The 776 Stupidest Things Ever Said

A connoisseur's compendium of Freudian slips, spoonerisms, double-talk, and utter bosh from famous and infamous figures past and present -- a complete course in anti-eloquence by the foot-in-mouth champions of all time.

For the many readers still laughing from The 776 Stupidest Things Ever Said, here are 776 even stupider quotes overheard around the world.

Not just stupidity, but obsessive stupidity! Not just random stupidity, but organized stupidity! Here, from the celebrated collectors of the stupidest things ever said, it’s the cre`me de la cre`me of stupidities, made even funnier and more compelling in an irresistible top 10 list format. Try one: The Top 10 Stupidest Actual Book Titles: 1. A Toddler’s Guide to the Rubber Industry 2. Constipation and our Civilization 3. Greek Rural Postmen and Their Cancellation Numbers 4. The Secret of Sphincters 5. A Pictorial Book of Tongue Coating 6. Life and Laughter ’midst the Cannibals 7. Be Bold With Bananas 8. Hand-Grenade Throwing as a College Sport 9. Collect Fungi on Stamps 10. A Study of Hospital Waiting Lists in Cardiff, 1953–1954 Plus lost-in-translation moments. Doubles entendres. Political speeches, foreign menus, traffic signs. Celebrities on literature, on homelessness, on revealing too much about themselves. Mangled cliche ́s and bizarre analogies, the wit of the witless and comedy of the clueless—never before have so many said something so dumb, now in one book.

The creme de la crud of screen history "War! War! That's all you think of, Dick Plantagenet! You burner! You pillager!" --Virginia Mayo as Lady Edith to George Sanders in King Richard and the Crusaders (1954) "Visits? That would indicate visitors." --Army captain learning of alien visits in Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959) "When I'm sitting here with you, I don't even think about the slime people." --Hero to heroine in The Slime People (1962) "Suck the coffin mushroom now." --The Ultimate Vampire (1991) "This is bad." --Leonardo DiCaprio as the you-know-what hits the you-know-what in Titanic (1997)

...A nonpartisan hall of shame featuring the idiotic utterances, ridiculous slogans, mixed metaphors, and lame excuses that have fallen from the mouths of our fearless leaders around the world, and from the present and past (because stupidity knows no age).

A hilarious collection of lists, statistics, news items, quotations, and facts detailing stupid acts of Americans from all walks of life—by the authors of the bestselling The 776 Stupidest Things Ever Said Everyone knows that America is “the land of the free and the home of the brave,” but sometimes that means we’re free to be as bravely stupid as we want! In Unusually Stupid Americans, Kathryn Petras and Ross Petras assemble choice bits of stupidity, U.S.A.-style, including •the top seriously flawed American advertising moments, including Pacific Airlines’ brilliant “You’re scared of flying? So’s our pilot!” ad campaign, which led the airline to bankruptcy within two months of the campaign’s inception •the Martin Luther King, Jr., celebration in Florida, where a plaque was un-veiled that was intended to honor the actor James Earl Jones but instead read, “Thank you James Earl Ray for keeping the dream alive” (an unfortunate slip-up, as James Earl Ray was King’s assassin) •and much more!

The Greeks honored Zeus, the Romans revered Juno, but modern civilization worships a different sort of god: Celebrity. Face it, we follow the stars’ every move, fashion choice, and deliciously dishy affairs. Now Kathryn Petras and Ross Petras, authors of Unusually Stupid Americans, pull the demanding divas, screwball stars, and celebu-twits off their pedestals–and prove it doesn’t take a degree in rocket science to become famous. Cases in point: • Courtney Love misses an important court date relating to “possession of a controlled substance” because she can’t find a professional bodyguard at the last minute. • Mariah Carey’s entourage includes a skirt-from-touching-floor specialist, a towel hand-off person, and a professional drink holder/lifter. • Savvy traveler Paris Hilton concludes that all of Europe is, “like, French.” • Mensa candidate and rocker Tommy Lee is pretty sure that Winston Churchill was president during the Civil War, that the numeric equivalent of pi is “the two-equals-MC-squared thing,” and that an isosceles triangle is “somewhere in Bermuda.” Feuds, faith, family, money, sex, tantrums, travel–no star-studded stone is left unturned. Filled with jaw-dropping anecdotes, quirky quotes, and special stupid-celebrity awards, Unusually Stupid Celebrities provides a red-faced glimpse of the red carpet.

*Too lazy to drive to his girlfriend's house, a man ties helium balloons to a lawn chair--and ends up at 15,000 feet, closing the L. A. airport. *A Chinese contraception program causes the birth rate to rise when men are discovered taking birth control pills and unrolling condoms over their fingers--exactly as shown in the training film. *A gang of Norwegian thieves carefully uses explosives to open a safe--only to find the safe is filled with dynamite. . . In the national bestseller The 776 Stupidest Things Ever Said--over 200,000 copies in print--Ross and Kathryn Petras immortalized idiotic utterances by public figures and average citizens alike. But what about the doers out there, the people who didn't stop at speaking, but went right out and did something stupid instead? It's time to give credit where credit is due. The 176 Stupidest Things Ever Done is a hilarious collection of inane incidents, senseless stunts, farcical feats, and utterly asinine activities from throughout history, and around the globe. From Sam Goldwyn to Walter Mondale, Albert Einstein to Fabio, the board of General Motors to British Parliament, this comic compendium chronicles the stupidest acts, ideas, decisions, inventions, songs, and ad campaigns that the mind of modern man has been able to devise. The 176 Stupidest Things Ever Done is a non-stop barrage of belly laughs, conclusive proof that actions speak louder--and funnier--than words.