Between 1972 and 1988, the magazine had a very peculiar tradition: Every December, its owner would erect an enormous Christmas tree in front of the Enquirer's headquarters in Lantana, Florida. It had 280,000 lights and a train with 320 cars riding on 1,700 feet of tracks, and it was said to be the world's tallest Christmas tree. The Enquirer tree was something of a tourist attraction, and Burt Reynolds hated this. So, one Christmas, he decided to use it as a vessel for his vengeance. But what could he do about it? All he had on hand was a giant stable full of horses, the number of a good helicopter rental service, and no particular plans for the holidays. Surely some form of poetic justice against the magazine that had flung s**t at him for years would eventually come to him, as soon as he did something about those giant mounds of horseshit in his backyard ...

Yes, I'm saying that Burt Reynolds once rented a helicopter, strapped two huge nets of horse manure under it, flew to the National Enquirer Christmas tree, and damn well dumped that poop all over it, and yes, you're welcome. Hell, if you don't believe me, here's the man recounting the tale himself.

YouTube

Murray had his reservations about the production and dealt with the situation by being as unreachable as he could be without actually faking his death. Calls went unanswered and unreturned. Production assistants couldn't find Murray anywhere. And when they actually did reach him, things weren't necessarily any better: Murray's first marriage was rapidly disintegrating, which brought a generous layer of crankiness to his already aloof nature. Even Ramis, who had already collaborated with Murray five times, described dealing with his compatriot's mood thusly: "I learned to step back. You don't step in front of a train. You just let it go by."

But the movie had to be made, and its star had to be reached. So one day, some brave soul in the production told Murray, "Bill, you know, things would be easier if you had a personal assistant. Then we wouldn't have to bother you with all this stuff." To which Murray, presumably infuriated by his impending divorce, a movie he wanted little to do with, and a bunch of people who were bothering him with petty s**t like "schedules" and "Oh god please tell us you haven't been eaten by a bear, it's been a week and we're worried," reacted in a manner most ferocious: "OK," he said, and wandered off to hire a personal assistant.

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A personal assistant who just so happened to be completely deaf and could only communicate through sign language.

Which neither Murray nor anyone in the production could understand.

Still, despite this impressive, back-breaking coup de grace of anti-communication, the movie did get made. So you know what? I'm going to give Bill Murray a pass here. Clearly this is a case of life imitating art: He started out as a cranky f****r but got stuck in a time loop on the worst day of the production and figured out on his 10,000th repeat of that day that the only way to break the cycle was to step back from his personal shittiness and give an unfortunate deaf person their big break. After all, a person with "a personal assistant to Bill f*****g Murray" in their CV will never go unemployed in their lives, hearing or no hearing.

Things started small: If the band was anywhere even remotely spooky (which, touring in Britain and staying in local hotels, was presumably about 95 percent of their time), Noel made remarks that the place was clearly haunted, particularly the room Liam ended up staying in. Eventually, matters escalated, and Noel recruited help. By 1996, when they were recording Be Here Now at remote Ridge Farm in Surrey, people would sneak into Liam's room when he was away and alter it in small yet noticeable ways, turning the pictures on the walls back to front or moving furniture ever so slightly around, to Noel's endless amusement and Liam's growing phasmophobia.

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Sadly, the story doesn't reveal exactly how many years this went on. Noel only recently shared the story in the media, so although I assume Liam figured out the prank eventually, a part of me wants to believe that he found out only when the story ran: Warily browsing the web while sitting inside a ring of salt in a room full of garlic and crosses, he spots his elder brother's name in a headline, idly clicks the link, and, after a full minute of silence, slowly whispers, "That motherf-"

Obviously, he can never finish the sentence, because that's when the ghosts attack.

One day, when Gordon-Levitt was walking about with a friend, some particularly annoying paparazzi started pestering him. Instead of yelling at them and/or summoning a horde of bodyguards to beat them up, he decided to get creative. He whipped out his camera and turned it on them, calmly interviewing them as he reveled in their growing frustration and annoyance, slowly coaxing them to explain their motivation of chasing celebrities and how they hoped to get pictures that would specifically make him seem gay.

Wait, how do we know the course of his d******d-shaming mental curb stomp session so accurately? Oh, that would be because of this:

Yeah, Gordon-Levitt wasn't satisfied with just turning the tables on his stalkers. He edited the footage into a short film with the descriptive title Pictures of Assholes (based on how the paparazzi initially introduce themselves) ... and put it on YouTube for all the world to see, complete with a video description featuring some helpful background notes about the situation and commentary on the abrasive nature of modern celebrity. Moral of the story, paparazzi: Never bring a camera to a video camera fight.

... until 2010, when the two met once again in a charity doubles match in California and proceeded to s**t all over each other in a way that would prompt public apologies later down the line (generally a bad sign when it comes to charity events). Agassi mocked Sampras by imitating his peculiar pigeon-toed walk and making the crowd laugh at him. In a charity match. Their back-and-forth match banter, which started out amicable, soon turned testy, which probably wouldn't have been so noticeable if they hadn't been wearing microphones for the benefit of the crowd, because again, this was a charity match. Soon, Agassi was giving s**t to Sampras over his reputation as a stingy dude. Seeing as this public reputation had been created by Agassi himself, who had accused Sampras of being a bad tipper in his book, this was finally enough for things to get physical: Sampras promptly served a hard, high shot aimed right at Agassi's head, forcing Agassi to duck. This would be considered a dick move in the most dangerous underground tennis circles, let alone in a goddamned charity match.

All the while, both men were smiling to the crowds. The fact that neither turned up for the post-match press conference was probably just a coincidence.

However, here's the thing: Twain had intended his story as an amusing piece of satire, and nothing else. What he didn't realize was that at the time, absolutely no one but Mark Twain understood the concept, let alone knew to expect it in a newspaper article.

Museum of Hoaxes

Petrification stories were all the rage at the time -- this was another target of the article's satire -- so newspapers all over the area picked Twain's story up. For months to come, variations of the tale were running in the papers of large cities all over the country, and according to Twain, it even popped up in the medical journal London Lancet. And all the while, Judge Sewall's completely fabricated and extremely unwanted reputation as a prospector of petrified people grew.

Still, the soon-to-be-famous writer might have gone full Mark Twain on Sewall, but at least it was an accident, right? Well, sure -- but the fact that the story goes on to describe how Twain gleefully collected copies of every single newspaper that ran the story and personally sent them to Sewall is something else altogether. He did it for 11 goddamned months. Mark, dude, what the f**k? That's not America's favorite writer being cheeky, that's borderline serial killer territory. What ... what did this guy do to you? You "had a temporary falling out"? Seriously? That's ... that's all it takes?

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OK, guys, new rule: Never, ever piss Mark Twain off. I don't care that the guy's been dead for a century; there's no way a man who'll f**k up a barely registering enemy that badly without even really trying isn't a vengeful ghost floating around, looking for people to torment. Though maybe if you find yourself face to face with him, you can just convince him to go give the Gallagher brothers a visit.

Pauli Poisuo is a Cracked weekly columnist and freelance editor. Here he is on Facebook and Twitter.

For more check out 7 Celebrity Pranks That Backfired Horrifically and 5 Famous People Whose Best Work Was Motivated By Revenge.

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