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2015/08/13

Neatorama

Neatorama

Clever Girl - Dinosaurs Can Be Cheeky Too!

Posted: 13 Aug 2015 05:00 AM PDT


Clever Girl by Hugohugo

Owen always knew his trained velociraptors were smart, but Blue was starting to act a bit cheeky! He watched her in the yard every day, and where she used to jump and wrestle she now pranked and tricked her sisters. Nobody could explain this change of tone in Blue, but Owen was starting to like this side of her, mainly because he liked seeing that sparkle in her copper colored eyes again. Ever since science brought those raptors into the modern world they've been feared and misunderstood, but it looks like Blue is going to change the way we think about those terrible lizards!

Get geared up for movie night with this Clever Girl t-shirt by Hugohugo, it's the most fun way to show love for your favorite jurassic dinosaur squad!

Visit Hugohugo's Facebook fan page, Tumblr and Twitter, then head on over to his NeatoShop for more geek-tastic designs:

I Want You For WAR BOYS (Dark Color)GreenPoolWe Can Do It! (Furiously)I Want You For WAR BOY

View more designs by Hugohugo | More Funny T-shirts | New T-Shirts

Are you a professional illustrator or T-shirt designer? Let's chat! Sell your designs on the NeatoShop and get featured in front of tons of potential new fans on Neatorama!

Slam Dunk: The Air Jordan III

Posted: 13 Aug 2015 05:00 AM PDT

How an architect revolutionized the basketball shoe.

(Image credit: Mike Rogalski)

Something strange was in the air at the Nike headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon. It wasn’t just that deadlines loomed—that was typical. A shareholders meeting was just around the corner, which never brightened the mood, but that wasn’t it either. Tinker Hatfield Jr., a 35-year-old sneaker designer, couldn’t quite put his finger on it. His boss, Nike’s creative director and lead shoe designer, Peter Moore, typically blasted music in his office while he sketched new ideas for shoes. But this summer morning in 1987, the music wasn’t playing.

A few weeks prior, Rob Strasser, Nike’s vice president, had suddenly handed in his resignation. Nobody had seen it coming. Strasser was an industry veteran who’d spent nearly two decades as Phil Knight’s marketing guru. He’d become a local legend, “the man who saved Nike.” In three years, he’d turned the company’s fortunes around by signing Michael Jordan to the most high-profile and successful athlete endorsement deal in history. Soon, Jordan’s contract would be coming up for renegotiation. Wherever Strasser was about to go, he seemed poised to take Jordan with him.

Moore, who’d designed the first two iterations of the Air Jordan, was clearly frustrated. Suddenly, he called Hatfield into his office. Sketches for a new shoe were scattered around the desk. Handing Hatfield a thin sheet of tracing paper, Moore said, “You do it. Design Michael Jordan’s next basketball shoe.” A week later, Moore followed Strasser’s lead and walked out the door, leaving behind a thin file filled with those same sketches. The deadline to present the new Air Jordan was a few weeks away, and the company’s fate seemed tethered to the deal.

Hatfield had never even worked on an Air Jordan, let alone designed one. In fact, he was new to the field: He’d barely worked on sneakers for two years. But now, with Nike reeling from the loss of its design and marketing leadership and with its relationship with Jordan on the line, Tinker had a lot riding on this one shoe. (Image credit: Jimmka89)

In high school, Hatfield had been a standout track athlete. He was part of Oregon’s robust amateur-sports culture (near the center of which was his father, a legendary track coach). He attended the University of Oregon on a track-and-field scholarship and held the school’s pole-vaulting record for a while, but his teammate, Steve Prefontaine—who would go on to become one of the most celebrated track stars in history—got most of the attention. That was fine by Hatfield. He’d chosen Oregon because the school offered a bachelor’s degree in architecture—his true passion.

Four years after graduation, Hatfield was floundering at a corporate architecture job. Then his former track coach, Bill Bowerman, called. The company Bowerman had helped start, Nike, was beginning to flourish and it needed some help designing marketing materials. In 1980, Bowerman brought Hatfield in to work on an internal marketing manual. A year later, the position had bloomed into a full-time role. Hatfield worked on showrooms, offices, retail-space concepts: the kinds of things that ultimately mattered much less than the way everything else there was designed.

Then, in 1985, Rob Strasser asked Hatfield to compete in a company-wide design contest. The challenge was to design a shoe you could wear as easily on the track as you could fashionably on the street—such a crossover didn’t exist. Nike would never do anything with it, probably. It was a lark, a theoretical, an exercise to get Nike’s shoe designers thinking bigger.

