Top 10 Movie Soundtrack Firsts

10. First Synchronization of Sound and Film

The Photo-Drama of Creation (1914)

The Photo-Drama of Creation was an eight hour long film that documented the Christian creation story. Funded by the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, the film depicted Christian history until the supposed end of Christ’s 1,000 year reign. Taking two years to create, the film was a combination of film, music, and colored slides. After its premiere in New York, it traveled the world until it was seen by 9,000,000 people.

9. First Professionally-Produced Feature Film with a Soundtrack

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)

Directed by F.W. Murnau, Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans is one of the most important films in Hollywood history. First, it won the very first Academy Award for Best Picture in 1929. Second, it was the first film to use a soundtrack that included sound effects and music. It used the Fox Movietone sound-on-film system that recorded sound by converting it to a variable-density optical track on the strip of film that contained its corresponding image. The Movietone score was composed by Austrian composer Hugo Risenfeld and performed by the Olympic Chamber Orchestra.

8. First Feature-Length Talkie

The Jazz Singer (1927)

The Jazz Singer signaled the end of the silent era and heralded the beginning of a new one: the sound era. Using the Warner Brothers Vitaphone sound-on-disc system, director Alan Crosland was able to create a film with a soundtrack that included music, singing, and synchronized dialogue. Many films had previously contained snippets of sound or segments where lines of speech were spliced in, but The Jazz Singer was the first time that used predominantly synchronized sound. A large part of the film was still silent but the songs and Al Jolson’s improvised dialogue (around 350 words) were enough to solidify The Jazz Singer as the first official talkie.

7. First Feature Film with a Full Length Thematic Score

King Kong (1933)

Before King Kong, movie music was relegated to the background and was incidental. King Kong opened up a new world for soundtracks by using a thematic score. RKO sound department head Murray Spivak made the revolutionary decision to match the effects with the score so they wouldn’t compete with each other. Instead, the sound effects and the soundtrack complimented each other. Composer Max Steiner, who would go on to write the music for Casablanca and Gone with the Wind, recorded the historic soundtrack with a 46-piece orchestra.

6. First Film to Release a Soundtrack Album

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)

The first full-length film created using cel animation in cinema history, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is easily one of the most influential films ever made.

One of its most under-appreciated innovations was the release of a soundtrack album containing the film’s music. With works from such legendary composers and songwriters as Frank Churchill, Paul Smith, and Leigh Harline, the soundtrack contained some of Disney’s most famous songs, such as Heigh-Ho, Some Day My Prince Will Come, and Whistle While You Work. The idea of releasing the music to the public was a stroke of genius that transformed cinematic music into a commodity of its own.

5. First Film to Feature Stereophonic Sound

Fantasia (1940)

One of the many innovations of Walt Disney’s Fantasia was the introduction of multi-channel sound. During one of the Philadelphia Orchestra’s recording sessions for the film, Walt Disney dropped by to check up on the progress. He was very disappointed with the recorded playback, so he enlisted the help of sound engineer William E. Garity and John N. A. Hawkins to create a better sound system. The result was entitled Fantasound. Multiple microphones were used to record different parts of the orchestra to separate tracks. The different tracks were then compressed into three double-width optical sound tracks. Fantasound required movie theaters to have a sound system that with 30-80 individual speakers. The process was so innovative that it garnered a special Academy Award for “outstanding contribution to the advancement of the use of sound in motion pictures through the production of Fantasia.”

4. First Score Comprised Entirely by Electric Instruments

The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)

Legendary film score writer Bernard Herrmann’s first work after moving to America, the soundtrack for The Day the Earth Stood Still, was one of the most influential in science fiction history. The first film soundtrack to be comprised on electronic instruments, the soundtrack used electric violins, cellos, basses, two Theremins, vibraphones, and several other electric and amplified instruments. Berman also used overdubbing and tape-reversal techniques to make the soundtrack more unearthly and futuristic. The soundtrack would go on to inspire the music to many more science fiction films, including such masterpieces as Blade Runner.

3. First Hollywood Film with an All-Jazz Score

The Man with the Golden Arm (1955)

The Man with the Golden Arm was a film that was destined to break all of the rules. It dealt with the forbidden topic of drug addiction, spat in the face of Hollywood censors, and used a soundtrack by blacklisted Elmer Bernstein. Bernstein decided that jazz would be the most appropriate music to help replicate the turmoil felt by a recovering heroin junkie, crafting the very first all jazz score in Hollywood history. It would give the film a chaotic, urgent feeling that would set it apart from other Hollywood productions. Afterwards, Bernstein would go on to write jazz scores for the films The Sweet Smell of Success (1957) and A Walk on the Wild Side (1962).

2. First Film Score Entirely Written By a Popular Artist

Pat Garret and Billy the Kid (1973)

Sam Peckinpah’s 1973 Pat Garret and Billy the Kid is considered a forgotten classic of the Western genre – one of the most famous reasons is its soundtrack, written and performed entirely by Bob Dylan. While other films had been written and made around popular music (like The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine), this was the first time that a full-length musical score was written expressly for a film by a popular artist.

Dylan was hired after country music star Kris Kristofferson, who played Billy the Kid, brought him into the film. Even though Peckinpah had (somehow) never heard of him before, he hired him on the spot when he heard Dylan’s proposed title theme. While the soundtrack album received little critical acclaim, it is remembered for spawning the classic Dylan anthem Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.

1. First All-Digital Film Soundtrack

Stop Making Sense (1984)

Nowadays, everything is digital but there was a time when digital technology was a huge innovation in the film world. The first time that a film used complete digital audio technology was the Talking Heads concert film Stop Making Sense. Directed by Jonathan Demme, Stop Making Sense was recorded on a 24-track Sony digital recorder. The film itself would go on to be described by critics such as Leonard Maltin as one of the greatest concert films ever made.

Top 10 Sketch Comedy TV Shows

When it comes to TV comedy, sitcoms are king. Turn on the tube any day of the week between 8 and 9pm and odds are the big networks are airing a sitcom. With their familiar sets, likeable actors, and generic plots, sitcoms (even really good ones) have an easy charm. They’re safe. Sitcoms are the meat and potatoes of the comedy world.

Sketch comedy, however, (if it’s good) appeals to the comedy connoisseur. They’re for audiences who like their comedy served up a little rawer and with a little more mustard. Sitcoms are fine for a Tuesday when you feel like eating some meatloaf and going to bed early. Sketch comedy is comedy for Friday night, when you feel like going out and trying something different and elaborate. Something that someone created with sweat and tears. Something great. A sketch comedy show is where comedy reaches its peak. And these are the Ten Best Sketch Comedy shows that ever appeared on TV.

10. Human Giant

The difference between good sketch comedy and great sketch comedy often lies in a troupe’s ability to connect to whatever particular zeitgeist they find themselves in: Monty Python could only have ever happened in the late 60s in England and The Kids in The Hall were a product of Toronto in the late 80s. Of course, they have to transcend those limits to be great, but they also have to be a reflection of their times. Human Giant achieved this in the 2000s. Appearing on MTV (really the perfect place for them), Aziz Ansari, Rob Hubel, and Paul Scheer were the kings of the burgeoning Internet comedy trend. Basically a couple of guys get a camera and some editing software and shoot a funny video. Like other Internet groups, they were fresh, charmingly low-fi, and full of energy. Unlike most other Interent groups, they were really good. With their seemingly endless collection of self-important goofballs and witlessly confident jackasses, they gently skewered pop culture like exceptionally talented class clowns who managed to bluff their way on to a major network. They only made two seasons of Human Giant (Aziz Ansari is too busy conquering the world to make any more), but those two seasons were amazing. And very, very funny.

9. A Bit Of Fry And Laurie

Though it aired only briefly in the U.S. and its two stars are better known today as a prolific Twitterer (Stephen Fry) and a cantankerously brilliant TV doctor (Hugh Laurie), A Bit of Fry and Laurie deserves a place on any list of the greatest sketch comedy shows of all time. A brainy mix of sophisticated verbal jokes and sublime silliness, the show took a cerebral yet hilarious tour of the England of the middle 90s. With ridiculous character after ridiculous character, Fry and Laurie poked and mocked the country and its people with grace, élan, and the kind of charm that can only come with years and years of elite education. Both graduates of Cambridge, their humor was razor sharp and full of references to everything from classic works of literature to two-bit TV show hosts. The resulting comedy stew was a totally original blend of high and low culture, none of it safe from the piercing, but never bitter satire of the pair. The entire series was released on DVD’ also, several of the better sketches can be found on YouTube and definitely deserve to be checked out.

8. The Kids In The Hall

Despite initial comparisons to Monty Python (mostly because both groups spent just as much time in women’s clothes as they did in men’s), The Kids in the Hall quickly established themselves as one of the most original sketch comedy groups in history. While the more popular Saturday Night Live was leaning more and more heavily on running recurring characters as far into the ground as they could, The Kids in the Hall were creating masterful character based comedy firmly grounded in the everyday lives of normal people. Sure, they had their share of outlandish characters and catchphrases, but they were always planted in the most mundane and common situations. The Kids in the Hall was always best when it mined the endless struggles, inane and serious, of relationships, work, and life at the end of the 20^th Century. A massive success in their native Canada, The Kids in the Hall remained a mostly cult phenomenon in the U.S. The show gave fans of smart original comedy some of the greatest and funniest characters ever created. A few examples: the Chicken Lady, Francesca Fiore, Bruno Puntz-Jones, Gavin, Simon and Hecubus. If you haven’t seen it, you have to. Right now.

7. Mr. Show with Bob And David

Started by two veteran comedians who happened to be the brightest lights of the fledging alternative comedy scene of the early 90s, Mr. Show With Bob and David started strong and got stronger. Anchored by Bob Odenkirk (a long-time SNL writer who came up with Conan O’Brian and Robert Smigel) and David Cross (a hilarious funny and original stand-up from Boston), Mr. Show quickly built a cult following with its top notch material and incredible performances. Since there were two guys running the show instead of a troupe, Mr. Show had a confident, consistent voice. From the first episode to the final season, Bob and David knew exactly the kind of show they wanted to make, and maybe more importantly, exactly the kind of show they didn’t want. Sickened by the calcified, institutionally lazy atmosphere they found at SNL, Bob and David wanted to make a comedy show that served the comedy, not the raging egos of its stars. They gave audiences original, daring material that was unlike anything else on TV. They brought the funny sure, but with their dedication to originality and staunch refusal to go for the easy joke, it was comedy you could believe in, too.

6. The Carol Burnett Show

Many of the troupes on their list gained their notoriety by being expert satirists as well as amazing comedians. But great sketch comedy doesn’t have to come from a group of talented kids looking to change the world and reinvent the comedy wheel. Sometimes all it takes is a group of very funny professionals to put together a funny show. Take for example The Carol Burnett Show. Running for 11 seasons (288 episodes!) on CBS, it had no other agenda than to make people laugh. Anchored by incredibly charming and down-to-earth Carol Burnett, and featuring one of the greatest (if not the simply the best ever) comedy duos in history in Tim Conway and Harvey Korman, it produced year after year of funny material. But what really drew audiences back week after week was how much fun the cast seemed to be having. Ask anyone who has watched the show what their favourite sketch was, and they’d probably say any one where Conway and Korman cracked each other up. Sure, it could be corny and sentimental at times, but The Carol Burnett Show proved that “family entertainment” doesn’t have to be dumb entertainment. And for that it more than deserves its place on this list as one of the best loved TV shows of all time.

