The Remote Island by Bryan Christian Watch the Flight of the Conchords Season Two premiere right here and right now! Plus, topless women shill washing machines while American Gladiators rub you down.
In 1991, Spencer Elden had what most boys only dream of: the most talked-about penis in the country. Shy of a year old when his parents agreed, for $200, to splay his zaftig, naked body paddling toward a (superimposed) dollar bill on the cover of Nirvana's Nevermind, Elden caused a stir. The album sold more than ten-million copies, cementing Nirvana's legendary status and catapulting Elden onto the walls and hole-riddled T-shirts of grunge fans everywhere. For his services, he received a teddy bear and a framed platinum record that today hangs on his bedroom wall alongside a less-noted album, The Dragon Experience, on which he posed, in 2003, for the industrial musician cEvin Key (pronounced Seven Key). Now seventeen, Elden is your average disaffected teenager — a water-polo player, surfer, snowboarder and (gasp!) techno aficionado. His singular achievement, of course, remains his most cherished. "Quite a few people in the world have seen my penis," Elden told NPR this summer. "So that's kinda cool."
promotion
14. "Mikey"
No, no, Little Mikey did not die after downing several bags of Pop Rocks and a six-pack of Pepsi. In fact, John Gilchrist, the actor who played the national icon of finicky consumerism in those long-running Life cereal commercials, spent his teenage years acting in commercial after commercial, 250 in all, for the likes of Pepto Bismol, Skippy peanut butter, and Jell-O. Last we heard, Gilchrist was working in New York — in advertising.
13. Kid Who Outspelled Dan Quayle
"You're close, but you left a little something off," the vice-presidential hopeful said moments after William Figueroa, a twelve-year-old student in New Jersey, spelled "potato" correctly, in immaculate cursive, on the school chalkboard. Thus was sealed Dan Quayle's fate as the densest politician in modern American history (though perhaps he may have lost his crown to another VP candidate). Figueroa appeared on the David Letterman Show days later, delighting audiences when he insisted Quayle wasn't an idiot — he just needed to "study more." Figueroa failed to take his own advice, though, dropping out of high school at sixteen after collecting some $8,000 in assorted ad fees and endorsements (half of which his father ganked, he claims) and impregnating a girlfriend. According to the New York Times in 2004, Figueroa was a father of three, working at Wal-Mart and living in a duplex near Trenton, NJ. ''I try not to dwell on the past," he told the reporter, "all the things that could have been.'' Can you spell bitter?
12. Possibly High Mac Enthusiast
Nothing like a stoned fourteen-year-old girl to get the Wired set's mice clicking. Ellen Feiss, a cute redhead in a hooded sweatshirt, amassed a cult following when she appeared in a 2002 commercial for Apple looking higher than a space station. "I was writing a paper on the PC, and it was like bleep bleep bleep bleep bleep bleep, and then, like, half my paper was gone," she says, her eyes at half-mast. "And I was like [pause, long blink] huh?" Everyone on the Internet wanted to know: Was she stoned or wasn't she? (Feiss has blamed Benadryl.) After the commercial, the Massachusetts high-school student took home a free iPod and loads of attention from fawning computer nerds, most of them older men. CafePress shops started selling swag — mugs, T-shirts, etc. — bearing her image. But Feiss spurned the limelight, declining offers to appear on Leno and Letterman. She returned to the screen a couple years ago, appearing in a forgettable independent film, Bed and Breakfast, and plans to study photography or women's studies in college. As for her ever-resilient male fanbase: "It was creepy from the beginning," Feiss told Macenstein.com. "I don't want that kind of gendered fame."
11. The Runaway Bride
An American love story: Four days before Jennifer Wilbanks was slated to wed her fiancé in an extravagant 600-guest, twenty-eight-attendant ceremony, the thrity-two-year-old Georgia woman absconded to Albuquerque, faked her own abduction and sexual assault, and spurred a nationwide bride-hunt that, authorities say, left them on the hook for thousands of dollars. "I was simply running away from myself," she told the press lamely. Her cold feet did not go unpunished. On top of paying a fine, Wilbanks did two years of probation and spent some 120 hours in an orange vest mowing government lawns — the suburban equivalent of the Mark of Cain. (In some countries, she'd be stoned to death.) Her humiliation, of course, was mere grist for the profit mill. Wilbanks snagged a $500,000 book deal with resurgent superagent Judith Regan, and inspired all kinds of bric-a-brac: an action figure; a condiment ("Jennifer's High Tailin' Hot Sauce"); and a slice of toast carved in an effigy of the runaway bride that fetched $15,400 on eBay. The couple, needless to say, never married.
, featuring curious yet marvelous infusions of cucumber and rose petal.
