You don’t have to look like Johnny Depp to look like one of his movie characters …or two …or half a dozen. This cosplayer was spotted at New York Comic Con over the weekend. Let’s see, we have the bird on the head from The Lone Ranger, the glasses and cigarette from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, the hair from Pirates of the Caribbean, the badge from Rango, the bow tie from The Tourist, the blades from Edward Scissorhands, the watch from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, shoes from Alice in Wonderland, fingernails from Dark Shadows, and probably a lot of other accoutrements from other movies. I think he should have gone with the eyewear from Sleepy Hollow.

-via reddit

You may have seen the funny and disturbing (and NSFW) Key & Peele routine about how the TV show Family Matters became The Steve Urkel Show. It hits a little close to home for the sitcom cast, even though the show went off the air in 1998 after nine seasons. But Family Matters was more than Steve Urkel, or at least we think it was. Check out the trivia and decide for yourself.

2. STEVE URKEL WAS ONLY SUPPOSED TO APPEAR IN ONE EPISODE.

Though it’s difficult to imagine the Winslow family without their nerdy neighbor, Steve Urkel was never intended to be a regular character on the show, let alone its main character. His introduction came about midway through the first season, and he was originally slated to appear in just a single episode. But the suspenders-wearing pre-teen was an instant hit with audiences, and his role was quickly beefed up to meet (and sometimes overindulge) audience demand.

7. THE WINSLOW’S YOUNGEST CHILD TOTALLY DISAPPEARED.

In the show’s fourth season, the Winslow’s youngest daughter Judy is seen walking upstairs … but never comes down. By the time season five rolled around, Judy was no more. Nor was she ever mentioned again throughout the remaining seasons. The reason for Judy’s departure? Rumor has it that she wanted more money.

16. SEASON 10 WOULD HAVE SEEN STEVE AND LAURA GET MARRIED.

Though it was never produced, the show’s tenth season storyline was already set: Steve Urkel and Laura Winslow get married. Instead, we merely see them get engaged in the series finale

Read the rest of the 23 Fun Facts About Family Matters at mental_floss.

(Image credit: NASA)

The blog Star Trek Fact Check is a fascinating read. It’s dedicated to setting the record straight on the rumors and legends about the production of Star Trek, most of them from the original series. A post called The Reluctant Astronaut(s) shows how friendly the Star Trek production team was with NASA, as they both benefitted from the excitement surrounding space exploration in the 1960s. The Star Trek production team tried several times to get NASA astronauts to appear on the show, although it didn’t happen until Mae Jemison appeared on Star Trek: The Next Generation in 1993. Jemison might never have joined NASA if it hadn’t been for the space agency reaching out to Nichelle Nichols to recruit women and minority astronauts for them.

Jemison, however, was not the first NASA astronaut to be approached about appearing on the show. Letters in the Gene Roddenberry collection at UCLA reveal that Mercury Astronauts Alan Shepard and Scott Carpenter were both pursued about appearing on Star Trek.

You can read how those attempts went in the post. But there’s more, tracing the many intersections of NASA and Star Trek. For example, there’s this photo.

(Image credit: NASA)

This is NASA engineer and test pilot Bruce Peterson speaking to James Doohan, who played the engineer on the Enterprise. The same year this photo was taken, Peterson survived a crash of a Northrop M2-F2, although he was severely injured. The film of that crash was immortalized in the opening credits of the TV series The Six Million Dollar Man, and was shown in all 100 episodes of the series. -via Metafilter

(YouTube link)

YouTube member bikemystic gives us a play-by-play analysis while his cat Scoop eats her dinner. I’m not surprised that Scoop has idiosyncrasies about eating, because so many cats do. What’s amazing is the range and imagination of those habits. I have (or have had) cats that

* only will drink water by dipping and licking her paw.
* hides her toys in the food dish. A dish she has to share.
* cries for food only when one of the other cats is hungry.
* won’t eat inside, but will come inside to ask for food.
* likes to turn the water dish over, so we had to put a brick in it.
* has to transfer food to “her” dish before eating it.
* takes a mouthful, then goes into another room to chew it alone.
* eats raw potatoes, but has to chew off the peel and spit it out first.

In case you are wondering, Scoop was not named after her eating habits. She came with that name before the habit developed. It just worked out. -via Tastefully Offensive

This hits so close to home, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Don’t let my husband see it; he has six daughters (and one son) between the ages of 16 and 25. Still, it’s not necessarily a modern concept. Teenagers have been ignoring their parents for generations, so it doesn’t really require social media. Just wait until their car breaks down or they need their pilot light adjusted- then they’ll find time to talk to Dad! I don’t know who originally did this comic, but I’ve seen it in at least five languages. -via reddit

Even more tempting than Snow White’s apple! These apples aren’t really poison; that’s just the name. They are candied apples, made with homemade caramel with some black gel food coloring, but don’t they look absolutely striking? You’ll find the recipe at Simply Delicious. I don’t know if the look of these apples can be replicated with store-bought caramel, but if you have an aversion to making your own candy, it would be fun to try. -via Buzzfeed

Redditor brynmarele made her German Shepherd into a skeleton using non-toxic face paint. Yes, the dog sat still for it, with a bribe of a nice bone. Next, she’ll try to bury her own leg! The paint job is a trial run for her Halloween masquerade. She said her dog, Nixe, is in training to be a search and rescue dog. Nixe didn’t even try to lick the paint, but it came off easily with water. That's a good dog.