5. Chappelle’s Show

It isn’t by accident that most of the great sketch comedy shows are the products of a comedy troupe. Writing and performing even a bad show takes hours and hours of work. Trying to put together a great show takes that much more. Even if it were an average show, you’d still have to admire the work Dave Chappelle put into his brief but memorable Chappelle’s Show- but it was anything but average. Built upon the well-honed stand up of Dave Chappelle’s earlier career, Chappelle’s Show was a controversial mix of race, drugs, sex, and everything else on the star’s mind. A singular vision, it presented Chappelle’s unique take on the powder kegs of modern life. Watching Chappelle’s Show is like taking a tour of modern America through the eyes of one guy. A ridiculously talented, balls-out hilarious guy. That persistent voice and sense of humor makes it unique on this list and in the sketch comedy world. Here was one guy pouring out his mind and thoughts in the funniest way he could. Is it any wonder he burned out after two seasons? He worked way too hard to give us one of the best sketch shows there ever was.

4. Tim And Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!

Definitely the strangest show on this list and possibly the strangest show to ever air on television, Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! is supremely weird. The sketches are surreal and at times disturbing, the supporting cast is a mix of famous comedians and bizarrely untalented non-actors, and the whole thing is presented with production values that would embarrass the cheapest public access show. This deliberate strangeness might make for a uniquely terrible viewing experience except for one thing. It’s absolutely original and absolutely hilarious. With Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!, Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim have managed the rare feat of creating something simultaneously odd, unsettling, and incredibly funny. Anybody can do weird for weird’s sake, but Tim and Eric do it in such a unique, funny way that you can’t help but watch. Sitting down to the average episode is like watching a traffic accident. Except there are clowns there. And John C. Reilly in a wig. You can’t look away and you can’t stop laughing.

3. Saturday Night Live

It may be everyone’s favourite thing to hate these days, but no matter how many more substandard seasons they let it run, nothing can diminish the electricity and pure comedic energy of the first few seasons of Saturday Night Live. Coming out of the improvisation tradition created by The Second City (a movement that continues to be a major source of American comedy talent), SNL combined a murderer’s row of talent and a youthful fearlessness that pushed at the confines and strictures of what TV comedy could be. The Not Ready For Primetime Players (the nickname John Belushi, Dan Akroyd, Gilda Radner, Chevy Chase, Jane Curtain, Garret Morris, and Lorraine Newman gave themselves) may have started as a bit of self-deprecation, but it became just the opposite. They were too good for primetime. Too smart, too hip, and way too cool for TV. They made staying home on Saturday night what the cool people did- to not watch SNL was to be out of touch and left out of the cultural discussion. Like Monty Python, they were comedy rock stars who instantly became household names. At least for anyone in the house under 25. Even after 35 years and through the light of the some great and many terrible seasons since, those first four years stand as one of the best moments in American comedy history.

2. SCTV

The second of the two great sketch comedy shows to come out of the Second City improv tradition, SCTV was Saturday Night Live’s quieter, slightly more clever brother. Filmed in the relative obscurity of Toronto (compared to SNL’s New York City home, the media capital of the world) SCTV never became a cultural institution like its more famous cousin, it just became an incredible groundbreaking show. Founded on the genius premise that every sketch and parody was actually airing on a terrible local TV station, SCTV skewered every trend, genre, and celebrity that called TV home in the 70s and 80s. Even better, the conceit that they were a TV station allowed them to go behind the scenes and create a cast of rich, totally unique characters. From sleazy station owner Guy Caballero, hacky comedian Bobby Bittman, kiddie horror host Count Floyd, scuzzball host Johnny Larue to dozens of others, SCTV created an entirely realized world around the usual fare of parodies and impressions. This devotion to building characters, along with a cast that included comedy giants like John Candy, Martin Short, Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, Rick Moranis, Catherine O’Hara, Dave Thomas, and Joe Flaherty among others made SCTV a show that rewarded loyal viewers. Their recurring characters were actual characters, not just catchphrases or silly costumes.

1. Monty Python’s Flying Circus

Sketch comedy existed before Graham Chapman, Terry Jones, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Michael Palin, and Terry Gilliam started Monty Python’s Flying Circus, but they made it an art form. With their brilliant satire, absurd yet instantly recognizable characters, and almost preternatural understanding of the tropes and tricks of television they created an entirely new form of comedy. Drawing on the social and cultural change around them yet maintaining enough distance to properly mock it, they made traditional comedy that was thoroughly modern. They were Oxford and Cambridge educated men who could riff on classical philosophy and Spam in the same episode. They were smart, stupid, clever and ridiculous all at the same time. It’s not without accident that they became comedy megastars and the acknowledged masters of the genre. Other groups have come and gone, some of them incredibly funny. But there will always only ever be one Monty Python. And they will always be the best sketch comedy group of all time.

Top 10 Reasons Why People Hate Top 10 Lists

It looks like the first televised top ten lists appeared on The Dick Clark Show in 1958. Every Saturday night, Dick Clark would feature a list of the top ten records of the week. More than 30 years later, David Letterman aired his first top ten list on Late Night (September 18, 1985: “Top 10 Things That Almost Rhyme With Peas”).

Humans like getting their information in list form. Just pick a topic and then the words ‘best’ or ‘worst’ and it seems like you’ve got an audience online, which may explain why there are over 860 million results when you type ‘top 10’ into Google’s search engine.

The most popular lists are either informative or funny. My favorite lists are both. Speaking from experience, if people hate your top 10 list they definitely let you know in the comments.

First, let me emphasize that I personally don’t hate any of the lists I’ve used as examples. Now, here are my top 10 reasons why people hate top 10 lists or Why Top 10 Lists Suck:

10. Subjective

The Top 10 Greatest Guitar Players list is so subjective that over 300 people have left comments …and not one of them has agreed with the writer’s selection. It seems like it doesn’t really matter what choices the writer made, the list was going to offend the personal taste of multitudes of people.

I’m putting this type of list at number 10 because, while some people might not like this sort of list, they often lead to comments that are a great read. In the example above, the comments section becomes an inspiring and comprehensive list of great guitarists. Similar topics such as Top 10 Grunge Guitarists and Top 10 Metal Guitarists also caused a lot of controversy.

Other lists are subjective in that they are only interesting to a small group of people who actually care about the subject matter. The Top 10 Moments in Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is probably only going to be interesting to fans of the video game. It’s a great list if you are a fan and it might have inspired a few readers to check the game out, but the rest of the readers would not have been interested in the topic. Nicole comments, “This game is definitely a classic that I don’t ever see myself getting sick of” versus Chuy, who sums it up for the rest of the general population: “Nerdy List.”

9. Expansive

Some topics are too expansive to be narrowed down to just ten things. It’s no surprise that one commenter called the Top 10 Songs by the Beatles list “audacious,” while several others remarked that only a top 100 list could do the Beatles song catalog justice. Of course a top 100 list is not an option when you are writing for a site called TopTenz.

Another example of this type of list is Top 10 Sad Songs That Make You Cry. One commenter, Sarah, points out: “open this list up to country songs it would be a Top 100 list.” Yet, even the narrower topic of tear-jerking rock songs is very expansive- so much so, that the list expanded into a sequel called 10 More Songs To Make You Cry (see #8 below). Even 20 Sad Songs is not enough – over 50 people suggested different sad songs in the comment section of the second list.

8. Misleading

Some lists call themselves a ‘top 10 list’ but actually do not include any kind of ranking or criteria, like Top 10 Hats. Readers might assume that the hats are ranked according to the writer’s personal hat preference, but it’s not specified. This annoys the fastidious reader (the same readers who will leave a stern comment if your prone to making common spelling or grammatical errs).

Persnickety people would also point out that 10 More Songs To Make You Cry doesn’t even pretend to be a top 10 list. I mean, for heaven’s sake, the title doesn’t even match the rest of the lists on the site! Head. Popping. Off. Now.

7. Lazy Writing

At best, lazy writing seems uninspired; at worst, a lazy writer’s list will also fit into several of the other 9 spots on this list you are reading right now. Sometimes it seems like a list is being used to overcome writer’s block: you just need a topic and some basic criteria (funniest, scariest, longest, most influential) and then suddenly you have something to write about. This is an endless source for material because there appears to be no limitations to topics you can put into list format. Heck, there are even lists of lists, quite possibly the laziest type of top 10 list. Of course there are exceptions, such as The Top 20 Top 10 Lists of 2010- it was timely and the writer showed impeccable taste.

6. Limited

There aren’t many Thanksgiving Movies left over once you make a top 10 list of them. It’s also not difficult to make a top 10 list of Sole Survivors of Plane Crashes when there are only 13 of them.

I would argue that the scope of the subject matter doesn’t matter as long as the majority of the readers find the topic interesting (like in the two examples I used above). Yet hardcore top 10 list fans might feel that a list that doesn’t require the writer to make some hard choices misses the point.

5. Clutter the Internet

Critics might say that some lists are a waste of bandwidth because they serve little or no value. Readers who spend enough time with these lists (most will have left the list immediately) will all wonder the same thing: what was the writer thinking?

Perhaps the writer of The Top 10 Worst Shoes To Wear And Step In Dog Poop had an urgent message they felt they needed to share, or maybe it seemed funny at the time. However, most readers probably want their 5 minutes (and their appetites) back.

4. Unoriginal

Some readers might argue that lists such as Top 10 Sidekicks or Top 10 Most Expensive Desserts have been done so many times you already know what will be on the list. The two lists mentioned are common topics and some of the list items might be the same, but at least the writing is original- and hopefully the images or video footage illustrating each point is different.

3. Controversy For It’s Own Sake

Some lists are so controversial that readers might question whether the list was written for no other reason than to start an argument. The Top 10 Arguments That Can’t Be Won list is so controversial that the arguments in the comments have been going on for two years. Last July (2010) Jim commented that it’s “getting close to two years on this thread now and people are still pretending there is not two sides to each debate… It is amazing how many here really think they have “proven” something or presented a valid argument instead of an amusing rant… This has been fun.”

2. False information

Sometimes readers will point out incorrect information in a list. Usually this is an innocent error on the writer’s (or editor’s) part. However, there are also lists out there on the Internet where the writer is intentionally spreading false information in order to sensationalize the topic.

1. Supports Stereotypes

I think the biggest reason to hate a top 10 list is when it supports stereotypes and doesn’t give any insight into new ideas. Sometimes the stereotyping isn’t blatant, but is implied throughout the whole list.

