If you’re of a certain age, you’re no doubt familiar with Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem, Gonzo the Great, the terrible jokes of Fozzie Bear and the dry humor of Statler and Waldorf. But are you familiar with what went on behind the scenes of The Muppet Show? Check out these tales from backstage (and a few others) for a few facts you may be less familiar with.

It’s Good to be the Guest Host

Although The Muppet Show had well over 100 guest hosts (and no host ever appeared twice), at first it looked like even turning up a single star to kick off the season. Eventually, all of the producers started to call in personal favors from friends in the industry, begging them to come cavort with puppets for a mere half hour. That all changed in the second season when ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev appeared. The Muppet Show was, well, kind of a strange form of entertainment at the time, so when people like Vincent Price and Florence Henderson and Phyllis Diller appeared, it sort of made sense. Rudolf Nureyev opened up the guest hosting spot to celebrities from all walks – once someone of his prominence hosted, everyone wanted to host.

Many times, guest stars would request scenes with their favorite Muppet. Not surprisingly, Miss Piggy was the highest in demand (not that she would expect anything less) with Animal coming in second.

Sometimes The Muppet Show did theme episodes that usually revolved around the talents or interests of the guest host for the week. For example, the theme of the Vincent Price episode was Monsters and Ghosts; the Muppets busted out their Western wear for Roy Rogers and Dale Evans; and the theme of the Paul Simon episode, was, appropriately, Paul Simon songs.

For the first few episodes, guest hosts were presented with a likeness of themselves as Muppets during the closing scenes. That’s dancer and actress Juliet Prowse with her mini me to the left. However, this ended up being too costly to do for each show, especially while the show was struggling during the first season. The practice stopped after the second episode, which Connie Stevens hosted. However, guest hosts did sometimes still receive a Muppet likeness when it was relevant to a sketch – for instance, Paul Williams sang “Old Fashioned Love Song” with a couple of his Muppet clones later in the first season. Picture from Muppet Central.

Kermit the Frog and Waldorf are the only two Muppets to appear in every single Muppet Show – 120 episode. Statler – Waldorf’s cohort – appeared in 119 episodes. He did not appear in episode 13, season four – but Waldorf’s wife Astoria does. Strangely, she looks exactly like Statler (that’s her in the picture). Fozzie Bear was in 115 episodes, Miss Piggy claimed 111 and Gonzo was in 106. Picture from MuppetWiki.

Show Details

If you prefer to read your Muppet Show instead of watch it, you can do that. The Muppet Show Book chronicles the best parts from the first two seasons of the show. The scenes are illustrated and the dialogue looks like a script.

One of the pilot episodes of the show was called The Muppet Show: Sex and Violence, and it aired on ABC on March 19, 1975. Kermit and Co. spent the half-hour show making fun of all of the sex and violence on T.V. at the time by performing skits such as “The Seven Deadly Sins Pageant” and “The Wrestling Match.” The other pilot episode was called “The Muppets Valentine Show” and aired more than a year earlier, featuring guest host Mia Farrow.

Dr. Bunsen Honeydew used to have Muppet Labs all to himself – at least, until the second season. That’s when the red-headed, nonsense-speaking Beaker showed up to assist him with his experiments and inventions. Some of those inventions have included a gorilla detector, a banana sharpener, edible paper clips and exploding clothes.

A Muppet Memorial

Not directly related to The Muppet Show, but an interesting story nonetheless. If you’ve seen the movie Love Actually no doubt you remember the wedding scene where various members of the audience burst into “All You Need is Love,” complete with instruments. The movie’s director, Richard Curtis, got the inspiration for this scene from his attendance at Jim Henson’s memorial service. This is what he says about it:

“This was, in fact, inspired by Jim Henson’s funeral, which was the most moving thing I’ve ever been to, and at the end of it, one of the … Frank Oz was talking and he suddenly lifted up Kermit’s puppet and started to sing this song called “One Voice” ["Just One Person"], and it turned out that all the guys in the, in the memorial service, had brought their puppets with them, and they lifted them up, and when you turned around and looked backwards, there were fifty puppets all singing, and Big Bird walked down the aisle of St. Paul’s Cathedral. They all came forward, and just this massive chorus of puppets all singing.”

The Harry Belafonte episode of The Muppet Show was one of the most critically-acclaimed episodes in the show’s entire run, thanks largely in part to the segment where he sings “Turn the World Around” with Muppets decked out in African tribal masks. It was reportedly one of Jim Henson’s favorite Muppet moments ever, so it’s fitting that Belafonte sang the song at one of Henson’s memorial services (he had two – New York in addition to London). You can still see The Muppet Show performance of “Turn the World Around” in its entirety:

If you’ve ever wondered what’s inside Hello Kitty, we now know there’s a Valentine-shaped heart with a little bow as well as lungs that look at you and cute little intestines. Of course. Designer Dr. Romanelli made these for MediCom Toy Incorporated. Link -via Buzzfeed

WebUrbanist has pictures of 61 clever, elegant, or funny wine labels, such the Barossa Grenache pictured above. Perfect for Valentine’s Day!

Link via The Presurfer

Christopher M. Danforth and Peter Sheridan Dodds, statisticians at the University of Vermont, analyzed song lyrics, blog posts, and speeches for certain emotional keywords in order to discern the collective moods of the American people over time:

Still, the University of Vermont study presents what could be a complementary measure, and it provides a few decent cocktail-party nuggets along the way. Dr. Dodds and Dr. Danforth downloaded the lyrics to 232,574 songs by 20,025 artists released between 1960 and 2007, from the Web site hotlyrics.net. From another site, wefeelfine.org, they pulled more than nine million sentences that used some form of the verb feel — as in “I feel relieved” — from 2.3 million blogs from 2005 to 2009. They also analyzed State of the Union speeches going back to George Washington’s. They then rated the psychological charge, or “valence,” of a significant subset of the words on a 10-point scale: from triumphant (8.82) and love (8.72) down to disgusted (2.45) and suicide (1.25).