(YouTube link)

If pets could talk, what would they say? Mainly, whatever we reward them for saying, because after all, it’s not their language. But it’s oh-so-funny to hear! This compilation of clips from America’s Funniest Videos will eave you in stitches. -via Tastefully Offensive

The following is an article from Uncle John’s All-Purpose Extra Strength Bathroom Reader.

Long before Dracula became a pop icon, he was just a character in a not-very-popular novel by novelist Bram Stoker …but everyone’s got to start somewhere. Here’s the story of how Dracula made his way into pop culture through the stage and screen.

IN THE MAIL

Nosferatu——who cannot die!
A million fancies strike you when you hear the name: Nosferatu!
NOSFERATU
does not die!
What do you expect from the first showing of this great work? Aren’t you afraid? Men must die. But legend has it that a vampire, Nosferatu, “the undead,” lives on men’s blood! You want to see a symphony of horror? You may expect more. Be careful. Nosferatu is not just fun, not something to be taken lightly. Once more: beware.

That was the text of a movie advertisement sent to Bram Stoker’s 64-year-old widow from Berlin in April 1922. In the ten years since her husband’s death, Florence Stoker’s financial situation had deteriorated. All of Stoker’s books had gone out of print, except for Dracula, and sales of that were modest even in the best years. Mrs. Stoker, slowly going blind from cataracts, would have been destitute were it not for help from her son, Noel.

Now, to add insult to injury, came this advertisement in the mail. It was for Nosferatu, a Symphony of Horrors, a German film which by its own admission was “freely adapted” from Bram Stoker’s Dracula. All of Stoker’s characters were in the film,only under different names: Dracula was renamed Graf Orlock, Jonathan Harker had become Hutter, his fiancé Mina was renamed Emma, and so on.

Mrs. Stoker was furious. She’d never given the filmmakers, Prana-Film, permission to adapt her husband’s work. Nosferatu was stolen property, and she wanted it destroyed. So she sued.

HONEST MISTAKE

The makers of Nosferatu may not have meant any harm. Filmmaking was still in its infancy in the early 1920s, and Prana-Film, less than a year old, was owned by two businessmen who’d never made films before. But it turned out they were as impractical about making money as they were in obtaining permissions -and two months after Mrs. Stoker filed her lawsuit, the studio went bankrupt.

All existing prints of the film, including the original negative, scattered to the four winds with Prana-Film’s dissolution, With no hope of collecting any financial damages, most people would have probably left it at that. But Mrs. Stoker spent the next ten years hunting down every print of Nosferatu she could find …and had them all destroyed -including the original negative, which is believed to have burned in 1925.

“Most ‘lost’ films have vanished through neglect,” David Skal write in Hollywood Gothic. “But in the case of Nosferatu we have one of the few instances in film history, and perhaps the only one, in which an obliterating capital punishment is sought for a work of cinematic art, strictly on legalistic grounds, by a person with no knowledge of the work’s specific content or artistic merit.” Mrs. Stoker had never even seen the film she worked so hard to destroy.

Despite her dedication, though, she was unsuccessful in destroying every print -a handful survived.

First with the Most

It’s fortunate that Mrs. Stoker failed in her attempt to kill Nosferatu because the film is not only the first Dracula film ever made, it’s also considered by many film historians to be the best. “Nosferatu,” Skal writes, “would go on to be recognized as a landmark of world cinema, elevating the estimation of Dracula in a way no other dramatic adaptation ever would, or ever could… It had achieved what Florence Stoker herself would never achieve for the book: artistic legitimacy.”

DRACULA ON STAGE

In the mid-1920s a British actor named Hamilton Deane licensed the stage rights to Dracula from Mrs. Stoker and adapted the novel for the stage, creating a play that could be produced on a shoestring budget. He also recast the novel’s only American character, a Texan named Quincy Morris, as a woman, so that the actresses in his troupe could have more parts.

But the biggest change that he made was to clean up Count Dracula. He replaced the vampire’s bad breath, hairy palms, and overall bad hygiene with cleanliness, formality, and proper manners. “Gentility and breeding added a new dimension to the character," Skal writes, “and served a theatrical function -he was now able to interact with the characters, rather than merely hang outside their bedroom windows.”

