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Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website.
Why do nerds so often wear glasses? This is an interesting question, and obviously it has a significance in my own life and career.
The word “nerd” was actually coined by my favorite fiction writer, the great Dr. Seuss. In 1950, in Dr. Seuss’s book If I Ran the Zoo, Seuss drew a non-human creature called a ‘nerd” from the land of Ka-roo. This is the first instance of the word “nerd” in print. Some theorists believe the word started at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in the 1940s. The students who liked to party there were called “drunks” and the quieter, less-inclined-to-party types were labeled “knurds.” See, “drunk” spelled backwards is “knurd,” the precursor to the modern “nerd.”
In 1957, in Glasgow, Scotland, “nerd” was first defined as “square.”
Motion pictures, the most powerful medium of communication in human history (before television) had, of course, a huge impact on the lives of almost everyone on earth. The “nerd” in movie history has not, to my knowledge, ever been fully written. As far as I can determine, the first nerd in movie history was the popular silent comedian Harold Lloyd. Lloyd played a weak, underdog type of comedic character, one bullied by men and ignored by women. But in the end, he would triumph and inevitably get the girl of his dreams. The Lloyd character wore trademark glasses. In fact, Lloyd always referred to his character as the “glasses” or “glass” character, much as Charlie Chaplin was “the Tramp.”
After Lloyd, the nerd character was on the shelf for many years in movies -with sporadic exceptions. Ironically, Cary Grant, perhaps the most dapper actor in movie history, donned glasses and played a nerd character in 1938′s classic comedy Bringing Up Baby.
In the 1950s and ’60s, the great Jerry Lewis often played a nerd-type character in his wonderful comedies. Once in a while, Jerry would wear glasses in his films, notably The Nutty Professor and The Ladies Man. One of his early films with Dean Martin (That’s My Boy) Jerry played a classic glasses-wearing nerd. Jerry as “Junior Jackson” is a shy, clumsy nerd who is trained to be a football player by the handsome, popular Dean Martin. Lewis almost always played a semi-nerd, but it was always a bit of a very cool nerd with Jerry Lewis. While Jerry was always a dumb klutz in his films, he always danced gracefully and also, Jerry was a relatively good-looking fellow, unlike most nerds (or comedians) in comedies. And of course, Jerry did not usually wear glasses. But the movies next classic nerd did.
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These character interpretations, pictured above Cringer and Battle Cat from He-Man, Chewbacca, and Splinter from the Ninja Turtles, are not only creative in terms of design, they also look super cuddly!
Made from felted fabric by Justin Alan Volpe, these figures have a cartoony style that rarely comes across properly in soft sculpts. I hope he mass produces these figures some day, I want them all!
Link –via ComicsAlliance
Did you know that there was a serious film produced about Karen Carpenter that used Barbie dolls instead of actors? That the first pressing of the Thriller LP was much longer than the finished product? That Quentin Tarantino’s first film was ruined by a fire at the film-processing lab? There are plenty of pop culture recordings that you might never get a chance to experience -or by luck, you just might. Read about a lot of lost art at Wired. Link -via Dark Roasted Blend
By the way, the Carpenter biopic is available online.
Mike Mitchell is no stranger to Neatorama, since his paintings of Brobocop and the Parks and Recreation cast in Casablanca, have graced our pages before. So, as soon as I saw the gallery at BuzzFeed I just had to share.
This guy knows how to paint beloved pop culture icons like you’ve never seen them before, and his images are like eye candy to me-I always crave more, and I just can’t get enough!
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This artwork by Grégoire Guillemin contains lots of pop culture icons. How many do you recognize? I didn’t count, but most of them are familiar enough. Some are for sale. See larger images at Guillemin’s gallery (which contains just a couple of spoilers). Link -via Buzzfeed
If you love paper dolls, but want a few more contemporary, geeky options, Flavorwire has you covered with a great selection of weird and wonderful paper dolls including Betty White and David Bowie. Print them out, cut them up and then stage your own delightfully odd plays.
Comments Off Watch what happens when the Smash Bros. take notes from Mortal Kombat on how to finish their opponents, with a FATALITY! Cute, bloody, and starring some of the most beloved video game characters of all time, this is my kind of vid!
Link -via GeeksAreSexy
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This is what happen when superheroes get a little long in the tooth, and grow so old that they aren’t quite as super any more. This series of paintings by Swedish artist Andreas Englund shows the fate of all non-immortal beings-wrinkles, weight gain and a feeling that tackling mundane tasks is like performing mini feats of heroism.