Some of the findings were expected. Sept. 11, 2001, was rock bottom, for instance. Others were less so: the day that Michael Jackson died also lowered people’s mood significantly. The high-water mark was the day President Obama was elected, when the word “proud” was predominant.

Christmas and Valentine’s Day regularly popped as positive times, although words like “guilty” were associated with Christmas and “waste” and “lonely” with Valentine’s Day.

Link via Hit & Run

Dodds and Danforth’s Peer-Reviewed Article

If you’ve seen the new movie Public Enemies, you already know how John Dillinger died (and if you haven’t seen it, you probably knew anyway – Neatoramanauts are smarter than the average bear). What you may not know is that the incident that finally took down Public Enemy #1 happened on July 22, 1934.

Since today’s the anniversary of Dillinger’s demise, I thought it would be appropriate to revisit how some of America’s most notorious gangsters were finally brought down. We’ll start with Mr. Dillinger himself.

John Dillinger

In 1934, Dillinger escaped from the Crown Point, Indiana, county jail by holding up the guards there with a gun he whittled out of wood (some accounts say it was soap). He boldly stole the sheriff’s car and hightailed it from Indiana to Chicago. Because he had crossed state lines with a stolen vehicle, the FBI got involved and started to relentlessly pursue Dillinger. He laid low for a few months, holing up with his girlfriend in a St. Paul apartment under the alias of “Mr. Hellman.” The landlady got suspicious, though, when “Mr. and Mrs. Hellman” refused to let the apartment caretaker in to make routine repairs and checks. The police were called and a shootout ensued. Dillinger escaped, but sustained a gunshot wound that needed to be treated.

From there, the duo went back to Indiana and stayed with his father for a while, then Dillinger robbed another bank in Indiana, then moved on to upper Michigan, then settled down at the Little Bohemia Lodge near Rhinelander, Wisconsin. Another shootout occurred at the Little Bohemia, but Dillinger evaded them yet again.

It wasn’t until July 21, 1934, that the infamous woman in red (who was actually wearing orange) contacted officers with the information that she and a “girlfriend of hers,” according to the FBI, although the “girlfriend” was probably a fellow prostitute, would be attending the movies with Dillinger on July 22. She offered the information in exchange for assurance that they would try to stop her deportation, which was currently under way. They also told her that she would receive a $10,000 reward if he was captured, which was clearly stated on the wanted poster. This deal sounded good to her, and she followed up with agents the next day to let them know that they would be attending one of two theaters: either the Biograph or the Marbro. Agents were set up to stake out each place, and at 8:30 p.m. on July 22, as promised, the trio strolled into the Biograph Theater to see Manhattan Melodrama starring Clark Gable.

J. Edgar Hoover instructed his men not to follow them in because of all of the innocent bystanders that could be hit, so they waited until the movie got out at 10:30. As soon as they exited the building, Melvin Purvis, Special Agent in charge of the Chicago office, lit a cigar to signal to his men that it was time to close in. Well, he tried to – he had trouble getting it to catch, but luckily, his men realized what he was trying to do. Unfortunately, so did Dillinger. He saw the men descending on him and went to pull a gun from his pants pocket. Preferring to fire than be fired upon, Purvis’ men fired off five shots, three of which were direct hits. Dillinger collapsed face-down on the cement and was pronounced dead at hospital 20 minutes later.
Photo from the FBI.

Pretty Boy Floyd

Charles Arthur Floyd, AKA Pretty Boy, was bestowed the “Public Enemy Number One” title upon Dillinger’s death, largely because he was wanted for the murder of two policemen and two FBI agents in an event known as the Kansas City Massacre.

Knowing he was next on the FBI’s checklist, he was trying to lay low in Buffalo, New York, where he and his girlfriend shared an apartment with Adam Richetti, a member of his gang, and his moll. By October, 1934, the rumor is that Floyd wanted to gather up his mother and family in Oklahoma and head for Mexico.

The gang bought a car and headed for Sooner country on October 18, but only made it as far as Ohio before Floyd wrecked the car by skidding it into a telephone pole. The two gangsters armed themselves and prepared to wait outside of town while the women took the mangled vehicle into Wellsville, Ohio, for repairs. Someone reported two suspicious men loitering, and when the police came to investigate the situation, Floyd and Richetti shot at them. A gun battle ensued, and Floyd managed to escape into the woods. He spent days hiding in the woods, living off of berries and fruit, before he managed to scrape up a final meal at a farmhouse. Shortly thereafter, he was discovered.

At least three different stories as to how he was discovered and killed exist, but I’ll give you the FBI’s version first: they had been patrolling the area looking for Floyd and talking to people about any suspicious activity they may have seen when they saw a car inch out from behind a corn crib on a farm. They were headed to question the vehicle when the vehicle crept back behind the crib, apparently deciding that it wasn’t a good time to leave. As the officers approached the car, Floyd jumped out of it with a gun, so they shot at him. “I’m done for, you’ve hit me twice,” he reportedly told them when they closed in on him. He was right – he died 15 minutes later.

At least one other account says that story is total bunk, created to give the FBI all the credit for bringing down the newest Public Enemy Number One. Chester Smith, a retired policeman and skilled sharpshooter, said that he was called in to help them capture Floyd. When Floyd appeared from behind the corn crib, Smith says he shot him twice in the legs, enough to bring him to the ground but not kill him because Melvin Purvis had specifically requested that he wanted to speak with Floyd. Purvis questioned the wounded Floyd, and when he was done, he told agent Herman Hollis to finish the job. Hollis then shot Floyd at point-blank range. So, that’s the story according to Chester Smith, which has been verified by several witnesses. But the FBI never changed their report, so you can choose your own ending.
Photo from PBS.

Baby Face Nelson

A member of Dillinger’s gang, Baby Face Nelson had only been on the FBI’s radar for a couple of weeks before the raid at Little Bohemia. His actions during the shootout – taking hostages and killing officers – earned him a spot on the top five most wanted list and took him right up to #1 after Pretty Boy Floyd’s death.

