In the 1950s, theater owners and movie promoters reacted to the popularity of TV by offering stranger and stranger gimmicks in theaters, like interactive "experiences." The master of such gimmickry was film producer and director William Castle, who understood the value of publicity.   

Many of Castle’s gags were integrated directly into the movie, bringing stories to life by letting the audience interact with the action onscreen. For his 1961 film, “Homicidal,” Castle inserted a “fright break” just before the film’s climax, displaying a ticking stop-watch while giving viewers a chance to leave the theater if they were too afraid. Theaters set up a “Coward’s Corner” in the lobby, with a yellow line leading fearful patrons to the booth where they’d sign a certificate stating “I am a bona-fide coward” before getting their money back.

Audiences couldn’t wait to see what Castle would come up with next. For the film “Thirteen Ghosts,” black-and-white scenes were superimposed with blue- and red-tinted footage, allowing viewers to make the “ghosts” visible or invisible using a pair of “Illusion-O” glasses filled with colored cellophane. For “Mr. Sardonicus,” Castle created a “Punishment Poll,” whereby audience members could vote for the villain to receive extra punishment or mercy. While many skeptics think there weren’t actually two endings, Terry says an alternate version was definitely made, though it wasn’t ever screened.

By the time Castle produced his last film, 1967's Rosemary's Baby, others had learned from his promotional stunts. They continue up to the 21st-century revival of 3D movies. Read about Castle and others who tried every angle to make going to the theater a one-of-a-kind experience at Collectors Weekly. Link    

In 1784, someone stumbled upon the idea of exhibiting a "Learned Pig," which could do math equations, spell, and later on even read minds. Many pigs were eventually exhibited like this, and they were either billed as a "Learned Pig" or under the name "Toby." Robyn Pennacchia was intrigued to learn about them, and bought a reprint of an 1805 promotional book about one of these pigs.  

Toby supposedly dictated this “autobiography” to Nicholas Hoare, his manager. While he was born of an “illicit amour” between his father and mother (who supposedly ate a volume of the classics during her pregnancy, which is possibly the genesis of his genius), he was immediately spirited away upon his birth by Hoare, who taught him to read by the time he was a mere four months old. Toby reminds us that many children do not achieve this by their fourth birthday, and should be appropriately shamed for it. His name, we discover, was derived from Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” speech.

Having had no other companions, Toby dedicated every waking hour to his studies, and imagines that if other tutors were as dedicated as Hoare was to his education, that “we should not have so many blockheads in the world as we see every day; and truly, they are a very numerous race.”

Read more about the intelligent pig craze at Death and Taxes. Link

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Dancing to Aretha Franklin is one of the joys of life, but it only befuddles this well-fed raccoon. When you think he might join in, it's more like "Please stop that. You're scaring me." -via Metafilter

This is the same guy who brought us Raccoon Repellent.

Those old sayings we used to live by have been updated for the hi-tech world we live in, one by cousin Nab, and the rest by Doghouse Diaries. Link -via Tastefully Offensive

Ruby turned six years old and had a-themed birthday party, with all the trimmings, from Yoda Soda to Pin the Buns on Leia. See many of the pun-tastic party foods and favors at Imgur. Link  -via Geeks Are Sexy

Four years after buying the sea rock it lived in, redditor GCS_3 discovered that he had a bobbit worm in his saltwater aquarium. That explained why some of his fish had mysteriously disappeared. In the wild, bobbit worms can grew to almost ten feet in length, although the average is about a yard long. This one was measured at eight inches, after it was "euthanized." The consensus is that it should have been nuked from orbit. See more pictures of this scary worm at imgur. Link

Cleaning up the messes we make out of Mother Nature is a delicate business, lest we make things worse with the solution. Ships stop at many islands around the world, inadvertently introducing rats that ate native species, particularly their eggs. South Georgia Island in the South Atlantic is one such habitat. Once the premiere breeding ground of seabirds, South Georgia became overrun by rats, and the number of birds there dropped like a stone, to 1% of the former population. Many schemes have been tried (remember operation cat drop?), but conservationists may be making headway with new techniques.

The projects try their best not to hurt the species they're supposed to protect.

For one, the rat poison, brodifacoum, is not water soluble, so it can't leach into the groundwater or poison waterways.

Some seabird scavengers could eat stricken rats and become ill, though the rat carcasses are hard to find: The poison makes the rats photophobic, or shy of light, so the rodents usually retreat to their burrows before dying.

It's possible that a few duck or other birds may ingest the poisonous pellets, but since rats eat thousands and possibly millions of chicks a year overall, poison is still the better strategy, experts say.

