Harry Von Zell is remembered as the long-time announcer of the Burns & Allen radio and television programs, but he also has the dubious distinction of being responsible for one of the first bloopers to be broadcast on the air.
The occasion was a birthday tribute to President Herbert Hoover, and Von Zell handled the narration of the program admirably, except for one significant slip-up. Toward the end of the tribute, he referred to the President as “Hoobert Heever.”
Years later, Von Zell remembered the moment: “I must have mentioned in that opening the name of Herbert Hoover no less than twenty times. I was very young at the time . . . and was very nervous. I walked out of that studio — we were on the twenty-third floor of the Columbia Broadcasting System building — and fortunately the windows were not operative. They were fixed windows or I would have jumped out! And I thought that whatever career might have been a potential in my life began and ended right there in that one incident.”
When the Chief Justice Got the Presidential Oath Wrong, a 13-Year-Old Girl Called Him Out
In 1929, Chief Justice William Howard Taft botched Herbert Hoover’s presidential oath. A 13-year-old girl caught the mistake and wrote to correct him. Taft insisted she was wrong about how he’d gotten it wrong. Unfortunately for Taft, someone had recorded the whole thing.
America’s First Airmail Flight Was a Spectacular Failure—30 Miles in the Wrong Direction and a Train Ride to Finish
On August 17, 1859, balloonist John Wise set out from Lafayette, Indiana, on a mission to revolutionize mail delivery. His destination was New York City, his transportation was a balloon named Jupiter, and his navigation system consisted largely of hoping the wind wanted to go in the same direction. It didn’t. What followed was five…
Famous Typos in History: The Greatest Proofreading Disasters Ever Printed
Discover famous typos and proofreading disasters that changed Bibles, dictionaries, laws, headlines, and publishing history.
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