After Dillinger died, Baby Face, his wife, and fellow gangster John Paul Chase basically roamed the country freely, going to California, New York and even back to an old hideout in Wisconsin. The FBI finally caught up with him in Barrington, Illinois, not too far from Chicago. The three outlaws were headed through town when Nelson passed a car with plates he recognized. He hated law enforcement so much that he memorized the license plates of certain Feds so he could be sure to take shots at them or vandalize their cars if he saw them.

The plates he spotted on this fateful day happened to belong to FBI agents Thomas McDade and William Ryan, who had spotted Baby Face at the same time he spotted them. Like something out of a cartoon, they both did U-Turns in preparation to give chase and passed each other again. After a few back-and-forth moments like that, it ended up with Nelson, his wife, and Richetti chasing after the Feds. He didn’t know that they had called in backup, though, and soon he was being chased by a car containing agents Herman Hollis and Sam Crowley. When he spotted them, he veered off into a nearby park and stopped, peppering the agents’ car with bullets when they came in right after him. Hollis and Crowley both died. Nelson was also shot – nine times, to be exact – and died at about 7:35 that evening. His body was dumped in the ditch in front of a Catholic church and “someone,” probably Helen Gillis, tipped off the police as to its whereabouts.
Photo from the FBI.

Ma Barker

Kate Barker – better known as “Ma” – probably didn’t have much to do with the crimes her sons and their friends committed. She was definitely an accomplice and was very much aware of what they were doing, even taking care of them after their robberies, kidnappings and murders were committed. “It would not have occurred to her to get involved in our business, and we always made it a point of only discussing our scores when Ma wasn’t around,” gang leader Alvin Karpis said. “We’d leave her at home when we were arranging a job, or we’d send her to a movie. Ma saw a lot of movies.” Bank robber Harvey Bailey backed Karpis up on his description of Ma, saying that Ma “Couldn’t plan breakfast,” let alone plan a bank robbery.

Nevertheless, the FBI painted a picture of Ma Barker that made it look like she was the ringleader of the notorious Barker-Karpis gang that wasn’t afraid to kill innocent bystanders and had kidnapped the likes of brewery magnate William Hamm and banker Edward Bremer, Jr.

The FBI had been quietly tracking Ma’s letters for months – she and son Fred were holed up in Lake Weir, Florida, and she was keeping in touch with the other three. They traced her to the Lake Weir cottage, where she and Fred died in a flurry of bullets. The FBI says Ma died with a Tommy gun in her hand, but anyone who knew her says that’s preposterous. Some theories say that she killed herself after Freddie died because she was too scared to come out of the house, and the embarrassed FBI spread the rumor that she was just as vicious as the rest of them just to cover their butts. What do you think?
Photo from Biography.

Al Capone

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The original Scarface probably would have preferred to die in a blaze of “glory” instead of how he really died – but we’ll get to that in a second (you probably already know the punchline anyway).

You already know what a bad dude Al Capone was – he was responsible for the Valentine’s Day Massacre, he illegally smuggled liquor and he was involved in a gang war with Bugs Moran. As his speakeasies got busted by Eliot Ness, Capone decided to (or was convinced to, by some accounts) go to the Eastern State Penitentiary for a while to lay low and avoid drawing attention to himself. It worked – maybe too well.

When he got out and went back to his home base in Chicago, he found that his finances and legal issues were a total mess. The U.S. Treasury Department had been building a tax evasion case against Capone, his brother, and two other gangsters while he was away. He stood trial and on June 16, 1931, pled guilty to tax evasion, telling the judge that he had arranged a deal for a two-and-a-half year sentence only. The presiding judge smirked and informed Capone that he was under no obligation to consider any sort of a prior deal Capone may have made and promptly sentenced him to 11 years in Federal prison. He served seven years, six months and 15 days of that sentence before he was released, his health in severe decline from syphilis he had contracted when he was a much younger man.

Although he took treatment for it immediately after leaving prison, he was never the same again. By 1946, he was reduced to the mentality of a 12-year-old child, according to his doctor, and would rant about Bugs Moran, Communists and immigrants. He had a stroke on January 21, 1947, and died from cardiac arrest four days later.
Photo from PrairieGhosts.

A roundup of a few others:

Bugs Moran died of lung cancer while doing time in Leavenworth Prison.

George “Machine Gun” Kelly had a heart attack at Leavenworth Prison.

Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were, obviously, gunned down on May 23, 1934, in an ambush by Texas and Louisiana law enforcement.

Lucky Luciano had a heart attack and died at the Naples International Airport in Italy.

Bugsy Siegel was sitting in his girlfriend’s Beverly Hills house reading the newspaper when he was fired at through the window and was hit twice in the head. The murder is still unsolved.

• The B-52s are from Athens, Georgia and was formed in 1976. The group was named after a beehive hairstyle resembling a jet nose. The girls in the group would frequently wear beehive wigs during the early period of their performances.
• The origin of the group started after the original members, Ricky Wilson, Kate Pierson, Keith Strickland and Fred Schneider, shared a giant cocktail called a Flaming Volcano at a Chinese restaurant. After sharing their drink, they set up a jam session that night and soon played their first gig at a Valentine’s Day party.

• There are actually two official spellings of the B-52’s, one with the apostrophe and one without. Up until last year, the apostrophe was required, but they dropped it for the release of their album Funplex. Now both forms are considered correct.
• By 1978, the group released their first single, “Rock Lobster,” which helped them develop an underground following. They were soon performing at CBGB’s and Max’s Kansas City in New York City.
• Their first album proved to be quite successful in the UK and the group performed in to a packed audience in London the next year. Among those in attendance were Joe Jackson and the members of Scritti Politti.
• The group has performed twice on Saturday Night Live. Once in 1980 with host Teri Garr and once ten years later with host Alec Baldwin.

