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.   

Only one man could make an album about poverty, drugs, and the Vietnam War sound sexy and soulful. That man was Marvin Gaye, and his vision changed the music industry forever. On the 28th anniversary of his tragic death, let's look back at What's Going On.

In November 1970, Marvin Gaye brought Motown Records president Berry Gordy a new song he’d just recorded called “What’s Going On.” Gordy was thrilled. It had been more than a year since Gaye had released his last big hit, “That’s the Way Love Is,” and the singer had been going through a rough patch. During the 1960s, Gaye had achieved great success as a suave song-and-dance man. But in 1967, his singing partner, Tammi Terrell, was diagnosed with a brain tumor after collapsing into his arms on stage. After several unsuccessful surgeries, she died on March 16, 1970, and Gaye was inconsolable. On top of that, he was in trouble with the IRS, his marriage was falling apart, and his only brother was fighting in Vietnam.

Tired of churning out peppy love songs, Gaye co-wrote “What’s Going On” with the hope of taking his music in a new direction. He wanted, in his words, to “touch the souls of people everywhere.” When his boss, Berry Gordy, listened to the new recording, his excitement turned to horror. The song was more than a soulful change of pace; it was a lament depicting the sorrow and futility of the Vietnam War. Over a bed of heavy percussion, street-corner jive, and mellow strings, Gaye sang, “Mother, mother, there’s too many of you crying / Brother, brother, brother, there’s far too many of you dying.” The sound and lyrics clashed with Motown’s upbeat attitude, and a startled Gordy knocked it as “the worst record [he’d] ever heard.”

Gaye didn’t flinch. He believed in his music, and he gave Gordy an ultimatum: Release the single, or he’d walk from Motown. After a four-month stalemate, Gordy agreed to put out the song, even though he was sure it would flop.

It didn’t.

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This week’s mental_floss video is hosted by summer intern Paige Finch. That must mean everyone else is goofing off. It only makes sense that Finch would talk about famous people who were once interns. Temporary unpaid work can give you valuable experience, connections, and college credit …if you can afford to do it.

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Screen Junkies gets around to giving us an honest trailer for Ghostbusters 30 years later. This episode is a bit of a departure for the series, as they can’t really find all that much to make fun of in the 1984 comedy. Ghostbusters is almost beyond criticism. The worst they can say about it is that it is a little adult for a kid’s movie. Hmm. I saw Ghostbusters as an adult in 1984, and I don’t recall it being marketed as a kid’s movie. It wasn’t, but the internet generation just happens to of an age to recall it from their childhoods. Today, a PG rating might designate a movie aimed at kids, but thirty years ago, it meant parental guidance suggested, which was the proper rating. -via Geeks Are Sexy

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When young actors try to break into the business, they take any and all jobs, trying to both build their resumes and pay the rent. Waiting tables will only get you so far. Then, after they make it to stardom, we can dig out old videos of their younger days and marvel at how young they look. We can also contemplate how many advertising dollars are spent on breakfast cereals and fast food. The biggest takeaway I had about this celebrity compilation is that I must be getting really old, because I don’t know who half these stars are. -via Uproxx

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The Brotherhood Workshop brings us a Harry Potter LEGO short, with an awesome way to destroy a dementor.

Dementors feed on the happiness of others. So what happens when they find a creature with limitless happiness?

Who could that be? Watch and find out! -via Laughing Squid

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

Director James Cameron was originally inspired to make Titanic while making The Abyss, a science-fiction underwater film. He also reportedly had a fascination with shipwrecks. Cameron himself went under to explore the remains of the actual Titanic twelve times, at an average of 16 hours each spent there each time. A special camera, designed by his brother, was built to withstand the underwater pressure.

Titanic, Cameron's 1997 film, was the first movie to make over $1 billion dollars worldwide. Its $600 million dollar U.S. box office was the all-time record until Cameron's own 2009 film Avatar overtook it. Titanic still holds the never-to-be-equaled record of being the #1 weekly box office champ an incredible 15 weeks in a row from 1997 to '98.

