Scandalous behavior in early Hollywood found a place to happen behind walls and away from the press, fans, and families. Silent film star Alla Nazimova converted the home she bought in 1919 into a hotel that became a retreat and party place for Hollywood's elite. The Garden of Allah was a legendary complex in West Hollywood with rooms and cottages for rent nightly, weekly, or permanently. It also had a huge pool to draw tenants together for cocktail parties and skinny-dipping.

Some stayed in between films, some stayed in between marriages– like Humphrey Bogart, who was once attacked with a kitchen knife in his Garden villa by his estranged wife, who had found him living there with Lauren Bacall. Fellow residents gathered around the house to watch the scene as Bacall escaped out the back door.

There was never a dull moment at the Garden. “It Girl” Clara Bow was notorious for pushing hotel butlers off the diving boards and management looked the other way while the original Tarzan actor was said to have satisfied his numerous “Janes” in the hotel pool. One famous Broadway actress answered her bungalow door naked while her pet monkey collected telegrams from startled delivery boys. An inebriated American comedian and writer, Robert Benchley, would often have himself moved in a wheelbarrow between the villas’ endless parties.

A Who's Who of Hollywood actors, musicians, and literary figures found refuge and creative inspiration at the Garden of Allah, but they also found sex, drugs, and alcohol in abundance. This lasted until 1959, when the hotel hosted a huge party just before it was demolished. Read about the heyday of the Garden of Allah at Messy Nessy Chic.

Pianist Nahre Sol shows us how the styles of classical composers vary from each other. The contrast is made clearer as she uses the same song for each: "Mary Had a Little Lamb."

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Some are so stylized that it's hard to hear the original melody, but you get the idea. Those who are intimately familiar with these composers will laugh in places. The rest of us will instantly recognize our favorite composer, whoever it is. The annotations help a lot.  -via Metafilter

We've read about the awful plight of waste disposal as cities grew large before modern sewer systems were installed. A reader asked, "Before sewer systems, did people in England really toss their poop into the streets?" The answer is complicated.   

Now, to be clear, generalizing about what a large and diverse group of people did over a millennium time span is extremely dodgy business, and we’re not saying that some Medieval Britons didn’t sometimes toss their solid waste out the window. (After-all, laws against doing just that, which we’ll talk about shortly, didn’t come from nowhere; and there certainly are many documented accounts of people doing this in said massive time-span, though you’ll note that many of said documented instances describe liquid, rather than solid waste.) We’re simply saying that the documented evidence at hand seems to indicate it was nowhere near as commonplace in Britain as pop culture would have you believe.

What actually happened was that people tried all kinds of ways to get rid of sewage, and some methods worked better than others, while none worked perfectly. Read about the experimentation of necessity at Today I Found Out.

If you are passing through, you can always get pie in Pie Town. Pie Town, New Mexico, was settled like many other towns in the western US when a would-be prospector found no gold and ended up doing something completely different. In this case, it was selling fruit pies to cowboys. The adventurous settlers who established Pie Town were protective of the name.

At this early point in its history, Pie Town displayed the attitude that still defines the town. In the old days, resident Nita Larronde says, Pie Town was barely on road maps. The town had to petition just to get a post office. To secure one, Pie Town residents were asked, in 1927, to suggest three other names for their settlement. “The name was beneath the dignity of the post office,” Larronde says. “But the people of Pie Town decided, ‘No, we’re Pie Town. You can take your post office and go to hell.’”

Pie Town has a population of 67 and three pie shops, all launched in the last 27 years. Oh yeah, you betcha they have a pie festival. Read about this small but quirky town (and its pies) at Atlas Obscura.   

(Image credit: Sophie Putka)

The 1984 movie Gremlins helped usher in the PG-13 rating, along with Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, another Spielberg film that came out the same year. Gremlins started out as a cutesy kid's movie and escalated quickly into a horror comedy. I don't know whether it traumatized kids or not, but for adults it was a real hoot. There was a lot going on behind the scenes of Gremlins.  

3. There was no CGI in the film.

Every last gremlin was animatronic in cost upwards of $30,000-$40,000 dollars. Each night when the crew went home they had to open their trunks for security to make sure that nothing was being stolen. That’s a lot of money in just one gremlin.

2. Tim Burton was almost selected to direct.

Spielberg liked his work and almost pulled the trigger on hiring him but realized that Burton hadn’t done a full-length feature yet and passed.

Learn more about the movie Gremlins at TVOM.

When Paddington Bear hears a mysterious noise out on the rooftop on Christmas Eve, he manages to save the holiday without even realizing it. His clueless Christmas caper makes him a hero, but he still has marmalade on his mind. 

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While the John Lewis Christmas ad is designed to touch your heart, the Marks & Spencer Christmas ad is designed to make you laugh -and send you to the theater to watch the new Paddington bear movie. Oh yeah, they want you to shop at Marks & Spencer, too. Somehow, I just can't imagine people in the UK watching Christmas ads from the US as entertainment. -via Metafilter

Let the Christmas advertising season begin! The John Lewis Christmas ad campaign has started. This year's theme is the monster under the bed. Moz the Monster is not only scary, but annoying, too, because he snores, farts, and disrupts a little boy's sleep.

