oops 20 Life Lessons from the Fiascoes That Shaped America MARTIN J. SMITH and PATRICK J. KIGER To William Leford Smith,M.J.S whose. dimming eyes still see the humor in almost everything To Beastboy P.and J.K his. momster Good judgment is usually the result of experience. And experience is frequently the result of bad judgment. —An attorney in a lawsuit involving Boston’s John Hancock Tower, after the skyscraper’s windows fell out Some said I couldn’t sing, but no one could say I didn’t sing. —Florence Foster Jenkins, widely recognized as the worst opera diva ever contents Introduction The Joy of Oops ix Lesson #1 READ THE FINE PRINT The Eroto- Utopians of Upstate New York John Humphrey Noyes’s sexually adventurous Perfectionist commune was one of the most successful utopian religious groups in 19th-century Amer- ica. Alas, the devil was in the details. { 1 } Lesson #2 ACCENTUATE THE POSITIVE How Thomas Edison Invented Trash Talk Why would one of America’s iconic inventors publicly electrocute a full- grown carnival elephant? The answer reveals a little- known story of ego, failure, and the moment when America began “going negative.” { 13 } Lesson #3 BEWARE SOLUTIONS THAT CREATE NEW PROBLEMS The Global Underarm Deodorant Disaster Thomas Midgley Jr. was among America’s greatest problem solvers. Unfor- tunately, his landmark “Eureka!” moments had an echo that sounded a lot like “Oops!” { 27 } CONTENTS v Lesson #4 BAD RESULTS TRUMP GOOD INTENTIONS Kudzu: A Most Tangled Tale What began as a well- intentioned effort to stop soil erosion in the American South became a dramatic example of what can happen when you mess with Mother Nature. { 39 } Lesson #5 IGNORE THE PAST AT YOUR PERIL The Preposterous Collapse of “Galloping Gertie” The completed Tacoma Narrows Bridge stood for four months in 1940 as a landmark of machine age design and aesthetics—qualities that are less ap- parent now that it’s at the bottom of Puget Sound. { 50 } Lesson #6 PERSISTENCE CAN OUTWEIGH TALENT The Screeching Diva With a voice that was more canine than coloratura, Florence Foster Jenkins may have been the worst operatic singer of all time. But the do- it- yourself diva was able to charm audiences with unabashed, joyful ineptitude. { 63 } Lesson #7 CHOOSE THE RIGHT PARTNER The Kaiser- Hughes Flying Boat If you’re crazy enough to take on an incredibly difficult project with an unrealistically short deadline, don’t ask an even crazier person to help you get it done. { 72 } Lesson #8 PANDERING WILL GET YOU NOWHERE The 1955 Dodge La Femme In the 1950s, Dodge saw a pink car with a matching umbrella and lipstick case as the way to a woman’s heart. But that was only the worst of the auto- motive industry’s efforts to woo a misunderstood market segment. { 84 } CONTENTS vi Lesson #9 BEWARE OF UNPROVEN TECHNOLOGIES The Lingering Reek of “Smell- O-Vision” Sound revolutionized motion pictures, but the tortured effort to bring smell to the silver screen proved that some things are best left to the imagination. { 94 } Lesson #10 CONVENIENCE ISN’T ALWAYS ENOUGH The Paper Dress In the mid- 1960s, ordinary house wives and the fashion elite thrilled to the notion of cheap, disposable garments. The fad lasted about as long as the clothes themselves. { 106 } Lesson #11 DUBIOUS NOTIONS SEDUCE EVEN THE BRIGHTEST MINDS The U.S. Psychic Friends Program The federal government dabbled in paranormal espionage for de cades, us- ing clairvoyants for everything from spotting enemy subs to “reading” doc- uments on Nikita Khrushchev’s desk. And for fun, they bent spoons. { 115 } Lesson #12 UNDERSTAND THE MARKET The 1967 Jimi Hendrix–Monkees Concert Tour Perhaps the greatest rock guitarist ever, Jimi Hendrix’s flamboyant fusion of blues, psychedelia, and sex changed pop u lar music. But to the prepubescent fans of a fictional TV pop group, he was boh- ring! { 126 } Lesson #13 DESPERATION IS THE CRADLE OF BAD IDEAS The Cleveland Indians’ Ten- Cent Beer Night Lagging attendance. Latent hostility. Limitless lager. Add them up, and you get the most ill- conceived sports promotion in American history—and a pivot point in the new temperance movement. { 139 } CONTENTS vii Lesson #14 SWEAT THE DETAILS The Sixty- Story John Hancock Guillotine If you’re going to build a masterpiece of modern high- rise architecture, make sure the fi ve- hundred- pound windows don’t fall out during wind- storms. { 151 } Lesson #15 CULTURAL NORMS RESIST RADICAL CHANGE Male Fashion’s Fabulous Faux Pas The leisure suit is reviled as the ultimate icon of 1970s- era bad taste. But what was hyped as a harbinger of a male fashion revolution actually turned out to be just that, in a flammable, double- knit way. { 161 } Lesson #16 THINK LONG TERM The Abbreviated Reign of “Neon” Leon Spinks The tragicomic heavyweight boxing champ was neither