Cheers was a sitcom about a Boston bar that ran for eleven years, but (depending on your age) the most memorable and long-running dynamic was the five-year relationship between Sam Malone (Ted Danson) and Diane Chambers (Shelley Long). They were complete opposites, totally unsuited for a long-term relationship, yet endured through years of sexual tension, romance, fights, regret, misunderstanding, and an entire year of flirting with matrimony.

But while the nature of the fictional couple might be unique, their onscreen history has an arc as old as time. What began as an exciting take on social opposites, capturing the precise ways in which physical attraction and emotional intelligence are often at odds, ultimately curdled into a repetitive, occasionally mean-spirited cycle, born out of the writers’ boredom with the material as well as creative differences with talent. A compelling hook that secured a massive loyal audience became a narrative anchor from which Cheers would attempt to distance itself after Long’s departure from the series. However, for a few glorious years, Sam & Diane was as riveting as anything the medium has ever produced. More impressive was that it was entirely predicated on the explosive chemistry, and physical vulnerability, between two young actors on the brink of national stardom.

The A.V. Club takes a deep dive into the characters of Sam and Diane, why they worked, why they didn't, and why they sucked us into their lives for so long. The article contains plenty of nostalgic Cheers clips. -via Metafilter

Steven Jay Russell is serving a sentence of 144 years in solitary confinement, despite the fact that none of his crimes were violent. That's because he embarrassed authorities by escaping from prison, not once but four times! Russell suffered somewhat of a midlife crisis over the betrayal of his biological parents and losing his job for being gay. He committed several crimes and was eventually arrested for passport fraud. Russell was sentenced to ten years, which cut him deeply as the man he was dating, James Kemple, was dying of AIDS.

So how’d he escape? After observing the shift patterns of guards, Russell rustled himself up a pair of sweatpants and a tie-dye t-shirt from a room he stumbled across designed to hold the personal effects of female inmates. Realising that this outfit didn’t exactly confer the air of authority needed to fool the guards, he decided to accessorize with a radio the guards typically carried. How he “acquired” this isn’t clear.

A few days later, Russell patiently waited for the guards to go on their usual smoke break, put on the outfit, casually walked over to the door leading to freedom and soon found himself on the other side.

He states of this, “My first escape worked because I used that portable police radio to tap on the window of the guard’s picket. The guards thought I was an undercover police officer. It was such an adrenaline rush. Those first moments of freedom felt amazing. Best of all I knew I would get to see and take care of Jimmy. He lived another 26 months after my escape.”

That was only Russell's first escape. The second was by jumping bail, but the third and fourth times involved plots that would strain credulity if they were in movies. Read about the man who strolled out of prison again and again at Today I Found Out.

(Unrelated image credit: Carol M. Highsmith)

After showing us so many of the adventures of his typically-difficult cat, Simon Tofield has gone back in time to show us how he got that cat in the first place. Apparently, he was specifically drawn to the most difficult kitten at the shelter.

And then we get to see the trying times of kittenhood. There will be more in the story of Simon's Kitten to come.

Experts call for regulation after latest botched art restoration in Spain https://t.co/kZyaIdo1sD

— The Guardian (@guardian) June 22, 2020

In 2012, the painting Ecce Homo went viral when Cecilia Giménez restored it to its not-quite-original glory. In 2020, another Spanish painting has undergone the same indignity -twice. In the 17th century, Spanish artist Bartolomé Esteban Murillo painted a couple of dozen versions of his masterpiece The Immaculate Conception of Los Venerables. One of them belongs to a private collector in València, who paid a furniture restorer €1,200 euros to clean the painting. We can only guess as to what exactly happened, but the owner was not happy with the face of the "restoration." So the worker tried again, and ended up with an image even more different from the original.

Fernando Carrera, a professor at the Galician School for the Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Heritage, said such cases highlighted the need for work to be carried out only by properly trained restorers.

“I don’t think this guy – or these people – should be referred to as restorers,” Carrera told the Guardian. “Let’s be honest: they’re bodgers who botch things up. They destroy things.”

Read more on this story at The Guardian. The original report in Spanish is here. -via Boing Boing

The year 2020 is weird for many reasons, but if you are a movie buff, you might think you're stuck in a time warp. The most-seen movie in theaters over the weekend was Jurassic Park, released in 1993. The second-biggest movie was Jaws, 45 years after it debuted. Not that they made millions; remember, only drive-in theaters are open. But with a dearth of new releases, classic blockbusters are playing at drive-ins around the country.