Hatfield took it seriously. He stayed up all night, drawing a colorful upper with a low-profile midsole and a visible airbag in the shoe itself. Hatfield was inspired by Paris’s Centre Georges Pompidou—a building turned inside out—and its designers, the bad-boy architects Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers, whom he counted as personal heroes. In his sketch, he positioned the shoes not on a runner but next to a European motor scooter.

This was a renegade move at a company whose mission was mainly to service runners’ needs. The more conservative minds at Nike saw this as a sign that Hatfield didn’t understand the brand’s mission. Some of his colleagues thought he should be fired. Hatfield didn’t care. He knew the company made purely utilitarian shoes, but he just wasn’t interested in designing purely utilitarian shoes. “When I came in,” he remembered later, “I had stories to tell.”

Moore was amused by his moxie and wowed by his design: It won the contest. Nobody at the top was entirely sure what to make of Hatfield, but they knew that he shouldn’t be designing marketing materials anymore. Just like that, he’d become a shoe designer. He didn’t know that, in just two years, he’d be faced with the biggest challenge of his career, nor did he realize just whom he’d need to win over.

Michael Jordan had come to Nike as a last resort. When he signed with the Chicago Bulls in 1984, he desperately wanted an Adidas endorsement. The German company had enough athletes on its books, however, and was reluctant to sign another. Even after Nike offered to tailor shoes to his liking, with his name on them—something no other company was doing at the time—and sign him to an eye-popping five-year, $500,000 contract (also unheard of at the time), Jordan wasn’t entirely sold. (Image credit: Steve Lipofski Basketballphoto.com)

Five years later, Jordan’s kicks were some of the most successful athlete-endorsed shoes ever. But as his contract neared its end, Jordan was looking for an out. Moore and Strasser, who’d signed him, were gone. The pair were hoping to lure Jordan to their upstart competitor, Sports Inc., where they wanted to give him his own shoe and apparel line. Adidas was beckoning too. At this point, Jordan could go wherever he wanted.

Nike had just one shot to salvage its deal with Michael Jordan: The Air Jordan III, which was now in Hatfield’s hands. Nike president Phil Knight didn’t know Hatfield well—and he didn’t necessarily trust him, since he’d worked for Moore. Jordan didn’t know Hatfield either. That was the first thing Hatfield had to change.

As soon as he could, Hatfield jumped on a plane to meet with Jordan. He needed to get a sense of who he was as a human, outside of basketball. Lately, Jordan had been buying suits, plus high-end leather shoes to go with them. Hatfield could see he had an eye for style and design that wasn’t entirely obvious to the public or reflected in the previous Air Jordans.

When Jordan talked about the styles and performance elements that he wanted in a shoe, Hatfield did something no other designer and executive had: He listened. A basic principle in architecture states that you can’t design a great house without knowing the people who will live in it. Hatfield applied this with Jordan. “I don’t think Michael had ever been worked with that way,” he told the Portland Tribune in 2005, “In fact, I don’t think anybody in the footwear business had done it that way.”

Both the Air Jordan and Air Jordan II were high-tops. Chatting with Hatfield, Jordan threw out an idea for a shoe that was less restrictive. Mid-tops existed, but they weren’t popular as far as basketball shoes went. They were seen as a compromise: less stable for the ankles than a high-top. But Jordan dreamed of a lighter shoe.

Hatfield kept hunting for inspiration wherever he could find it. Among Moore’s few prototype designs, Hatfield saw something exciting. The photo of Jordan that had been used to promote the last two shoes— jumping to dunk, legs split outward, ball in hand extended toward the basket—had been penciled out by Moore as a logo. The logo was buried in the files, never intended for use on apparel. Hatfield loved it and, without consulting anyone, he placed it on one of his first Jordan III designs.

While researching materials, he’d come across some suede-like nubuck embossed with a pattern that resembled fake elephant skin, perfect for the trim. He also used a material called floater, leather that’s been tumbled so the natural wrinkles lost when it’s tanned and processed reemerge as a texture. It had never been used in athletic shoes before, as tumbled leather can grow softer (thus weaker) when processed. But Jordan wanted to wear a new pair of shoes every game. The tumbled leather wasn’t just a nod to Jordan’s love of fashion and those Italian leather shoes he was now sporting. It also served a practical purpose: Jordan wouldn’t have to break the shoe in.

Hatfield crafted a rough sample as quickly as he could. Another designer, Ron Dumas, took the sample and clarified Hatfield’s ideas. As Hatfield recalled: “No one slept for days.”