Top 10 Famous People Who Didn’t Actually Exist

Thanks to urban legends, pranks, and the use of pseudonyms, there have been a number of people who managed to get famous without having to go through the hassle of actually existing. Some were used for shady marketing purposes, others served as tools for building hoaxes, and one was even responsible for encouraging early medieval expeditions into Asia. In each case, the air of mystery that surrounded them only helped to build up their false celebrity. Here are the top ten famous people who didn’t actually exist:

10. Masal Bugoluv

It seems that every few years, rumors arise about mysterious athletes in obscure countries whose talents are guaranteed to change the future of sports. One of the most recent examples concerned Masal Bugoluv, a supposed 16-year-old soccer prodigy from the small eastern European country of Moldova. News of the phenom first broke on soccer blogs and forums, where Bugoluv was described as a surgical striker who already played for the Moldovan national team. Soon enough, the mainstream soccer media—known the world over for their tendency to play fast and loose with the facts—had picked up on the story. The popular website Goal.com posted news about the player, and in early January of 2009, even the Times of London was on board, listing Bugoluv as “Moldova’s finest” and linking him with a possible move to the famous English club Arsenal. But the more the rumors about “Massi” began to heat up, they more they became suspect. After some background checking and research, a soccer blogger named Neil McDonnell was able to prove the truth: Masal Bugoluv didn’t exist. In fact, the whole media whirlwind was all a hoax allegedly perpetrated by an Irishman who was fed up with the glut of fake information circulated during soccer’s transfer season. In order to test just how unreliable media outlets were, he’d decided to invent his own player. With the help of fake Wikipedia articles, blog posts, and falsified reports from the Associated Press, he created a cult following for what turned out to be the greatest soccer player who never was.

9. Pierre Bressau

At some point we’ve probably all looked at a piece of modern art and thought: “anybody could have painted that.” In 1964, Swedish journalist Dacke Axelsson actually put this claim to the test. In what has come to be a famous hoax, he took a series of paintings by a chimpanzee named Peter, a ward of the local zoo, and began circulating them around Sweden as the work of an unknown French artist he called Pierre Bressau. In order to put art critics to the test, Axelsson chose a few of Peter’s best paintings and set up an exhibition in Gothenburg. Sure enough, the mysterious Mr. Bressau was hailed by some as a bold new talent. One writer even claimed that the work showed all the signs of “an artist who performs with the delicacy of a ballet dancer.”  Surprisingly, once the paintings were revealed as the work of a primate, none of the art critics retracted their praise. In fact, Rolf Anderberg, the critic who’d been Bressau’s biggest champion, insisted that Peter’s work was still the best thing at the exhibition. Of course, not all the critics fell for Axelsson’s ruse. One writer reportedly remarked that “only an ape” could be responsible for the paintings.

8.  David Manning

Film fans and critics often rail against so-called “quote whores”—reviewers who are willing to write a positive notice for any movie as long as the studios wine and dine them enough—and David Manning of the Ridgefield Press was seemingly one of the worst. Around 2000, his glowing reviews frequently appeared on the posters for such universally loathed films as The Animal (“another winner!”) and Hollow Man (“stupendous!”). Manning would have been a running contender for America’s worst working film critic, save for one key detail: he didn’t exist. As it turned out, a marketing executive at Sony had invented Manning as a tool for building positive press for films released by the corporation’s subsidiary Columbia Pictures. Newsweek discovered the deception when a reporter contacted the Ridgefield Press, a small weekly paper in Connecticut, only to discover that no one named David Manning had ever worked there. The incident proved to be a major black eye for Sony’s marketing division, and a spokesperson for the studio would later claim they were “horrified” by the whole episode. Not only that, but it also cost them as much as $1.5 million after two moviegoers in California sued the studio, saying that the phantom film critic had unfairly lured them into seeing bad movies.

7. Allegra Coleman

These days, there are plenty of people who are famous for not really doing anything, so it only seems fitting that someone could become a celebrity without ever actually existing. Allegra Coleman was a fake starlet invented by journalist Martha Sherrill. As part of a large-scale media hoax, in 1996 Sherrill wrote an article for Esquire declaring Coleman to be “Hollywood’s Next Dream Girl.” She even got model Ali Larter, not yet famous, to pose as the “actress” on the magazine’s cover. The article contained all the usual celebrity hi jinks, from battles with the paparazzi over supposed nude photos to a rocky relationship with actor David Schwimmer. Sherrill intended the article to be a satire of the “puff pieces” that fill so many gossip magazines, but it was also telling about the way Hollywood works: even after the whole affair was revealed to be a hoax, publicists and agents were still frantically trying to sign Allegra Coleman to their agencies, and the whole episode ended up jumpstarting Ali Larter’s acting career.

6. Sidd Finch

Legendary journalist George Plimpton is famous for trying out for the Detroit Lions and sparring with Sugar Ray Robinson, but one of his most memorable stunts was the creation of a phantom baseball player. In April of 1985, Plimpton engineered one of the all-time greatest April Fools’ Day hoaxes when he published an article in Sports Illustrated detailing the arrival of baseball’s next super star, an unknown pitcher called Hayden “Sidd” Finch. The piece stated that Finch was a mysterious 28-year-old who’d spent time studying at Harvard and searching for inner peace in the Far East. He’d never played organized baseball before, but thanks to an unorthodox wind-up that gave him the ability to throw the ball an unbelievable 168 mph, he was considering signing up with the New York Mets. Plimpton’s article went on to discuss Finch’s many eccentricities, which included wearing only one hiking boot when on the mound, playing the French Horn at a professional level, sleeping on the floor, and speaking in cryptic Zen koans.  The article was accompanied by pictures of Sidd Finch—played by an unknown high school teacher named Joe Berton—hanging out with other Mets players like Lenny Dykstra and talking to coach Mel Stottlemyre. After a brief uproar of fascination and disbelief—Sports Illustrated received almost 2000 letters about the story—the magazine announced that Finch had held a press conference announcing his retirement from baseball. A week later, they finally came clean about the hoax.

5. Pope Joan

One of the most famous Popes of all time is the one that modern day scholars believe probably didn’t exist. Pope Joan was a figure who was once believed to have served as Pontiff for a few years around 853-855 A.D. Her story first appeared in the 13^th century writings of a Dominican Friar called Jean De Mailly, and for centuries it was a well-known legend in Europe. The tale came in many forms, but the most popular version described Joan as pious and brilliant woman who, after disguising herself as a man, rose quickly through the ranks of the Catholic Church and was chosen as Pope. Her reign supposedly came to an end when, while riding on horseback one day, she suddenly fell ill and gave birth to a child. Here the story takes many different turns: some versions say she died in childbirth, others say natural causes, and others still say that an angry mob murdered her. While historians have found enough evidence to reject the idea that Pope Joan ever really existed—some have claimed that the tale originated in a satirical story about Pope John XI—there’s no denying her legend played a major part in the religion of the Middle Ages. Religious scholars and popular writers like Boccaccio often made references to her, and there are reports of statues of her being erected. The legend persisted for several hundred years, and it took until 1601 before Pope Clement VIII officially denied the story.

4. lonelygirl15

The internet has long been a breeding ground for hoaxes and alter egos, and lonelygirl15 is perhaps the most famous example. The name refers to the YouTube handle of a 16-year-old girl named Bree who started posting video blogs on the site in 2006. At first, the videos were nothing more than the online diary of an average high-school student, complete with quirky effects and complaints about how boring her hometown was. Lonelygirl15 quickly became a hit, and was eventually the most popular channel on YouTube. But after a few episodes, Bree’s growing fan base began to be suspicious over whether the videos were a hoax. A number of websites and forums soon sprang up, and amateur detectives began poring over the videos looking for clues and inconsistencies. It didn’t take long before it was discovered that “Bree” was in fact Jessica Rose, a 19-year-old L.A.-based actress, and that her YouTube account was actually a carefully scripted media hoax designed to eventually expand into a full-fledged television show. The whole episode briefly made lonelygirl15 a cultural phenomenon, and the show continued for a further two years, eventually taking on a quasi-sci-fi plot that featured a sweeping narrative and multiple characters. The character of “Bree,” once considered by many to be a real teenager, was killed off of the show in 2007.

3. Tony Clifton

Comedian Andy Kaufman was famous for playing with audience expectations by mixing performance art and mysterious alter egos into his stand up. One of his most famous creations was Tony Clifton, a washed-up, vulgar, and often-drunk lounge singer who served as the opening act for Kaufman’s comedy gigs. With his terrible singing voice, confrontational attitude, and tendency to forget his lyrics, Clifton summed up every stereotype of the aging Vegas entertainer, and he soon became a popular character. After it surfaced that Clifton was actually being portrayed by Kaufman in costume and makeup—something both men denied—Kaufman enlisted both his brother and his friend Bob Zmuda to portray the character on stage in order to further the illusion that he and his creation were separate people. Tony Clifton was soon making appearances on everything from David Letterman’s late night show to Dinah Shore’s talk show, where he was famously thrown out of the studio for dumping a plate of eggs on the host’s head. He was even slated to appear as a special guest on the sitcom Taxi, but was kicked off the set for being disruptive. Kaufman died in 1984 without ever revealing the truth about the character, and even today it’s not widely known how many times he actually appeared as Clifton, or how many times an accomplice stepped into the role. The gruff lounge singer has continued to make appearances since Kaufman’s death, which has only furthered the illusion that Tony Clifton is actually a real person.

2. Alan Smithee

Director Alan Smithee has enjoyed a long and varied career, which has seen him make everything from feature films to television pilots, cartoons, and music videos. He’d be one of Hollywood’s most prolific filmmakers if not for one key fact: he doesn’t exist. Since 1968, directors who wish to have their name removed from the credits of their films have used the name “Alan Smithee” as a pseudonym. Alan Smithee was first employed by Don Siegel on the film Death of a Gunfighter, and it’s since been used whenever a director feels that their creative control over a film project has been compromised to the extent that the final product is no longer their work. With this in mind, Alan Smithee now has 73 directorial credits on the website Internet Movie Database, including such lamentable productions as Hellraiser: Bloodline and Solar Crisis, along with TV projects including episodes of The Cosby Show and MacGyver. Mainstream directors like Michael Mann and Paul Verhoeven have also used the credit in instances where movies like Heat or Showgirls are significantly edited for exhibition on television. The Director’s Guild of America officially abandoned Alan Smithee in the late nineties, after the release of a film called An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn drew unwanted attention to the name.  Since then, unhappy filmmakers have chosen their own pseudonyms, but others continue to use Alan Smithee as a sort of tribute. In fact, since 2000, the phantom director has racked up a further 18 film credits.

