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From: mmar@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (Mitchell Marks)
Newsgroups: net.jokes
Subject: Re: Apocryphal Stories
Message-ID: <1628@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 11-Feb-86 21:56:48 EST
Article-I.D.: sphinx.1628
Posted: Tue Feb 11 21:56:48 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 14-Feb-86 01:31:14 EST
References: <664@ttidcb.UUCP> <> <280@galbp.UUCP>
Reply-To: mmar@sphinx.UUCP (Mitchell Marks)
Organization: U Chicago
Lines: 28
Summary: 


Oy veh!  Most of these apocryphal stories are exactly that.
If you're interested in these things, you should certainly take a
look at the work of Jan Harold Brunvand, a professor of English
at Univ of Utah (or at least he was as of the blurb of book #2 below).
He has published a couple of books which attempt to trace, classify,
and in general account for a lot of these stories (which Brunvand
calls "urban legends").  He uses standard folkloric techniques, applied
to this modern folklore; the books are interesting both for what he
says about them and for the entertainment value of the stories
themselves.  The books I know of:

           "The Vanishing Hitchhiker", W.W. Norton & Company 1981
           "The Choking Doberman", Norton, 1984

The elevator incident appears in the second book, pp. 18 ff.  Brunvand
traces it through a series of newspapers, etc.  
   The earliest version said the man was Reggie Jackson, who said he
recalled no such incident.  It also cropped up as involving Larry Holmes,
Wilt Chamberlain, "Magic" Johnson, O.J. Simpson, and "Mean" Joe Greene.
      Tracing a story through variations certainly doesn't prove that
it couldn't have started from a true incident.  But in this case, the
resolution involves a particular celebrity, and all those named have
denied it.
-- 

            -- Mitch Marks @ UChicago 
               ...ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!mmar