It made a silver screen icon of star Leonardo DiCaprio, although, strangely, despite the film's 14 Oscar nominations, he was snubbed by the Academy.

Leading lady Kate Winslet, playing “Rose,” got her Oscar nod for Best Supporting Actress, along with Gloria Stuart (who played “Old Rose" in the film, and hadn't appeared in a movie in over 30 years). This proved the only instance on Oscar history of two people both being nominated for playing the same character in the same movie (both were nominated for Best Supporting Actress -neither won- although Titanic did garner 11 awards).

The studio executives' first choice to play the male lead was Matthew McConaughey, but both Cameron and Winslet wanted Leo DiCaprio. Originally, Cameron wasn't that familiar with him, but at their first meeting, Cameron noticed that "all the women in the building" showed up to catch a glimpse of young Leo. Although there was no “Jack Dawson" (DiCaprio's character), Cameron was to discover that there was a “J. Dawson" on board the real-life Titanic. He was an engineer who drowned in the disaster.

Cameron's original choice for Rose was Gwyneth Paltrow, but Kate lobbied hard to snag the role. The Rose character was named in honor of Cameron's grandmother.

Early on in the film, Kate "flashed" Leo. This was to get him used to seeing her in her birthday suit, because they would be spending much time together filming the famous nude scene. On the day of the nude scene's filming, Kate was getting made up, when Leo walked in accidentally and said “Whoa!" Again, to get him used to seeing her nude, she told him to stay. (Incidentally, Cameron himself drew the "nude portrait" of Rose featured in the scene, as well as all of Jack's drawings.)

Leo claimed to be "water sensitive" and would seldom appear in any water scenes where the water was "too cold.” The water in the hallway scenes was 50 degrees, but the water in the "out in the ocean" scenes was warmed to 80 degrees.

Do not. We repeat. Do not be intimidated by the meats. pic.twitter.com/FLbkvx4p0j

— Arby's (@Arbys) August 26, 2014

Arby’s made a poster to show all the different kinds of meats they use on their various sandwiches. The idea was to counter the perception that they only serve roast beef. The poster, shown here, inspired customers to ask if they could have “that” sandwich.

The answer is now yes; yes, you can have a $10 pile of meat between two buns, but you’ll have to know to ask for it as it won’t be on the menu.

That mound includes: 2 chicken tenders; 1.5 oz. of roast turkey; 1.5 oz. of ham; 1 slice of Swiss cheese; 1.5 oz. of corned beef; 1.5 oz. brisket; 1.5 oz. of Angus steak; 1 slice of cheddar cheese; 1.5 oz. roast beef and 3 half-strips of bacon.

So @Arbys has a sandwich called #MeatMountain. Includes every type of meat on menu. #ChallengeAccepted? pic.twitter.com/yoapsbvLjH

— Otto Rogers (@smashmode) August 26, 2014

That’s a lot of meat on one sandwich. You might want to ask for a fork, too. -via Metafilter

In the September issue of Smithsonian magazine, we see how archaeologists can explore underground without digging it up. Vince Gaffney heads a project that has given us a sort of three-dimensional map of what’s underneath the land surrounding the most mysterious place in Britain: Stonehenge.

Gaffney’s latest research effort, the Stonehenge Hidden Landscapes Project, is a four-year collaboration between a British team and the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archaeology in Austria that has produced the first detailed underground survey of the area surrounding Stonehenge, totaling more than four square miles. The results are astonishing. The researchers have found buried evidence of more than 15 previously unknown or poorly understood late Neolithic monuments: henges, barrows, segmented ditches, pits. To Gaffney, these findings suggest a scale of activity around Stonehenge far beyond what was previously suspected.

Read about what they found, and see plenty of pictures and graphics to explain the project at Smithsonian. -via reddit

(Image credit: Henrik Knudsen)

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Picking cherries by hand is way too labor-intensive for commercial orchardists. The get the most cherries in the least time, you need specialized equipment, but strangely the one piece of heavy equipment not involved is a cherry picker! Instead, you’ll need a specialized roll of tarp to catch the cherries, a conveyor belt to gather them, and the world’s largest vibrator, the Vibro6 EH. Now that’s one huge vibrator! Shake the tree, gather the cherries, and move on. Cool! -via Viral Viral Videos

I loved back-to-school time when I was a kid. I got new penny loafers, a plaid skirt, and knee socks. We never started school before September. But I didn’t look forward to the beans and cornbread the cafeteria served at least twice a week. Things have changed quite a bit since then. A post at Wide Lawns and Narrow Minds contrasts the process of sending kids to school when the author was a kid with the process today. For example, packing lunches.