1. Prester John

There might be more well known entries on this list, but none of them had the same influence on world politics, religion, or exploration as Prester John, a mythical king who was once believed to have presided over a Christian empire in Asia. His legend dates back to the 12^th century, when it arose as an amalgam of adventure stories, true histories of Christian missionaries, and the exploits of Alexander the Great. Prester John and his kingdom became a true sensation in 1165, when a letter supposedly written by him began circulating around Europe. According to these fantastical sources, Prester John was a direct descendant of one of the Three Wise Men. His kingdom, which was suspected to be in India or the Middle East, was seen by the Europeans of the time as a shining light of civilization in a region that was viewed as exotic and barbarous. Prester John himself was believed to be a kind and wise man who ruled over an empire of great wealth, and his kingdom was often said to include such wonders as the Fountain of Youth and even the Garden of Eden. Despite little evidence of his existence, the legend of Prester John persisted for several hundred years, and for a time he was even linked with the Mongol warlord Genghis Khan. It would take until the 1600s before academics and travelers were able to prove that Prester John was nothing but a myth, but in the interim the legendary king had managed to affect everything from religion to world trade. Not only had missionaries stepped up their efforts in Asia and Africa in the hope of discovering Prester John’s kingdom, but explorers like Magellan were encouraged to seek out new lands in the hope that they might one day stumble upon the mythical ruler.

Top 10 Weirdest Japanese Video Games

By this point in life we’re all well aware that Japan is the source of crazy, crazy things, so to create a list of their weirdest video games seems like it would be old hat. But Japan never ceases to amaze us; even in this day and age, when just hearing the word “Japan” conjures up images of schoolgirls and tentacle monsters, we were able to find 10 video games that took us by surprise.

10. Cho Aniki

The long running Cho Aniki series is famous solely for its homoerotic overtones. The games are 2D shooters like Gradius or Galaga, except everything looks like a dick, a half-naked muscular man, or a half-naked muscular man and his dick. Just watch the video if you don’t believe us—and be sure to pay special attention to the boss, a giant man who’s nude save for a metal plate over his crotch that he shoots various phallic objects, including another naked man, out of.

To be fair to Japan, the Cho Aniki games are supposed to be weird and campy. However, if your idea of “weird and campy” translates to “wall to wall penises” then we think it’s still reasonable to point out how insane you are. But considering the series has been active since 1992, this approach must appeal to some gamers—most likely the “confused teenage boys who get strange feelings when watching gladiator movies” demographic.

9. Super Galdelic Hour

Super Galdelic Hour is a game about four animals that transform into busty, scantily clad women, and then compete in a series of simple events designed to make them jiggle about as much as possible. It’s sort of like a game show, except it comes bundled with an incredible sense of shame that you won’t feel when watching The Price is Right.

Events include playing whack-a-mole while wearing a revealing swimsuit, jumping rope while wearing a revealing swimsuit, and smacking your ass against another girl’s ass while wearing a revealing swimsuit. There’s even a shopping (while wearing a revealing swimsuit) game, just for that extra dose of sexism.

A look at the video makes it obvious that the developers spent more time working on bouncing breasts than they did on making the events fun, which means Super Galdelic Hour is no doubt terrible. Although we have to admit, if it had come out while we were in junior high we’d probably think it was the perfect game.

8. I’m Sorry

This arcade game is a lot like Pac-Man, if it were conceived entirely on acid. OK, more acid.

I’m Sorry stars former Japanese Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka, and the player’s goal is to collect gold bars while dodging enemies. It’s a satirical take on Tanaka’s greed (he was involved in numerous bribery scandals). That much we understand. But the rest of the game isn’t satire; it’s madness.

The enemies Tanaka has to avoid aren’t policemen or rival politicians. Instead, he’s on the run from Michael Jackson, Madonna and Carl Lewis, along with a couple of Japanese celebrities. If they catch Tanaka they’ll strip him down to a diaper, change into a leather bikini, and then whip him. Political satire at its finest, ladies and gentlemen.

7. Toylets

Video games are everywhere these days. There are home consoles, handheld consoles, games on your PC, games on your cell phone… and now, thanks to Sega, there are video games in Japanese urinals.

The “Toylets” project is just in the testing stage right now, with four games available in select washrooms across Japan. An LCD screen above the urinal gives you instructions, while pressure pads measure the strength of your stream. Objectives range from cleaning graffiti to making a gust of wind blow a woman’s skirt up. Ads are shown on the screen in-between games, and if you’re proud of your performance you can save your results to a USB stick and try to break your record the next time nature calls.

There’s no video for this one because, well, it’s a urinal based game. If for some reason you’re having trouble picturing that concept, try thinking about Pong the next time you go to the bathroom.

6. Princess Maker

Do you want a daughter, but don’t want to put in all the time, effort and money required to raise one? Or maybe you’re willing to make that sacrifice, but nobody on the planet will willingly reproduce with you! Well, whichever it is, the Princess Maker games have you covered. Now you too can raise a little girl into a young woman, and from the comfort of your living room!

Thankfully, the game’s title isn’t literal; you don’t actually “make” the girl. (If you’re disappointed by the lack of sex, there are approximately 500,000 other Japanese games that have you covered.) Instead, you control eight years of her life with an iron fist, dictating everything from what she studies and where she works to what clothes she wears. Once she turns 18, your decisions effect how she’ll live the rest of her life; she might choose to become anything from a priest to a high-end prostitute to a professional dominatrix. Or, if you’re lucky, she’ll decide to marry you. Man, you know a game is weird when father/daughter incest isn’t the creepiest possible ending.

5.  Gal*Gun

First person shooter games like Doom or Halo aren’t very popular in Japan, as something about the genre just doesn’t appeal to Japanese gamers. Unless, of course, you get rid of the monsters and evil aliens and replace them with love addled schoolgirls; then you’ve got a winner on your hands.

Players control an average teenage boy who has somehow become the most popular guy at school for the day. This of course means that every girl within a 10 mile radius rushes blindly towards you, gushing with hormones and wanting to do God knows what to your manhood. Your only choice is to fight them off with your Pheromone Shot, which elicits plenty of erotic moaning and jiggling before the girls fall to their knees, overwhelmed by your masculinity. There used to be plenty of panty shots too, but Microsoft insisted that the developers remove them. You know, because otherwise the game would just be creepy.

4. Love Death

Sticking with the schoolgirl theme, the long running Love Death franchise (five games since 2005) takes the concept of fending off nubile teenagers and elevates it to truly disturbing levels.

Half erotic game, half beating the crap out of schoolgirls with sporting good simulator, Love Death allows you to go to town on a bunch of anime girls with baseball bats, fishing poles and much more, including a, uh, “mystery liquid” that certainly isn’t suggestive in the slightest. Ostensibly there’s a story and objectives, but every video we can find of this game suggests that players use it for nothing more than gunning down hallways full of schoolgirls with soccer balls. But don’t worry; according to these games, Japanese girls don’t even mind getting assaulted.

3. Doki Doki Majo Shinpan!

This is the last schoolgirl based game, we promise. Look, it’s not our fault Japan loves them so much; we’re just showing you the results of our horrifying research.

Based on that video (video disabled from embedding – you’re welcome) you probably think this is some sort of molestation game, and, well, you’re basically right. But don’t worry; your character isn’t some 40 year old pedophile, but rather a student who’s been ordered by an angel to purge his school of witches. How do you tell if a girl is a witch? You touch her until her heartbeat picks up, at which point, if she is a witch, you’ll see a “witch mark” emerge somewhere on her half-naked body.

OK, so as creepy as making a game about feeling up junior high schoolgirls is, we have to give them points for creativity, because that plot gives gamers the perfect excuse if they’re caught: “No mom, I’m not playing some porn game! I’m fighting witchcraft!” And that excuse must be a popular one, because there have been three witch touching games made since 2007. That’s right, “witch touching” is an entire genre now.

2. Facening de Hyojo Yutaka ni Insho Up: Otona no DS Sao Training

Now that you’ve braved the gauntlet of schoolgirl molestation games, your face is no doubt contorted in an expression of disbelief. And if it isn’t? Well then maybe there’s something wrong with it. Perhaps you should play Facening for Rich Expressions to Boost Impressions: Adult DS Face Training, a “game” designed to give you a prettier face through the use of various exercises.

The goal is to mimic facial expressions shown to you by the game—an included camera looks at your face and grades you on how well you’re doing, and the theory is if you master these “facening” exercises your skin will become more elastic and expressive. Our theory is that anyone who wastes money on a game where you make stupid expressions at your Nintendo DS in the vain hope of getting a nicer face through pseudoscience is an idiot. Then again, here in America we can choose from about a dozen astrology games, so who are we to talk?

1. Boong-Ga, Boong-Ga

Boong-Ga Boong-Ga is an arcade game about spanking. Literally: the goal is to whack a faux fanny built into the machine. According to Wikipedia, the game is designed to simulate “kancho, a children’s prank popular in Japan where the victim is poked with two fingers in the anal region whilst distracted.” According to us, “what the hell?”

The harder you spank or poke (the latter act being done with the aid of a giant plastic finger), the better you score. Eight potential victims are available, ranging from the relatively tame (ex-girlfriend) to the creepy (mother-in-law) to the really creepy (child molester). If your spanking is proficient enough to meet Boong-Ga Boong-Ga’s high standards, you’ll be rewarded with a small plastic trophy in the shape of feces. Whether or not they’re supposed to be the feces of your spanking victim isn’t really made clear, but it’s no doubt a cherished reward either way.

Top 10 Oscar Curiosities and Records

At the beginning of every year, the entertainment industry, the connoisseurs of the seventh art and film lovers from all over the world turn their attention to the Oscars. The American Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences honors and recognizes outstanding cinema achievements since 1929. The greatest motion picture artists and professionals determine the nominees and the Academy’s 6000 members vote.

The nominees for the 83rd Academy Awards have been announced, the ceremony is right around the corner, so we thought to post a Top 10 list of Oscar fun facts.

Did you know that Maggie Smith is the only actress to ever win an Academy Award by playing an Oscar-losing actress? She won the Oscar for playing “Diana Barrie” in California Suite, a 1978 American comedy film directed by Herbert Ross. Check out the rest of Oscar curiosities and records:

10. Who’s Oscar?

One of the most recognized trophies in the world is the Academy’s gold-plated statuette, better known by its nickname, Oscar. But who’s Oscar and how did the statuette get its name?

The statuette was designed by art director Cedric Gibbons and sculpted by George Stanley, but the origins of its name are disputable. Although there are various theories, many sources credit Hollywood columnist Sidney Skolsky for using the name Oscar for the first time in a 1934 article. Skolsky explained in his memoirs: “I needed the magic name fast. But fast! I remembered the vaudeville shows I’d seen. The comedians having fun with the orchestra leader in the pit would say, “Will you have a cigar, Oscar?” The orchestra leader reached for it; the comedians backed away, making a comical remark. The audience laughed at Oscar. I started hitting the keys. “Katharine Hepburn won the Oscar for her performance as Eva Lovelace in Morning Glory, her third Hollywood film.” I felt better. I was having fun. I filed and forgot. During the next year of columns, whenever referring to the Academy Award, I used the word “Oscar.” In a few years Oscar was the accepted name. It proved to be the magic name.”

Another common story involves Margaret Herrick, AMPAS’ first librarian, who remembers calling the famous statuette Oscar because it resembled her cousin Oscar Pierce.

