Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Battle axe to the head

A recent Groupon offer included a short feature called “The Groupon Guide to: Medieval Weaponry.”

From that title alone I should have been clear that it was a joke. (In my defense, Groupon emails do arrive early in the morning.)

Yet I was struck by a “factoid” it put forth: “When choosing a shape for the original Batman logo, cartoonist Bob Kane was both inspired, and injured, by a falling battle axe.”

I’d never heard of this. But because the blurb specified a name rather than referring generically to the cartoonist of Batman, I thought maybe, just maybe, there was some truth in it, or it was based on a similar incident that was exaggerated in the translation.

So I actually contacted Groupon to verify. Groupon surely got a good laugh out of me, but they were polite enough not to do it while I was still on the phone.

Turns out the “factoid” was completely made up by an employee who also participates in the comedy outfit Second City.

You can laugh at me, too, but also remember that when I research, I stop at nothing to ensure I’ve got the story correct.

Okay, you can now go back to laughing at me.

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