On the day of the presentation, Hatfield and Knight flew to California, where Jordan was golfing. When they arrived, they found Jordan’s parents waiting for them in a conference room. Jordan was still out on the fairways. Sitting next to the president of the company, Hatfield felt the enormity of what was about to happen start to sink in: “This,” he remembered, “is the biggest presentation of my life.”

Four hours later, Michael Jordan walked into the room. He wasn’t happy to be there. He had been golfing with Strasser and Moore, who’d recently given an incredible presentation on the new brand they wanted to launch. Now, they were on the verge of signing. “All right, show me what you got,” Jordan grumbled.

Hatfield stood up and started asking Jordan questions. He asked him to recall what he’d said earlier about the shoe’s height, its weight, about his Italian shoes and leather patterns. Hatfield started showing the sketches to Jordan, who was beginning to warm up: For the first time, someone had actually paid attention to what he wanted and needed. Jordan asked to see the sample.

Hatfield pulled a black cover off a lump on the table, and there it was: the concrete-elephant print lining. The soft, sturdy leather, the Nike Air bubble on the bottom. A lower, mid-rise cuff that distinguished it from virtually every other shoe on the planet. Instead of a giant Nike swoosh on the side, the side was clean. The swoosh had been relegated to the back. And in the front, on that oversize, plush shoe tongue: the Jumpman silhouette. It was a symbol, Hatfield explained, of who was at the forefront of the shoe— and the company.

(Image credit: Flickr user neilpphoto)

Jordan grabbed the sneaker, smiling. He’d never seen the Jumpman logo as anything other than an idea. Now it beamed from the front of the sneaker, and Jordan loved it. But perhaps most important, someone had found a way to take his needs as a basketball player and his ideas as a fashion connoisseur and meld them into a single design, one that was distinct from anything else on the market. When Jordan started talking about different colorways for the shoe, Hatfield knew he was in.

“Phil Knight thinks I helped save Nike that day,” Hatfield has since said. “I don’t know if it’s true or not, but that’s his perception.”

The Air Jordan III hit shelves in February 1988, retailing for $100. They were the shoes Michael Jordan wore while famously winning the 1988 NBA Slam Dunk Contest—flying from the free throw line to the rim. They were also the shoes he donned for that year’s All-Star and league MVP awards. And, before long, they’d yielded one of the most iconic tag lines (“It’s gotta be the shoes!”) of any ad campaign in the Spike Lee–directed Mars Blackmon spots, starring Lee himself as Blackmon.

(YouTube link)

Jordan, of course, remained with Nike and has since collaborated with Hatfield on 19 iterations of Air Jordans (or “Js,” as they’re known), which have remained the most popular basketball shoe line in the history of the market and the most coveted sneakers in the known universe. The Jordan Brand subdivision of Nike made $2.25 billion in 2013 alone and accounts for nearly 60 percent of the American basketball shoe market. Today, Jordan refers to Hatfield as his “right-hand man” in all things design-related. Hatfield has since become vice president of design at Nike. He’s still taking inspiration from unconventional places (for the Jordan XI, he consistently cites a lawn mower).

As for the original Air Jordan III, it’s been galvanized in rap and pop songs and is regularly ranked by sneakerhead publications as the greatest Air Jordan of all time. And in 2001, the Air Jordan III became the first Jordan to be rereleased (or “retroed,” in sneaker parlance) and sell out in full. In fact, the highly coveted limited-availability III is the shoe that sparked the robust sneaker-collecting culture that exists today.

 

None of this would have happened had Hatfield followed convention. Instead, he went rogue in the simple, revolutionary way that is shrugging off common wisdom: Maybe athletic shoes can be more than just functional, and stylish shoes can function beyond their form. It took an architect to bring that idea to light.

Years later, Hatfield would ask Jordan why he ended up staying with Nike. Jordan replied that two factors swayed his decision: the advice of his father—who told him to stay the course—and a gut feeling. Jordan could feel that someone had managed to tap into him as a three-dimensional human being and translate that personality into a pair of shoes. And that, to Jordan, was special. In other words? It’s gotta be the shoes.

__________________________

The above article by Foster Kamer is reprinted with permission from the August 2014 issue of mental_floss magazine.

Don't forget to feed your brain by subscribing to the magazine and visiting mental_floss' extremely entertaining website and blog today for more!

Massive Great White Shark is the Size of a Real-Life Jaws

Posted: 13 Aug 2015 04:00 AM PDT


YouTube Link

This video of an immense great white shark filmed by marine biologist Mauricio Hoyos Padilla is new footage of the famous "Deep Blue." The female shark is approximately 50 years old, 20 feet long and pregnant, according to Padilla. The information on the video claims that Blue is one of the biggest great whites ever caught on video. See Padilla's Facebook for more information. 