the first nor the last American sports hero to badly mismanage fame and fortune. But by rising higher and falling faster than most, he brought schadenfreude to the masses. { 173 } Lesson #17 KNOW “HELPFUL” FROM “ANNOYING” Clippy—Microsoft’s Relentless Software Irritant The bizarre, bug- eyed anthropomorphic paper clip was supposed to make Microsoft software easier to use. Instead, Clippy became such an unpop u lar pest that even its creator ended up mocking it. { 184 } CONTENTS viii Lesson #18 BEWARE THE PROFITING PROPHET The Y2K Scare To nervous Americans on the eve of the 21st century, a couple of missing digits in a computer program foretold a looming techno- apocalypse. So a few entrepreneurs did what they do best: turned fear into cash. { 195 } Lesson #19 DON’T MESS WITH SUCCESS The XFL’s Quick Takedown In a single season of televised T&A, backstage buffoonery, and second- rate football, the league launched by wrestling impresario Vince McMahon and NBC recorded the lowest prime- time ratings in network history. { 206 } Lesson #20 OCCASIONALLY LOOK UP FROM YOUR WORKBENCH The Quixotic Quest for the Flying Car As they have for generations, aviation wonks and Pop u lar Mechanics sub- scribers continue working toward the Holy Grail of private transportation: the flying car. Never mind that nobody needs one anymore. { 219 } The Bonus Chapter Fiascoes That Failed to Qualify for Oops 230 Think We Blew It? Tell Us About Your Favorite Failures 236 Chapter Notes Or, How We Learned These Twenty Lessons 237 Index 279 Acknowledgments About the Authors Books by Martin J. Smith and Patrick J. Kiger Credits Cover Copyright About the Publisher introduction THE JOY OF OOPS WHETHER WE’RE SHOCKED by a “wardrobe malfunction” or hoot- ing as a reality- show contestant is humiliated on national televi sion, Americans are none-too-secretly fascinated with failure—and with good reason. From embarrassing fashion faux pas to architectural disasters, re- cent history is filled with flops that not only were bizarrely spectacular, but have had lasting cultural impact. Now, finally, here’s a book that not only celebrates some of the most signifi cant flops, goofs, misjudgments, and fi ascoes of the past cen- tury and a half, but also extracts a meaningful lesson from each. Oops: Twenty Life Lessons from the Fiascoes That Shaped America examines in excruciating detail twenty strange and amusing stories, from the ill-fated 1967 Monkees–Jimi Hendrix concert tour to the preposterous collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. It’s peopled with eccentric vi- sionaries, misguided geniuses, and well-intentioned incompetents, rang- ing from the Reverend John Humphrey Noyes, the 19th-century minister who created a libidinous utopia in upstate New York, to Dr. Hans Laube, inventor of that dubious cinematic advance known as “Smell-O-Vision.” We’ve carefully weighed the topics and personalities to create a book that will, like its pre de ces sor, Poplorica: A Popular History of the Fads, Maver- icks, Inventions, and Lore That Shaped Modern America, offer an enter- INTRODUCTION x taining, informative, and eclectic mix of topics, but with a crystal clear or ga niz ing principle. Ultimately, the book offers twenty complementary lessons about the general conduct of life—lessons that can be used for everything from a personal mantra to a philosophy of business. Each story serves as a vivid example of the stated lesson, and each lesson is accompanied by a handy clip-’n’-save “Recipe for Disaster” that details the essential “ingredients” of each grand failure. At the same time, we’ve retained the qualities that readers liked so much about Poplorica. Each of these twenty miscues in some way helped spawn a trend, phenomenon, or motif whose influence is still felt in con- temporary culture. We trace the sometimes obscure and often amusing connections between the forgotten failures of the past and the world in which we now live. —Martin J. Smith and Patrick J. Kiger on #1 Less READ THE FINE PRINT the eroto-utopians of upstate new york John Humphrey Noyes’s sexually adventurous Perfectionist commune was one of the most successful utopian religious groups in 19th- century America. Alas, the devil was in the details. IF YOU FOUND yourself living near Putney, Vermont, in 1847, it would have been hard to ignore the gossip that was rampant in local sew- ing circles, and harder still to resist the temptation to ask a few curious questions. For the past six years, John Humphrey Noyes, a local boy and renegade former licensee of the Yale Theological School, had been leading a rather unorthodox Christian community in that orthodox New En gland town. Utopian experiments weren’t unusual during that period; similar groups such as the Shakers and the Mormons were just getting started as well.