Canned Meatballs and Aqua Velva

I'm not sure Hogan is back home from tour yet, where her copy of the dual autobiography of Jim and Henny Backus (I think; so far it's all Jim Backus, though Henny will chime in about Jim's father's excellent golfing skills, for example) is waiting for her. I promised to go slow... and I'm keeping my promise... I'm only on Chapter Three... but I have a great desire to spill the beans about it, as it's all about Jim Backus's friendship with Victor Mature (pictured), which started when they were in military school together (I think that's where Jim won the big football game). DON'T READ THIS, HOGAN. As teenagers they would throw parties in their dorm room, serving drinks made by mixing lemon soda and Aqua Velva. KIDS! DON'T DRINK AFTERSHAVE LOTION. IT WILL LITERALLY KILL YOU. And anyway they don't put the same stuff in it as they did when Jim Backus and Victor Mature were teenagers so what's the point. When he grew up Victor Mature had his own line of canned meatballs. I confirmed this with an old newspaper article - "click" here to read it - which states that Victor Mature "makes love to movie queens for money and peddles television sets and meatballs for fun." As Jen Vafidis points out on twitter we also learn - information not in the book, so far - that "!! his dog is named Genius II because the first Genius is him !!" which strikes me as playful self-deprecation.