Today in History

People like to reminisce about the WKRP turkey drop this time of year…but 49 years ago today there was an actual real-life event far funnier than frozen turkey bombs.

I present, for your enjoyment, the great Oregon exploding whale incident of 1970:

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Never heard of the former, but have the latter, and wonder - where you there? :joy:

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“Come to the beach” they said
“It’ll be fun” they said
“We’ll have a picnic” they said

and now I’m here, covered in whale goo, and permanently scarred. Never leaving my house again!

(What I imagine the guy who owned that convertible says)

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Nope, I was living in Grand Forks, ND at the time, a good safe distance from the epicenter!

Here you go:

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Where per my son this morning that whale would be a solid block of ice!

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At one point I was going to join CBP on the northern border. My husband was all on board, with the only caveat being “Not Minot, ND”. From his time in the Air Force there was a phrase “Why not Minot? Freezin’s the reason”

  • of course what I was offered was Minot! A decade later I’m happy to not be part of the mess that is CBP right now, but at the time it was just funny :stuck_out_tongue:
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I loved that show! My husband could not have passed the “Loni Anderson” test. lol

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Dynamite and decomposing blubber–what could go wrong?

About 15 years ago a nasty incident in Taiwan as a whale being driven thru a town (on a low boy) spontaneously exploded all over the street…

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Thanks for the link–loved the show as a kid, but even funnier now!!

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" I swear to god I thought turkeys could fly !" Is a line that comes to mind frequently when I see so many great ideas not properly thought out.

I had heard the exploding whale story some years back, but there are fewer circumstances that bring it up in conversation.

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Will always love and remember the turkey drop! Just within the last few months I heard and saw about the whale explosion, but I can’t remember where… Yeah, wonder who came up with that brilliant idea??

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