In 38 years on the stage, Funnyman Joe Cook has thought up some 1,000 implausible inventions of the Rube Goldberg order, never sold one until last week. Then he sold one for $1,000. It was a ...

At the National Museum of American History one day last July, an upright piano stood on a stage. Beside it, on a wooden pallet, was a strange metal contraption about five feet high. The Ring King Jr., ...