<i>Game of Thrones</i> Is Even Better When Matched with Dialogue from <i>Monty Python and the Holy Grail</i>

Posted: 13 Aug 2015 03:00 AM PDT

The TV show Game of Thrones and Monty Python’s best movie have a lot in common: they both take place in medieval settings, they both feature people dying senselessly, and they’re both hilarious. So they belong together. That’s what BuzzFeed did by combining 18 famous selections of dialogue from Monty Python and the Holy Grail with scenes from Game of Thrones. In the one pictured above, Stannis Baratheon, the One True King of Westeros, arrived at the Wall to gain the fealty of Dennis the Peasant.

Artist Turns the Sugar in Soft Drinks into Lollipops

Posted: 13 Aug 2015 02:00 AM PDT



Photographer Henry Hargreaves' (previously at Neatorama) latest series de)hydrate is also a demonstration of the amount of sugar contained in sodas and energy drinks. Hargreaves boils the liquids until only the sugar remains, then pours the carmelized sugar into lollipop molds sized by comparison to that of the drink's container. Hargreaves said of the project in a YouTube video,

"After recently hearing a health professional refer to soda as 'the cigarettes of our generation,' I decided to do an experiment to show what’s in soft drinks after the water is boiled away. After all, I figure that’s what you’re essentially getting: candy in costume as a soft drink."

See a variety of soft drink-sugared lollies here. Follow Hargreaves' work on his website, Facebook page and Instagram.

Misadventure Time

Posted: 13 Aug 2015 01:00 AM PDT

Transport your favorite cartoon characters into the chaotic post-apocalyptic world of Mad Max and see what happens. Oh, what a lovely day!

(YouTube link)

Egor Zhgun created a delightful mashup of Adventure Time and Mad Max: Fury Road. The audio of the original movie trailer is accompanied by Finn, Princess Bubblegum, the Ice King, and the rest of the cast. See more animated gif from the project here.  -via The A.V. Club

Private Search and Rescue: If You Can Afford These Experts, Then They <i>Will</i> Save You

Posted: 13 Aug 2015 12:00 AM PDT

(Photo: Global Rescue)

Who do you call when an earthquake traps you on Mount Everest? You can Global Rescue. If you are their client, they will get you out . . .

. . . for a price.

This is the emerging world of private search and rescue operations. Global Rescue is one of several firms of ex-special forces and top-end medical professionals that will find you and bring you home alive. This service appeals to adventure travelers, who are willing to pay the several hundred dollar annual subscription fee. Wired reports on the industry and Global Rescue founder Dan Richards:

He saw a niche that needed filling. At the time, companies like International SOS provided risk assessments to big corporations sending employees over­seas, while travel insurance companies allowed customers to file for reimbursement for services like evacuation or lost luggage. Groups like MedjetAssist, meanwhile, provided evacuation services from international hospitals. But there wasn’t a company with the capability to quickly dispatch both helicopters and security personnel to hard-to-reach places—something Richards realized while researching invest­ment opportunities in the crisis-response industry. “When you call the cavalry, you expect the cavalry to show up,” he says.

Richards soon hired five paramedics with military experi­ence, negotiated a partnership with the Johns Hopkins Department of Emergency Medicine to provide clients with remote medical consultations, and started reaching out to helicopter companies and current and former military personnel around the globe that he could hire on a contract basis. He began to sign up corporate clients that paid hefty annual fees for memberships that included evacuation privileges. The State Department, NASA, and Uber soon signed up for similar deals.

-via Ace of Spades HQ

World Record Skydiving Formation

Posted: 12 Aug 2015 11:00 PM PDT

There were 164 skydivers jumping out of seven planes over Chicago. Plus photographers. They managed to latch onto each other to set a new record in aerial formation. Don't bother counting them, just enjoy the beauty of the video.  

(YouTube link)

The previous record was 138 skydivers in formation. These folks did it by linking up head down in the sky. Read about how it came about at Redbull. -via The Kid Should See This

<i>Mad Max: Fury Road</i> Vehicles Made of Vegetables

Posted: 12 Aug 2015 10:00 PM PDT

Brian Ashcraft of Kotaku tells us that on the Buddhist holiday of Obon in August, many Japanese people create figures out of eggplants and cucumbers in order to welcome visitation by the spirits of the dead. Cucumbers represent horses and eggplants represent cows. The spirits arrive quickly on cucumbers, but leave slowly on eggplants.