9. The Winners’ Agreement

What if you get nominated, win an Oscar, bring it home to your proud mother, but decide to sell it one day? Or worse…you need to sell it. How much is it worth? Well, $1 according to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

The nominees who win an Oscar, have to sign a ‘winners’ agreement’ in which they commit to never sell the Academy’s Awards without first offering the Oscars back to the AMPAS for a fee of $1. This is the Academy’s way of controlling the trophies that go on sale. They want to make sure that no award arrives in the hands of private collectors. If someone refuses to sign the agreement, the Academy is entitled to keep the award. AMPAS began issuing this kind of agreements in 1951.

The case of Harold John Russell is very interesting. He is one of the two non-professional actors to ever win an Oscar. Russell sold the Academy Award to cover his wife’s medical expenses. AMPAS offered to loan him money, but Russell refused. Some controversy was sparked after he sold the Oscar for $60,500.

Experts speculate that more than 140 Academy Awards have been sold since the first ceremony.

8. Saying NO to the Oscar

So far, only two of the greatest actors in history shocked Hollywood by refusing the Academy’s Awards. George Scott won the 1970 Best Actor Oscar for his magisterial performance in  “Patton: Lust For Glory”, but decided to refuse it. Scott said that the politics surrounding the ceremony was “demeaning” and characterized the Hollywood event as “a two-hour meat parade”.

Three years later, a Native American activist took the stage during the 45th Academy Awards ceremony to decline Marlon Brando’s Oscar for the title role in “The Godfather”. Sacheen Littlefeather delivered the refusal speech on the actor’s behalf. Marlon Brando protested against America’s poor treatment and Hollywood’s misrepresentation of American Indians.

“For 200 years we have said to the Indian people who are fighting for their land, their life, their families and their right to be free: ”Lay down your arms, my friends, and then we will remain together. Only if you lay down your arms, my friends, can we then talk of peace and come to an agreement which will be good for you.” When they laid down their arms, we murdered them. We lied to them. We cheated them out of their lands. We starved them into signing fraudulent agreements that we called treaties which we never kept. We turned them into beggars on a continent that gave life for as long as life can remember…”( That Unfinished Oscar Speech – by Marlon Brando)

7. The Only Silent Movie to Win an Academy Award

“Wings” won the very first Academy Award for Best Picture and in addition to this, it holds the distinction of being the only silent movie to win an Oscar. Completed with an estimated budget of $2 million, the movie was considered one of the most expensive films of its time. The Academy’s Award for Engineering Effects was among the first categories to honor outstanding technicians. “Wings” was a winner also in this category.

Valued as a timeless triumph of the silent film era, “Wings” starred Charles ‘Buddy’ Rogers, Clara Bow, Jobyna Ralston and Richard Arlen. It was produced by Lucien Hubbard and directed by William A. Wellman. The movie was set during 1917-1918 and focuses on the life of two WWI fighter pilots who fall in love for the same woman.

6. The Youngest Oscar Winner

The youngest actress to win a competitive Academy Award is Tatum O’Neal, who was 10 years old when she won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance in “Paper Moon”. The film was adapted from “Addie Pray” (1971), a well crafted novel written by Joe David Brown. Tatum O’Neal starred as a child also in other notable movies such as “The Bad News Bears” with Walter Matthau, “International Velvet” with Anthony Hopkins, and “Little Darlings” with Kristy McNichol.

5.  Most Oscars Awarded to a Movie

Three movies share an amazing record: “Ben-Hur”, “Titanic” and “Lord of the Rings – The Return of the King” have each won 11 Academy Awards.

“Ben-Hur”, the epic 1959 movie that redefined the art and science of cinema, won 11 Oscars of the 12 categories in which it was nominated, including Best Actor in a Leading Role, Best Picture, Best Director, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color and Best Cinematography. James Cameron’s epic romance won 11 Academy Awards out of 14 nominations and Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings – The Return of the King” dominated the 76^th Academy Awards ceremony by winning 11 Oscars  from 11 nominations.

4.  Three Generations of Oscar Winners

The first family to have three generations of Oscar winners is the Huston family with Walter, Anjelica and John. Walter Thomas Huston was the father of film director, screenwriter and actor John Huston and the grandfather of actress Anjelica Huston.

Walter Huston was nominated for the Best Actor Oscar in 1936 for his role in “Dodsworth” and five years later for “The Devil and Daniel Webster”.  The “Treasure of the Sierra Madre”, a great adventure film set in old time Mexico, gathered a total of three Academy Awards: Best Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor (Walter) and Best Director (John). Anjelica became the third generation of the Huston family to win an Oscar, for her performance in  “Prizzi’s Honor”.

The second family to have three generations of Oscar winners consists of Hollywood veteran Francis Ford Coppola, Sofia and Carmine Coppola. Movies produced through Coppola’s company have earned more than 60 Oscar nominations and 15 trophies. Carmine Coppola’s Oscar for Best Music (The Godfather II) and Sofia’s 2003 Oscar for “Lost in Translation,” made the Coppola’s a family with three generations of Oscar winners.

3. The Oldest Oscar Winner

Legendary actress Jessica Tandy is the oldest winner of a Best Actress Academy Award for her role in “Driving Miss Daisy”. This outstanding performance was awarded also with a  BAFTA Award and a Golden Globe. “Driving Miss Daisy” is a wonderful 1989 comedy-drama adapted from a play written by Alfred Uhry. It is a slow and poignant story of great love, sensibility, kindness and patience, a story that takes a quarter of century to unfold. Even if there is not much action, Jessica Tandy and Morgan Freeman really bring the story to life. If you didn’t watch this movie, I highly recommend to do so. “Driving Miss Daisy” is a timeless film that really goes out and touches people’s hearts.

2. First African-American Performer to Win an Oscar

Do you remember dear old Mammy from “Gone with the Wind”? Seventy-two years ago, Hattie McDaniel won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for playing Mammy in “Gone with the Wind”. She was the first African-American performer to receive an Academy Award.

In 1963, another actor made history as the first African-American to win a competitive Oscar as Best Actor, Sidney Poitier. More than 100 Oscar nominations have been officially made to a large number of African American directors, actors, engineers writers and musicians. Here are some of the winners: Louis Gosset Jr., Denzel Washington, Cuba Gooding Jr., Whoopi Goldberg, Halle Berry, Mo’Nique and many more.

1.  Most Oscars in a Lifetime

Who’s got the Guinness World Record for the ‘Most ‘Oscars’ won in a lifetime? Walter Elias Disney with 32 awards from more than 60 nominations!

Sir David Cecil Low, a prominent political cartoonist of the 20^th century, considered Disney “the most significant figure in graphic arts since Leonardo.” A pioneer and innovator, Walter Elias Disney revolutionized the way we were entertained. He invented the multiplane camera in 1936, a camera that gave the illusion of depth in cartoons by making everything look more natural and believable. The camera was used for the first time in the production of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”.

Although Walt Disney didn’t invent the “Technicolor process”, he made it very famous. After signing an exclusive agreement with Technicolor, Disney released in 1932 the industry’s first full-color animation, Flowers and Trees. It was awarded with an Academy Award for Best Cartoon. This Oscar was the first of 32 trophies Disney won personally.

Top 10 MacGuffins

Originally popularized by Alfred Hitchcock, the term “MacGuffin” refers to the object in a movie that drives the action. In most cases, what the MacGuffin actually is irrelevant. It exists solely to get the characters moving and drive the plot forward. The only real requirement is that it must be something people are willing to cheat, lie, steal, kill, or be killed for. As long as it sounds plausible, it’ll work. Still, despite the very loose qualifications for a MacGuffin, great films have used some pretty memorable ones. Here are the Top Ten MacGuffins:

10. The Diamonds – Reservoir Dogs

No matter your opinion of Quentin Tarantino, there’s no arguing his knowledge of movies. For his first film, he boiled down thousands of crime flicks into the ultimate heist movie, although one where the heist is never shown. Less concerned with the mechanics of how the crime occurred, the film is much more interested in how the characters relate to each other, and what they’re willing to do to each other when things go south. At the center of that unseen robbery and all its horrible, horrible consequences is a bag of diamonds. Rarely seen and barely mentioned, the diamonds are the impetus for all the swearing, fighting, shooting, killing, torturing, and backstabbing. Things get so horrific that audiences can be forgiven if they forgot that the bag of diamonds are what brought the color-coded madmen together in the first place. And in the end, every one of them (except for Mr. Pink) ends up dead for the MacGuffin.

9. The Ransom – The Big Lebowski

What makes the Coen Brothers great is how they can follow the rules of a genre picture to the letter while still making something completely original and unexpected. Take The Big Lebowski, their 1998 stoner noir detective film. The plot, such as it is, follows the efforts of ex hippie Jeff “The Dude” Lebowski as he attempts to replace his cherished rug and in the process gets dragged into a good old fashioned L.A. mystery. Well, almost. It’s got all the trappings of a classic noir- the cynical detective, head-spinning twists and turns, a group of dangerous thugs, and a beautiful woman in peril. But none of it ever seems all that serious. Even it’s MacGuffin turns out to be a joke. In the film, Lebowski is hired by another Lebowski to deliver a suitcase full of money as ransom for his abducted trophy wife. Once this enters the picture (and abruptly gets lost) it drives Lebowski and his psychotic friend Walter to solve the crime, and hopefully see a big payout. But this is a Coen Brothers film and in the end, the ransom was fake, no one really got kidnapped, and besides Lebowski’s poor friend Donnie, everything ends up just about exactly the same as it began.

8. The Maltese Falcon – The Maltese Falcon

The stuff that dreams are made of. In the noir classic The Maltese Falcon, everybody wants to get their grimy hands on the titular black bird. Although we get some back story about the statue’s illustrious past and the gold and gems hidden beneath its simple coating, it’s mostly just window dressing to make us believe that these people would dedicate their lives to finding the thing, and be willing to fill each other full of lead to get it. For Casper Gutman, his creepy assistant Cairo, and the girl Brigid, it’s the end all and be all of their existence and the treasure they’ve covered the world searching for. For Humphrey Bogart’s Sam Spade, who’s caught in the middle of everything and ends up with the thing, it’s something to keep him alive along enough to collect some kind of payout. The Maltese Falcon is full of action and suspense, but what makes it unforgettable is the thick undercurrent of greed that propels every character, even the hero. Greed for a little black bird and the riches it can bring.

7. The Bike – Pee Wee’s Big Adventure

MacGuffins are usually something so important or valuable that they drive men and women to dramatic levels of greed and violence. No matter how vaguely they’re described, it’s always clear that anyone in their right mind would kill to get them. Other times, they’re just a really cool bike. Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, the 1985 flick that brought Pee Wee Herman to mainstream audiences, is all about his search for his awesome bike. When it is stolen early in the film, Pee Wee begins a cross country journey to find his treasured two wheeler. Along the way he befriends an ex-con, a waitress with a dream, and even a ghostly trucker called Large Marge. He finds love, friendship, fame, and eventually his bike. But by that point, it doesn’t even matter. Herman started out as a boy (although a really old creepy one) looking for his bike, but he ends up a hero, a friend, a lover, but most importantly of all, a man. Now that’s one hell of a MacGuffin. And it’s a pretty cool bike.

