It's Hard to Stomach The Restaurant Chain with a Racist Name
100 of the Worst Ideas in History
What Were They Thinking? OK, so maybe they were naive. Or maybe they were out of touch? Or maybe Santa Barbara, California restaurateurs Sam Battistone and Newell Bohnett were, well, secretly rascists. But when they mashed up their names to form the trademark of what would become a mega-national chain of diners, that's when the pancakes hit the fan. Outrage, condemnation and boycots followed. Hear the now-famous culinary cautionary tale in this episode. More Blundering Brainstorms to Come The next episode of "100 of the Worst Ideas in History, the Podcast" is in production and on...
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This Comedian's Transvestite-Hooker Pickup Was No Laughing Matter
100 of the Worst Ideas in History
What Was He thinking? Tossing and turning one sleepless night, one of Hollywood's best-known, best-loved actor/comedians decides to drive his wife’s SUV to a nearby L.A. newsstand to browse the latest periodicals. Along the way, he encounters a diminutive damsel stumbling down a tough section of Santa Monica Boulevard at 4 am. In a moment of compassion (or abject stupidity), he offers to give her a lift. Two miles down the road, an unmarked L.A. County Sheriff’s vice squad car pulls over the pair. The suprising revallation that follows would send the jokester's career, marriage...
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The Weaponized Elephants That Climbed the Alps
100 of the Worst Ideas in History
What Were They Thinking? A pack of elephants can't possibly climb the Alps in order to engage in a life-or-death battle in the valley below, right? Well, that's the logical conclusion ancient Roman generals have come to. Are they correct? Or would this band pugnacious pachyderms wreak stomping, earth-shaking terror on enemy foot soldiers in the Po Valley? Listen and learn all about it in this episode. More Blundering Brainstorms to Come The next episode of "100 of the Worst Ideas in History, the Podcast" is in production and on its way to you. Watch for it wherever you get your podcasts....
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Ban Baseball's Greatest Home Run Hitter from Playing in the Major Leagues
100 of the Worst Ideas in History
What Were They Thinking? Some insist it’s the legendary Babe Ruth. Others say it's Hammering Hank Aaron -- or even that prickly chap named Barry Bonds. Yet the most prolific home run hitter of all time isn't any of them. Rather it's a man who never played in the major leagues—banned by the game’s small-minded stewards based on a hatefully-prejudiced idea. Listen and learn all about it in this episode. More Blundering Brainstorms to Come The next episode of "100 of the Worst Ideas in History, the Podcast" is in production and on its way to you. Watch for it wherever you get your...
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Special Episode: "And the Oscar Goes to...None of Them." It's 12 of the Worst Movie Ideas in History
100 of the Worst Ideas in History
What Were They Thinking? Here on Hollywood's biggest star-studded night, we honor the "dirty dozen" -- 12 of the worst movie ideas in film history. So get ready to cross dress, buddy cop with your mom, get eaten by a roll of shag carpeting and play the pinao with finger sausages as you listen, laugh and learn all about these cinematic stinkers. More Blundering Brainstorms to Come The next episode of "100 of the Worst Ideas in History, the Podcast" is in production and on its way to you. Watch for it wherever you get your podcasts. And remember to subscribe, like and comment....
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Ignorance is Bliss: The Doctor Who Killed the President
100 of the Worst Ideas in History
What Were They Thinking? History tells us that President James Garfield is shot and killed in a Washington railroad station by an irate diplomat-wannabe named Charles J. Guiteau. The part about Guiteau shooting Garfield is unquestionably true. But the part about him killing the President is dead wrong. Listen and learn all about it in this episode. More Blundering Brainstorms to Come The next episode of "100 of the Worst Ideas in History, the Podcast" is in production and on its way to you. Watch for it wherever you get your podcasts. And remember to subscribe, like and comment....
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Bob's Wedding-Night High Jinks Leads to the Ford Motor Company Stealing Him Blind
100 of the Worst Ideas in History
What Were They Thinking? It’s his wedding night. And in a blissful, celebratory moment, Robert Kearns pops a champagne cork—right into his left eye, leaving him partially blind. Fast-forward ten years. Driving home in a rainstorm, the sight-impaired automotive engineer and part-time inventor squints through his car’s rapidly oscillating windshield wipers—and comes up with a revolutionary idea -- one that the Ford Motor Company promptly steals. Listen and learn about the David-versus-Golliath legal battle that followed -- changing automotive history and the way you drive...
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How Do You Stop a Pandemic? Try a Hot Cup of Influenza
100 of the Worst Ideas in History
What Were They Thinking? Early in the last century, in the absence of licensing, almost anyone in America can claim to be a “doctor”—from folk healers to your goofy next-door neighbor Fred. So it should come as no surprise, in the face of the dreaded Spanish influenza pandemic of 1918, that the world is ill prepared to fight its symptoms or find a cure. Into this desperate breach comes an age-old practice that involves placing a small, heated object on the patient’s back, in order to draw out the sickness. What was this object and how effective was its far-fetched therapeutic...
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Extended Episode: Unholy Preachers and the Profitable Nonprofits They Run
100 of the Worst Ideas in History
What the Flock Were They Thinking? Which much-less-holier-than-thou preacher perpetrated “The Fake-Death Radio Shack Up”? How about the notorious man of the cloth who became known as “The Big Easy Sleazy”? And what of the antigay clergyman who invented “Rentboy's Long Stroke"? Listen and learn all about these and other inglorious evangelicals in this extended episode. More Blundering Brainstorms to Come The next episode of "100 of the Worst Ideas in History, the Podcast" is in production and on its way to you. Watch for it wherever you get your podcasts. And remember to...
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No More "Mr. President." By Law, We Must Now Refer to Him as "His Elective Majesty"
100 of the Worst Ideas in History
What Was He Thinking? A bulwark of the American Revolution and a clarion voice for the adoption of our Declaration of Independence from “the tyranny of the British monarchy,” this founding father curiously decides to champion a quintessentially un-American idea: He pushes for legislation requring the leader of the newly-formed United States to carry a title more regal than the functional, prosaic “President of the United States.” You won't believe the ludicrous series of soaring appelations he champions. Listen, laugh and learn all about it in this episode. More Blundering...
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With the U.S. presidential election just weeks away, Vice President Richard M. Nixon and Senator John F. Kennedy are running neck and neck—or should we say “face and face”?
Because on this night in 1960, their very different visages will be on display in the first presidential debate ever to be televised. And one of the candidates, lacking a firm grasp of the visual power of the relatively new medium, is about to make-up a fatefully dumb decision. Listen and learn all about it in this episode.
More Blundering Brainstorms to Come
The next episode of "100 of the Worst Ideas in History, the Podcast" is in production and on its way to you. Watch for it wherever you get your podcasts. And remember to subscribe, like and comment.
For 99 other examples of historical, hysterical stinkin’ thinkin’ from the past, get your copy of popular book "100 of the Worst Ideas in History," available at Amazon.com and better retailers everywhere. Audiobook now available at Audible.com and other platforms.