So it logically follows that twitter user @sativa_high would recreate the vehicles used by the War Boys in Mad Max: Fury Road with these two vegetables.


(Video Link)

The Best Desserts in 25 Countries Around the World

Posted: 12 Aug 2015 09:00 PM PDT

Spanish Tarta de Santiago

Some things in life are universal, such as the love of sweet treats. It doesn't matter where one travels on Earth, finding a friend with whom you share a love of sweets is inevitable. Just as the cultures of man across the globe are diverse, so are their offerings of desserts. This article has a sampling of that vast array. Read it at the risk of craving sugary self-indulgence immediately afterward. 

Japanese mochi

Argentinian pastelitos

New Zealand Will Choose a New Flag from 40 Possible Designs, Including These

Posted: 12 Aug 2015 08:00 PM PDT

The current flag of New Zealand is the British Union Flag in a corner with four stars on a blue field. These symbols represent the nation's origin as a British colony and the constellation of the Southern Cross.

The government is ditching this flag for something that represents the nation's present and future, not just its past. And it's putting the matter to a national vote. Here is a gallery of 40 designs that citizens have to choose from. The swirly one at the top of this post is particularly eye-catching. Daniel and Leon Crayford of Auckland designed it. They explain its meaning:

This unfurling pikopiko koru is about vibrancy and energy contained in a small space. By using the Māori spiral design and applying the colours of the 1902 New Zealand flag, it honours both the indigenous and colonial cultures.

-via Visual News

Alf Solo And Friend - Cat Smugglers Extraordinaire

Posted: 12 Aug 2015 07:00 PM PDT


Alf Solo and Friend by Alberto83aj

People are always debating whether Han shot first or not, but Han's only the star of the show because some sleazy Hutt wrote him into the story. The truth is there was more than one alien on the scene, and the wisecracking one with the perfect hair all over his body shot both first and last. His name was Gordon Shumway, and he was the original owner of the Millennium Falcon before Han came along and cheated him out of his ship and his nickname. Forced to live most of his life in the shadows during the War, Gordon soon found his way to a planet called Earth and started a new life in a nice family's garage...

Tell the untold tale of the galaxy's hairiest duo with this Alf Solo and Friend t-shirt by Alberto83aj, it's one hilarious way to show love for two beloved sci-fi franchises at once!

Visit Alberto83aj's Facebook fan page, Twitter and Tumblr, then head on over to his NeatoShop for more action packed designs:

My New FriendInside MuppetsGraffitiThe Turtles

View more designs by Alberto83aj | More Sci-Fi T-shirts | New T-Shirts

Are you a professional illustrator or T-shirt designer? Let's chat! Sell your designs on the NeatoShop and get featured in front of tons of potential new fans on Neatorama!

10 Of The Biggest Deaths In Comic Book History

Posted: 12 Aug 2015 07:00 PM PDT

Superhero deaths are about as permanent as chalk on a chalkboard, because as soon as it’s convenient to bring the beloved hero back from the dead the whole scene is wiped clean and covered up with a new storyline.

And yet virtually every time a superhero dies that “milestone” issue becomes a top seller, drawing in all kinds of collectors with the promise of a steady increase in value and something to talk about with their nerdy friends.

(YouTube Link)

Whether you think superhero deaths are a good plot vehicle or simply a gimmick to sell more issues you'll enjoy WatchMojo's breakdown of the Top 10 Biggest Superhero Deaths.

It's chock full of spoilers, superfriends, so don't watch if you're still looking to be surprised when you read the comics!

-Via GeekTyrant

How to Wake Up in the Morning

Posted: 12 Aug 2015 06:00 PM PDT

Yep. It’s the morning. You have to get up. You don’t want to. None of us want to. But we all have to.

Have you ever slept through an alarm clock going off? One common solution is to set a second alarm clock further away from your bed. This forces you to get up to turn it off. French comedian DaniiL Le Russe takes the idea just a step further to make sure that he doesn’t sleep in and miss work.

-via Tastefully Offensive

Synonym Movies

Posted: 12 Aug 2015 05:00 PM PDT

What a difference a word makes! These films sound so  prosaic when the titles are changed to something that means the same thing. Have fun translating all ten of them. I have to admit, I had to look the last one up, because even though I recall it better than the other movies in the series, I forgot the complete title. This is the latest from Randall Munroe at xkcd. As usual, the punch line is in the hovertext at xkcd.

