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

John Travolta was the studio's original choice to play the title character in the 1994 movie Forrest Gump. Travolta declined and the role was next offered to both Bill Murray and Chevy Chase, both of whom also said no. Sean Penn claims he was Paramount's second choice after Travolta; he said no, too. Paramount soon had to "settle for" Oscar-winning actor Tom Hanks to take over the lead. Hanks decided to accept the role after reading the script for a hour and half, on the condition that the film be historically accurate.

The female lead role of Jenny, Forrest's love interest, was offered to Jodie Foster, Nicole Kidman and Demi Moore, each of whom gave it a thumbs down. The lesser-known Robin Wright finally was decided upon to play Forrest's "best girl."

The director's hat was offered to both Terry Gilliam, who turned it down, and Barry Sonnefeld, who was interested, but chose to go with directing Addams Family Values instead. In their wake, Robert Zemeckis took over the director's helm.

Both Ice-T and Dave Chappelle were similarly offered the role of Forrest's best pal, "Bubba" Buford. Ice-T didn't want to play a  character with a disability and Chappelle, who later regretted his decision, "figured the movie would bomb." And one sort of sees Chappelle's reasoning, after all, one would logically assume that a movie starting out with so many turn-downs and rejected offers wouldn't fare all that well at the box office.

A ranked list of 100 things can be fun when you find your favorites on it, and enraging when you don't. A list of movie props could be just that, but this is much more. Every one of the 100 props that made the list has a story behind it. Where the idea came from, why they selected this object, how it was made, how it was used, what happened to it after the movie was wrapped -those kind of things are covered by the people who were involved in the movie for each prop. For example:

63. The eggs, Alien (1979)

Roger Christian, art director: "The eggs were made with grips underneath where you could pull and open them up. Everything in H.R. Giger's world is combined with female or male body parts, so the eggs had to look menacing and sensual at the same time. The membrane is a sheep's stomach -- I know, because I had to buy stuff from the abattoir all the time (or I'd get my buyers to go). To get that burst out, the only way to do it, Ridley [Scott] had to put on a rubber glove and put his hand up and chucked it out at the camera. That was the only way to get it to work. [The eggs] were heavy and there were only a few made practical. The rest were background ones, which they made a lot of."

 57. The cup of water, Jurassic Park (1993)

Michael Lantieri, special effects designer (in the Jurassic Park feature Making Prehistory): "I was at work and Steven [Spielberg] calls into the office. He goes, 'I'm in the car, I'm playing Earth, Wind & Fire, and my mirror is shaking. That's what we need to do. I want to shake the mirror and I want to do something with the water.' The mirror shaking was really very easy -- put a little vibrating motor in it that shook it. The water was a another story. It was very difficult thing to do. You couldn't do it. I had everyone working on it. Finally, messing around with a guitar one night, I set a glass and started playing notes on a guitar and got to a right frequency, a right note, and it did exactly what I wanted it to do."

Many of the stories are much longer. You can read them all at Thrillist. -via Metafilter

(Image credit: Jason Hoffman/Thrillist)

The Bernalillo County Sheriff's Department in New Mexico responded to an emergency call Sunday night that was placed by a home assistant device, believed to be Amazon Echo's Alexa. A crisis negotiation team and a SWAT team were also sent to the home after the deputies assessed the situation.

Eduardo Barros was house-sitting with his girlfriend and her daughter Sunday night at a residence in Tijeras, some 15 miles east of Albuquerque. The couple got into an argument and the altercation became physical, according to the Bernalillo County Sheriff Department's spokesperson, Deputy Felicia Romero.

Barros allegedly wielded a firearm and threatened to kill his girlfriend, asking her: "Did you call the sheriffs?" A smart speaker, which was hooked up to a surround sound system inside the home, recognized that as a voice command and called 911, Romero said.

The woman, who suffered injuries, was traced from the home with her uninjured daughter. Barros was arrested after a standoff lasting several hours. Sheriff's officers were not sure what kind of device had called 911. Google doesn't support phone calls, and Amazon doesn't support calling 911. 

Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office can confirm the existence of a call because, Deputy Romero told us, the line was left open and, in addition to the fighting the victim can be overheard in the background saying, "Alexa, call 911," seemingly unaware that a call had already been made and that calling 911 isn't enabled on Amazon Echo devices.

We may never know exactly how (or if) Alexa made that call, but one thing is clear, the digital act may have saved someone's life.

-Thanks, hearsetrax!

(Image credit: FASTILY)

With the success of companies who invest in "sharing" goods and services like Airbnb, Uber, and the various metro bikes systems, the Chinese company Sharing E Umbrella set out to provide umbrellas to commuters when they need one. The company bought 300,000 umbrellas at 60 yuan each. Those who need an umbrella in one of 11 cities in China can use an app to put down a 19 yuan deposit and pay 50 jiao to use it for a half-hour. You can see where this is going. Why would someone buy their own umbrella for 60 yuan when you can get one for 19 yuan and some change?

