puppetmaker | LJ Idol 4.6 Urban Legends

Hmmm....where to begin. Pull up a chair kiddos this one is gonna be a bit of a history lesson about Science Fiction Fandom and Urban legends along with what I know about the real stories that go with the ones that run around fandom. Now to come clean, I am not going to flag the ones that I was directly involved for various reasons. And I will not be citing sources on these because some of this information was given to me was given to me rather than told in the group.

Scientology
The Urban legend: That after a night of heavy scotch drinking at a convention, L. Ron Hubbard declared that he was going to create a religion for tax purposes.

The truth: That night of heavy drinking and rowdy discussion about church and state and tax breaks for religion in the United States at a convention, Mr. Hubbard was hear to say jokingly that he should gave that a go since he was a firm opponent of the current US tax system. No one who was there seriously thinks that this was the beginning of Scientology but rather one comment among many from drinking too much really good scotch.

Green_Jello-O
The Urban Legend according to Filk 101
The story goes that one night at DISCON II, [see Westerfilk Page 60] a drunken pro (rumored to be Joe Haldeman) confided that the sexiest thing in the world was a bathtub full of Lime Jello; he made the mistake of saying this within earshot of friends (?). The next day he was kept away from his hotel room while every supermarket in town was scoured bare of lime gelatin. Legend does not report how this pro reacted to returning to a green quivering bathtub. A few songs were written about the incident. Since then, "Lime Jello" has been a fannish byword ** for everything sexy, erotic, or perverted, ** and can often provoke a laugh for no reason at all.

The truth, this did happen. It was Joe Haldeman. But it may not have been Discon II.(this is the one thing I can't nail down on this story) There were ladies in the tub in bikinis. And these ladies were known to Mr. Haldeman (but not in a biblical way) as they were friends of his. Everyone had a good giggle and they did leave some money left for the staff that had to clean it up

Harlan_Ellison
(Which could be an article in itself. Honestly)
The Urban legend is that Harlan got himself fired on his first day as a writer at Disney for suggesting a pornographic Disney picture as a joke.

This is true. He was at lunch with a bunch of his fellow writers and he was joking around about how easy it would be to do Disney Porn. He created an example off the top of his head and did all the voices of the various Disney characters. He had the table in stitches. Unbeknownst to him at the table next to him was Roy Disney and a number of other Disney executives having lunch and they were not amused. He found the pink slip on his desk after he returned from lunch.

That is one of the true stories. I could get into all the false stories including that he bit a fan, he took credit for work he had nothing to do with, and was rebuffed by a "leggy blond." Harlan is almost to the point of being an Urban Legend.

Neil-Gaiman
The Urban Legend is that a woman offered to pay Neil quite a bit of money to come over to her home and have dinner with her family especially her son who was a big fan of his work.

This is true. It happened when Neil was doing a tour for the first Sandman Trade Paperback. He was at a story in Connecticut which was the second store he had signed at that day. A couple of the local artists and writers who knew Neil showed up and they were making plans to go out to dinner. The phone rang and the owner told Neil that someone wanted to talk to him. The woman asked if he was free for dinner and explained that she was very rich and wanted to buy his services for the evening so her son could have dinner with Neil. He very politely turned her down and handed the phone back to the shop owner. He told the group what had happened and apologized for the stunned look that must have been on his face as this unfolded.

Harrison_Ford_and_George_Lucas_fracas
The Urban Legend goes that Harrison Ford after a long days shoot threaded to tie George to a chair and make him read his own dialogue out loud so he could hear how painful it was to read.

This is true. But he was not mad but joking after being given new sides for scene where the dialogue when from bad to worse. There was a lot of joking around on the set.

The_Superman-Stalker-Story
Consider this one a bonus and I will say that I was a part of this one since I am telling it from my point of view.

I was working as a stage manager at the Williamstown Theater Festival for a play called 'The Baby Dance'. We were in the downstairs theater. Meanwhile in the upstairs, they were performing "Death Takes a Holiday" with Chris Reeve as Death. It was a very nice production and Chris was very good in his role.

One weekend the stage manager for the upstairs theater comes to me and asks me where I parked that night. I had to park in an obscure secondary lot because their curtain went up before ours and all the parking was taken up in the main lot. You had to know where that lot was to get to it and we liked to keep it that way. So I told him and he asked me to trade cars with Chris. Chris knew what my piece of junk car looked like because I had lent it to Stephanie Zimbalist so she could go with some friends to see a comedian perform.

I asked why. Apparently a women who had attacked Chris with a knife and informed him that he was to marry her or die the previous year was back and had eluded security. He did have a restraining order against her but that didn't seem to be slowing her down. The stage manager showed me this woman's mug shot so I knew what she looked like.

Now our exit out of the dressing rooms was on the other side of the building from the main exit. So we agreed that I would give my keys to the stage manager to give to Chris and I would pick up the keys to Chris's crappy ford truck from the stage manager after our show was done. We would sneak Chris out our exit the moment that our curtain came down. Which we did. I sent my assistant with him to my car and he came back to inform me that Chris had taken my car. I got the keys from the stage manager and went to Chris's truck.

I saw a woman who looked like the mugshot lurking in the parking lot which was mostly empty because the main show was over and I was close to the last to leave because I had to lock up the downstairs theater. She seemed a bit surprised that I was walking to Chris's truck with a security guard and she scurried off. I got into the truck and drove off and shortly found myself being tailed by another car. I ditched it with the use of a stoplight and a couple of back roads. But it was an exciting couple of minutes. I met up with Chris at the bottom of the road up to his house in Williamstown. We traded keys and he shook my hand firmly and thanks me for my help. Nice guy, total gentleman, and I was shocked to hear about the accident and saddened by his death.

Not an Urban Legend, but pretty damn scary to me.