Word: pest
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1980
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Animator Walter Lantz and his bride Gracie did not get much sleep on their 1941 honeymoon. Explains Walter, now 80: "It was this darned woodpecker. He made a terrible racket and ruined the roof of our cottage." Unable to silence the pest, Lantz made him immortal-by introducing the creature into one of his Andy Panda cartoons. "Universal Studios told me I ought to have my head examined," he recalls. "They said he's noisy, raucous, obnoxious; he'll never go." They were right, except on that last point. Now in his 40th year, Woody Woodpecker remains...
...affably acerbic Klein is also a veteran of Chicago's much esteemed comedy training ground, Second City, where he worked with the likes of Fred Willard and David Steinberg. "David was mean. Inconsiderate. A pest and a twirp." (Klein seems to be reveling in the sheer delight of his venom, more than really meaning what he says...
...There will also be other environmental nightmares. As man invades their wild habitats and pollutants rain down on them, 500,000 to 2 million species of plants and animals may die off in the next two decades. Rare plants needed to create new blight-and pest-resistant hybrids will vanish. Paradoxically, some environmental problems may be the consequence of the best of intentions. As farmers try to squeeze more food out of their fields by irrigation, the soil's salinity will increase, thus impairing its ability to sustain crops. Less predictable, but no less frightening: a possible global heating...
...they often were, the Knesses built houses. They farmed and did some landscaping. They installed toilets and dug septic tanks. They fixed almost any machine that needed fixing. Up through the mid-1960s sales stayed consistently mediocre. Then the Federal Government began restricting the use of poisons for pest control around food. Emerson looked down from the heavens and smiled. A decade ago, the Kness Manufacturing Co. had four employees who with the owners managed a daily output of 60 traps. Now 28 workers turn out 2,500 mousetraps...