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But this is a John Lewis ad, so it can't be scary. The kid finds that when you look for the good in others, even a monster can be a friend. Knowing that will not spoil the twist at the end. This year's ad was directed by Michel Gondry. -via Metafilter

George Lucas once said he labeled the first Star Wars movie "episode IV" because he envisioned a set of three trilogies. He let us think he had the stories for them, even though he didn't at the time. But that original idea of nine movies may well be all there is in the story of the Skywalker family. However, it will be far from the end of Star Wars. Disney has announced that Rian Johnson, the director of The Last Jedi, will be responsible for creating an entirely new trilogy set in the Star Wars universe.

As writer-director of The Last Jedi, Johnson conceived and realized a powerful film of which Lucasfilm and Disney are immensely proud. In shepherding this new trilogy, which is separate from the episodic Skywalker saga, Johnson will introduce new characters from a corner of the galaxy that Star Wars lore has never before explored.

“We all loved working with Rian on The Last Jedi,” said Kathleen Kennedy, president of Lucasfilm. “He’s a creative force, and watching him craft The Last Jedi from start to finish was one of the great joys of my career. Rian will do amazing things with the blank canvas of this new trilogy.”

That's a big show of confidence from Lucasfilm and Disney. There has been no timeline mentioned for the new trilogy, and we still have two more movies in the Skywalker saga to go. -via Uproxx

The following is an article from Uncle John's OLD FAITHFUL 30th Anniversary edition.

What’s in a name? Not much, if you believe Shakespeare. On the other hand, if someone’s name makes you laugh, that’s a good thing. Example: we knew a woman named Grace Moak. Said fast, it sounds like “gray smoke.” Funny, right? And memorable. So here are three funny names for three funny critters that you’ll never forget.

WUNDERPUS PHOTOGENICUS

What It Is: A small (just 9–16 inches long) and spectacularly patterned octopus found in the western Pacific Ocean.

There are plenty of things cats can enjoy to celebrate a birthday, even if they have no concept of why one day should be more special than another. However, a day with balloons, ribbons, games, something good to eat, and a nap is a really good day. And Simon's Cat is definitely a party animal!  

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Simon Tofield made a short but colorful video in anticipation of Simon's Cat (the cartoon) approaching ten years of age. That's still a few months away, but who cares? We'll celebrate anytime!

For the third year in a row, the Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards are back, with more silly-looking animals than ever. Wildlife photographers who were in the right place at the right time bring us images that are crying for funny captions, from motorcycling monkeys to a polar bear looking for her cub.  

Comedy aside, the awards are run by two guys named Paul and Tom to promote wildlife conservation, particularly the work of the Born Free organization. After all, how amusing would the internet be without animals? See all 40 finalists at the awards website. The winners will be announced sometime in December. -via Digg

You know how cows are attracted to music, people, and animals? That they'll follow anything around because their existence is so boring? This is not that.

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I was married to a professional bass player for quite a few years. I can attest to this reaction. -via reddit 

Joe Millionaire was a reality TV show that aired in 2003 in which a group of woman competed to be chosen to marry a young, hot millionaire. What they didn't know what that it was all fake. The "millionaire" Evan Marriott, although hot, was a construction worker and underwear model. The winner would split a million dollars with Marriot, and maybe they'd find happiness together. Sarah Kozer was the ultimate runner-up, and tells us what went on during the filming of Joe Millionaire.

The premise of this show was supposed to be "A bunch of gold-diggers learn the guy they're swooning over is actually poor!" And then both Evan and the "winning woman" who doesn't care that he's broke would walk home with half a million bucks each. So none of the women could know about that prize money. According to Sarah, the only reward they were promised was jewelry:

"We did realize at a certain point that you received a 'gift' of jewelry if you 'passed' a round. So considering that we weren't being compensated for appearing on the show, the necklaces could've been a motivator to want to get picked. It also went along with their 'romance story' BS, so [it] seemed less skeevy than if we had known all along that there was prize money. They basically sold it as Evan was the big prize, so to speak, and that certainly wasn't a motivator."

According to Sarah, none of the women ever actually bought Evan Marriot as a real rich dude.

Kozer has a lot more to say about what went on behind the scenes of Joe Millionaire at Cracked.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi is set to hit theaters December 15. However, Disney will want to have its Christmas toys not only available, but sold out by then. The new alien species in the movie that we're all supposed to love and purchase is the porgs. We got our first look at them back in July. But now we know what porgs look like in their infancy, or maybe we just think we do. The picture above is a toy from a Japanese website depicting baby porgs. You will be forgiven for shuddering. They resemble mastectomy inserts from a distance. Up close, you see they are wrinkled, bodiless heads waiting to be fed. Let's hope they are a little more attractive onscreen. Would you buy these for a Christmas gift for a child? -via Mashable

Michael Klimkowski is comedian who happens to resemble televangelist Joel Osteen. At an Osteen event in Inglewood, California, he showed up dressed as the prosperity gospel advocate and managed to fool a bunch of Osteen fans. And Forum employees, too.

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Fake Joel Osteen was eventually discovered, and that scene contains NSFW language. The A.V. Club has a followup from Reggie Henke, who was there with Klimkowski.

Henke also tells us that the confrontation recorded at the end of the video was with Osteen’s head of security. Though that guy asserts they’re going to the jail, Henke notes the “real police” just thought it was funny. “Especially because Mike, our ‘Joel,’ never really dropped character and kept getting approached by ‘fans’ even as we were detained.”

The stunt was engineered by the sketch comedy group Dabs Den.