  
  Photo by kkasarda [Flickr]

• In 1982, the band released an EP with David Byrne of the Talking Heads. A full album was planned, but never was completed, so the Mesopotamia EP featured the songs that were recorded all the way.
  The record Whammy! was initially released with the song “Don’t Worry,” however the song had to be removed from further pressings due to copyright issues with Yoko Ono.
• Fred Schneider released a solo album in 1984, featuring band members Kate Pierson and Ricky Wilson. This album featured a song called “Monster” about the creature living in his pants. The video for “Monster” contained appearances by RuPaul, Keith Haring and Tina Weymouth of the Talking Heads. He released a second solo album in 1996.
• In 1985, the B-52’s were working on a new album called Bouncing Off the Satellites, when Ricky Wilson, the group’s guitarist and brother to singer Cindy Wilson, died. The death was originally said to be caused by cancer, but was actually AIDS-related. Everyone in the group was severely affected by the death, particularly his sister, Cindy. As a result, everyone temporarily parted ways to deal with the loss.
• When the group re-formed three years later, they began working on the album Cosmic Thing, which ended up being their most commercially successful album.
• The song “(Shake That) Cosmic Thing” was the first single on Cosmic Thing and was used as one of the main songs on the movie Earth Girls Are Easy.

Image by doogemeister [Flickr]

• The second single from that album, “Love Shack,” has become the group’s most famous tune. RuPaul was in the video for the song. Later they re-recorded the song with slightly different lyrics (“Glove Slap”) for The Simpsons.
• The video for the song “Deadbeat Club” featured an appearance by Michael Stipe of R.E.M., who was from Athens, Georgia like the rest of the group.
• Kate Pierson sang in Iggy Pop’s song “Candy” and the track was his only commercial success. She also sang on R.E.M.’s songs “Shiny Happy People” and “Me in Honey.”
• Cindy Wilson also lent her vocals to a few songs from the group Martini Ranch who was headed by the actor Bill Paxton.
• In the early 1990’s Cindy Wilson took time away from the band to be with her family and the group released the album, Good Stuff, as a trio. This album was one of the band’s most political albums although the members had dedicated time and energy to a variety of causes throughout their career.
• Frank Schneider lent his vocal stylings to the song “Bride of Frankenstein” on Elvira’s 1994 album Elvira Presents, Monster Hits. Later on, he performed with Sleater-Kinney on a cover of the song “Angry Inch” from the movie Hedwig And The Angry Inch.
• In 1994, the group appeared in the live-action movie of The Flintstones, acting as the BC-52’s, and they also sang the title track, “Meet The Flintstones.” The same year, they also recorded the theme for Nickelodeon’s Rocko’s Modern Life.
• The group recorded the song “The Chosen One” for the Pokemon 2000 movie, the theme for Scooby-Doo and The Cyber Chase and later played the song “Orange You Glad It’s Summer” for a Target commercial.
• The Maryland Ensemble Theatre of Fredrick, MD, created a musical based on the B-52’s music. The piece is called Planet Claire and involves a girl named Claire being transported to Planet Topaz where she meets aliens very similar to people she knows back on Earth. The first performance occurred in 2002 and it was quite a success, leading to a second production by the Baltimore Theatre Project in 2004.
• Last year, the group released Funplex, their first full album in over sixteen years. Exclusive, limited-edition copies signed by the group were sold at Newbury Comics and FYE.

Source #1 & #2

Since the Oscars are tonight, I thought it would be fitting to do today’s Movie Trivia post on one of the most-celebrated films of all time. And if you don’t know what I mean, (I didn’t know this, ’til I started doing the research) you’ll see when you read the very first factoid.

Of the seven Academy Award nominations Silence of the Lambs received, it took home five – the Oscars Grand Slam of Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director and Best Screenplay (or Best Writing). Only two other movies have ever done this: It Happened One Night in 1934 at the seventh Academy Awards, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in 1975 at the 48th Academy Awards.

Just before the Oscars, a group of gay activists crashed into the New York Film Critics Circle Awards to protest The Silence of the Lambs. They claimed it made drag queens and crossdressers look bad; that the movie implied that men who dress up as women must be sick and deranged. The matter was handled peacefully, though – no arrests were made.

MGM sort of accidentally garnered a lot of Oscar buzz. In 1992, it was still pretty common for films that were up for Oscars to avoid a video release until after the ceremony. But a horror movie hadn’t won a major award since 1941’s Rebecca, so MGM didn’t think they had a shot and figured it was no big deal if they released to VHS. This may have inadvertently been what earned it such Oscar support – Academy voters were able to watch the movie in their own homes.

The movie came out on Valentine’s Day in 1991. Perfect date movie, don’t you think?

Gene Hackman originally wanted to direct and write the screenplay for the movie based on the novel. He was also going to play Dr. Lecter himself. But time passed and he lost interest; Jonathan Demme picked it up and wanted Michelle Pfeiffer to play Clarice Starling. She, however, thought it was too dark. Of course, all three roles that were replaced – director, actor and actress – won Academy Awards.

Despite the fact that most people will forever link Anthony Hopkins with Dr. Lecter, Hopkins is only in the movie for 16 minutes. It’s the shortest lead role to ever win an Oscar.

The movie is one of only two Oscar winners Gene Siskel ever gave a thumbs-down to. The other was Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven.

Anthony Hopkins improvised a couple of really memorable moments in the movie. When Clarice and Lecter first meet, Hannibal the Cannibal mocks her Southern accent. This wasn’t scripted and Jodie Foster had no idea he was going to do it, so when she appears to be offended and shocked, she really is. He also improvised the slurpy noise Lecter makes after describing his meal of human flesh, fava beans and a nice chianti.

Horror movie veteran George Romero has a little cameo in the movie – he is with Chilton when the two guards remove Clarice from the area after her last meeting with Dr. Lecter. Roger Corman also has a cameo, as does Jonathan Demme himself. Corman plays FBI Director Hayden Burke and Demme can be spotted at the very end of the movie in the crowd scene wearing a blue cap.