6. The Death Star Plans – Star Wars

There are two schools of thought when it comes to MacGuffins. The first says that what the MacGuffin is doesn’t matter. As long as it stirs up the plot and sets things in motion, good enough. The second school argues that for a MacGuffin to be truly effective, it needs to be something of critical importance, not just to the characters, but to the audience as well. The Death Star plans in Star Wars are prime examples of the second philosophy. They are the impetus for the plot and set Luke and company on their adventure of galactic battle, self-discovery, and feathered hair, but they are more than just some generic plans. Without the hologram stored in R2D2’s memory banks, the rebellion wouldn’t be able to bring down the evil planet destroying spaceball. Still, does it really matter how they blow up the thing? For all their usefulness, the plans are still just a thing to get the story going. And that makes them a MacGuffin.

5. The $2 Million – No Country for Old Men

Two things kick off the intricate cat and mouse game in No Country for Old Men. The first is a satchel with 2 million bucks in it that loser Llewlyn Moss (played by Josh Brolin) stumbles upon at a drug deal gone wrong. The second is his decision to go back and bring some water to the only man left standing after the fight. That may be what sets the bad guys on his trail, but it’s the $2 million MacGuffin that keeps them coming. Suddenly rich and just smart enough to realize how much trouble he’s in, Moss flees with the money even though he knows that whoever left it won’t give it up that easily. Unfortunately for him, the men who lost the cash hire Anton Chigurh, the most psychotic man to ever get a bad haircut. The money drives Moss to more and more desperate acts, just as it drives Chigurh to kill and creep his way closer and closer. In the end, the movie becomes about how far ahead of Chigurh Moss can stay and the real prize isn’t the money, it’s the chance to breathe another day. Classic Coen Brothers and classic MacGuffin.

4. The Military Secrets – The 39 Steps

You can’t have a list of MacGuffins without at least one example from the master, Alfred Hitchcock. Almost all of his films have a MacGuffin of some sort at their core, and few filmmakers were as skilled as Hitchcock in creating thrills and drama out of the chase for a largely unknown property. In his classic The 39 Steps, everything revolves around a mysterious set of “military secrets.” No one knows what they are, and Hitchcock never goes to any great length to explain them until the very end. By the time the audience does find out what they are, it almost doesn’t matter. All that is important is they’re secret and a shadowy cabal of foreign spies will do anything to get them, including terrorizing a poor, innocent Canadian who stumbles into their web of intrigue. One of the first and best examples of a MacGuffin, the military secrets in The 39 Steps create a lot of drama, and in the end mean almost nothing.

3. The Ring – Lord of the Rings

For all its power, mystery, and danger, The One Ring in Lord of the Rings is really just a big, high stakes MacGuffin . Unlike most MacGuffins, it doesn’t drive a bunch of lowlifes to chase each other around dark alleyways looking for a quick buck, it actually is the only thing which can save the whole world. Still, scale isn’t important in the MacGuffin game. Everybody wants the Ring, everything happens when it appears, and every danger little Frodo and friends face is directly related to the fact that he’s got the Ring on a string around his neck. Sounds like a MacGuffin to me. There’s also the fact that there isn’t much evidence that the Ring is so powerful or dangerous, besides the fact the characters tell us there is. A lot. Sure, it makes people invisible and drives Gollum to the depths of addiction, but that doesn’t seem like enough to rule the world. The Ring is just a thing that everyone wants. And that’s a MacGuffin, through and through.

2. The Glowing Briefcase – Kiss Me Deadly

The glowing briefcase in the 1955 noir film Kiss Me Deadly is such a classic MacGuffin that Quentin Tarantino borrowed it (or stole it, depending on your opinion of him as a filmmaker) for the Macguffin in his Pulp Fiction. In that movie, the glowing briefcase is something beautiful, famous, and valuable. In Kiss Me Deadly, it’s just as valuable, but a lot more deadly. In the film, tough-as-nails detective Mike Hammer happens upon an escaped mental patient in the middle of the desert. Then things start to get weird. After more twists than a rollercoaster, it becomes clear that everyone is after a glowing briefcase. Since this is 1955, the case contains something hot to the touch, atomic, and incredibly dangerous. Hammer (and the audience) are never quite clear what is in the case, but they know that an army of thugs are after it, and they don’t mind killing to get it. And in perfect MacGuffin tradition, the person who does finally get it dies in a fiery explosion. No wonder Marcellus Wallace was so pissed that those hamburger loving kids stole the thing.

1. Rosebud – Citizen Kane

In Orson Welles’ 1941 masterpiece Citizen Kane, an unseen newsreel reporter sifts through the wreckage of a man’s life, searching for the meaning behind his last words. The man is wealthy newspaper tycoon Charles Foster Kane, and the word is simply “rosebud.” The film is a wonderful example of how a MacGuffin works. The word “rosebud” is the impetus for the reporter’s search and the reason he’s been assigned the story, but besides a few mentions here and there, it quickly fades to the background as the men and women who knew Kane share their personal stories of how he loved, worked with, and ultimately hurt and betrayed the people closest to him. In the end, the secret of rosebud remains unknown to the reporter, although in the very last scene the audience sees that it was the name of his childhood sled. Critics and movie fans have debated for years what that final scene is about, but the reporter realizes that it doesn’t matter. No one thing or word defines a man, it’s how he treated the people around him that did. “Rosebud” is a classic MacGuffin; intriguing, mysterious, and ultimately meaningless.

Top 10 Creepy Children’s TV Shows

Television is a ubiquitous part of any child’s young life and helps them to see another window to the world they wouldn’t see otherwise. All of us have those shows from our past that we loved unconditionally as kids and still carry with us into adulthood nostalgia. On the flipside, we also all have those shows that made us feel funny, disturbed, and downright scared and you’d all be pleased to know that tradition of adults frightening children via the use of puppets and psychedelic imagery took place all over the world and is still going strong today. Strap in and I’ll take you on a ride through some of the creepiest and most bizarre television shows ever created for children, a ride you may never recover from.

10. BooBah

The best way to describe this show, believe it or not, is that it consists entirely of multi-colored uncircumcised penises with anime eyes, dancing and floating around in a hyperbaric nightmare dimension full of psychedelic rainbows and sparkles. Any child who doesn’t nervously back away from the television mouthing “…what the hell…” will no doubt suffer an epileptic seizure soon enough. The show does an admirable job of combining the drug fuelled cacophony of the 70s with inherently scary doll heads and warped alien bodies. There’s no story, no sets, no writing, and no voices save for an annoying child who screams “Boobah!” every few minutes and yet, it’s difficult to imagine anything that would cause children watching to question the purpose of their little worlds more. There is nothing creepier and more unsettling than the wanton destruction of one’s own sanity, let alone a child’s.

9. Peppermint Park

Peppermint Park was pretty much the epitome of the art of creepy puppets. Lifeless rolling eyes, rigid plastic bodies with cloth human hands, and voices that sound like they were recorded in an insane asylum all culminate in a perfect storm of childhood trauma. The show featured a couple different sets of puppets, one of which was a perverse rip-off of Bert and Ernie if Bert and Ernie suddenly devolved into autistic ape-men, while the other set were a couple of semi-lobotomized dragons (dinosaurs?) with voices even more odd than the “human” puppets, which is saying something. The show was bargain basement stuff and it looked it, complete with filthy curtains that flank a dingy cellar window, creepy stock footage of random children playing in a playground, and completely pointless Dixieland performances. All the show was lacking was an unpainted van lurking around.

8. Jay Jay The Jet Plane

Something about putting oddly shaped, realistic faces on airplanes and helicopters is very unsettling, especially considering that, in the show, these creatures are completely sentient with minds of their own. It begs the question, in this universe where airplanes are alive, do people ride in them? Are they enslaved to serve man or just another species of animal? How are new planes “born”? Anyway, where Thomas the Tank Engine succeeds in placing a face on an otherwise inanimate object without making kids nervous, Jay Jay does not. The faces dominate the planes they are stuck onto, have bulbously inflated features and are strangely rigid. In fact, the only parts that move are the eyes (barely) and the eyelids. Yeah, eyelids on an airplane. There’s a bunch of other weird imagery that pops up every now and then like naked cartoon monkeys and virtually featureless, rubbery human characters but it’s the airplanes themselves that really take the horror of the uncanny valley and bludgeon our children with it.

7. Rupert The Bear

Starting the tradition of disturbing TV shows designed to freak out many a British child, The Adventures of Rupert Bear was born in the decade few want to remember; the 70s. Those who have good memories of this show probably only remember the animated version that came later which was relatively harmless and most likely aren’t aware of the marionette version that came before. Marionettes are creepy enough by themselves, but when they come in strange shapes vaguely resembling anthropomorphic animals wearing clothing operated by amateurs who clearly forgot how a body is supposed to move, the creepiness factor skyrockets. Besides Rupert, there were a myriad of odd looking characters in the show including a deformed sheep, a floating fireball with legs, and most notorious of all, Raggety, who looked like a gnarled and haunted tree branch crossed with a Snork. Research has shown that many a British nightmare in the early 70s was centered on Raggety. Reportedly all the episodes were lost in a fire, and I like to think it was God’s way of expunging the Earth from the unholiness that was Rupert.

6. Pipkins

Pipkins was another British TV show in the 70s that featured, you guessed it, puppets. Puppets aren’t inherently scary and can be used to great effect on shows like Sesame Street and Lamb Chop’s Play-A-Long when operated correctly and made with love. You can’t just find a ratty piece of carpet, shove your hand into its ass and call it good children’s fare. Well, Pipkins did just that which led to a rich cast of misfit puppets with regional accents that no one wanted to love. Most famous of the bunch was the character of Hartley Hare. He is one of the skankiest, dirtiest, and spazziest puppets to ever appear on kids TV. Not only did he look like a deceased pet that was dug up and brought back to life after being dead for three weeks, but his repertoire consists mostly of snide comments and sexual innuendos. You know, for kids!

5. Dirtgirlworld

Dirtgirlworld is a relatively new show that is currently being shown in the UK, US, and Canada and is about a girl who loves to go outside and get dirty. Not a bad idea, but there’s something wrong with this girl though as she can’t decide whether she is a human or a badly animated cartoon. She has a huge cartoon head and barely perceptible nose, but real human eyes and a real human mouth which all top a disproportionately tiny and childlike body. Even worse, the eyes seem to move independently of each other and with her mouth flying all over her face, dirtgirl constantly makes some very disturbing facial expressions. It’s as if Jessica Rabbit hooked up with Eddie Valiant instead of Roger Rabbit and this girl was their half human, half cartoon love child. Alongside her is a male equivalent who is just as messed up, a yellow worm thing with Super Dave Osborne’s face, and a human/cricket hybrid abomination that wears a short bus helmet as if to telegraph the reason to everyone why insects and humans shouldn’t mate. What’s wrong with using just humans or just cartoons? Stop trying to combine them! It’s weird!