Over the June 19-21 weekend — as Hollywood studios offered classic catalogue titles to cinemas struggling to emerge from the coronavirus crisis — Spielberg's 1993 film Jurassic Park topped the chart with an estimated $517,642 from 230 locations in its 1,411th weekend, according to those with access to flash Comscore flash grosses.

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Jaws wasn't far behind Jurassic Park. The pic earned an estimated $516,366 from 187 locations in its 2,349th weekend (it first hit theaters in June 1975). Elsewhere, the filmmaker's 1982 blockbuster E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial pulled in $126,189 from 100 locations in its 1,985th weekend to place No. 7, while Raiders of the Lost Ark came in No. 18 with $69,047 from 109 sites in its 2,037th weekend.

It was a good weekend for Spielberg. But walk-in theaters will begin to open in July, and a few brand-new movies will be available next month. Read more at The Hollywood Reporter.  -via Uproxx

As we've seen recently, scientists are always coming up with new ways to date historical events and artifacts, sometimes with amazing accuracy. Finding the exact dates for natural occurrences can help us understand other events that we have records for. For example, could a volcano on the other side of the world have influenced the rise of the Roman Empire? By analyzing atmospheric chemicals left in an ice core, an international team of scientists have pinpointed a climactic change left by a volcanic eruption.  

The team found that volcanic eruptions occurred in 45 B.C. and 43 B.C., sandwiching the year of Julius Caesar’s assassination. The team also found tephra—rocky detritus spewed by volcanoes—that carries a geochemical fingerprint, which allowed them to home in on a culprit.

As it turned out, the volcano that caused all the ruckus was a massive one, a world away: Okmok, far into the North Pacific Ocean in the Aleutian Islands, nearly 6,000 miles from Rome. The impact of the eruption would have been huge to be felt in the Mediterranean, McConnell says—not exactly a “supervolcano,” but something along the lines of the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia, which caused the “year without a summer” in Western Europe. Knowing the source of the spewage, the researchers were then able to estimate what impact the eruption would have had in Europe by tracking variation in its fallout.

Read about the research and the findings at Atlas Obscura.

(Image credit: United States Geological Survey)

A Goofy Movie was a shared event for Millennials, full of classic lessons in family dynamics and growing up hidden underneath a lot of ...uh, goofiness. It wasn't a big hit on release, but rose in prominence as the children who saw it in 1995 grew up. Relive the experience with this Honest Trailer for A Goofy Movie.  

Sphynx cats are here to remind us how much we appreciate cat fur. Glorious fur hides a multitude of unpleasant cat features, including wrinkles, frowns, fat rolls, webbed feet, awkward positions, creepy fingers, and genitals. Yet some people love sphynx cats for their bare naked brand of honesty. See a ranked list of goofy sphynx cat photos, 52 of them at this moment, at Bored Panda.

The question of how may continents there are in the world may seem silly -of course there are seven, as you learned in school. But that's only true for you if you were educated in the United States. Students in other parts of the world are taught that the number is anywhere from four to seven.

For example, in Europe, students usually learn that there are actually only six continents: Africa, America, Antarctica, Asia, Australia/Oceania, and Europe. There's even a five-continent model, which lists Africa, Europe, Asia, America and Oceania/Australia. (That's why there are five rings on the Olympic flag.) And some experts think four is the way to go, using as their criteria landmasses naturally separated by water, rather than manmade canals (AfroEurasia, America, Antarctica and Australia).

Heck, as recently as the 1800s, some people says there were just two continents, the Old — including Europe, Africa and Asia — and the New, which encompassed North and South America.

You may be astonished to think that anyone combines North and South America, when Europe and Asia are much more geographically combined. And you can't just ignore Antarctica because no one lives there permanently. Read some of the thinking that goes into the definitions and distinctions of continents at How Stuff Works.  -via Digg

(Image credit: Max Naylor)

Several of the streets in Liverpool, England, were named after slave traders. The city contemplated renaming them, including Penny Lane, the inspiration for the Beatles song. There have been rumors for a long time that the street was named after 1700s slave trader James Penny. Beatles fans want to save the name, attesting that the cultural significance of the name comes from the song. A group of historians have been looking into the origin of the street's name for ten years.