A (Luxury) Shortcut for Elephants

Posted: 12 Aug 2015 04:00 PM PDT


YouTube Link

Mfuwe Lodge in Zambia is a beautiful getaway for human occupants, but it also serves at least one family of elephants annually. Three generations of elephants return each year from late October to mid-December, taking the shortcut through the lodge in order to feast on the fallen mangos from the trees on the grounds. This footage catches the elephants' shortcut beautifully and features the entire family, with baby in tow. What an interesting amenity of the lodge! Via Arbroath

A Computer for Cats

Posted: 12 Aug 2015 03:00 PM PDT

Is your cat getting in between you and your computer? Don’t just prod him away. Give him a computer of his own! This is the Cat Scratch Laptop, a toy computer for your feline companions. It has a customizable wallpaper that slides in and out. The keyboard consists of a scratching surface. A mouse plugs in on the left (sorry, it’s not wireless). There are no details about memory or processing speed, so you’re taking a chance there. Presumably they’re upgrade-able, though.

-via Gizmodo

Drunk History: The Rise, Fall, and Revival of All-American Whiskey

Posted: 12 Aug 2015 02:00 PM PDT

Americans have always loved their whiskey. Even George Washington had his own distillery. Colonists in the north made their own rye, while those further south came up with bourbon. Eventually glass bottles were developed. When Americans loved whiskey too much, there was always someone else who wanted them to reel it back in, which led to Prohibition. But even then, we found ways around it. One way was medicinal whiskey. Noah Rothbaum, author of the book The Art of American Whiskey, tells us about it.  

I had known medicinal whiskeys were available at this time, but I assumed they came in nondescript bottles, like rubbing alcohol or aspirin. But of course, they didn’t. They were packaged in these beautiful, engaging, and highly illustrated boxes and bottles, which shows that, in fact, the whole medicinal whiskey business was not about “medicine” but about letting people continue to drink whiskey.

Before Prohibition, whiskey was prescribed for a range of real symptoms and illnesses, but after alcohol was outlawed, I think it was prescribed for things like the common cold or stress or anxiety as a way to get around the law. I imagine a lot of prescriptions were for subjective conditions. I think it’s an accurate parallel to some of the marijuana clinics today, with prescriptions ranging from the legitimate to the recreational.

Obviously, these companies were still trying to sell and market their products during Prohibition, and the ones that survived had to demonstrate they already had large supplies of whiskey already on hand since they weren’t allowed to make new whiskey. You also had a lot of consolidation, as companies that were allowed to bottle medicinal whiskey ran low on stock and acquired companies that hadn’t been permitted to bottle it. The government also eventually declared a distiller’s holiday because they ran out of medicinal stock, and this allowed them to make more. It shows how much of this “medicine” was actually being sold.

And the day Prohibition ended, there was plenty of whiskey available to celebrate, as if it had been manufactured along -which it had. Read about the history of whiskey in America at Collectors Weekly. 

(Image credit: Finest & Rarest)

Failed Toy Lines From The 1980s

Posted: 12 Aug 2015 01:00 PM PDT

The 80s were a heyday for licensed toys, and kids were finally able to actually have some action with their action figures.

Toy series that featured some kind of fighting element were generally the most popular, so companies released many different kinds of combat-ready characters in order to cash in on the trend.

But one group of fighters failed to make kids hungry enough to collect them all- The Food Fighters, a delicious idea that kids just couldn’t stomach.

And then there were those brash toy lines that dared to come out without their own cartoon series, which caused kids to wonder "Who the heck does this Crystar, Crystal Warrior think he is, He-Man or sumpin'?!"

See 12 Toys From The 1980s That Didn't Take Off at mental_floss

The Office Aquarium

Posted: 12 Aug 2015 12:00 PM PDT

Tyranitard has an aquarium in his office with a skull inside. Take a good look at it. He saw this and freaked out, but then looked carefully to find out what caused the skull to look back at him. It’s a snail that climbed up into the eye socket! Must be a cozy place to hang out. That’s a picture you have to share. The tank has a second snail, so he’s waiting for the other socket to be occupied.  -via reddit

This is a State-Owned Chinese Pharmaceutical Company

Posted: 12 Aug 2015 11:00 AM PDT

State-owned Harbin Pharmaceutical Group is China's second-biggest drug maker. When the company posted these photos of their facility on their website, it sparked outrage in the country and beyond. The photos showed lavish architectural features and fixtures seemingly fit more for a palace than a pharma building: intricately carved wood corridors, gold foil inlays, triple-tiered crystal chandeliers and marble columns. Cost of the construction of the building was reportedly over 93 million yuan (15 million USD).

