There were a bunch of them... National put a few in their databooks (remember the one with the complex circuit that actually was just a wire from input to output?), Signetics also threw out an app note for a delayed light turn-off using the 555 to snuff out a candle (looked like a Mousetrap game setup), I seem to remember a few others as other companies got in on the joke. Per my source at WJ, based on a vague memory from the early 1980's, management was not happy about the joke, but pretty soon everyone was doing it.
My own stint was working on a massive multi-company proposal for which we were a subcontractor. I finished my section (for a high-speed S/H) and was tasked to help others and to proof the document. It was crazy and everyone was working around the clock. Near the deadline someone noticed there was no proprietary footer and so I put in a placeholder along the lines of "XXX Proprietary: Use or disclosure of this information is prohibited by Law of Man and Nature and misuse may result in severe threat to Truth, Freedom, and the American way of life as well as total annihilation of the known universe." Yup, it shipped that way, all the way through the prime, which got a call from the gov't reviewer and deferred to us. Legal tried to shift blame to our team (and thus to me), but my management (and the prime's management) were all laughing too hard to do more than tell me to not do it again. Or at least not get caught.
