One of the most curiously intriguing aspects of the COVID-19 outbreak has been the run on toilet paper. I lived through previous shortages, both serious (such as when gasoline ran low during the Energy Crisis of the 1970s) and silly (like the shelf-emptying hysteria surrounding the Cabbage Patch Kids Craze at Christmastime 1983). But nothing compares to the recent frenzy over toilet paper. I never knew people were so obsessively concerned about their derriere hygiene until now.

But believe it or not, hoarding caused America to run low on toilet paper almost 50 years earlier — and it was because of a joke. This is the story of the toilet paper shortage that wasn’t.