{"id":1233,"date":"2006-05-06T08:59:00","date_gmt":"2006-05-06T12:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=1233"},"modified":"2006-05-06T08:59:00","modified_gmt":"2006-05-06T12:59:00","slug":"so-you-think-you-know-john-beatty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=1233","title":{"rendered":"So You Think You Know John Beatty?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>Today happens to be the <\/span>birthday<\/strong> of my best buddy, <\/span>John Beatty<\/strong>. <\/span><\/p>\n

Most <\/span>ZONERs<\/strong> know <\/span>“Big”<\/em> John <\/strong>from his appearances on the <\/span>SZ<\/strong> message boards, but in honor of his birthday, here are:<\/span><\/p>\n

Some things about John Beatty that you might not know:<\/span><\/p>\n

* <\/span>John Beatty<\/strong> was quite an accomplished break dancer in his youth. Rumors abound to this day that he was the first choice to play the role of <\/span>“Rerun” <\/strong>on<\/span> “What’s Happening?”<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

* <\/span>John Beatty<\/strong> invented the<\/span> “spoiler alert”<\/strong> used on the internet to let folks not that plot points and surprise endings are forthcoming.<\/span><\/p>\n

* <\/span>John Beatty<\/strong> is quite a singer. Perhaps most famous for his cover of <\/span>Elvis<\/strong> tunes, <\/span>Jim Ivey <\/strong>[noted raconteur, in the <\/span>Who’s Who of the World<\/strong>] continues to say, “It’s not <\/span>Christmas <\/strong>season until <\/span>Big John <\/strong>sings <\/span>‘Blue Christmas.’<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

* <\/span>John Beatty<\/strong> is an accomplished actor. He appeared as the evil <\/span>“Patch”<\/strong> in <\/span>“Nightveil: Witch War”<\/strong> [available on dvd from <\/span>accomics.com<\/strong>]. Rumors of an action figure are too scary to think about.<\/span><\/p>\n

* <\/span>John Beatty<\/strong> is an accomplished pool player. He has been known to repeatedly spot an opponent every ball on the table and still win!<\/span><\/p>\n

* <\/span>John Beatty<\/strong> is an accomplished poker player. He’s been known to go both ways in a game of high-low five card stud having nothing but an Ace High and a ten low and beat the table where players had better lows and better highs!<\/span><\/p>\n

* <\/span>John Beatty <\/strong>was ahead of the curve when it came to home computers. While still in his teens he had work published in several books on computer use!<\/span><\/p>\n

* <\/span>John Beatty<\/strong>‘s <\/span>comic career <\/strong>is full of highlights: he worked on the first <\/span>Secret Wars<\/strong><\/em> series [which spawned the popularity of the mini-series]; he worked on the first <\/span>Punisher<\/strong><\/em> mini-series [which kicked the backup character to leading man status]; he worked on the first new <\/span>Batman<\/strong><\/em> book in <\/span>50 years <\/strong>[which was also the first comic to start the trend of multple covers]. It is also rumored that <\/span>Big John<\/strong>, while still a child, was the first to utter <\/span>Alfred E. Neuman<\/strong>‘s famous, “What, Me Worry?” line.<\/span><\/p>\n

Although unconfirmed, it is believed that <\/span>John Beatty <\/strong>was the first to wear the haircut made famous by the lead singer of <\/span>Flock of Seagals<\/strong>, that <\/span>Beatty<\/strong> encouraged <\/span>Brian Setzer <\/strong>to give up glam rock and try something with a rock-a-billy style, that <\/span>Beatty<\/strong> suggested that <\/span>James Cameron <\/strong>follow up <\/span>“Terminator 2”<\/strong><\/em> with something <\/span>“Titanic,” <\/em><\/strong>that<\/span> Beatty <\/strong>was the first to suggest the ideas for <\/span>“American Idol,” “Survivor,” <\/em><\/strong>and <\/span>“What’s Happening Now?”<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Many people find it hard to believe that <\/span>Big John <\/strong>has done so much in just 45 years on this planet. Speculation abounds that he is much older than that. Unverified pictures of someone looking like <\/span>John Beatty <\/strong>from the civil war era are rampant in conspiracy circles.<\/span><\/p>\n

Happy, Happy, Big J!<\/strong><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today happens to be the birthday of my best buddy, John Beatty. Most ZONERs know “Big” John from his appearances<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":912,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[58,56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-comics","comments-off"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/912"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1233"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7562,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1233\/revisions\/7562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}