South Georgia Island is not the only island undergoing rat eradication projects. Read about several of them at NatGeo News. Link

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The song "Just Text Me" is attributed to "Keisha feat. Brandi," but the artist is Nicola Foti. The song illustrates the great divide between how young and old see social interaction. The song bemoans voice-to-voice phone calls as lame, intrusive, and not worth the time. Someone of my generation (namely me) thinks that if a conversation with someone is so painful, why are you friends in the first place? When I accused my kids and their friends of using texts as a method of ignoring each other, they assured me that I was completely right, and so what? However, the examples in the song illustrate how communication has changed: you can now contact almost anyone, anytime, to ask a different question every ten minutes, which is something I wouldn't think to do unless the other person was actually in my house. It's no wonder they want to ignore their friends!  -via Laughing Squid

This cute kitten, named Saltwater Taffy, was born with radial agenesis, a condition in which the foreleg bones don't form properly. She was picked up by Philadelphia's Animal Care and Control Team and placed with a foster family along with her two litter mates. Saltwater Taffy gets around somewhat on her twisted limbs, and is undergoing physical therapy to strengthen her front legs. An online fundraiser is helping to pay for her medical care and possible future surgery. You can follow her progress on Facebook and see more pictures at Buzzfeed. Link

(Image credit: Saltwater Taffy)

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Weird Al Yankovic's song "Albuquerque" is the longest song he ever released. It's an epic account of a trip to the New Mexico city. Now it has an awesome video, made from strangely apt clips of the TV show Breaking Bad. The visual imagery makes the song seem shorter than it is, and certainly highlights the insanity of the AMC show. -via Metafilter

Rhiannon at Cakecrumbs loves science and baking. One would have to, to devote the time, skill, and artistry necessary to this Jupiter cake she made. Icing the atmosphere alone took eight hours! But that's not the extent of the realism. The inside of the cake is also as accurate as we know about Jupiter.

When my sister asked me what I was making and I said Jupiter, she said to me, “I didn’t even know Jupiter had layers.” It’s amazing how much we can forget after learning it in primary school. So here’s a rehashing for those of you who’ve also forgotten. Our knowledge is mostly theoretical of course, but the gas giants are thought to have a core comprised mostly of rock and ice. This is surrounded by a layer liquid metallic hydrogen, and the outer layer is composed of molecular hydrogen. *cake is totally not to scale

In cake speak, this translates to a core made of mudcake, surrounded by almond butter cake, surrounded by a tinted vanilla Madeira sponge. There’s a crumb coat of vanilla buttercream underneath the fondant.

Read more about the making of Jupiter, and see more pictures at her blog. Link -via Bad Astronomy

Life will probably be quite rosy for the newborn Prince George of Cambridge, but back when the title of king meant real power, it was quite dangerous to be a prince, especially a crown prince. There was always someone who wanted you dead. Pictured here are the princes Edward and Richard, sons of King Edward IV. They were kept in a tower by their uncle, who became King Richard III.

Edward senior went boating one day in 1483 and soon after became ill and died (in a rather prolonged way which to some suggests foul play) when junior was only 12.  Senior managed to make his youngest brother Richard (yes, that Richard) Protector of the young uncrowned king and that was exactly what he did, placing his nephew in the Tower of London for his own protection.  He was soon joined by his younger brother, Richard.  The coronation would secure Junior’s position as the crowned King of England never came.  Dear old Uncle Richard had the pair declared illegitimate by Parliament and was then crowned Richard III.  However, despite this, the two princes still disappeared.

History has pointed an accusing finger directly at Richard III who, as the next in line to the throne, had the most to gain by disappearing the boys. Yet he was already king and the boys' mother later allied herself to him, hardly a sign that a doting mother might give that she believed the boys' uncle to also be their executor.  There are other names in the frame for the disappearance of the princes but my personal favorite is Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby.

Read the rest of that complicated story, plus those of five other young princes who would have been better off born as commoners. Link  -via the Presurfer

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Whaddaya know -while we're relying on weather stations and meteorologists to tell us how hot it is outside, NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites scan the whole planet for temperature! Using this data, MinuteEarth explains where the hottest spot on the Earth's surface is. -via Geeks Are Sexy

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Cats operate under the assumption that it never hurts to ask for what you want. And what these cats want is a nice head scratch. -via Tastefully Offensive

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Jony Ive is the head of design for Apple. His most recent tweaks of Apple products, particularly iOS 7, lean heavily on bright colors, minimalism, and gradients. Designer Sasha Agapov illustrates that in a satirical Tumblr blog called Jony Ive Redesigns Things. Artists of all kinds submit other products imagined as redesigned by Ive. Link -via Ochre Jelly