Residents of the neighborhood surrounding the company were incensed that just months prior to the photo revelation, Harbin was charged with illegally discharging wastewater, waste gas and industrial waste. Corporate response to the accusations was that they had no money to address the problems.

One user on the "Chinese Twitter" Sina Weibo wrote, 

“It’s a palace which is built on the pain of millions of patients.”

Another posted:

“Now I finally know why Chinese people can’t afford to go to the doctor and buy medicines.”

See additional photos and read more on this story inthis article. 

22 Bizarre Conspiracy Theories

Posted: 12 Aug 2015 10:00 AM PDT

(YouTube link)

We love to hear about conspiracy theories. Some of us believe them, while others of us are amazed at what people can come up with… just when you think you’ve hear it a lll, here comes something new. John Green goes over some you are familiar with and others that may be new to you, in the latest episode of the mental_floss List Show. The Illuminati is responsible for LeBron James joining the Miami Heat? Some people think so!

Be Evil Today! - Dwarves And Fairy Godmothers Need Not Apply

Posted: 12 Aug 2015 09:00 AM PDT


Be Evil Today! by Oneskillwonder

The most maleficently villainous members of animated society banded together to form a new kingdom free of do-gooders and hoaky heroes. Their dark kingdom would be ruled by fear and dark magic, which didn't really appeal to people much so they were having a hard time recruiting subjects. Cruella came up with a perfectly wicked promotional idea- create propaganda posters that appeal to people's dark side. Soon monsters, fiends and ne'er-do-wells from all different animated lands were heading to this unhappy land, evil minions who would soon find themselves subjugated by not one but four evil queens...

Spread the word about the land of the wicked with this Be Evil Today! t-shirt by Oneskillwonder, it's a surefire way to show allegiance to those animated villains we know and loathe!

Visit Oneskillwonder's Tumblr, then head on over to his NeatoShop for more mighty geeky designs:

You're Just As Sane As I Am!Banana!Obey You Unfortunate Soul!

Fierce & Fabulous

View more designs by Oneskillwonder | More Cartoon T-shirts | New T-Shirts

Are you a professional illustrator or T-shirt designer? Let's chat! Sell your designs on the NeatoShop and get featured in front of tons of potential new fans on Neatorama!

The Incredible Wildlife Sketches Created By Lewis & Clark

Posted: 12 Aug 2015 09:00 AM PDT

Lewis and Clark discovered all kinds of things on their journey across America- the giant Pacific Ocean that even the native people hadn’t noticed before, the very first McDonald’s location, and about $.75 in change that had fallen out of some guy’s pocket.

But they went on their Expedition to do more than discover stuff, and one of their most important jobs was to sketch the wildlife they saw along the way.

Now, for the first time possibly ever (but probably not the first time) the wildlife sketches Lewis and Clark drew during that fateful journey can be seen on an informational website called Clickhole.

It’s too bad the mighty butt chinned beaver is now extinct, but people needed stands for their cigars so it was bye bye beaver and hello butt chin cigar stands!

Lewis And Clark's Sketches Of The Animals They Encountered On Their Journey Will Blow You Away

Chad Gadya in Embroidery

Posted: 12 Aug 2015 08:00 AM PDT

Chad Gadya is a traditional Passover song (lyrics here). Nina Paley and Theodore Gray animated it using embroidery on matzoh covers, a process Paley calls “embroidermation.” She also calls it “Our most ridiculously labor-intensive animation ever!” I can see that.

(vimeo link)

Each embroidered matzoh cover, used in zoetrope fashion, provides six frames of animation. The covers are for sale. Gray explains the process of creating the video here. Not only did they have to embroider hundreds of characters, but create custom software, too!

This video is a part of Paley’s ongoing feature film project Seder-Masochism (previously at Neatorama). She says Chad Gadya will serve as an intermission in the story. -via Metafilter

See more from Nina Paley.
See more from Theo Gray.

The Coolest Superhero Vehicles of All Time

Posted: 12 Aug 2015 07:00 AM PDT

I don't know about you guys, but I fell in love with Black Beauty (the Green Hornet's car, not the horse) the second I saw it. How could you not love a gorgeous black Chrysler adorned with weapons and gadgets? Of course, a Batmobile would also be pretty incredible as far as style and gadgetry are concerned.

Honestly, I'd pretty much love any of the amazing superhero vehicles on this great TopTenz list, but I'm curious, which one would you prefer?

The Greatest Political Campaign Ad Ever Made

Posted: 12 Aug 2015 06:00 AM PDT

photo images.washingtonpost.com_zpsqsoz5mwn.gif

Politics are rarely entertaining in a laugh out loud kind of way, but politicians who at least try to bring the funny are generally better received by the public.