4. Terrahawks

This show itself isn’t too bad despite prominently featuring marionettes, otherwise known as “the devil’s toy” which are usually creepy enough in their own right. What puts Terrahawks on this list though is the character of Zelda, who is probably the scariest looking villain to ever appear in a kid’s show, and her equally frightening henchmen. Zelda is scary on a real level as she looks like a mentally unstable grandmother wearing a shrivelled and rotten apple skin on her face. She is the inspiration of old crones everywhere who aspire to achieve her Freddy Krueger claw, scraggly dead hair, and ghostly nightgown. As for her henchmen, one of them looks vaguely like Frankenstein, but with evil eyes and a voice that sounds like he’s gurgling the blood of innocent children with every syllable. The other is a mute that looks like Zelda but with clown makeup, a very fake looking yellow wig, and a stoma. Yea, a stoma; one of those throat holes smokers get after a losing battle with cancer. Charming.

3. Jigsaw

Jigsaw was a British show (good lord, what is it with the British and giving nightmares to children?) in the early 80s that featured a few standard human presenters who come together to solve riddles and puzzles along with the children watching. Pretty normal stuff really, however one specific character from this show, Mr. Noseybonk, has single-handedly placed this program in the hallowed echelon of children’s nightmares that stick with them to adulthood. Any description of this character wouldn’t be half as unsettling as seeing a picture of him, or even worse, watching him grow more demonic noseybonks in his greenhouse. I like to think this show is where the Jigsaw killer from the Saw films got his inspiration from. Instead of using the warped puppet that rides the tricycle though, Mr. Noseybonk would have made a much scarier and foreboding calling card for Jigsaw. In fact, I don’t think there’s anything more terrifying to be alone with in a dark room than that white mask with its big white nose, soul-less eyes and hellish grin. Some messed up person actually thought this was something kids would love to see and be charmed by.

2. EI EI Yoga

Creepiness comes in many different flavors and we’ve covered many of them already; puppets, marionettes, dingy sets, bizarre CGI, etc. However, we’ve neglected one of the major pillars of childhood terror: pedophilia. That is, until we visit that little corner of Hell known as EI EI Yoga. Only existing on VHS tapes, this program was about Yogi Oki Doki and his Rastafarian rooster pal (no, really) teaching children how to do yoga because everyone knows how much rastamen love to do Yoga. It’s one of the most disturbing things a normal human being can see and yet, like any train wreck featuring a big chinned hippy and Jamaican rooster, you can’t take your eyes off it. Yogi Oki Doki prefers a hands-on approach to teaching so throughout the “lesson”, he often hugs and touches all the children as they do various Yoga poses in skin-tight leotards because, why not put them in skin-tight leotards, right? At one point, he even begins moaning and uncontrollably uttering “Mmm mm mm” sounds as he inspects his harem of Yoga youth as if he were admiring a juicy hamburger. You know the old saying, “whenever you see a grown man who is really excited to teach Yoga to children, call the police”? What, that’s not a saying? Well, it damn well should be!

1. Junior Christian Science Bible Lesson

Neither Christian nor scientific, the Junior Christian Science Bible Lesson is an abomination placed on this Earth that may never again be repeated. Completely orchestrated by a borderline schizophrenic named David Hart, the public access show relies on puppets, uncomfortable human accomplices, and horrifically bad religious songs to bring its message to children. The puppets are, as you’d imagine, the freakiest looking figures ever put to screen and could hang with Chucky in terms of scare factor. They literally fall apart as the program goes on, and since Hart controls each one individually, characters which were previously animated suddenly fall lifeless when he switches to a different puppet as if their very soul itself was torn away. Flanking the puppets are human beings in alien masks, someone’s grandfather wearing face paint and Elton John’s glasses who scowls at the camera, and myriad other nightmare fuel. Words just cannot do it justice.

Top 10 Child Stars Whose Lives Were Not Ruined By Fame

Considering the scandal, tragedy, and failure that typically plague child stars after their careers end, you’d think any parent would keep their child as far away from a Hollywood studio as humanly possible. Yet, despite the numbers of child actors who end up as drug addicts, alcoholics, criminals, or worst of all- reality show participants, millions of stage moms and dads drag their kids along to audition after audition, hoping their child will become the next Gary Coleman or Lindsey Lohan. All while keeping their fingers crossed that they can skip all the numerous betrayals, arrests or humiliations that seem to plague so many kids who spend time in front of a camera. Maybe those parents are thinking of the precious few child actors whose lives don’t turn into tabloid meltdowns and court proceedings. Those few who manage to cheat Fate and actually become functioning, successful adults. Here are the top ten child stars who managed to beat the curse.

10. Christian Bale

In 1987, a 13 year old Christian Bale rocketed to international fame playing the lead role in Steven Spielberg’s film Empire of the Sun. Despite his previous acting experiences in commercials and made-for-TV movies, Bale was quite unprepared for the sudden, scary adulation that he received for the role in school and on the streets. Unnerved as his mostly normal childhood disappeared overnight, young Bale made the decision to quit acting for good. He didn’t of course, but that first distaste of fame may have been what allowed Bale to avoid the traps of child stardom. The critical acclaim he received for the role in Empire of the Sun brought offers from all corners of the movie world. Offers which Bale and his father manager carefully chose. Instead of cashing in on his instant fame, Bale Sr. guided his son to interesting roles and kept him far from the temptations and pitfalls of Hollywood. Bale built up an impressive resume and made a perfect transition form child actor to adult one. He now holds the enviable position of being a major star and a respected actor. Sure, he did yell at that poor guy on the set of the Terminator movie, but overall, he seems like a pretty together guy.

9. Danica McKellar

Like many child stars, Danica McKellar really only had one role of any note. Playing the next-door neighbour and object of Fred Savage’s preteen affections on the hit TV series The Wonder Years, McKellar was a supporting character on a big network show. Once The Wonder Years ended and adulthood approached, McKellar found that the roles were starting to dry up and producers weren’t all that interested in casting a former child star. A pretty standard beginning in the former child star arc. All that remained for McKellar was to get high, steal a car, and screw up her life in an embarrassing public flameout. She had other plans. First, she studied mathematics at UCLA, coauthored a paper on her own mathematical theorem, and wrote a best-selling book that encouraged young women to break stereotypes and excel at math. She still does acting work (mostly voice over) and she now has three books under her belt. She’s beautiful, smart, successful, and most importantly of all, grounded. Do you hear that Screech? There is a better way.

8. Kurt Russell

Yes, Mr. Badass himself was once a child star. The movies haven’t really stood the test of time and his later work has mostly overshadowed them, but Kurt Russell became a huge star as a Disney contract player in the 1970s. He spent most of the Sixties amassing TV roles, but it wasn’t until Disney signed him to a ten year contract that his career took off. Russell became a bona fide teen idol in flicks like Original Family Band (where he met his future wife Goldie Hawn) and The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes. He was even a semi-pro baseball player for a time before an injury ended his career. After his childhood stardom, Russell continued to act and despite some failures (he lost out to Harrison Ford for the role of Han Solo), eventually struck up a partnership with director John Carpenter which began with an Emmy-award winning turn as the King himself in Elvis and included iconic anti-hero roles in Escape from New York, The Thing, and Big Trouble in Little China. His career has continued unabated ever since, giving lie to the belief that all child actors have to end up dead, drunk, or ashamed.

7. Dakota Fanning

It may be a little presumptuous to claim Dakota Fanning has missed the perils and pitfalls of a former child star considering she’s only 16, but all signs point to a healthy, interesting career for the young woman. Starting out in commercials at the tender age of five, Fanning quickly rose through the child star ranks, appearing on popular TV series and eventually big budget movies. Even at her young age, people realized Fanning wasn’t just another cute kid. At seven, she was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award for her work in I Am Sam. She continued to give amazing performances in all sorts of movies, working in everything from thrillers to voice-over work for cartoons that blew away her co-stars and critics alike. Fanning drew controversy for a 2006 role in Hounddog which her character is raped. But, consummate professional that she is, she patiently explained that it was “a movie. It’s not really happening.” Comments like that, and her decision in 2009 to lay off any more lead roles until she finishes high school, are evidence enough that no matter how her career goes, Dakota Fanning is one person who isn’t going to let fame screw her up.

6. Shirley Temple (Black)

Shirley Temple may be one of the best examples of a child star who leaves the entertainment industry completely, but still has a successful life. In the early 30s, Shirley Temple was not only the biggest child star, she was the biggest star period. With her golden locks, expressive eyes, and cute-without-being-cloying personality, she captivated the nation and ruled the box office. As she grew up, her acting career began to fade as audiences had trouble accepting her as anything but an angelic child. This is the part of the story where drugs, alcohol and a string of failed marriages to seedy guys called Eddie are supposed to enter the picture. But Shirley Temple was raised too well for that. She married, had a family, and set out upon a new career. She still appeared in some films and on TV, but she turned most of her attention to politics. After a few failed runs for office, she became an ambassador and diplomat. Yes, the little girl who sailed one the Good Ship Lollypop became a government official. She represented the United States’ interests at the UN, in Ghana, and finally Czechoslovakia. She also served on the boards of many companies, and published a best-selling book about her experiences.

5. Seth Green

Outside of Hollywood movies and TV sitcoms, nobody likes a smartass kid. Unless they grow up to be a smartass adult. Take Seth Green. After a successful career as a child actor- including his first role playing a young version of Woody Allen in Radio Days- Green has built a solid, respectable career playing likable smartasses in geek favorites like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Family Guy, and his own Robot Chicken. That just might be the secret. Compared to so many young actors who traffic in the idea that they are tortured artists and that acting in such a hard job, Seth Green seems to genuinely enjoy his life and career. That permanent smirk on his face isn’t because he’s a jerk, it’s because he realizes just how lucky he is to make a good living playing pretend with his buddies and making people laugh. That or he’s a big a-hole. Either way, he has successfully avoided the child star trap. And you got to respect him for it.

4. Christina Ricci

One of the main reasons a lot of child stars can’t make the transition to adult fame is that cute doesn’t age well. A person may be adorable as a child, but take those same features and put them on an adult face, and it just looks creepy. The one exception to that rule may be Christina Ricci. She was a pretty cute kid, but there’s something just slightly off about her as an adult. But luckily for her, it’s a good kind of off. The quirky kind of off that allows a young actress to stand out from the legions of dyed blonde robo-beauties that flood into Los Angeles every year looking for stardom. After a healthy start playing cute kids in big movies like Mermaids and The Addams Family, Christina Ricci made the transition to adult fame almost seamlessly. One minute she was a child actor in Casper, the next she was giving complex adult performances in Ice Storm and The Opposite of Sex. Her career has slowed down a little lately, but she’s still a great actress and a long way from appearing on a crappy reality show to make a quick buck.

3. Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Otherwise known as the only three named child actor you don’t want to punch in the face, Joseph Gordon-Levitt has one other defining feature that has spared him the indignities of the former child star curse; he’s a terrific actor. He first came to public attention playing the old alien trapped in a teenager’s body on Third Rock from the Sun. If you didn’t know his later work, after reading that last sentence, you’d be forgiven for assuming Levitt disappeared off the face of the earth once the show was over. And he did, kind of. Avoiding the simple path to glory that so many teen actors take, Levitt instead chose difficult roles in dark films. He played a male prostitute in Mysterious Skin, and a high school gumshoe in Brick. His radical strategy of only appearing in what he called “good movies,” Levitt built up a critical following and reputation as one of the most interesting up and coming actors in Hollywood. Levitt’s is still young (30) and his career is still beginning. His ability to avoid the pitfalls of childhood fame has  guaranteed audiences another great actor to watch for years to come.