Pressure mounted to change Penny Lane’s name when Stephen Guy, a press officer for National Museums, Liverpool, suggested that it was named after the slave trader when discussing the upcoming opening of Liverpool’s International Slavery Museum. In a later press release he wrote: “I confess to helping to raise awareness about the sinister origins of perhaps Liverpool’s best-known thoroughfare. Penny Lane — immortalized by the Beatles’ song — is probably named after notorious slave trader James Penny. Like other byways named after people, Penny or his family either owned land in the area or had strong associations with it.” (Guy did not respond to Rolling Stone‘s request for comment.)

The reaction from Beatles fans and historians was decidedly negative — due both to the area’s significance to John, Paul, Ringo and George and also the dearth of evidence that the lane was associated with the slave trade. David Bedford, author of Liddypool: Birthplace of the Beatles and Liverpool resident, is quick to interject when the media discuss the possible link. Having done extensive research on the area and its famous former residents, he extolls the significance of Penny Lane.

While the exact origin of the name Penny Lane is still a mystery, the history of the road shows evidence that it was not named for James Penny after all. Read what we know about it at Rolling Stone. -via Damn Interesting

Verkhoyansk, Russia, is above the Arctic Circle, north of Yakutsk, and is known as the "Pole of Cold," meaning that's where the lowest temperature in the Northern Hemisphere was recorded. That would be −67.8°C (−90.0°F) in 1885. Verkhoyansk has now broken another record, as the first town above the Arctic Circle to ever record a temperature of 100°F.

Alarming heat scorched Siberia on Saturday as the small town of Verkhoyansk (67.5°N latitude) reached 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit, 32 degrees above the normal high temperature. If verified, this is likely the hottest temperature ever recorded in Siberia and also the hottest temperature ever recorded north of the Arctic Circle, which begins at 66.5°N.

The town is 3,000 miles east of Moscow and further north than even Fairbanks, Alaska. On Friday, the city of Caribou, Maine, tied an all-time record at 96 degrees Fahrenheit and was once again well into the 90s on Saturday. To put this into perspective, the city of Miami, Florida, has only reached 100 degrees one time since the city began keeping temperature records in 1896.

Read about the record and the Siberian heat wave at CBS News. -via Mental Floss

(Image credit: Becker0804)

You know the song “Jingle Bells, Batman Smells” of course. It's been around for decades, but depending on when you were born or where you grew up, the lyrics may have been very different. Tom Scott ran a poll to see the differences, and uncovered some shockingly weird lyrics from around the world.

Which wedding in a movie have you enjoyed the most? Personally, I loved the nuptials in Coming to America. Both of them, actually, since they bookend the story. I'd never want to have a wedding like that, but it was fun to watch. Maybe you prefer the drama of the wedding in Goodfellas or The Godfather. Or the pomp and ceremony of The Sound of Music. The Ringer ranked their top 20 movie weddings on criteria that may or may not be important to you. Even if you disagree with their rankings, it's fun to relive the wedding ceremonies of some great films. I am disappointed that Fiddler on the Roof wasn't in the top 20, because you can't beat the bottle dance. -via Digg

Wealthy businessman Joseph Williamson built several rather eccentric houses for his family on Edge Hill in Liverpool. He then built elaborate gardens between them, and eventually took his tinkering underground, where he had a system of tunnels built. Many men worked on the tunnels, but none knew the exact purpose for them. And Williamson didn't say, either.   

The 19th century Liverpool historian James Stonehouse, who toured parts of the tunnels following Williamson's death in 1840, described the labyrinth as “a strange place” with “vaulted passages cut out of the solid rock”, and beautifully crafted arches “supporting nothing”. Stonehouse described vast cellars beneath the buildings that went several layers deep, up to six level at times. He also described the obscure caverns, immense in size, deep below the ground, the most famous being known as Williamson's 'Banqueting Hall'. The numerous cellars and caverns were linked by a complex series of tunnels which varied greatly in size and construction—ranging from small passageways hewn into the rocks just large enough for a person to squeeze through, to large vaulted tunnels.

There are several theories about why Williamson built so many tunnels and chambers, especially in the last few decades as they are being restored. Read about the tunnels below Liverpool at Amusing Planet.

(Image credit: Kyle J May) 

We posted before about Miniatur Wunderland, but in the years since, it has only grown. The world's largest miniature railway now has more than 1,000 trains traveling 16,000 kilometers of track, and a working miniature airport! Their destinations include the wonders of the world, and in this video from Great Big Story, you get an introduction to the miniature world, and an invitation to see more in a choose-you-own-adventure set of further videos. There's that much to see!