The people behind the politicos know this, so they try to incorporate entertaining elements into their campaigns like fun slogans or, in Hillary Clinton’s case, selling a beer koozie with the slogan “More like Chillary Clinton, amirite?” printed on the side.

(YouTube Link)

Sometimes these attempts to be humorous can backfire, but in the case of Canadian politician Wyatt Scott his comedic campaign video should result in a landslide victory, especially if his opponents are dragons.

-Via io9

Dean Martin Knocks the Beatles out of the #1 Spot on the Charts

Posted: 12 Aug 2015 05:00 AM PDT

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

“I’m gonna knock your pallies off the charts"  -Dean Martin

Ricci Martin, son of the world-famous singer Dean, was just like most any other teenager in the early months of 1964. Ricci was totally crazy about and obsessed with the Beatles.

Ever since the Beatles arrival in America a few months previously, they had captivated teenagers far and wide and taken the entire country by storm. They were making appearances on TV, their new film A Hard Day's Night was a smash hit, and their songs were blasting out of every radio on the continent. The records: “She Loves You,” “I Want to Hold your Hand,” “Please Please Me,” etc. were inevitably turning up on the record charts- in the number one spot.

And now it was August of 1964 and the theme song to their brilliant first film A Hard Day's Night was sitting brightly atop the charts. And so it was, a few months previous, that Ricci Martin was raving on and on about "the Beatles this" and "the Beatles that" and “Beatles Beatles Beatles.”

Dean Martin, star of stage, screen, television, Las Vegas, and the record world, got fed up one day and, with a bravado that would have put Muhammad Ali to shame, confidently took Ricci to the side and breezily told him, “I’m gonna knock your pallies off the charts.”

Ricci smirked and barely held back from rolling his eyes right to his father's face. Sure, his dad was the great Dean Martin, but Dino hadn't had a hit record in six years. And come on man, these guys were the Beatles!

In 1962, Dean Martin had signed a recording contract with Reprise records, a company owned by his close friend and comrade-in-arms Frank Sinatra. In 1963, Reprise signed a man named Jimmy Bowden to their A&R department. Jimmy Bowden very much wanted to record an album with Dean Martin.

Dean, always an easy-going guy, agreed to work with Bowden, but Dean, a man who did not like change, wanted to record an album of soft, moody, Las Vegas-type songs. It was to be a typical Dean Martin album- slow ballads and love songs sung by the droopy-eyed crooner. It was to an album called Dream with Dean.

Bowden wanted to record Dean and tried to set an atmosphere that was pleasing to his artist. The recording studio was set up in a moody light to create the proper atmosphere.

He got together a small band and Dino quickly and smoothly recorded the first 11 songs for the album. The 12th he just hated. It was an old song that had been around called “Everybody Loves Somebody.” Dean had to be coaxed into recording the number, but after some pushing, he finally agreed.

Interestingly, the tune had already been recorded by several other artists. i.e. Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee and Dinah Washington. The song had never gone anywhere and seemed destined to be a small, trivial number in recording history.

“Everybody Loves Somebody" had been written around 15 years previously by Dean's close friend and piano player, Ken Lane. This factor, I’m sure, had a lot to do with Dean recording a song he couldn't stand. Dean was a very nice, easy-going guy and he probably just wanted to help a pal get some royalties.

When Dean's album came out, the song was given little notice and raised no stir. But then, early in 1964, Dean recorded the song again as a single. It was given a new arrangement, Dean sped up the tempo a bit, and added a more contemporary sound to it.

At first, the song went nowhere and Reprise decided to stop promoting it. But radio stations in New Orleans and Worchester, Massachusetts started playing it. It soon spread to other stations and gained popularity.

Lo and behold- on August 15, 1964, just as he had boasted to his skeptical son, “Everybody Loves Somebody" actually knocked the Beatles out of the #1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 record charts.

“See, I told you I was gonna knock your pallies off,” said Dean casually to his awestruck son.

Ricci Martin said he looked on at his father with pride, wonder and amazement. And thus, Dean Martin, in all probability, became the one and only person to correctly predict that he was going to knock the Beatles out of the number one spot on the charts and actually do it!

Billboard Top Five Songs August 15, 1964

1. “Everybody Loves Somebody" - Dean Martin

2. “Where Did Our Love Go?"- The Supremes

3. “A Hard Day's Night"- The Beatles

4. “Rag Doll"- The Four Seasons

5. “Under the Boardwalk"- The Drifters

 
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