Link -via ComicsAlliance
Ever wondered about the origin of the Japanese Kirin or the waving Lucky Cat? If so, then this article by Matt Alt will amaze and astound with it’s short yet concise descriptions of 10 of the best known Japanese mythical creatures, some of which you may have seen but never thought you’d understand. This great article sheds light on creatures both strange and strangely familiar, and the accompanying illustrations are a delight! Follow the link, read on and be glad you’ve never spotted one of these critters in your backyard.
Link -via BoingBoing
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Reactions to this new bundle pack will range from “How much? No thanks…” to “Awesome!”, with lots of mehs in-between. But if you’re still using your Wii for anything other than Netflix, and you enjoyed the previous Legend of Zelda games, then you’ll probably want to check out the new Skyward Sword game bundle, even though it’s set to retail at $70. The collector’s bundle includes a golden Motion Plus Wiimote, game and 25th Anniversary Concert CD, so you can take your new theme music with you wherever you go!
These characters aren’t going to be kicking anyone’s butt in battle, unless they find a way to use their cuteness as a weapon. Illustrator Ivan Camelo has taken our favorite musclebound DC heroes and turned them into diminutive, bubbly and shiny little cuties that look like they belong an alternate DC/Sanrio Universe alongside Hello Kitty and Keroppi. It’s good to see that even though Batman and Superman have lost their muscles, their incredibly square chins weren’t lost in translation. You can see more at ComicsAlliance, but beware: drawings this sweet may rot your teeth.
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If you have ever seen Adventure Time on Cartoon Network, then you are already familiar with Oliver’s surreal and quirky cartoon style. If you love cartoons but have never seen Adventure Time then you’re missing out on a great show! Oliver tackles pop culture icons from cartoons, video games, and the movies and brings his own stylistic simplicity to the characters, then his bold use of color completes each piece and really makes them pop. In the age of digital art Oliver is keeping it old school! Check out the artist’s blogsite for many more examples of his cute and unique style.
Link -via ComicsAlliance
These aren’t the skateboard riding, pizza loving turtles from the animated series, but rather the original dark and moody mutant ninja’s from the comics that started it all. With help from Master Splinter, they’re battling an angry anthropomorphic cat man and his gang for control of the city, and it looks like things are going to get bloody. ComicsAlliance has an 8 page preview of the first issue at the link below, take a look and decide for yourself whether you’ll be celebrating the return of TMNT!
Was Bone too cute and cuddly for you? Wishing he were a giant pile of muscles wielding a massive sword while saving bikini clad babes? ComicsAlliance has answered your prayers with their latest indie comic reboot-Bone the Barbarian! Here’s a taste of what Bone is like in a sword and sorcery setting:
Exiled from his homeland of Boneboria, the warrior Fone Bonan sets out on a epic quest to find the mythical Crown of Horns, an artifact of great and terrible power that will grant a vast kingdom to any man who dares to claim it.
Comments Off When the term Fan Film is used to describe what you’re about to watch, you normally don’t expect much from the film or the maker. This film, entitled Portal: No Escape is unlike any fan film i’ve ever seen, because it’s downright quality-looks good, well written, stylish and entertaining throughout. No Escape should definitely raise the bar for future fan films, and I would love to see this film, and quality fan films like it, turned into YouTube mini series one day. Why is it that this short film rocks and most big budget video game movies are terrible? I guess Hollywood needs to hire more fans to help make their films!
-via BoingBoing
Awww, Chunk and Sloth are best friends! Mark A. Fionda Jr.’s take on characters from pop culture, such as these cuties from The Goonies, make me feel all warm and squishy inside. Use these images to battle depression, make your girlfriend giggle, or simply to fill your cuteness quota, just don’t try to deny Mark’s skills with the watercolors! See many more cute and colorful imagery at Mark’s website, or hit the ComicsAlliance link below for a mini-gallery of his works.
Link -via ComicsAlliance
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Obi Wan battling the Empire via breakdancing. The classic Nintendo crowd get together for a snapshot. Mulder and Scully expose alien life forms both humanoid and puppet. Sound like strange subject matter for paintings? Then you haven’t seen the colorful works of Aaron Jasinski, a painter who’s bringing the pop culture back to lowbrow art. ComicsAlliance has a cool gallery of Aaron’s colorful works, ranging from pop culture celebration to semi-traditional portraiture, and his choice of color is every bit as cool as his subject matter.You can see more of Aaron’s work at his Deviant Art page below.
Link -via ComicsAlliance
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!
Shark Week starts this Sunday! Who’s your favorite pop culture shark? I have several, and they’re all here in a list of the greatest sharks from movies, TV, and even viral news. I bet you’ll see some you’d forgotten about -like SNL’s Land Shark.