5. Spread yellow mustard on bread. Slap baloney on bread. Unwrap American cheese slices and put on top of baloney. Put top on the sandwich and wrap sandwich in tin foil or wax paper. Put it in the lunchbox. Every kid gets the same exact lunch. Period.

6. Alternate sandwich choices could include: peanut butter and grape jelly, peanut butter and marshmallow fluff, the end of last night's leftover roast beef or the ever popular with children tuna fish with large chunks of onions and celery and Miracle Whip.

7. Put some Planter's Cheese Balls into a baggie and close with a twist tie.

8. Take Twinkies out of the box. Put one in each child's lunch box.

9. Fill Thermoses with either Kool-Aid or whole milk.

10. Include a red delicious apple even though you know that damned apple is just going to come home uneaten again, which is fine because you can keep adding the same one until it practically rots.

That was the ‘70s version. The new millennial lunches much more involved, but will give you a laugh as you fill out all that paperwork and buy all those supplies for school this year. -via Boing Boing

A fight over legroom territory led to a unscheduled landing for a United Airlines flight. The Knee Defender is a set of clamps you can take on an airplane to disable the reclining ability of the seat in front of you. Many airlines prohibit them, including United. On Sunday, the use of the device led to an unscheduled landing. The flight from Newark to Denver diverted to Chicago, where the two passengers were put off the flight.

The fight started when the male passenger, seated in a middle seat of row 12, used the Knee Defender to stop the woman in front of him from reclining while he was on his laptop, according to a law enforcement official with knowledge of the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak.

A flight attendant asked him to remove the device and he refused. The woman then stood up, turned around and threw a cup of water at him, the official says. That's when United decided to land in Chicago. The two passengers were not allowed to continue to Denver.

Both passengers were sitting in United's Economy Plus section, the part of the plane that has four more inches of legroom than the rest of coach.

TSA officials and Chicago police talked to the fighting passengers and declined to arrest either one. The flight continued to Denver, where it arrived an hour and 38 minutes late, minus two passengers. -via Digg

(Unrelated image credit: Lasse Fuss)

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“Hey, boys! Wanna Milk-Bone? I gotcha Milk-Bones right here! Have one! Have another! Just remember what your old friend Spike did for you some day when I need a hand. Ya never know when I might need a big dog to defend me!”

These Great Danes have a friend in a high place- Spike, the Umbrella Cockatoo, who is glad to hand out the treats they thought they’d have to earn. -via Arbroath

No public urination! The rule is clear, but this addition to the standard sign in the Czech Republic spells out the consequences clearly. A fine can be paid and forgotten, but YouTube is forever.

And this is the same country that has a public fountain featuring a pissing contest between two statues.

You’ve seen some confusing parking signs that pile regulation after regulation atop one another, but this one may have broken a record -although briefly. The signs in front of Linwood E. Howe Elementary School in Culver City, California, went up Thursday, but only stayed up a couple of days before being cut in half. The original 15-foot signs would have drawn even more traffic just to see them! According to CBS Los Angeles (warning: multiple auto play videos):  

The signs were meant to clarify a new drop-off and pick-up procedure for when classes resume at the school, but as CBS2’s Juan Fernandez reported, neighbors just found them confusing.

Mayor Meghan Sahli-Wells said the plan was for the signs to only be displayed temporarily.

“They just didn’t look temporary,” she said. “So they were going to be taken down. And it looked like … whoa. It was pretty impressive.”

By late Friday, half of the signs were gone, although that still left more than a few regulations for spaces near the school.

I wouldn’t even think of trying to park in that area -the fine for illegal parking is $73. -via Arbroath