While Sharing E Umbrella gave out their umbrellas at train and bus stops, they soon realized that getting users to return the umbrellas would be a problem. "Umbrellas are different from bicycles," Zhao said. "Bikes can be parked anywhere, but with an umbrella you need railings or a fence to hang it on."

The SCMP reports that Zhao concluded that the safest place for an umbrella would be at the customer's home, where it would be safe and undamaged. But, apparently, customers have skipped the final step of then returning the umbrellas, simply keeping them for themselves.

The result is that only a few weeks into the plan, the company has lost almost all of its umbrellas. In that, it has joined with two Chinese bike-sharing companies that had most of their bikes stolen. But Sharing E Umbrella CEO Zhao Shuping is not giving up. He says the company plans to buy 30 million more umbrellas. Read more of the story at Shanghaist. 

July 11 marks twenty years since the release of the movie Contact. Based on the bestselling novel by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan, the story follows Dr. Ellie Arroway (Jodie Foster) as she searches for evidence of intelligent life in radio signals from the cosmos. The movie was a long time in the making.

Sagan and his wife, Ann Druyan, originally envisioned Contact as a feature film. In 1980, they co-wrote the project’s first treatment. Frustrated with Hollywood’s glacial development process, the couple eventually chose to turn their story into a novel. Sagan hadn’t even begun working on the book when Simon & Schuster gave him a whopping $2 million advance for it. An instant hit, Contact sold almost 1.75 million copies within two years of its 1985 release. Sadly, we’ll never know what Sagan thought of Warner Bros.’ subsequent movie adaptation as he passed away several months before its release.

That's one thing. You'll learn nine other interesting facts about Contact in a list at Mental Floss.  

In 15th-century Europe, hazing new students wasn't just a custom, it was mandatory and inflicted by the administration. The purpose was to rid new students of their "their pride, gluttony, and other sins." In other words, to take them down a notch. Only then were they deemed ready to learn. One of the worst hazing rituals took place in Germany in Sweden during the late 1400s. It was called Deposition, and applicants had to go through it before they were even admitted to the university.

Once everyone was ready, the Depositor passed around odd items with which the students needed to adorn themselves: hats, looking-glasses, saws, razors, combs, shears, and clothes “of various patterns and colors.” Fake horns and fake donkey ears were attached to their heads.

The Depositor also asked students to open wide—and he inserted a boar tusk on each side of their mouths. They were expected to hold the tusks in place for the duration of the ceremony. The Depositor then marched them down the hall into a cavernous lecture room—though calling it “marching” is generous. The Depositor, in reality, spurned them forward with a stick as if they were “a herd of oxen or asses.”

Oh, that's just the beginning. The rituals that followed were designed to frighten and humiliate the students, and eliminate those who weren't truly dedicated to their education. Read what happened during the rest of Deposition at Atlas Obscura.

One of the things that makes us human is the ability to find a reason, or an excuse, to do what we wanted to do in the first place. We can rationalize any decision if we try hard enough. See, if she needed the sink for something she really wanted to do, she'd find a way to clear the glass out of it. Glass shards don't become invisible just because they're wet, and even if they did, you have a hair dryer around somewhere. But as it is, she's not going to get any argument from her husband, who clearly prefers pizza over salad and dishwashing. The is the latest comic from MegaCynics.

When world leaders get together, they have plenty to discuss, yet they are often operating in different languages. We get news reports of the high-profile politicians present at such meetings, but the unsung, often anonymous heroes of the session are the interpreters. They are expected to be not only highly skilled at languages, but also intuitive, trustworthy, dedicated, and knowledgable in other  areas. Harry Obst has translated for seven U.S. presidents, and tells us about the job requirements.

“To work at the very top, you have to have an incredible arsenal of general knowledge, because the president will get into every damn topic you can imagine, from nuclear submarines to agriculture to treaty problems to labor problems to God knows what, jellyfish in the sea,” Obst says. “If you don’t know how an airplane flies, if you don’t know how a nuclear reactor works, you’re going to make mistakes.”

Like anyone else in a sensitive meeting, an interpreter must have high security clearance. He or she will also have received all the same briefing books as the president. That’s essential so that the interpreter can understand the nuances of the information discussed and knows the vocabulary. But it also means that the interpreter can serve as a crutch for the president, catching minor factual errors or slips of the tongue.

Translators smooth out cultural differences and often are relied upon to correct what the principle has said. But woe unto the high-level translator who makes their own errors. Read about the strange world of presidential interpreters at the Atlantic.  

(Image credit: The Kremlin)

Did you know that the Lionel Richie song "Hello" has been used in a dozen movies, five TV shows, and several ads, too? That's how a hit song avoids obsolescence and becomes a classic. Young movie fans probably don't even realize the song is 33 years old. But it is the perfect tune to denote love at first sight or unrequited love, because so many viewers know the lyrics and what they mean that you only need the first few notes to set the scene. Check out six of the more unlikely movies that use "Hello" and re-watch the scenes at TVOM.

