKING GREEN THING RIGHT OUT THERE?
Passengers snapped up two hundred tickets in just two hours for two Braniff midnight charter flights from DFW Airport to Rising Star, Texas, and back. The midnight flights featured views of Halley’s Comet and servings of champagne.
IF THEY'RE GOING TO SURVIVE, WE'D JUST AS SOON NOT
Plans for an underground bomb shelter in downtown Houston, to be used in the event of a nuclear attack, provide for it to house a maximum of 172 people. The only people eligible to use the shelter are elected officials, some city and county department heads and their assistants, and officials of the local utility companies.
“THANK YOU, BUT I ALREADY HAVE A DATE THAT NIGHT”
Immediately after being sentenced to 24 years in prison for aggravated robbery, Mark Lee Woodson of Houston asked prosecutor Trish Saum, “Would you want to go out when I get out of TDC?”
KEEP THE MONEY. SURRENDER HARLINGEN
In an attempt to build support for a $100 million aid package for Nicaraguan contras, President Ronald Reagan warned that the Sandinista regime in Managua is “just two days’ drive from Harlingen.”
KEEP THE MONEY. SURRENDER ALEX
Cameron County sheriff Alex Perez asked the county commissioners to authorize $125,000 for riot gear to prepare for a Sandinista invasion. When the commissioners turned him down, he forwarded the request to President Reagan.
JUST 20 MILLION SHOPPERS, AND HE'S OUT OF THIS MESS
Clint Murchison, Jr., who filed for protection from his creditors after incurring an estimated $200 million in debts, held a garage sale and charged the public a $10 admission fee.
YOU COPS WILL JUST HAVE TO WATCH HILL STREET BLUES AT THE SAME TIME AS EVERYBODY ELSE
Billie Ross Thomison, the president of Austin CableVision, became angry following his arrest on DWI charges and ordered cable company employees to take a special channel that carried police information off the air.
COME ON, COPPER, MAKE MY DAY
Jojo, a large, mixed-breed dog, bit a Houston police officer, who then shot him in the muzzle. Jojo spat out the .357-caliber bullet and ran off.
GOOD THINKING, TOM, BUT THAT’S THE WRONG PLACE TO PUT THEM
Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Loeffler, in San Francisco to make a speech, was reported to have worn a bathing cap on each foot while showering to protect him from contracting AIDS.
“HELLO . . . NO, SIR, NO ROBBERS HERE”
After being notified that an alarm had sounded at MeraBank, El Paso police called the bank to determine whether the alarm was false. The phone rang unanswered for several minutes while a gunman completed the daylight robbery and made his escape.
SO HE SWITCHED TO STATION KINK
Christian radio station KIXL-AM in Austin cut off antipornography crusader Mark Weaver in mid-broadcast when the station manager decided that Weaver’s descriptions of homosexual practices were too explicit.
TWO BITS, FOUR BITS, SIX BITS, A DOLLAR, IF THEY’RE THE PIRATES, WE WON’T HOLLER
David Rucker of Mesquite fought the choice of a nickname for athletic teams at the new Poteet High School because Pirates are not a wholesome role model, and the skull-and-crossbones emblem is satanic.
HOW MANY AGGIES DOES IT TAKE? TWO. ONE TO MIX THE RED, BLUE, AND BROWN PAINT AND ANOTHER TO DIP THE FLOWERS
Scientists at Texas A&M University announced that they had developed maroon bluebonnets.
IT WAS LOVE AT FIRST CITE
State district judge Tom Cave of Fort Worth was indicted on federal civil rights charges that he gave favorable rulings to women who would have sex with him. Cave was dating and had planned to marry a former prostitute from San Antonio who had appeared in his court on charges of possessing drugs.
SOMETHING WENT WRONG WITH THE RECTIFIER
The City of Austin collected $31,000 in penalties when the Valley View Energy Corporation of Dallas failed to fulfill a contract to deliver electric power produced by burning cattle manure.
HE THOUGHT HE COULD WALK ON IT
As part of the script for Perry Como’s TV Christmas special filmed in San Antonio, Mayor Henry Cisneros dressed up as Santa Claus and fell into the San Antonio River.
WE ALWAYS THOUGHT HENRY LEE PREFERRED STILL LIFES
Dallas artist Frank X. Tolbert II painted a portrait of convicted serial murderer Henry Lee Lucas at the request of Lucas’ attorney.
YOU CAN BEAT THE RAP, BUT YOU CAN’T BEAT THE RHEINGAU
Cedar Park police chief Roy Phillips was convicted of disorderly conduct and fined $213 following an altercation in a café where Phillips became upset because the restaurant ran out of white wine.
DO AS I SAY, NOT AS I DO
William P. Holcomb, a lieutenant in the Houston city marshal’s office, which tracks down parking violators, paid $1500 in fines after he was discovered to be the city’s number one parking offender, with 375 unpaid tickets.
NO CLASS, NO PAY
After General Motors’ largest stockholder, H. Ross Perot, criticized management’s executive perquisites, GM Chairman Roger Smith said of Perot, “He has an office that makes mine look like shantytown. He has Remingtons; he has a Gilbert Stuart painting hanging on the wall.” Then GM announced that it was severing ties with Perot.
THE WHITE HOUSE IMMEDIATELY OFFERED TO SHIP HIM ARMS
Russell Scott, the editor of the Daily Texan, the student newspaper at UT-Austin, was arrested after he came to the paper’s awards banquet wearing a turban and carrying an alarm clock and road flares wrapped with wire in an attempt to look like an Arab terrorist.
NOW DEPARTING ON TRACK ONE, THE CLAIMS LIMITED
The Southern Pacific Railroad announced that it would cease to operate in Matagorda County so that it could no longer be sued there, because the county has a reputation for giving large jury awards to plaintiffs.
UH, GEORGE, THAT'S NOT WHAT "SAMPSON SCORES" MEANS
Former heavyweight boxing champion George Foreman said that the Houston Rockets basketball team would play better if the players refrained from sexual activity.
This is Houston
THE BIGGEST ONES WE KNOW ARE STILL ALIVE
Enforcer Products, Inc., which manufactures rat baits and traps, sponsored a Fat Rat contest in which it offered $1000 to the person submitting the largest dead rat.
WARNING: THE HARRIS COUNTY HOSPITAL DISTRICT MAY BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH
The board of the Harris County Hospital District rejected a proposed public-education program to help people recognize the early warning symptoms of cancer because the district’s hospitals were already operating at or near capacity.
WE’D ESPECIALLY LIKE TO THANK THE DEADBEATS WHO MADE ALL THIS POSSIBLE
The San Jacinto Savings Association ran an advertisement for “our quality foreclosure properties” in the Houston Post under the headline OUR FORECLOSURES OPEN A LOT OF DOORS FOR YOU. “They’re known as our Sesquicentennial Homes,” the ad read. “And they’re all ‘Houston Proud,’ beautifully improved and maintained in the spirit of this fine city.”
ALL THE STORES WERE OUT OF HANDGUNS
Charles Willy Alpine was sentenced to two years in prison after pleading guilty to charges that he carried a bow and arrow around Houston, shooting at buses and people who bothered him.
SHE GOT THE HONEYMOON CELL
Regina Brooks spent the night before her wedding in the Houston city jail because she was arrested during her bachelorette party at La Bare.
WHEN THE PRICE IS BELOW $15, HE SHUTS IN THE OLIVE OIL
Steve Zimmerman, the owner of La Colombe D’Or restaurant, initiated the “Oil Barrel Special”—a four-course lunch that sells for the current price of a barrel of crude.
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