Mental_floss is celebrating the 50th anniversary of The Twilight Zone in their own way, by bringing trivia about the show. For example, great acting wasn't exactly a priority during filming of the episodes.

Interestingly enough, many of the actors in these pieces, when interviewed decades after the fact, confessed that they weren’t particularly proud of their performances. The Twilight Zone had a budget, just like any other series, and often the bulk of the money per episode had to be spent on sets and special effects. There was no luxury of multiple retakes until the actor felt just right about a particular scene. A sub-par performance wasn’t a matter of concern in most episodic television of that era, but, as William Shatner later mentioned in an interview, at that time a Twilight Zone appearance was just another job – no one ever suspected that these episodes would be aired over and over (and over!) again for years to come.

There's more about your favorite episodes and about host Rod Serling. Link

The Kurilpa Bridge crossing the river into Brisbane, Australia is expected to carry around 36,000 pedestrians every week. The world's longest solar foot bridge is 1,500 feet long and sports 84 solar panels. The panels produce all the energy the bridge needs for its LED lighting and sends 25% of the power generated back to the city's electrical grid. Link -via Digg

In some cases, no one will get behind a wacky idea until there's nothing left to lose. Such is the case with Ross Bagdasarian Sr. who recorded a novelty song called "The Witch Doctor". As his record company was close to bankruptcy, three executives went along with recording a chorus of three sped-up voices he called The Chipmunks.

Production commenced and in just a few months leading up to Christmas of 1958, the record shot to the top of the charts, becoming one of the best selling singles of all time. Bagdasarian won two Grammy Awards, Liberty Records was saved from bankruptcy, and the Chipmunks became a household name with children all over the world.

And that's just the beginning of the story of Simon, Theodore, and Alvin. http://www.animationarchive.org/2009/10/animation-history-of-chipmunks.html -via Boing Boing

NASA introduced the idea of female astronauts much earlier than you might realize. After all, the Soviets had launched a female cosmonaut!

In the late 1950s, the United States government contemplated training women as astronauts, and newly released medical test results show that they were just as cool and tough as the men who went to the moon.

“They were all extraordinary women and outstanding pilots and great candidates for what was proposed,” said Donald Kilgore, a doctor who evaluated both male and female space flight candidates at the Lovelace Clinic, a mid-century center of aeromedical research. “They came out better than the men in many categories.”

The times being what they were, the program was scrapped, and US women did not make it into space until 1983. Link

Make your own scary character that pops up out of trash can to scare trick-or-treaters! Instructables user Back Roads shows you how to create this prop that uses compressed air. Link -via Lifehacker

(YouTube link)

This surprised me. What happens when you connect two balloons, one blown up much bigger than the other? I thought for sure they would equalize. Doesn’t air rush out harder from a fully-inflated balloon than from a partially-inflated balloon? Even the explanation puzzles me. Are there any scientists around who could explain more thoroughly? -via Dark Roasted Blend

Halo Animal Rescue in Phoenix, Arizona confronted a tiny problem. A chihuahua puppy was left an orphan when its mother died in childbirth. Rescue worker Heather Allen called Animal Control and asked if they had any nursing mothers. All they had was a black cat with four kittens.

Knowing that without a mom the baby Chihuahua did not have long to live, Heather introduced the two. She says, "I just kind of just stuck the puppy in with the rest and hoped the mom wouldn't notice much and she thought that was fine."

Seven days later the baby Chihuahua, now named Liam, is still alive. Heather says, "She's doing great, I don't know if she'll be litter-trained when she's done, but she's doing really well, she's nursing and seems to be growing and doing great."

Link (with video) -via Fark

(image credit: AZ Family)

The largest shopping mall in the world is no longer the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota. The South China Mall near Guangzhou, China is twice as big! This is not a success story; there are only about a dozen stores open in the giant facility. However, because the mall is considered “too big to fail”, it is kept open with a staff working every day. The series POV tells the story in a 13 minute video. Link -via Dark Roasted Blend

Sportswriter Wright Thompson tried out the "Legends" section at the new Yankee Stadium. The seats originally went for $2,500. Now they are mostly empty, even though the price has dropped to $1,250. In telling the story of how such an exclusive luxury section came to be, Thompson relates the changes in baseball with the state of the economy.

A recent poll discovered an unsettling trend emerging for the first time. American families whose household income is $75,000 or less now have zero dollars of discretionary income. According to Luker, that means about 75 percent of the country can never responsibly afford to go to a live professional sporting event. Franchises want them to be fans, to buy the gear and pull for their teams and watch the telecasts the leagues are paid billions for. But they don't need them to come to their stadiums. There are, right now, plenty of rich people who love games. The prices reflect that. The reason sporting events cost so much now, Luker's research shows, is because they are designed to be affordable only to those making $150,000 or more a year.

This wasn't always true. Ten years ago, it was cheaper to go to a baseball game than to a movie in half of the big league markets (take away parking at the game, and it was cheaper in every market). Today, there isn't a single city in America where it costs less to go to a major league game than to a movie. Everywhere we turn, we see examples of the collapsing middle class. This is where that issue lives in the world of sports, and it has predictable consequences.

You don’t have to be a baseball fan to relate to this story of a business choosing short-term profits over long-term growth. Link -via Metafilter

(image credit: Julie Jacobson)

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This ad for the Thai Insurance Company features children from the Srisangwan School for the disabled, a project of the Princess Mother’s Volunteer Foundation. http://www.thailand-travelonline.com/thailand-reviews-recommendations/best-of-thailand/best-commercial-ever-que-sera-sera-whatever-will-be-will-be/1483/ -via b3ta

Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. Anyone who reads The Weird Week in Review at mental floss knows that news stories can be hard to believe. Anyone who reads The Onion knows that fake news can highlight real issues. In today’s Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss, you are challenged to distinguish actual news stories from the stuff that The Onion makes up. It’s not so easy! Luckily, I have posted just about all these stories on one site or another, so I scored 100%. Link

Here’s a list sure to spark debate. Which is better, the movie or the book? Usually one is much better than the other. With the ten books and movies listed here, it’s all a matter of opinion because both the book and the movie are classics. Still, I will always recommend reading the book before seeing the movie. Link [possible malware alert @ link - go there at your own risk]

A recent poll asked Americans what the most annoying phrase they’ve heard is, and 47% of respondents answered “whatever”. It is believed that this is the actual phrase they found annoying, and not just a dismissive response to the question.

Other candidates for most irritating phrases: "you know" netted 25 percent of the vote; "it is what it is" got 11 percent; "anyway" got 7 percent; and "at the end of the day" ended the day with 2 percent.

Some geographic tendencies also emerged. "Whatever," for example, is more loathed in the Midwest - where it annoys 55 percent of respondents - than it is in the Northeast, where it bothers 35 percent.

Link -via Simply Left Behind

(image credit: Flickr user Shiny Things)

Engineeer and cartoonist Tim Hunkin created an arcade game that at first appears to be an ATM or banking kiosk. When coins are inserted, the banking poster drops and reveals Wack-A-Banker, giving you an opportunity to take your aggressions out on a group of financially oppressive stereotypes. See more pictures and read how this project came about at Tim's site. Link -via Everlasting Blort

I don’t know who created these little comics using dead flies, as the source site is not in English. Some are very funny! http://www.houseandgadgets.com/humor-with-dead-flies/ -via Unique Daily

Update: Some of the comics have dialog in Swedish. Lexi has provided a translation in the comments here at Neatorama. -Thanks, Lexi!