(Image credit: The NeatoShop)

Did you know that you might be able to tell when a movie was made by the costumes? Contemporary movies, set in the time the film was made, tend to use generic fashions so they don't become outdated quickly. Movies set in the past can pinpoint the fashions of the time, so they are more "retro-trendy" to specify the era. That's just one of many new things we'll learn about the art of movie costuming in this video.

(YouTube link)

What a character wears can explain what we need to know about them without a word being said. Jack Nugent from Now You See It explains how costuming adds so much to a movie, or a particular scene, without us realizing it. -via Tastefully Offensive 

(Image credit: Judd Jasper)

Judd Jasper and his girlfriend are vacationing in Budapest. He has a Samsung Galaxy S7 phone with a wide selfie feature that he says is "similar to a panorama." So this is what happened when his girlfriend sneezed while posing for a selfie in front of the Danube River. Of course, commenters asked him what it was like dating conjoined twins. A few mentioned Zaphod Beeblebrox, the two-headed character from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. But this picture reminded me of something else.

(Image credit: The NeatoShop)

That's it! That's exactly it. And comedy and tragedy is an apt metaphor for the picture that tragically became comedy gold. -via reddit

Have you ever heard of the Boswell Sisters? They were a sensation in the 1930s, bringing the popularity of vocal groups into the mainstream. 

As jazz took hold in the 20s, there was a dip in the popularity of vocal groups, but waiting in the wings were The Boswell Sisters, a group who changed the face of modern music in the 30s after they emerged from the vaudeville houses of New Orleans. They were true innovators and can easily claim to be one of the all-time greatest jazz vocal groups.

The sisters were talented musicians. Martha played piano; Vet played violin, banjo and guitar; and Connee (who had been left paralysed from the waist down by a childhood accident, and always performed sitting down) played cello, saxophone and guitar. The turning point in their career came when a radio station gave them a daily singing programme.

The Andrews Sisters acknowledged that the Boswell Sisters opened doors for them. Ella Fitzgerald cited Connee Boswell as her inspiration. Read about them, and quite a few other vocal groups that set the stage for the music we listen to today, in a historical overview of vocal groups. Yes, there are videos. -via Everlasting Blort

The following is an article from The Annals of Improbable Research, now in all-pdf form. Get a subscription now for only $25 a year!

Research results for specialists
compiled by Alice Shirrell Kaswell, Improbable Research staff

(Image credit: Flickr user Mike Kline)

In 1968 Anthony Doob and Alan Gross, of the University of Toronto and the University of Wisconsin, published a response-to-horn- honking study that triggered an expanded study, seven years later, by a team at the University of Utah.

Doob and Gross: Honking
"Status of Frustrator as an Inhibitor of Horn-Honking Responses," Anthony N. Doob and Alan Gross, Journal of Social Psychology, vol. 76, 1968, pp. 213--8. The authors explain:

One of two automobiles, a new luxury model or an older car, was driven up to a signal controlled intersection and stopped. The driver was instructed to remain stopped after the signal had changed to green until 15 seconds had elapsed, or until the driver of the car immediately behind honked his horn twice. Subjects were the 82 drivers, 26 women and 56 men, whose progress was blocked by the experimental car. The experiment was run from 10:30 A.M. to 5:30 P.M. on a Sunday, in order to avoid heavy weekday traffic....

The following is an article from the book Uncle John's Weird, Weird World: EPIC.

A small British company put tracks on a tractor and changed agriculture—and war—forever.

MAKING TRACKS

In 1903 the British War Office offered £1,000 to the maker of a tractor that could haul 25 tons for 40 miles without stopping for fuel or water. The tiny agricultural manufacturer Hornsby & Sons (est. 1815) won with a tractor that went 58 miles. Chief engineer and manager David Roberts realized that if the British Army wanted to make full use of his 80-hp, 12-ton tractor, the machine could not get stuck in mud. By 1906 Roberts had come up with a novel chain track that he fitted onto the tractor. When British soldiers saw this rolling track in action, they dubbed the machine a “caterpillar.” Two years later, the War Office purchased four chain-track tractors to tow artillery pieces. Encouraged, Roberts worked to expand the caterpillar tractor’s working applications, fitting it with wooden wheels for desert travel and boosting its top speed to 25 mph.

I recently found out that people in France do not hug people they've just met. Or even people they know, unless they are very close. That made me cringe, thinking of how the family all hugged a young man from France the first time he visited. He's here again, and actually gave me a hug on arrival -trying to be like the Americans. But I still cringe when he meets new people and they want to hug him. He hides any discomfort well. In this video, we learn more greeting customs from around the world.

(YouTube link)

Remember, proper etiquette is simply the art of making other people feel comfortable. We can do this by learning their customs, and also by not making a big deal out of other people not knowing our customs. -via Tastefully Offensive