(vimeo link)

This sequence was produced for the 2013 mockumentary The Great Martian War 1913-1917 from History Canada. A combination of World War I footage and CGI tell the story of the Martian invasion that could have been, an alternate history reminiscent of War of the Worlds. Who won? I believe mankind did, but my history classes all seemed to slip over this one. -via reddit

In America’s colonial era, thousands of people were buried in a cemetery that is now the Green in New Haven, Connecticut. The Center Church on the Green, as it is called now, was built in 1814 right over top of a section of the cemetery! They set up pillars in the cemetery, and built the church on top, then put fill dirt around the church to make it ground level. That left a “basement’ of sorts for the remaining graves, complete with their original headstones. And it is there still. But that was only part of the large cemetery on the Green. What of the bodies outside of the church?

Yet in true Poltergeist-fashion, when in the 1820s the graveyard was relocated to the new Grove Street Cemetery, only the headstones were moved. By some estimates there are between 5,000 to 10,000 souls still buried below the Green, although one was disturbed during 2012's Hurricane Sandy when a tree was dislodged from the ground, and a skeleton was found coiled in the roots. Specifically, a skull was spotted just before Halloween with its jaw swung open as if in a silent howl, while a spine and rib cage remained attached.

You won’t see that, but you will see plenty of pictures of the Center Church on the Green and its underground cemetery-turned-crypt that is open to visitors, at Atlas Obscura.

(Image credit: Allison Meier)

Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website or at Facebook.

During his heyday, Dean Martin was the coolest guy in the world. He was a movie star, had a hit TV show, was the king of the nightclubs, and he was one half of the most popular comedy team in the history of show business. Dean's records sold in the millions, but his greatest joy in life was his beloved golf. Dean was a very complicated man, although he appeared to be very simple. Let's take a look at Frank "Old Blue Eyes" Sinatra's best pal, Dean Martin- "Old Red Eyes.”

1) He didn't speak English until he was five.

Dean Martin grew up in a very Italian family and never spoke a word of English until he was five years old.

2) He was a Boy Scout.

Yes, Dean Martin- the bad boy, the drinker, the ladies' man, was, indeed, a Boy Scout. He was the drummer for the local Boy Scout band in Steubenville, Ohio.

3) He was once an amateur boxer.

Fighting under the name “Kid Crotchet,” Dean was reputedly a very good welterweight boxer. His record, according to one source, was 24 wins and 6 losses in 30 bouts.

Dean was so broke in his early years, he and a friend would stage fights in their hotel room and charge people to watch. Supposedly, they would often fight until one of the combatants knocked the other one out.

4) He changed his name twice.

(YouTube link)

The problem with being a mother chipmunk is that there comes a time when your babies are almost as big as you are, but still too dumb to follow simple directions, much less fend for themselves. This chipmunk nested inside the bumper of an RV, with a small hole that’s just a little high for her center of gravity when carrying a large child. Oh, the hole is big enough, but the baby is used to curling up in a ball, which thwarts mama’s plans of tucking him in for the night. But she gives it her best effort! Then at about 2:15, she changes tactics and this starts to resemble a Looney Tunes cartoon. YukonJan says she eventually got both babies into the nest later that night. When it takes hours to get your kids settled for the night, you have to start early. -via Daily Picks and Flicks

Brian Abrams has published a book called AND NOW…An Oral History of "Late Night with David Letterman," 1982-1983, available at Amazon Kindle Singles. It’s full of stories from those who were there at the beginning, responsible for the show that became a late night institution. Part of that institution was Letterman’s Top Ten List, although there is some dispute about who came up with the idea. In a book excerpt, we get to hear from all sides.  

By the summer of 1985, head writer Steve O’Donnell was no longer scouring for new personnel to come up with remote concepts and “Viewer Mail” pieces. (Monologue material stayed plentiful, as staffer Gerry Mulligan continued to oversee that part of the show.) Including co-creators Merrill Markoe and David Letterman, 13 individuals populated the writers’ room, and submissions from prospective writers continued to stack high on O’Donnell’s desk. An unassuming 23-year-old Tufts University grad named Rob Burnett wangled an internship in the talent department. And, at 30 Rock, the days of finding bored New Yorkers to fill up Studio 6A’s 200 or so seats at 5 p.m. tapings were ancient history.

But of all of Late Night’s much adored ironic obsessions that transformed comedy forever and enabled a generation of writers and comedians to flourish, there is one recurring bit that to this day has multiple writers claiming credit for its creation: The “Top Ten.”

Was it Merrill Markoe, Randy Cohen, Kevin Curran, Steve O’Donnell, Bob Morton, or Jim Downey? Every one of them had some claim to the idea, as you can read at Splitsider, or in the Abrams book.   

Your dog doesn’t enjoy wearing a cone, even though it’s for his own good. You probably don’t like it, either, and can’t wait until it’s no longer needed. But while it’s there, you may as well take advantage of it, by letting your imagination run wild. This poor puppy makes a perfect Pixar lamp! Other humans made the cone into a martini, Death Star, salad bowl, and other silly photo opportunities, which you can see at 22 Words. -via mental_floss