Feff's Year in Review
January 5, 1997

Since this is the first official Whack of the new year, 1997, I thought it may be a good idea to take one last look back on 1996. Ninety-six was definitely an interesting year, and it also was the first complete year of Feff World, which made it even more interesting. A lot of stuff happened in ninety-six; babies were born, people died, and the rest of us just kept on enjoying the show. Since every magazine and news show has already done their year in review edition, it is now my turn. So come join me as I take a gander back at 1996: the year that was.

If you lived in the northeast, the start of 1996 could be summed up in one word: snow. It definitely snowed a lot in January, and in February, and in March, and I think we may even have had a storm or two in April. Hordes of people were stuck inside their houses with nothing better to do than watch television. And anyone who watched television during mid-January, definitely heard about the huge divorce between Lisa Marie Presley and Michael Jackson. When asked what was the cause of the sudden end of the twenty month marriage, Lisa Marie commented that she was sick and tired of Bubbles complaining about her cooking.

February, despite being a day longer this year, was a dull month. The only highlight was the start of the primary season for the race for the Republican nomination for president. In February, the race still looked wide open. Dole won in Iowa, Phil Gramm dropped out of the race, Pat Buchanan won in New Hampshire, and Jersey native Steve Forbes won in Delaware. I'm no political analyst, but I do know one thing, if Pat Buchanan can win in New Hampshire, I'm not going anywhere near that state. Then again, even if I wanted to I wouldn't be able to, because the eight foot wall preventing immigrants from coming to New Hampshire would stop me.

In March, Dole clinched the Republican nomination, and Mel Gibson won an Oscar for Braveheart. Moving on the April, the month opened with the capture of Theodore Kaczynski, the Unabomber. When the FBI was asked how they finally caught the Unabomber after seventeen years of investigation, they replied that after years of checking every clue and investigation every angle, they finally decided to look at the return address on all the packages, and it lead them right to him. April also wasn't a good month for air travel. Commerce Secretary Ron Brown was killed in a plane crash over Croatia, and seven-year-old Jessica Dubroff died while attempting to be the youngest person to fly cross-country. And if people thought April was the end of it, May started off right where April ended, when a VajuJet airliner crashed into the Everglades swamp in Florida. I don't think any survivors were found, but you sure couldn't go far without seeing a happy alligators.

Not much happened in June, but in July, just when people thought it was safe to go back in the air, a TWA jet blew up over Long Island. Experts still don't know what the cause of the explosion was, but they do know one thing: Pierre Salinger has abnormally large eye-brows. July continued on with a bang when a bomb exploded at the Olympics in Atlanta. At first the FBI thought it was that fat security guard Richard Jewel, and everyone agreed because he kind of looked like the type of guy who would bomb the Olympics. But after months of investigating, the FBI held a press conference and pretty much said, we were wrong, here's all the evidence that we were keeping from the public, now you solve the case. They even had an 1-800 number and everything. Just think, the FBI using the same technique to solve a case as the show America's Most Wanted. Hoover must be wrinkling his dress while rolling over in his grave. Could you imagine him doing the same thing when he was in power? "Yeah, we were wrong, it wasn't Oswald after all, here's the bloody glove we found in the grassy knoll, and the picture of Nicole Brown Simpson sneaking out of the White House late at night, now you solve the case."

In August, NASA officials announced that they found evidence that there was in fact life on Mars. Shortly after the announcement, the spokesperson for the estate of H.G. Wells issued a statement that simply read: "Ha ha, I told you so." On the possibility of other extraterrestrial life, President Clinton commented: "I don't care what's out there, just as long as we can kill it, deep-fry it, and serve it over melted cheddar cheese." Moving on to September, not much happened, but in October the New York Yankees won the World Series. I think the funniest story surrounding the whole Yankee story was that Jeff Mayer kid who turned a would-be out into a home run by grabbing a ball before it got to the Baltimore outfielder. Jeff was real excited about the whole thing, until he found out the next day at school that he missed a fight

In November there was some election thing, and Clinton was reelected as president after defeating Bob Dole. The election was such a blow out that by the time voters in Hawaii were just waking up, Clinton was already on television giving his acceptance speech. Finally, the last big event of the year had to be the O. J. Simpson Civil Trial. Unfortunately this trial wasn't on TV everyday, like the last one, so you would actually have to watch the news each night to find out what was going on, so I don't really know what's happening. Oh yeah, some people died in 1996 like Spiro Agnew, Tiny Tim, Tupac Shakur, and I think Gerald Ford.

Well it's time for one last good-bye to 1996 and to this Whack, so to conclude for this week, Steve Forbes is a freak; Michael Jackson is even more a freak; and Ted Kaczynski, frighteningly, has them both beat hands down.

Now for this week's very special feature, Feff's top ten favorite people who died in 1996:

10. Edmund Muskie

9. Alger Hiss

8. Minnesota Fats

7. Timothy Leary

6. George Burns

5. Jimmy `The Greek' Snyder

4. Pete Rozelle

3. Mel Allen

2. Ray Combs (survey says: suicide)

1. Charles O. Finley (hey, he was the man who first signed Reggie)