Oh, this will be exciting -the strange phenomena known as the water blob gets the Devin Supertramp POV treatment! But that’s not all that’s going on: there’s also wakeboarding, waterskiing, jet skiing, surfing, and that odd water jetpack thing. Makes you wish that summer vacation could last forever, doesn’t it? That, and I wish I was thirty years younger and had the wherewithal to travel to such fun places. If you’d like more, there’s a behind-the-scenes video, too. -via Viral Viral Videos
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When you’re shooting video from up on the penthouse of a beachfront hotel, you can see what’s in the shallow water a lot better than the people who are in the water can see. These guys could see a hammerhead shark chasing a stingray, while the guys in the water couldn’t. They couldn’t hear the shouting from the hotel for a while, either. This happened in Destin, Florida. -via Daily Picks and Flicks
The 1964 Disney movie Mary Poppins was released 50 years ago this week. What better way to celebrate its anniversary than by learning some movie trivia? For example:
10. That’s Julie Andrews whistling the robin’s part during “A Spoonful of Sugar.”
An accomplished whistler (who knew?), Andrews recorded the robin's sweet tune. In order for the bird to move and nod during the scene, by the way, Andrews had to wear a ring that connected to it. Yards of cable ran from the ring, up her arm, and out to engineers who could control the bird’s movements.
11. Disney was sued over “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.”
Though the Sherman Brothers claimed they made the word up themselves, a 1949 song called “Supercalafajaistickespeealadojus” would seem to say otherwise. The writers of the song, Barney Young and Gloria Parker, sued for $12 million. They lost because lawyers were able to present evidence showing that the nonsense word had been around, in some form or another, for decades. Indeed, the Sherman Brothers later claimed that their made-up word was a variation on a similar word they had heard at summer camp back in the 1930s: “super-cadja-flawjalistic-espealedojus.”
There are videos from the film and about the film accompanying the 18 facts about Mary Poppins at mental_floss.
You’ve seen examples of how editing can turn a set of movie scenes into something completely different from what was originally intended. We've even heard stories of actors who were surprised by the finished product because what they understood of the movie when they delivered their lines was so different from what ended up in theaters. The same principle works for movie trailers, which already have a tendency to mislead by showing only the best parts -which may be the only good parts. We’re used to being misled about the quality of a film, but Cracked looks at a few cases of the audience being misled about the type of film they went to see. For example, I did not know until today that Sweeney Todd was a musical.
Don't get us wrong -- the trailer accurately sums up the plot, showcases the principal characters, and provides dialogue in a satisfactory context. However, it leaves out one key element of the movie: It's a full-fledged musical. And we're going to guess that a whole bunch of goth kids looking for a dark period slasher film were confused as shit the first time somebody broke into song.
To be fair, Sweeney Todd is an adaptation of a popular Broadway show, but the trailer's absolute refusal to even allude to a musical component is awfully suspicious.
There are five other examples of confused movie audiences who were misled by a trailer that you can read about at Cracked. -via mental_floss
Earlier this week, John told us about the Camels of Texas. The Confederate Army used quite a few of them during the Civil War. That inspired Neatorama reader Russ Warner to send us some of his neat pictures of the Cedar Hill Cemetery in Vicksburg, Mississippi, where the camel named Old Douglas, of Company A of the Forty-third Mississippi Infantry, is honored with a marker. From Wikipedia:
Though the men tried to treat Old Douglas like a horse, the camel was known to break free of any tether, and was eventually allowed to graze freely. Despite not being tied up, he never wandered far from the men. The Infantry’s horses feared Old Douglas, and he is recorded to have spooked one horse into starting a stampede, which reportedly injured many, and possibly killed one or two horses.[5]
Old Douglas’s first active service was with Gen. Price in the Iuka campaign. He also participated in the 1862 Battle of Corinth.[3] He remained with the regiment until the Siege of Vicksburg, where he was killed by Union sharpshooters.[6] Enraged at his murder, the men swore to avenge him. Col. Bevier enlisted six of his best snipers, and successfully shot the culprit. Of Douglas’s murderer, Bevier reportedly said, “I refused to hear his name, and was rejoiced to learn that he had been severely wounded.[7]” According to legend, after Douglas was shot, his remains were carved up and eaten, with some of his bones made into souvenirs by Federal soldiers.[2]
Learn more about the American camels from the Texas Camel Corps, a group “established to educate the public about the historic use of camels in America in the 19th century.”
(Images credit: Russ Warner, Brandon, Mississippi)
We’ve seen filmmaker Casey Neistat snowboarding the streets of New York, making a banzai intercontinental rush to a wedding, wrecking his bike, and taking his son Owen to Machu Picchu. In this video, we get the story of his relationship with Candice, told over nine years and various corners of the earth. It’s sweet and romantic and when it’s done, you’ll be glad you watched it. -via Digg
Illustrator Ed Harrington has a series of IKEA instructions for building your favorite horror movie character. They even come strangely pseudo-Swedified with umlauts in their names. Shown here is the construction called Vörhees, from the Friday the 13th movie series. He’s also got instructions for Cenobite from Hellraiser, Brundlefly from the remake of The Fly, Edward Scissorhands, and the Human Centipede. See all of them at Uproxx.
