Saturday, January 3, 2009

Banana Ripening Machine Explodes


Sometime in the late 1960s (From the Annals of Pre-digital Reporting)

It was reported by a NY newspaper that a banana ripening machine in New Jersey had malfunctioned and exploded, spewing 15,000 pounds of ripe bananas over an entire neighborhood. The explosion took place during the night and no one was injured. By mid-morning, the gooey mess had begun to dry out and harden into a thick crust of dried banana flesh. Car washes in the surrounding area were doing a booming business as owners tried to get their vehicles cleaned up before taking that special client to lunch or meeting a lover at the Paradise Motel in Hoboken, for a quick trip to paradise before heading to work, at the office or the Sewer Department.

The owners of the banana ripening plant were away on business in Ecuador, purchasing stalks of green bananas to be shipped to the plant in Hoboken, for ripening. The plant superintendent, speaking without any authorization by his employer, answered all questions at a hastily assembled press conference by singing: "Yes, we have no bananas, We have no bananas today; Yes we have no bananas, We have no bananas right away." to the tune of "Yes, We Have No Bananas," a song by Frank Silver and Irving Cohn popularized in the 1920s, from the Broadway Review "Make It Snappy" and sung by Eddie Cantor. It went on to become one of the most popular songs of the 20th Century.

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