Oh and to think that my buddy Yogesh and I used to be arch rivals and now he's providing me with an incredible starting point for my sophomore blog...
1. List of unusual deaths (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unusual_deaths) - Really?!?! Could there be a more interesting and entertaining place to begin this journey? It is a list of unique, or extremely rare circumstances – recorded throughout history. The list also includes less rare, but still unusual, deaths of prominent people. That is entertaining without reading any further into it, but I did... Oh I did... Okay so I'll just let you in on the ones that I found to be the MOST notable or just generally strange.
- This thing starts out with a bang. I bet that you had no idea that Empedolces (the pre-Socratic philosopher, wow... never thought I'd ever need that one from Freshman year...) jumped into Mt. Etna?! Friggin Mt. Etna!! Yeah, it should come as no surprise that we never studied his stuff in school because CLEARLY he wasn't that bright. Apparently it was to convince people that he had been taken by the Gods on Olympus... Really?? Was there no better way?? People were SO ungullible at this time, I'm sure it must have taken such actions to prove a point.... Hmmm... Wait a minute... Okay, off soapbox and onto next cool death...
- Chrysippus died of laughter. No shit? That's awesome. Wow, maybe I shouldn't say things like "this cracks me up" or "he kills me." IT COULD HAPPEN. Dude was watching a drunk donkey eat figs and straight up keeled over from laughing. It seriously cannot get any better than this... I have to find my next wanderword before this article goes downhill... and... there it is... "died of laughter"
3. Who Framed Roger Rabbit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Framed_Roger_Rabbit) - A fabulous movie from my childhood, a Nintendo game with which I spent many hours (oh, side note, I still have a functioning NES circa 1987), as well as a wiki. Let us read on friends... The film was released in 1988 and was a fantasy comedy that combined traditional animation and live action with elements of film noir. (Anything that has any elements of film noir must be cool because it's French, right?) In case you don't remember this fab flick, it goes down like this: Roger is a bad ass rabbit that's all the talk of Toontown, which is a section of Hollywood where the toons coexist with people. He married a hussy named Jessica (most recently played by Jessica Biel) who cheats on him by playing pattycake with the owner of the studio. Well, when the owner gets capped, Roger's in the hot seat. Judge Doom is out for Roger's head and his weasel henchmen are all about roughing up our boy Roger... Yadda yadda yadda... Roger wins. The End. Well, apparently Mike Eisner didn't want it released because it was a cartoon and there were innuendos... Wow, how times have changed. Shrek, anyone? Whoa. I guess the last time I saw this I was really young, but I had no idea the messages in this movie. Apparently the corruption is supposed to be symbolic of the 40s in L.A. Ugh. Yucky. And the dip is symbolic or Hitler's "Final Solution." Wow. That's deep for a cartoon. I'd expect nothing less of Spielberg. That man's mind is always a-runnin'. Smart fella that one is.
And I'm ending this post on a cool random fact for today: Who Framed Roger Rabbit is the first and only time that Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse appeared on screen together.
There. Don't say I never gave you anything.
Keep sendin those comments. What ever shall I wiki without comments?
Until next time, stay classy, San Diego. I'm Kelsey Chappell?
Dammit, who typed the question mark on the teleprompter?
Haha, I didn't realize that that one spelling bee made us "arch rivals," but okay ...
ReplyDeleteI seem to recall that Who Framed Roger Rabbit was also the only time Daffy and Donald Duck appeared opposite one another, but that may not be true anymore ...
It also set the record (since broken) for longest closing credits of a feature film -- despite which the voice of Jessica Rabbit (Kathleen Turner) went uncredited. (Amy Irving [Spielberg's ex-wife] and Betsy Brantley were credited as, respectively, Jessica's singing voice and performance model.)
If I recall correctly, the basis for the plot was the widely-held belief (which may or may not be true) that the Big Three auto companies sabotaged LA's thriving public transportation system, which was built around streetcars like the one featured in the film. The film's subtle central joke was that even though the villainous Judge Doom is defeated, his entire evil plan -- to pave over the whole country with interstates and cloud the air with smog -- has since come completely to fruition.
(What makes it especially clever is that the entire movie was an elaborate pastiche of Roman Polanski's Chinatown -- compare the opening shots of black-and-white photographs -- which was also built around a real-life scandal from LA history. Both movies take as their central theme that Los Angeles -- standing in for itself as well as both Hollywood and the USA -- was founded on a thin veneer covering widespread and massive corruption.)