Look at this lovely couple getting married in London in 1934. Such a gorgeous dress! And the groom’s stylish mustache belies the fact that he was only 22 years old. That was 80 years ago, and they haven’t changed all much. Yes, Maurice and Helen Kaye are still alive and still married. He is 102 and just recently gave up driving. She just turned 101 and looks decades younger.
If what they have could be bottled, they would make a fortune. Apart from the odd ache and pain, they are in good health, presiding over a family that loves them. They talk about their son, their daughter (and each of their spouses), their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren with the pride of people who know how lucky they are. Although luck hasn’t always been with them.
Together they survived World War II, in which their house was destroyed by bombs, bore four children, of which two now survive, and built a chain of clothing stores. You can read their story at The Guardian. -via Buzzfeed
A colony of ants work together to drag dinner back to the nest to share -and possibly store- their find. The ants form chain to get more pulling power. At first I thought this was a sausage (you know how ants are at picnics), but considering the scale, I think it’s a worm or a millipede. The language is not identified, so maybe you could help us out if you recognize it. -via reddit
Peter the elephant lives in Ayutthaya, Thailand. Here, he enjoys a clarinet tune from Paul Barton and wants to make some music of his own. Elephant see, elephant do. Who’s going to tell him he can’t? -via Tastefully Offensive
Need any more proof that the laser pointer is the best toy ever? We’ve seen all kinds of animals chase after the red dot, but in this case, a cat and a child compete to see who catches it first. Instant entertainment for Mom and Dad! -via Tastefully Offensive
Redditor meancloth is pretty sure everything is fine with the latest ultrasound image. Baby A gives a thumbs up to assure him that conditions are AOK inside. Baby A? Yep, the other baby is fine, too. However, if you’re into counting fingers and toes, Baby A seems to have six on one hand. That could be a sonogram artifact, or a biological bonus. As if twins aren’t already a biological bonus!
The Caped Crusader, or an awesome facsimile, was spotted this week breezing down the highway on a three-wheeled Batcycle in Chiba Prefecture in Japan this week. The cosplayer, nicknamed “Chibatman,” was photographed by quite a few people who all had to post images on social media.
千葉ットマンというらしい。格好よすぎる！ pic.twitter.com/MFr7aW6Bqt
— yutaka (@swipe_yutaka) August 26, 2014He appears to wear a very faithful version of the costume from The Dark Knight. See more pictures of Chibatman at The Daily Dot.
We told you about the rise of deer as livestock, that are now bred on farms for venison. That’s somewhat equivalent to raising cattle for beef, but it’s not the most lucrative use of specifically-bred deer. Another kind of deer farm breeds deer for their antlers: the bigger, the better.
Hunters give antlers a score by measuring features like the length and spread of the main beams and the number and length of the smaller tines that grow out of them. Out in the wild, a really big buck might score 200 inches, if he’s got a “typical” rack, with the main beams curving out from his forehead and an orderly line of tines pointing towards the sky. On a “non-typical” rack, the main beam might split and split again, and the irregular tines will wind chaotically outward. The largest of these, on wild deer, come in over 300 inches.
The antlers that are being produced on deer farms grow much, much larger. In the past five years, farmers have produced non-typical antlers with scores of more than 500 — even more than 600 — inches. It’s not unusual to find deer with 400-inch racks, while racks in the 200-inch range, which on a wild deer would be amazing, are becoming standard for deer raised on farms. Much as the poultry industry has super-sized chicken breasts to meet humans’ culinary preferences, the deer industry has succeeded in enlarging antlers to meet their aesthetic ones.
So what good are big antlers? Hunters are willing to pay a premium for the opportunity to hunt a deer with a spectacular rack they can show off as a trophy. Hunting preserves buy big-antlered deer to attract big-money hunters. And the practice will continue as long as people are impressed with antlers hanging on someone’s wall. However, the most avid opponents of breeding deer for antlers are other hunters. Read more about antler farms at Modern Farmer. -via Digg
(Image credit: Miko Maciaszek)
Flight attendants have always been service and safety professionals, but at one time they were blatantly used as sex symbols to lure customers. Stewardesses of the 1960s and ‘70s were fashion plates, and designers had a great time making them look different and striking. Collectors Weekly talked to former steward and uniform collector Cliff Muskiet and transportation memorabilia collector Todd Lappin about airline fashions of that era.
Because no one tried to hide the fact that flight attendants were there to be eye candy, big-named designers had a fun time dressing them up and coming up with sexy new gimmicks to promote air travel. In 1968, Jean Louis gave United Airlines stewardesses a simple, mod A-line dress with a wide stripe down the front and around the collar, and paired it with a big, blocky kefi-type cap. During the ’60s and ’70s, Pucci designed five different uniforms for Braniff International Airways.
“If you look at the Pucci uniforms, you can’t imagine that women wore these items,” Muskiet says. “There was even a space helmet, like a plastic bubble. It was used when it was raining outside, so the hat and hair wouldn’t get wet. Braniff also had something called the ‘Air Strip’ in 1965. During service, the stewardesses would take something off to reveal a different layer and a different look underneath. They might be wearing a skirt and remove it to show off their hot pants beneath.”
Airlines still try to have fashionable uniforms, but they are less sexist and more professional and functional these days. Read about how that happened, along with the history of flight attendant uniforms, at Collectors Weekly.
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