Brooke Smith, who plays Buffalo Bill’s victim, was actually really good friends with Ted Levine (Buffalo Bill) on set. Because of this, Jodie Foster referred to her as “Patty Hearst.” Until recently, you could find both of these actors on T.V. – Brooke Smith was on Grey’s Anatomy, and Ted Levine is still on Monk. This disturbs my husband every time we see him on Monk.

The moth cocoon found in the victim’s throat was made from Tootsie Rolls and gummy bears, so it wouldn’t be a big deal if the actress accidentally swallowed it.

Dr. Lecter was based on several people, but he was largely inspired by Ted Bundy and the relationship he had with a criminology professor at the University of Washington. Anthony Hopkins also based some of Hannibal’s mannerisms on Charles Manson – specifically, he noticed that Manson very rarely blinked when giving an interview, and strived to do the same when on camera.

Likewise, Buffalo Bill is a combination of Ed Gein, Ted Bundy, and Gary Heidnick. Ed Gein skinned his victims, Ted Bundy tricked people into his van by acting like the cast on his hand was hampering him, and Gary Heidnick kept women in a pit in his basement.

The icon on the movie posters – the moth covering Jodie Foster’s mouth – has an element of Salvador Dali incorporated into it. The back of the Death’s-Head Hawk Moth is actually made up of naked women if you look closely; it’s Female Bodies as a Skull, which was later made into a portrait of Salvador Dali by famous photographer Philippe Halsman. Check out the whole story here.

Anthony Hopkins has said that his Hannibal voice was a mix of Truman Capote and Katharine Hepburn.

After a year of drug wars that have taken the lives of at least 6,000 citizens, Mexico opted to fight violence the way the Beatles preached -with love. Almost 40,000 people gathered together on Valentine’s day to break the world record for most simultaneous kisses.

Link Via Weird Stuff News

If you like the roses above, or just forgot about Valentine’s Day until all the roses were sold out, there’s an easy to follow instruction guide for them over on Instructables right now.

Link

This is the winner of Craft Magazine’s Valentine’s Day craft contest and I love it. It’s titled “My Heart Is Yours” and was created by Hine Mizushima. Some of the other winners are pretty cute too.

Link

Joel Watson of Hijinks Ensue made this printable Valentine’s Day card that is oh-so-wrong if you think about it. If you don’t get this, then it’s obvious that you’ve never watched Star Wars before …

Link

The Consortium of Pub-going, Loose and Forward Women is a Facebook group formed to protest the actions of an Indian group called Sri Ram Sena (Army of Lord Ram). Members of the group were arrested for attacking women in a bar in Mangalore last month. The attack was caught on video.

Pramod Mutalik, who heads the little known Ram Sena and is now on bail after he was held following the attack, has said it is “not acceptable” for women to go to bars in India.

He has also said his men will protest against Valentine’s Day on Saturday.

The Facebook group urges its over 28,000 members to send pink chaddis (underpants) to Mutalik’s office on Valentines Day in protest. Link to story. Link to website. -via Arbroath

Anyone can run out to the drugstore and pick up a heart-shaped box of chocolates for their significant others for Valentine’s Day, but how many people can make a cake look like a heart-shaped box of chocolates? Yep, this yumminess is a cake from Bakerella – even the “truffles” are made of cake. And what’s even better is that she gives you step-by-step instructions on how to create one to impress your honey. I’m not going to do this because a) I’m lazy and b) my husband is diabetic, but if you make one, let us know. And take pictures!! Also: it’s red velvet cake. Yum.

Link via CakeWrecks

Just in time for Valentine’s Day – traffic officials in Chengdu, China, came up with this idea of making crossing a road more romantic:

A spokesman said the local traffic bureau wanted to give the crossing a romantic atmosphere because it was close to the Hejiang Pavilion, a popular dating venue for young couples.

"We want to make everybody who walks on it feel warmth and love from others," said the spokesman, adding that it was believed to be the first crossing of its kind in the whole country.

"We have two wishes – one, that all who walk on it experience long-lasting love and, two, that they obey traffic rules and cross safely."

Link

Artist Liz McGrath is selling personalized painted butcher knives just in time for Valentine’s Day. There are two designs, the one shown and one with a cute little mouse on the blade. Each cleaver comes with its own box. They’re only $25 and the perfect way to tell that special someone “till death do us part.”

Link Via BoingBoing

This. Is. Awesome. I ran into the Audio Bone headphones people at 2009 CES, and was so impressed with their ear-free, bone conductance headphones that I had to carry them in the Neatorama Online Store.

The Audio Bone Headphones deliver superb sound through your bones, directly to your inner ear. It lets you listen to music and, because the headphones do not cover your ears at all, still hear everything around you. This lets me listen to music at home at night while working on the computer but still be able to hear the kids if they happen to wake up.

The headphones are stylish and lightweight – in fact, it’s more comfortable than regular headphones and earbuds. And because they don’t involve the ear drums, it’s also safer for your hearing.

We have 4 different colors of the Audio Bone Headphones, at $179 each. It’s a the perfect Valentine’s Day gift for a gadget lover. And best of all, you can try Audio Bone risk-free for 30 days. If you don’t like ‘em, you can return the headphones for a full refund: Link

Yippee! We’re now carrying wonderful products from indie artists Ashley and Hannah of Hoopla in the Neatorama Online Store.

This particular one above, My Punny Valentine, is a set of 5 revamped 1950’s style Valentine cards that feature really bad – and therefore really awesome – puns. They are perfect for Valentine’s Day!

Also, check out the Forever Bouquet, a dozen colorful "freshly cut" paper flowers that will never need sun or water. It lasts forever, and in this economy, that counts for a lot!

Link

When I was in high school, I worked at an antique store and developed a strange love for things that most 15-year-old girls do not usually adore (Depression glass, anyone?). That included vintage Valentines. I still have a few old ones that I’ve been saving for a “special occasion” for the past 11 years or so, but maybe now I don’t have to hoard them since Fred Flare is selling repros. Love them!!

