Alison Cook looks back at 1996: Year of the Rat

The glorious legacy of the Allen Brothers lives on
After a NASA funded team turned up possible fossil evidence of life on Mars, Houston businessman John Styles Jr., a speculator in meteorites, locked his Mars nuggets in a River Oaks bank vault while he decided whether to cut them up for resale.

Could they tackle Pasadena pro bono?
Houston-based Drypers Corp., which had been teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, revived its fortunes by introducing a disposable baking-soda diaper.

So THAT'S what happened to Dave Ward!
Rice graduate James Mischka and partner Mark Badgley, designers of high-ticket evening wear, launched a fall line that achieved its vintage effect by soaking beads in Drano.

Oh, Regis!
Houstonian Wayne Story invented the TooT TrappeR, a charcoal-filled seat cushion that traps flatulent emissions. When he appeared on Live with Regis and Kathie Lee, the perky hostess said her family uses the contraption.

The kids had to teach them how to use it
The Precinct 4 constable's office developed a software program called Peek-A-Boo, which allows parents to search for pornographic images on home computers used by their children.

Don't ever change
Houston's York Group introduced "Expressions," a coffin model of white ash wood with a special finish that lets friends and family write permanent messages right on the casket; it comes furnished with a box of markers.

Don't ever change, Part II
After LSD guru Timothy Leary died of cancer, it was announced that the Celestis of Houston firm would launch his ashes into space orbit inside a gold-plated capsule the size of a lipstick.

Hi, I'm Kevin, and I'll be your yell leader tonight
Bucky Richardson, a former quarterback for the Oilers and Texas A&M, announced plans to open a Bryan steak house that will replicate the Aggies' stadium, with tables on a green floor painted with yard markers, murals of crowded grandstands and big-screen TVs in the bar "so that when you sit in there it'll be just like watching a game at Kyle Field."

Bucky Richardson is ordering them by the gross
Jason Frankel's company, The Tooth Fairy, began producing elaborate novelty teeth, including such models as the misshapen, best-selling "Bubba," widely gapped and generously endowed with stains, cavities and cracks.

Stop him before he sculpts again
David Adickes, sculptor of downtown's cello man and Huntsville's super-gigantic Sam Houston, revealed his next project: an American Presidents Theme Park populated by 16-foot busts of all 41 presidents, crowning eight-foot bases that will double as presidential mini-museums.

And thence to the human brain that thinks up weird ties
Rice University celebrated its new computer science building with a special edition necktie depicting the hall's mosaic ceiling mural, "The Birth of Consciousness," a black spot of nothingness flowing to a flower representing the primordial Big Bang and thence to the universe that forms around it.

Lynn Wyatt passed
James Russell Paugh, now doing 30 years, bilked 2,000 investors by showing them a dilapidated grocery he said would become a members-only store, "The Shopping Adventure," where valets would greet customers at the door and wholesale prices on everything from a can of corn to a Lexus would prevail.

We were pulling for "The Rice Adventure"
Developer Randall Davis ran a contest to rename the renovated Rice Hotel and received such suggestions as The Ricestonian, Rice Royale, The Rice Experience, Rice Twice Lofts and The 1913 House of Rice.

Till death do us part
Pawnbroker Ted Kipperman, a licensed minister, converted a tiny guard shack into a drive-thru wedding chapel for customers who buy a wedding ring or a gun at his store.

The cutouts booed, too
When crowds at Oilers games shrank drastically after the team announced they'd be leaving town, some lonely fans in the mezzanine filled vacant seats with 17 humanoid cardboard cutouts.

Now he's perfecting the seat belts
Former rodeo cowboy Morris Futch, whose head was once stepped on by a bull at a San Antonio rodeo, designed the "BullTough" safety helmet for bull riders.

That's how ValuJet got its start
Doug O'Connor flew from Galveston to Ontario in his homemade gyroplane (think Road Warrior), which he describes as "a lawn chair attached to a ceiling fan."

The Rich Are Different from You and Me

But did it get mints on its pillow?
When Barney and Ellen Kogen set sail on a 114-day cruise around the world, they rented a big truck to transport their belongings to the ship and booked an extra cabin for their Stairmaster.

Why Santa's reindeer won't fly over River Oaks without their little Kevlar vests

Socialite Pepe Anderson told the Chronicle's "Entertaining" section about her family's traditional sportsman's Christmas tree, which began when her grandchildren festooned an evergreen with red and green fishing worms, then garlanded it with empty shotgun shells strung on fishing line.

Eat your heart out, Tim Leary
Vicki Criezis, widow of former Houston restaurateur Ernie Criezis -- he of Harlow's and The Great Caruso -- found him a plot next to Marilyn Monroe's crypt in Hollywood's Forest Lawn cemetery.