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Ricardo Montalbán on the set of Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan meets an inflatable replica of his co-star in the series Fantasy Island. Pop culture occasionally gives us these strange juxtapositions. Link -via @JohnCFarrier
Have you ever wished you could write a letter using your favorite Star Wars characters? Well, thanks to the artwork of Fabian Gonzalez you can. Now if only someone could make this a font that could be used on your computer.
Link Via Laughing Squid
We’ve featured tons of geeky tattoos before, but never has one incorporated so many references in one delightful character design. Can you name them all?
You may think you know Scooby-Doo, but unless you’re a die-hard fan, there’s a good chance you haven’t even heard of half of the movies and you probably haven’t seen most of the TV shows. That’s nothing to be ashamed of –after all, the series has been running for almost 42 years straight. So for those of you who haven’t caught up on decades worth of episodes and movies, here’s a run down on the different incarnations of the franchise in honor of Scooby’s September 13th birthday.
Image via abibrooks [Flickr]
I know a lot of our readers take issue with how overprotective many parents have become in the last few decades, but if you like Scooby-Doo, then this is one time you might be able to forgive them. As it turns out, the idea for the show arose after parent organizations, particularly Action for Children’s Television, began protesting the violence of Saturday morning cartoon shows. The pressure was so high that many of the most popular Hanna-Barbera shows, including Johnny Quest, were cancelled due to the protests.
As a result, CBS was scrambling to come up with a Saturday morning cartoon line up that parents would be able to get behind. The first successful new show was The Archie Show, which was based upon the Archie comic book. One of the most popular parts of the show was the musical numbers performed by The Archies during each episode. To capitalize on this idea, Hanna-Barbera was hired to come up with a show that would feature a teenage rock group that solved mysteries between gigs.
Image via informatique [Flickr]
The first version of the show was called Mysteries Five and it featured five teens, Geoff, Mike, Kelly Linda, W.W., and their dog Too Much –who played the bongos in their band. Eventually it was decided that Too Much should be a Great Dane. The character designer, Iwao Takamoto, then consulted a Great Dane breeder to learn more about the breed’s distinguishing characteristics. He then promptly ignored almost everything he learned, designing Too Much with overly bowed legs, a sloped back and a double chin, making him look much more humorous than the real dog breed.
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Danbo is an absolutely precious cardboard man that travels the streets of Japan. Or at least according to this adorable Flickr series by user ru0905.
Link Via Viral Bender
Each letter of the alphabet is represented by a character from the Star Wars universe here. Can you name them all? You might notice some of the main characters are missing in action, because a puzzle should never be too easy. The answers are at Gamma Squad. Link -via Buzzfeed
Not all cosplay takes place on the floor of some comic convention somewhere, and adding a setting or proper lighting really makes these characters pop. Take a look at this gallery from ComicsAlliance and see just what every cosplayer wishes they could look like. If only I could get people to clear the floor around the characters when i’m shooting pics at Comic Con!
YouTube member slamacow shows us what 8-bit video game characters do when you’re not busy making them commit violence upon each other. Now that you know, you might see them in your dreams. -via The Daily What Geek
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Did you know that Shrek was partially based on a pro-wrestler named Maurice Tillet? Or that Sonic’s rival, Eggman, was based on a combination of Theodore Roosevelt and an egg? Learn more weird inspirations for fictional characters over at BuzzFeed.
This graphic makes you think, but how true is it? When I watch TV, it’s usually crime shows, in which successful, independent woman are over-represented as cops, lawyers, scientists, politicians, and criminals. Maybe it all depends on the shows you choose to watch. Link -via @John Farrier
What makes a good alien creature for a video game? It should look cool, have awesome powers or weapons, and provide a worthy adversary for the player. And it helps if they make some kind of sense. Unreality Magazine looks at several species of video game aliens and rates them accordingly. Which one is your favorite? Pictured is a Protoss warrior from Starcraft. Link
If you are a fan of classic TV, you’ll enjoy today’s Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss! How well do you know the secondary characters on your favorite TV series? Almost every sitcom had characters that didn’t appear in every episode. In this quiz, you’ll be given three choices for each show, and you decide which character appeared in the most episodes. I scored 60%, which isn’t bad, as I was correct on all the series I actually watched. Link
Artist Jason Freeny isn’t content with viewing the exterior of some of our favorite toy characters, he wants to know what the insides of Care Bears and My Little Ponies look like. His depictions of the creation’s innards are delightful for biology-loving geeks and terrifying for children.