One of the most classic recurring sketches in Saturday Night Live history, Chevy Chase’s Land Shark character was basically a shark who would coerce its victims into opening their doors by pretending to be plumbers, repairmen or, in this clip, a member of Unicef.
Once the unsuspecting people opened their doors, the Land Shark would eat them whole, making a comment on the ridiculousness of the hysteria over sharks after the release of Jaws.
That’s my favorite, but there are sharks for every generation in the list at Ranker. Some text NSFW. Link
As I’m sure all of you already know, Comic Con took place last weekend and as always, there were hundreds and hundreds of costumed convention goers. This year Zeon Santos and I took over 200 pictures of people in costumes and here are the best of the bunch, starting with the Oogie Boogie Man and Sally from Nightmare Before Christmas.
Scott Pilgrim and Ramona Flowers was the most popular couples costume this year, but what set these two apart was their great accessories.
Perhaps the biggest (and in my opinion, the coolest) trend this year was turning male characters into adorable female versions. I can’t think of anyone that better epitomized this trend than this adorable Toy Story pairing.
Here’s another delightful gender-bending costume, this time a female Doctor Who. Of course, those familiar with the show know that he just might become a female during his next incarnation.
While this isn’t quite what I was talking about when I mentioned turning traditionally male costumes into adorable female versions, I doubt any of you have ever seen a more girly Master Chief.
It may seem like a simple thing to research, but simply typing in the year of your birth and getting a instant history lesson on pop culture, politics and the news is somehow very entertaining. Type in your year and let us know what were some interesting facts you found out about the year of your birth.
Do you enjoy watching giant rubber monsters destroying cities and fighting with spandex clad superheroes who ride color coordinated motorcycles? Or the good old cinematic days of Giant Lizard vs. Giant Moth vs. Giant Gorilla vs. Giant Robot vs. all of Japan? If the answer is yes, then you are a Kaiju lover, and you probably didn’t even know it! Check out this great video from Kaiju Big Battel which will explain all you need to know about Kaiju culture at the link.
While many sites are posting about wonderful, selfless mothers that make you feel inadequate on Mothers Day, here’s a list that will make you or your mom feel like a saint in comparison! Pop culture has moms that eat their young -sometimes literally. First on the list: Mom, from Futurama.
She has three sons, and she knows the father of one of them for certain. But she smacks them around and insults them on a fairly regular basis. Though they’re all pretty stupid and infatuated with her that they don’t seem to notice they’re being physically and emotionally abused. And ripped off — Mom owns 99.7 percent of MOMCORP while the other .3 percent is evenly distributed among the three of them. But like I said, they probably have no idea. Is it abuse if they don’t notice? If a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? Exactly. (Mom said that’s how it works.)
Link -Thanks, Susana!
Are you sick and tired of finding yourself washed up on glitzy beaches and modern shores? Are you constantly being cast away on so-called “desert islands” that happen to come equipped with a Starbucks and a McDonalds? Well, if you’re longing for the good old days, when a shipwrecked individual had to roll up his tattered sleeves and fend maniacally for his life, then we’ve got just the entertainment you’re looking for.
“MATANGO” AKA “ATTACK OF THE MUSHROOM PEOPLE”: In this 1963 Japanese film, a storm-weary yacht is shipwrecked, and the passengers (a psychologist, his girlfriend, a wealthy businessman, a famous singer, a writer, a sailor and his skipper) are forced to take refuge in a fungus-covered boat. Perhaps not coincidentally, “Gilligan’s Island” premiered in America a year later. But the two aren’t as similar as you might think. For instance, in “Matango”, the castaways eat the boat -growing mushrooms for sustenance, and end up turning into hideous fungal monsters. For all his comic mishaps, at least Gilligan never did that.
ROBINSON CRUSOE: The granddaddy of desert-island lit, Daniel Defoe’s 1719 novel is most likely based on the true story of Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirk. In 1704, Selkirk took part in a privateering expedition that included an inauspicious combination of a tyrant captain, a leaky ship, and repeated attacks by the Spanish. Sick of all the drama, Selkirk jumped ship (literally) to a tiny island 400 miles off the coast of Chile. And though he expected to be rescued quickly, he ended up stranded there for more than four years -which was bad, but still better than the alternative. Shortly after Selkirk deserted his crew, the ship sank. There were only eight survivors.
THE SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON: Adapted into more than a dozen movies and at least five TV series, the tale of The Swiss Family Robinson began life as a collection of bedtime stories in the early 19th century. Based on the late-night tales with which Swiss pastor John David Wyss lulled his sons to sleep, the fictional adventures were published as a novel in 1812 by one of his sons, Johann Rudolph Wyss. Coincidentally, the son of a preacher man also wrote the words to the Swiss National Anthem.