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What to get your loved ones for Valentine’s Day? Whatever you do, do not get them these gifts. Here’s the 15 worst Valentine’s Day gift, as compiled by our very own Jill Harness for InventorSpot:

Any fan of J. Geils Band, will certainly know "Love Stinks." Never before was this quite so perfectly illustrated before this wonderful message was delivered with fake poop. It may actually not stink like the real thing, but I’m sure your date will understand the underlying hate in your gift of "I love you" poop.

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I’m not one of those people that absolutely loathes Valentine’s Day, but it’s definitely low on my list of favorite holidays. I’m pretty sure Labor Day would make the list first. However, I love conversation hearts (mmm, flavored chalk!) and I’m a pretty sarcastic person, so I would be delighted to receive these on the 14th. I’m partial to “U Left Seat Up”.

Link via Slashfood

Norma “Crankbunny” Toraya has some wonderful creations in her Etsy store, perfect for Valentine’s Day. Head over to see the Secret Decoder Valentine Card, Valentine Dancing Paper Puppet Robot Doll, and Key to Ones Heart Valentine Popup Card.

*Previously: Best Valentine’s Day gifts ever.

Just in time for Valentine’s Day – surprise your loved one with an anatomical heart they can cuddle up with! Well, you don’t have to stick with a heart. There are also seven other plush organs to choose from, including a “heart of gold.” Maybe I’ll get my husband the plush pancreas for Valentine’s Day, since his doesn’t work.

If you were hoping for a plush uterus, though, you’re out of luck – they’ve recalled the uterus due to choking hazards. True story.

Link via Dump Trumpet

When times are bad, lots of people go to the movies to escape their troubles. But you’re having a horrible, terrible, no good, very bad day, there are a few movies that will make you think that your life isn’t really all that bad.

Always Watching blog got a list of 8 of such movies. For example:

THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY

His problem: Suffered an unpredicted stroke, resulting in complete paralysis except for his left eye, and died two years later.

Your problem: Alone on Valentine’s Day.

By all accounts, French journalist Jean-Dominique Bauby led a pretty great life. He had found success and fame as the editor of Elle magazine, was a father to two kids, and certainly wasn’t lacking in female companionship. Wealth, family and romance – the rest of us could only be so lucky. But on December 8th, 1995, Jean-Do had a debilitating stroke, leaving him with someone called “locked in syndrome.” Paralyzed everywhere except for his left eye, he could still see and hear but was totally unable to reply to his surroundings in any way.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is a very subdued film about hope and inspiration, in that it doesn’t go for the typical “do your best!” platitudes, but instead subjects you to very difficult circumstances and allows the main character to accomplish incredible things in them. The movie is shot primarily in first person, which does a superb job at making you feel really fucking frustrated for Jean-Do as he lolls around without an ounce of control of his own body. The aforementioned inspiration comes from that, even in this state, he managed to write a book by blinking it out one letter at a time. And now he’s got a pretty damn good film about him, too. Kind of makes you feel unaccomplished, huh?

Link

Getting sucked into television marathons happens more than I’d like to admit. America’s Next Top Model will suck me in every time if I don’t have a really good reason to be pulled away from the T.V. But a couple of weekends ago, I had so many marathons to choose from I didn’t know what to do with myself. I ended up watching bits and pieces of What Not to Wear, The Twilight Zone, Most Evil and something on the History Channel about Depression-era gangsters. I know! I should have been outside. But in my defense, it was a very nasty, humid weekend. At least a couple of the shows were educational – I found the gangsters documentary oddly fascinating, and thought that you guys would too. Here’s what I learned:

Bonnie and Clyde

America was kind of in love with many of the gangsters of the era – times were really rough and they viewed the robbers as sticking it to the Man. Bonnie and Clyde were no exception. They were an unlikely duo, really. Bonnie was an honor roll student who won literary arts contests. Clyde, on the other hand, had a history of running from police, cracking safes and stealing cars. How the mismatched pair met isn’t totally clear. Legend says she was a waitress and Clyde met her at the diner; another story says Bonnie was staying with a friend when Clyde dropped by the friend’s house. Some more factoids:

• Interviews with the surviving gang members imply Bonnie never fired a gun.
• The gang killed a total of 13 people, including nine police officers.
• Bonnie and Clyde finally met their match on May 23, 1934, when six police officers ambushed them and shot about 130 rounds into the car.
• John Dillinger and Pretty Boy Floyd reportedly sent flowers to the funeral home.
• When the movie Bonnie and Clyde was made, Warren Beatty consulted Blanche Barrow (Clyde’s sister-in-law and a member of the gang) and eventually became good friends with her. She felt that she was portrayed as “a screaming horse’s ass” in the movie.
• Clyde may have sent a letter to the Ford Motor Company thanking them for making such a “dandy car”. They used it in advertisements, but it was never authenticated. Snopes classifies it as “undetermined”.

John Dillinger

Dillinger outlasted Bonnie and Clyde by about two months – he met his maker on July 22, 1934. He was another criminal who somehow got the reputation for being a modern-day Robin Hood. He was arrested for robbing a grocer in Mooresville, Indiana, and served eight-and-a-half years in prison. He took advantage of the situation to learn all he could from the men incarcerated there and began planning his robberies. When he was released in 1934, he robbed a bank almost immediately. His legendary reign was actually pretty short – from September, 1933 until his death in July, 1934. During this time he and his gang killed three men, wounded seven, stole about $5 million (adjusted for inflation) and executed three jail breaks. More dirt on Dillinger:

• Dillinger enlisted in the Navy but deserted after only a few months.
• He was quite creative in his methods – one of his most famous exploits was pretending to be a sales rep for a company selling bank alarm systems and waltzed right into the vault. Another time, he and his gang pretended to be a film crew scouting out locations for a bank robbery scene.
• He once escaped from jail by carving a fake gun out of soap or wood and blackening it with shoe polish.
• On his last day alive, he saw a gangster flick, Manhattan Melodrama, at the Biograph Theater in Chicago. On the way out of the theater, Dillinger was shot three times by FBI agents who had been tipped off by Anna Sage, one of the ladies accompanying him to the theater.
• Much like Elvis and Andy Kaufman, some people think Dillinger faked his death and lived a fruitful life long after his body double was put on ice. The corpse apparently had brown eyes whereas Dillinger supposedly had grey; the body showed signs of a childhood illness that Dillinger never had and also showed a heart condition that the extremely active gangster probably wouldn’t have had. However, the body was identified by Dillinger’s sister, who said she knew it was him from a scar on his leg that he had gotten as a kid. Hmm.
• There is an urban legend that John Dillinger’s penis is at the Smithsonian. Snopes says no way.
• Other rumors have Dillinger sending J. Edgar Hoover, who was obsessed with nabbing him, Christmas cards and collect phone calls. After his death, Hoover kept a mini-museum of Dillinger artifacts, including the glasses, hat, gun and pocket change he had on him when he died.

Baby Face Nelson

For a little guy (he was only 5′3″) with a sweet face, Baby Face Nelson sure was tough. His real name was Lester M. Gillis and he hated his childish nickname. By his early teens, he already had a reputation as a car thief. But things would get much worse:

• Baby Face worked for Al Capone for a while, but had to be let go because Capone couldn’t control him.
• He was definitely not one of the feel-good gangsters like Bonnie and Clyde and John Dillinger. He had no qualms about shooting innocent bystanders. He killed at least 12 police officers.
• He often hauled his wife and kids along with him when on the lam.
• After Dillinger died, Baby Face was Public Enemy Number One.
• He actively “hunted” police and feds. He kept a list of license plates and chased down cars when he recognized the plates. This was how he met his end – after chasing down one such vehicle on November 17, 1934, he was shot 17 times. He made it back to the car after being shot but died shortly thereafter. His wife wrapped him up in a blanket and left him in a ditch in front of St. Peter Catholic Cemetery in Skokie, Illinois.

Pretty Boy Floyd

When Pretty Boy Floyd and Baby Face Nelson got together, I bet one of the conversation topic was nicknames. They both loathed their monikers with a passion. Charles Arthur Floyd was a pretty typical guy from Adairsville, Georgia. He got married at the age of 17 and most reports say he got into the lift of crime because he needed to pay the bills. His first known robbery was $3.50 in pennies from a local post office in 1922. Here are the details about the rest of his exploits:
• After his first stint in prison for a payroll robbery, he vowed he would never see the inside of a prison again.
• He would hide out near his hometown because the locals protected him from the law. Some say it’s because they hated the banks, which were foreclosing on their farms. Others say he bribed them. Either way, the method worked.
• 1934 was a bad year for gangsters. On October 18th of that year, Pretty Boy and his gang hit a telephone pole while driving in a heavy fog. The car wouldn’t run after that. The gang sent their girls into town to get a wrecker and waited in a ditch for them to return, but not before they were spotted. The police were informed that a couple of suspicious men in suits were lying in a ditch. Ultimately, there was a shootout and Pretty Boy fled into the woods. He was able to hide out for a few days by eating fruit and traveling on foot, but on October 22nd he was spotted hitching a ride and was shot multiple times.
• When he realized he was shot, he supposedly said, “I’m done for; you’ve hit me twice.”
• Somewhere between 20,000 and 40,000 people attended his funeral.
• You can see Pretty Boy’s death mask in East Liverpool, Ohio. It’s hanging over the washer and dryer at the Sturgis House Bed and Breakfast. Sturgis House used to be the Sturgis Funeral Home, and the basement that houses the washer and dryer used to be the morgue where Pretty Boy was embalmed.

Machine Gun Kelly

No one would have suspected that George Kelly Barnes would have turned to a live of crime – he was born into a very wealthy family from Memphis and had a quiet, “normal” childhood. He even went to Mississippi State University in 1917 for agriculture. But this is where things went awry. He flunked out, so his dad stopped giving him money. Kelly became a bootlegger and had some encounters with the local police, so he moved and changed his name to George R. Kelly. His first arrest was in Tulsa, Oklahoma, for smuggling liquor onto an Indian Reservation and things went downhill from there:

• He served time in Leavenworth Penitentiary for his first arrest but was released on good behavior.
• His second wife, Kathryn Thorne, is the one who bought Kelly his first machine gun and possibly gave him the Machine Gun nickname.
• His undoing was when he and his gang kidnapped Charles Urschel, a rich man living in Oklahoma City. The gang demanded $200,000 in ransom and released Urschel when they received it. Urschel was able to help police locate one of Machine Gun Kelly’s accomplices and eventually they found Kelly himself.
• Machine Gun Kelly accidentally peed on a police officer when he was arrested for the kidnapping.
• He served as an altar boy at the chapel at Alcatraz when he was incarcerated there. He also received the nickname “Pop Gun Kelly” because he wasn’t nearly as tough as he was made out to be.
• He died at Leavenworth on July 18, 1954, at the age of 59.

Al Capone

Finally, no list of Prohibition Era gangsters is complete without Alphonse Capone. He was one of nine Capone kids, so it probably wasn’t too hard for him to escape attention and get into mischief. He was born in Brooklyn and lived in Canada briefly before the Capones moved back to Brooklyn, this time to the Park Slope area. He left school at 14 because he punched a teacher, which was the first of many indiscretions:

• Capone was a member of a number of gangs in his youth, including the Junior Forty Thieves, the Five Points Juniors and then the Five Points Gang.
• As a bouncer at a Brooklyn club, he got in a fight with a man who slashed his face three times, giving him the scars that would earn him his Scarface nickname. He later hired the guy as a bodyguard.
• His friends called him “Snorky”.
• His retreats and hideouts included Brookfield, Wisconsin; Saint Paul, Minnesota; Olean, New York; Terre Haute, Indiana; Dubuque, Iowa; Hot Springs, Arkansas; Johnson City, Tennessee; Lansing, Michigan; and Palm Island, Florida. Tunnels found under the city of Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, are said to have been another hideout of Capone’s.
• After his Valentine’s Day Massacre failed to kill rival Bugs Moran, Capone had himself put in prison in Philadelphia for a year to avoid any of Moran’s assassination attempts. This was smart of him, because on the anniversary of the Massacre, one of the men involved was gunned down at a bowling alley and two others disappeared.
• Capone was famously brought down for tax evasion, not bootlegging or murders or any of his other numerous crimes. He received 11 years in federal prison, one year in the county jail and six months
• In Chicago, he was one of the first to shake Charles Lindbergh’s hand after his successful transatlantic flight.
• He tried to position himself as a community leader and opened up soup kitchens after the Great Depression. He also set up a program to provide milk daily for Chicago kids in school. He would also buy large blocks of tickets when circuses and rodeos were in town and distribute them to kids from low-income areas of town.
• He could often be found watching White Sox and Cubs games from box seats, giving autographs to baseball players.
• He was stabbed in the back in prison by James Lucas, a bank robber from Texas. He spent a week in the hospital recovering. This was just one of multiple murder attempts – others included lye in his coffee and an attack as he went to the dentist.
• He died of cardiac arrest (from complications of syphilis) on January 25, 1947.

Photo of this real store in Itaewon, South Korea, was snapped by Neatorama reader Misha McMurtray [Flickr] – Thanks misha!

Talking ’bout loving words, Jonathan Beaton compiled a list of Dictionary.com’s word of the day for Valentine’s Day from 2000 to 2008. For example:

2006: Spoony \SPOO-nee\, adjective:
1. Foolish; silly; excessively sentimental.
2. Foolishly or sentimentally in love.

2007: Beau ideal \boh-ay-DEEL\, noun;
plural beau ideals:
A perfect or an idealized type or model.

2008: Amative \AM-uh-tiv\, adjective:
Pertaining to or disposed to love, especially sexual love; full of love; amorous.

Link – Thanks Jonathan!

Talk about efficiency: Kevin Felder got married to Misty Johnson right after he was sentenced for a robbery. The same judge that sentenced him officiated the wedding!

It wasn’t a typical wedding. For one thing, the groom was in handcuffs.

Kevin Felder and Misty Johnson exchanged vows Thursday, Valentine’s Day, just minutes after he was sentenced to five to 18 years in prison for second-degree robbery.

"It’s a decision between the two of us. I am sorry for what I did, and I want to be a better man when I come home," said Felder, who wore an orange prison uniform.

Judge James Mazzone performed the wedding after sentencing him.

Link (with video by WTOV, Photo: Fred Connors) – via Spluch

Marmite Statue in Greenwich Park, London. Photo: Liz Hunt [Flickr]

Making of the Marmite Statue. Photo: Liz Hunt [Flickr]

On Valentine’s Day, sculptor and Marmite lover Jeremy Fattorini recreated Rodin’s "The Kiss" made with 420 jars of Marmite!

Jeremy had this to say:

“It will be interesting to see if this gains more popularity than the statue at St Pancras. I’m sure that Marmite will once again polarize the nation – you’ll either love it or hate it. It’s a good thing I like the stuff, as I was licking my fingers as I created it!” (Source)

What’s Marmite? Here ya go: Marmite [Wikipedia]

Bitter single people, rejoice! If the lovey-dovey Valentine’s Day make you wanna puke, today’s your day: St. Skeletor Day.

St Valentine of course is the patron saint of making single people feel like crap — each year, the celebration drifts further away from the celebration of love, and further towards the celebration of fluffy handcuffs, expensive flowers, thoughtless greetings cards and other tat shaped into heart shaped packaging, putting pressure on people in relationships to partake of their hard earned cash and actually buy this crap.

Simply put, St. Skeletor Day’s purposes are:

1) The destruction of "lurrve"
2) The destruction of saucy greeting cards
3) The destruction of people with boyfriends/girlfriends

Link

Ben Fowlkes at our pal Crave Online website echoes the sentiment and calls for men of the world to unite and put and end to Valentine’s Day:

In the world of men, no one looks forward to Valentine’s Day. It’s stupid, and we all know it. It’s not just stupid because it was made up by candy and greeting card companies. All holidays are made up, after all. Valentine’s Day is stupid because it’s impossible to take seriously, and at the same time it’s impossible to ignore. At least, it used to be impossible to ignore. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Not if we band together.

Somehow, a New York City lockup, a small-time rapper named Sixty Second Assassin, and a spontaneous freestyle rapping competition figured into all this! Link

Previously on Neatorama: Love, Japanese Style

Earlier today, a student opened fire in a lecture hall at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Ill in a new Valentine’s Day massacre:

The shooting took place during an introductory geology class at the university’s Cole Hall in the campus center around 3:15 p.m. local time. Some 163 students were registered for the class.

"The assailant began firing into the assembled class from the stage — from the front," Peters said.

He described the incident as a "very brief rapid-fire assault that ended with the gunman taking his own life."

My heart goes out to the victims and their family – it’s a senseless, crazy tragedy.

Link

Remember our previous story about Saudi’s ban on the color red for Valentine’s Day? Turns out that the anti-valentine sentiment wasn’t limited to muslim extremists.

India’s hard-line Hindu are showing no love for The Day of Love, too:

India’s Hindu hard-liners are showing no love for Valentine’s Day. A few dozen protesters briefly blocked a road in downtown New Delhi on Wednesday, burning Valentine’s Day cards and chanting "Down with Valentine." In the nearby city of Lucknow, extremists threatened to beat up couples found celebrating their love.
more stories like this

"We are deadly against Valentine’s Day," said Sapan Dutta, a regional leader of the hard-line Shiv Sena group. "We are for civilized love and affection."

The protests by groups like Shiv Sena, who say they are defending traditional Indian values from Western-style promiscuity, have become an annual media event.

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