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You know Charlie Brown, Linus and Lucy, and of course, Snoopy, but Charles Schultz introduced a lot of characters in the Peanuts comic strip over the decades. Mental_floss takes a look back at some you may or may not recall. How about this little girl:
When Tapioca Pudding was introduced in September 1986, she said that, with her blond hair, smile, and catchy name, her father believes they could make a million dollars by licensing her image for products like t-shirts, lunch boxes, and greeting cards. It’s all she ever talked about.
Tapioca was a jab at the many cartoon characters in the 1980s created purely to be licensed for use on products. Her name, as well as other hints throughout the storyline, suggest that the real target of Schulz’s satire was probably Strawberry Shortcake, a character originally featured on a line of greeting cards. When the cards became big sellers, 32 similar food-themed cartoon friends were created and appeared on everything from toys to clothing to a Saturday morning cartoon.
If you don’t know Tapioca, you might know some of the other nine in this list, or maybe the additional characters named in the comments. Link
May 25th is Towel Day {wiki} in tribute to Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. He wrote that a towel is “the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have.”
On Towel Day, all of Adams’ fans are encouraged to carry a towel around with them, or to at least know where their towel is, following the great tradition of hitchhiking, traveling, managing, and adventuring laid out in his work. Naturally, this got us to thinking about all the hoopy (really together guy) froods (really amazingly together guys) that we know in fiction that really know where their towels are. You know, the characters who you could drop off anywhere and anywhere in the space time continuum, and come back in an hour and they’d already be lounging in perfect confidence and opulence, nocking back something highly alcoholic. Any one who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with.
Movie, comic, and science fiction fans will surely find something to argue over in this list at The Mary Sue. Link -Thanks, Susana Polo!
How few pixels can you use to make a portrait and still recognize the person? Not many, if you’re illustrator Andy Rash. These extremely low resolution figures are called iotacons. Rash has made iotacons of the US Senate, all the US presidents, various movie and TV show casts, and even the Supreme Court! I’m sure you recognize the characters pictured here. See more at the iotacons site. Link -via Boing Boing
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You read the books, but not all characters are likable (just like real life). This list will no doubt spark discussion both for who it includes and for who it omits. I won’t tell you who is number one, but you know Scarlet O’Hara is on this list. Melanie made it, too.
4.) Scarlett O’Hara
Gone With the Wind
Author: Margaret Mitchell
For every fan who finds Scarlett O’Hara romantic and admirable, there is another who thinks her a selfish, altogether loathsome figure with few redeeming qualities.
48.) Melanie Hamilton Wilkes
Gone With the Wind
Author: Margaret Mitchell
Along with chief romantic rival Scarlett O’Hara, Melanie Hamilton Wilkes garners quite a bit of hatred as well. Many readers think of her as far too perfect to be relatable, insufferable at worst and boring at best.
Which literary characters do you really dislike? Link -via Interesting Pile
The artist known as Sillof (previously at Neatorama) combined the characters from Star Wars with the characters from various Pixar movies. Take a look through the gallery and see how logical the choices are. I particularly got a kick out of Obi-Wan Carlobi! Link -via Unreality Magazine
You know them, you love them (at least some of them), but you might not know that Captain Crunch, The Comic Book Guy, Mr. Clean, the Michelin Man, and the patient in the game Operation all have given names. It’s true! Mental_floss dug them up, along with lots of other fictional characters with full names, just so you’ll know. Link
If pop culture had its own university, we’d have many experts on the faculty -and quite a few that will give you a laugh. Pictured here are just a few of the science department staff. Wait until you see who’s in law! Click to enlarge the picture at the link and you’ll get the full roster. I heard that the original chart was developed at 4chan’s /tv/ board, so it may have many creators. Link -via reddit
Randall Munroe of xkcd has posted intricate movie graphs that help explain the sequence of characters for those who have trouble figuring out what went on over a long narrative. The most helpful is the largest graph, which deals with the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Grouping of lines shows which characters are together over time. There are also graphs for the original Star Wars trilogy, Jurassic Park, 12 Angry Men, and Primer. Only a small portion of the LOTR graph is shown here. Link -via reddit
Rambo, Mr. Spock, The Joker. One thing they all have in common is that the characters were almost discarded before they had a chance. Read the stories of 7 Iconic Characters They Saved from The Cutting Room Floor and the people who believed in them. This article from Cracked is worth a read just for the early concept drawing of Batman, but all the stories are interesting. Link -via Gorilla Mask
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