“NEW MOON”: No relation to the Hammerstein-Romberg operetta, the 1940 film starred “America’s singing sweethearts,” Jeannette McDonald and Nelson Eddy. It told the story of aristocratic French mail-order brides and sexy indentured servants stranded together on a desert island -proving that even displaced, emaciated island-squatters can fall in love via musical number.
“CAST AWAY”: Besides doing the impossible (that would be keeping an audience’s attention for hours with just one actor on screen and no soundtrack), the 2000 Tom Hanks epic is also known for its blatant FedEx product placement. And while FedEx didn’t pay for the shout-outs, the movie was shot at the company’s facilities in Moscow and Memphis, Tennessee. It also included FedEx employees as extras, and an appearance by FedEx CEO Fred Smith. Fortunately, the mail giant knew to stop when it was ahead. In the sage words of FedEx’s managing director of global brand management, Gayle Christensen, “adding even more promotion to that [movie] might go over the top.”
“SWEPT AWAY”: When this Madonna-centric remake hit theaters in 2002, it received little love. Why? Possibly because the 1974 original had a better title: “Swept Away by an Unusual Destiny in the Blue Sea of August”. Amazingly, that’s just one of the many long-winded titles for films by Italian director Lina Wertmüller, including “The Blue Collar Worker and the Hairdresser in the Whirl of Sex and Politics,” “A Complex Plot about Women, Alleys, and Crimes,” and “Summer Night, with Greek Profile, Almond Eyes, and Scent of Basil.” Wertmüller’s titling tendencies might have something to do with her equally long full name, Arcangela Felice Assunta Wertmüller von Elgg Spanol van Braucich. Or maybe she was just hoping the extra-wordy titles would catch critics’ attention. It turned out the opposite was true; she became the first woman ever nominated for a best director Oscar in 1977, for the succinct “Seven Beauties”.
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The above article is reprinted with permission from the Scatterbrained section of the March-April 2006 issue of mental_floss magazine.
Be sure to visit mental_floss‘ entertaining website and blog for more fun stuff!
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
This article takes a look back at 8 of our most famous vintage toys, what they looked like in the beginning and how they were created. Includes looks at baseball cards, comic books, Hot Wheels and Pez dispensers.
Matchbox cars were started in 1953 by British toy company Lesney Products. Co-owner Jack Odell created the idea for the tiny cars because his daughter was only allowed to bring toys to school if they could fit in a matchbox.
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by pholley.
The Bayeux Tapestry {wiki} illustrated the Battle of Hastings in 1066. The Historic Tale Construction Kit allows anyone to use pictures from the original tapestry to illustrate other things. Many panels have been made to illustrate pop culture and internet memes, and you can see in two collections. Link one and link two -via The Litter Box
A collection of humorous and ridiculous vintage ads that could be found in comic books from the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s includes Sea Monkeys, a 6 foot nuclear submarine, a life-size inflatable doll (marketed to girls), and a tube of lubricant for your Rubik’s Cube called -what else- Cube Lube!
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by 
A funny look at 10 of the weirdest and also the most awesome book covers for the ’80s book series, Choose Your Own Adventure.
Yes, AWESOME! I don’t see how the story could live up to the bad ass title and cover but I give Jay Leibold credit for totally going there. A cyborg that is also a ninja. This exists and it is bad ass. Question: Am I the ninja cyborg or am I fighting the ninja cyborg? Points taken away if I’m fighting the ninja cyborg, but points given back if I’m also a bad ass ninja master. Who’s the dude in the blue tights in the background?
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by pholley.
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In his art series "New Buddha," Tibetan artist Gade combined pop culture with traditional Tibetan art:
Gade points out "In most people’s minds, Tibet is an ancient, mysterious and exotic place. The notion of ‘Tibet’ is a conundrum. When outsiders actually visit Tibet, especially Lhasa, they get culture shock when they see all the pop culture, fast food, rock music, Coke and beer, brand name clothing, Hollywood movies, the nightlife scene, etc. I think Lhasa ought to be renamed Lhasa Vegas."
Paintings from his ‘New Buddha Series’ and his ‘Diamond Series’ reflect this culture shock with images of such American iconic pop figures as Mickey Mouse, Spiderman and the Hulk appearing in the centre of traditional-looking works. Gade points out that these figures show up in every corner of the earth. "When I visited a tiny village called Pazi at the base of Mount Xishabangma (8,102 metres) in the Himalayas, the kids there had backpacks with Mickey Mouse on them, and were drinking Coca Cola. That made me realise the incredible power of those ubiquitous emblems of Western culture and Western values."
Link – via The Zeray Gazette
