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A music video from the group Walter and the Wizards. Yes, it's an ad, for Litter Genie. A cosmic, cat-filled, psychedelic, musical ad. Remember, kitties, just say no to nip. -via Daily of the Day
Miss Cellania's Blog Posts
The first real debate of this presidential election year is coming up tomorrow. But the debates held over the years on SNL are a lot more fun! Can you recall who played the candidates in those comedy debates? Test yourself with today's Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss. I scored 50%, because I knew the really old ones, but not the more recent casts. Link
Rani and Kajol love playing with a balloon -and each other! They manage to keep this one from touching the ground for a good run -but you know what eventually happens to balloons. -via Daily Picks and Flicks
Sesame Street continues their series of parodies with their take on the TV show Boardwalk Empire. Of course, you'll see birds on the birdwalk -chickens, ducks, and a cuckoo! -via Buzzfeed
DeviantART member Trevor Grove is a fan of the TV show Breaking Bad. He is also quite an artist! Grove made these three 12" custom figures of Walter White and gave them to Vince Gilligan, the creator of the show. He had to be pleased! See details of each at his gallery. Link -via Laughing Squid
Did you read Jill Harness' list 12 Gross Candies Perfect For Trick or Treaters? Since that was written, candy manufacturers have been busy trying to out-gross themselves again, with new and disgusting ways to fashion and package Halloween candy. See the latest imaginative versions in Jill's new article at Inventor Spot. Link
Pfc Glenn W. Eve was drafted by the Army in 1942. He was too skinny for combat, but since he was an artist for the Walt Disney Company, they put him to work taking photographs of the Pacific Theater. The photographs he took are now online, complete with the notes he jotted on the backs of the pictures. If you love old photographs, or have an interest in World War II, you'll want to set aside some time to explore the entire site. The comments under some of the pictures tell fascinating stories. Link -via Metafilter
A small church in Aksum, Ethiopia, claims to have the Ark of the Covenant. It is written in Ethiopia's ancient book of kings that the son of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba (Menelik, conceived during a royal one night stand) brought the Ark from Israel. It is now kept at The Chapel of the Tablet at the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion.
Many historians are not convinced about this account of the Ark coming to Aksum. They believe that it is simply propaganda to get people to accept Menelik’s lineage as rulers of the country. Others, including the patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox church, Abuna Paulos, disagree.
“It's no claim, it's the truth,” patriarch Paulos says. “Queen Sheba visited King Solomon in Jerusalem 3,000 years ago, and the son she bore him, Menelik, at age 20 visited Jerusalem, from where he brought the Ark of the Covenant back to Aksum. It's been in Ethiopia ever since." And that’s how most of Ethiopia’s Orthodox Christians see it, too.
Whether it is real will never be proven, as only one lifetime caretaker at a time is allowed to see it. So you won't see the Ark in the article at Environmental Graffiti, but you will be able to read more about the Ark and the old church, which combines ancient traditions of Judaism with its more recent Christian beliefs mixed with some Muslim practices from the surrounding country. And you'll see plenty of pictures of the church and its members. Link
(Image credit: Ralph Bennett Crignola)
This time, the Gotye song is played by a band of gadgets! The vocals part is an HP Scanjet 3C. The rest comes from hard drives, oscilloscopes, computer parts, and a computer-driven glockenspiel. -via The Daily What Geek
How are they ever going to stage a musical when they are so busy being being ironic? They're so unique, they're all the same! -via Uproxx
Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website.
Was there ever a stranger, more unique, or more lovable movie star than Harpo Marx? Adolph Arthur Marx (later Harpo) was born in New York City in 1888. He got his famous nickname in a casual poker game in 1914 -it was given to him because (of course) he played the harp.
Because Harpo never spoke in his films, many people, to this day, believe he was actually mute. Groucho said one of the questions he was asked most often was, "Could Harpo talk?"
The answer is a definite "Yes."
Harpo started out in Vaudeville with his brothers, in a singing act called The Four Nightingales. He sang, not good, but yes, he did sing. Groucho said Harpo sang "if you call growling singing."
At one Vaudeville gig, Harpo's singing was so bad, the theater owner offered to pay him $5 for "not singing" in the act! He continued to speak in the Marx Brothers' act as it slowly developed into a comedy act, with much less emphasis on songs and singing.
Around 1907 or 1908, after one performance, a local reviewer wrote an article to the effect of: "The Marx Brother who plays the dumb guy is great, but the effect is lost when he speaks."
Around this time, Harpo's uncle wrote a new sketch for the brothers, but he only wrote three lines for Harpo in it. When Harpo complained to Uncle Al, he was dismissed, and said, "Well, maybe I won't talk at all!" It was meant as a threat, but Uncle Al liked the idea.
Harpo's voice, in real life, was actually very rich and full, much like his older brother Chico's. Harpo, being a New Yorker, pronounced "turkey" as "toikey," "hamburger" as "hamboiger," and "girls" as "goils." This may have been another reason for Harpo adopting his "mute" character -his deep New York-accented voice was too great a contrast with Harpo's sweet, innocent stage character.
Interestingly, Harpo does "speak" in a silent movie in which he made a brief appearance in 1925 called Too Many Kisses. Harpo plays a boob, and has one line: "You sure you can't move?"
DeviantART member Patrick Schoenmaker drew these wonderful interpretations of the characters from the Indiana Jones film series. If there's ever an animated version, I hope it looks this good! See more of his Indiana Jones and Star Wars works in his gallery. Link -via The Daily What Geek
"Gangnam Style" works surprisingly well as a laid-back acoustic ditty. This performance is from the Berkeley group RaOn. -via Fark
You know Bill Nye -he's the Science Guy! But he wasn't always. It was a series of what might appear to be happy coincidences that landed him in the position of pop culture science teacher. But happy coincidences are often just the result of someone who leaps at the right opportunities. Fast Company has an interview with Nye in which he tells how he worked as an airplane engineer while his friends thought he should be the next Steve Martin. At one time he was working with a radio DJ.
Time to time, he’d have questions, and you could answer to win free tickets or what have you. One of them was a question that refers to the Back to the Future movie. And in the answer, he says“jigawatts.” So I called him, and I said, "Ross, you can say jigawatts, but really, we prefer gigawatts.”
[From then on] I called him every day at 4:45 and answered a listener question. And that went on for a few months. And then in January of 1987, we needed six minutes on the comedy show [because a guest cancelled].
I did this bit, "The household uses of liquid nitrogen." Because we all have liquid nitrogen around. So this was just reminder of some tips. I know normally you use it by fitting up your close-fitting machine parts, by getting one part really cold, but you can also use it for straightening out limp celery. You can slice onions with it, when you hit them with a knife, it’s really satisfying. It sounds like breaking glass. It’s a really striking sound. Striking, ah! Hilarious pun. Now the payoff, what I spent a lot of time doing, is you cook or roast marshmallows in liquid nitrogen and then you chew them and steam comes out of your nose. It’s really good.
Link -via mental_floss
(Image credit: Tyler Gray)
Are these young folks going to extort treats for Halloween or tip over your outhouse? If they did, you'd never know how to identify the culprits, even with photographic evidence! These "women," along with a soldier and a bandito, were dressed to the nines for Halloween in 1917. It's just one of many pictures of bygone Halloweens and Halloween costumes you'll find in a collection of nostalgic pictures at Neatorama's Halloween blog. Link
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