2. Kirsten Dunst

Like Christina Ricci, Kirsten Dunst made transitioning from a child star into an adult seem like the easiest thing in the world. After a successful career as a child model and actress, Dunst made her breakthrough with a well-received role in Interview With A Vampire opposite Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt. She went on to star in several more hits as a kid and teenager, and eventually landed the plum role of Mary Jane in the Spiderman films. And just to keep things interesting, she also appeared in several romantic comedies and indie films as well as starting a fledgling singing career. But this is where Dunst’s story gets interesting. She actually battled with mental illness as an adult and stopped working and entered a rehab facility to battle depression. Sounds familiar, right? But unlike so many other of her former child star colleagues, Dunst got help and resumed her career with barely a hiccough. If only Dana Plato would have done the same.

1. Ron Howard

Studying the career or Ron Howard should be a requirement for any kid actor who wants a career that lasts longer than his 19^th birthday. For starters, Howard actually came back from being a former child star twice. In 1960, when he was six years old, he was cast as the precocious Opie on the Andy Griffith Show. Once that ended, he bounced around and turned in a few TV roles here and there, but it wasn’t until 1973 when he starred in American Graffiti and Happy Days that he was a star again. This time, Howard wasn’t prepared to let anyone but himself decide the future of his career. He left Happy Days at the height of its popularity and began a quest to become a director. Trading on his fame, he made a deal with B-movie producer Roger Corman to star in one of his movies, but only if he could direct another one himself. He did, and parlayed the experience into gigs directing TV and lower budget movies. The rest is history. Howard has directed major hits, critically acclaimed dramas, and has an Academy Award. Now that’s how you have a career, kids!

Top 10 Reasons Why Robocop Is Awesome

There are few action movies that actually have a message, point, or any subtext whatsoever.  The average action movie usually just has a hero fighting a bad guy, with some explosions, or if you are Michael Bay thousands of explosions, and getting the girl in the end after stopping the big bad. In the 80s these were a dime a dozen and no one was really rocking the boat for the genre. This all changed when Robocop was released in 1987.

For the uninitiated, Robocop is the story of Alex Murphy, newly transferred cop to Old Detroit.  He is killed by some criminals, however OCP, the large corporation that just purchased the police in Detroit is experimenting on new technology in law enforcement. They take Murphy’s body and rebuild him as Robocop. Murphy becomes a hero, avenges his killer, and the day is won for justice.

Robocop at first looks like a standard action movie, gorier than most sure, but if you explained the plot to the average person it would sound like a generic action movie with a little sci-fi thrown in. It’s in execution where this movie shines. It does new things, and has a message that it expresses in a subtle, clever way. The following is the top ten reasons why the movie Robocop is awesome.

Note: Some these clips have intense language and violence and may be NSFW.

10.  Violence, No Punches Pulled

One of the big points about Robocop is its violence and gore. During its theatrical run some groups claimed the movie was too violent. This argument later aided in making the sequels, Robocop 2 and Robocop 3, much less violent and not as visceral in its gore effects, for the few they still had. This of course, was one of the many reasons fans of the original were unhappy with the sequels.

There were also complaints it was violent for violence’s sake, I and many fans argue otherwise. In a story about criminals overrunning Detroit, cop killers, and corporate greed; violence, especially brutal graphic violence, is necessary to get the point across. The point being that in a world where the bottom line is king and sleazy 80s business men value money over human life, brutal death would be common place as long as it makes the rich richer. If the violence was toned down this commentary on greed would be lost, and a large element of the story and thesis of the film would be eliminated.

9. Concept:  Police Being Privatized

The main thesis of the film is the fear of privatizing the police, and the danger of large corporations having virtually limitless reach. This of course is a commentary on the privatizing of the military that occurred in the Reagan era, creating what is known as the military-industrial complex. Essentially, if a business owns the military, do they owe loyalty to the state, people, or the company that owns them? This is explored in a scene after Robocop faces Dick Jones at the OCP building and is ambushed by his fellow officers under orders from Dick.

The bigger piece of this theme in the film overall, is the Directive 4 arc. Directive 4 is a program that means Robocop cannot harm or apprehend a senior OCP officer. This makes him the perfect product, no chance of backfire.

8. Setting

The setting of Robocop is perfect. Detroit in the not too distant future is riddled with crime and drugs. The rich are on the top and the poor are on the bottom. It is a great analogy for what happened when the car industry went bust there in our own time. The lighthearted news and commercials on TV contrast excellently with the gritty raw world the movie takes place in. The world of Robocop is not exactly real, I mean it still is a sci-fi action movie, but it is a great satire for the world of the 80s, and even our own current surroundings.

7. Murphy’s Death/Robocop’s Creation

As mentioned earlier, Robocop is violent, usually, for the theme of the film, humor, or commentary. However, the death of Murphy early in the movie is brutal, graphic, and not played for laughs. We are given enough time with him to learn how he acts, his quirks, that he’s a family man, and to all around like the guy. Thus, when he dies it is more emotional to the audience, and when we see the following scenes of his creation, from being rushed into the hospital, to where he takes his first steps as the mechanical man that is Robocop, we witness the dehumanization of his character first hand.

6. Blending Genres

When I explained the concept of Robocop to a friend of mine who never saw it, I said it was Lethal Weapon meets Wall Street, with a dash of Terminator. What I meant was that at the film’s core it is an action movie, but it is also has echoes of a corporate greed story, and of course the robot elements of science fiction.

What I find most astounding is that all these seemingly random pieces blend extremely well. I have seen many movies try to blend one genre with another and fail miserably. A perfect example being the Star Wars prequels, where the tone of the film is inconsistent, and scenes will jump from violent, to slapstick, to romantic at very awkward times. It is very difficult to straddle multiple genres and themes, while staying consistent in tone and delivery. Robocop succeeds here where others failed.

5. The Ending

The final battle in Robocop is easily one of my favorite fights in movies. Sure, there isn’t any great choreography, and it doesn’t have spaceships locked in combat, but it’s the sheer brutality in the fight, and every villain in the film getting such grisly comeuppance for their evil deeds that make it truly satisfying. Plus, the guy who get’s drenched in toxic waste is to this day one of the funniest death scenes in movie history.

The line Murphy gives, “They fix everything,” is a great line summing up his whole experience in the story, as well as continuing with the theme of corrupt and inept corporations, with the half-hearted delivery of “they.” The epilogue scene with Dick after this is a great cap for the film, finding the grand flaw in Directive 4, which essentially makes you vulnerable to Robocop if you’re fired. The ending wraps everything up perfectly without feeling forced.

4. Humor/Satire

The main draw to come back to Robocop after these many years is the humor. The satire of the media and corporate society as mentioned earlier is portrayed in small scenes scattered in the film. These being lighthearted news segments, describing horrifying news, and advertisements for products mocking pop culture. The funniest and most memorable fake commercial is for “Nukem” a “Battleship” style game, except instead of sea war is simulates thermonuclear holocaust. Fun for the whole family!

3. Performance

One of the most important aspects of this action movie that brings it a step above the generic 80s action movie is good actors. Like Die Hard, everyone in this movie does a great job playing their role to the fullest. Also like Die Hard, the tense action scenes balance well with the humours ones, kudos from the casting department to find the right cast to balance this tone.

The most impressive performance in the film, in my opinion, is Peter Weller as Murphy/Robocop. The early scenes showcase his likability, and humanity.  When Weller is in the suit despite his character talking robotic and moving as such, there are subtle hints of humanity in his movements and speech pattern. Not to mention being able to play the “man to machine” character better than most.

2. One Liners

As mentioned before, the humor pulls the fans back to Robocop. This is done in a wide array of one liners from different characters and scenes. Some as simple as Murphy’s “Dead or alive you’re coming with me,” more a line of character growth than humor, but still one I have heard said off hand on occasion.

There are many others that I can list for days, but the most famous is the “I’d buy that for a dollar,” guy. Essentially, he is a recurring character from a terrible comedy show of some sort. The audience never gets a context for the line, but it is clearly one of those catchphrases sitcoms desperately throw out to merchandise the program. It works however, since characters in the movie throw the line out in conversation, another way to give the world of Old Detroit depth, and comment on the pop culture of the time.

1. Clarence Boddicker

Clarence Boddicker, played by Kurtwood Smith, Red from That 70’s Show fame, is the main villain of Robocop. He is easily one of my top favorite movie villains of all time. He is clearly having so much fun being an evil maniac. He has menace in his words, behind a slick smile and hilarious delivery. Plus, I love how he is bald and has glasses, but still acts like he is the coolest guy around. He doesn’t try to gussy himself up; he knows actions speak more than appearances. He is such a rare villain in look, delivery, and tone and sadly I wish more villains were as out of the box as him.

That is all I have. Robocop is an excellent film, and should be in any action movie fans collection. But, it goes deeper than that, it has a message, something to say about society, culture, politics, and even humor. Few movies even today try to have a thesis in execution, a main point to come back to when all is said and done. Also, it doesn’t bang you over the head with its message; it’s subtle behind a layer of blood and bullets to get to its deeper core. For those who haven’t seen Robocop, and read this far, check it out you will not be disappointed.

Top 10 Internet Sensations Turned into Pointless Books

When something on the Internet gets popular, it can get really gets popular.  Viral videos and meme-oriented websites are everywhere, as millions of people with the similar senses of humor all discover something at the same time and declare it the funniest thing they’ve seen in the past fourteen minutes.

This is all well and good, until old-fashioned capitalism kicks in and some company decides to make a book out of said video or website.  In short, what you once got for free, you are now expected to pay for.

10. Bacon Explosion

In 2009, two guys logged onto bbqaddicts.com and posted a “recipe” for sausage wrapped in bacon.  Because it was over 5,000 calories and most people probably get exhausted just from eating it, it became a massive hit.  Facebook groups were formed dedicated to what was little more than meat wrapped in more meat, and the original posters received a six-figure cookbook deal.  Six figures, as in “at least a hundred thousand dollars.”  The only reason this entry is so low on the list is because the book will not actually contain the Bacon Explosion recipe.  Perhaps the creators realized that if you actually need an entire recipe for what amounts to “Take meat.  Wrap in bacon.  Drown in BBQ sauce.  Eat,” then you’re probably not the kind to buy a book anyway.

9. Anonymous (Group)

At its heart, Anonymous is a bunch of nameless, faceless, Internet users who love to hack websites and troll people endlessly because it’s just so hilarious.  Occasionally they don V for Vendetta masks, protest oppressive things, and scream angry threats at Scientology offices.  This makes them feel important.  Since the group doesn’t have a charismatic leader to go on the news and let us all know exactly what Anonymous stands for, it’s very hard to write a book about them.  And when somebody did, they evidently didn’t even try; the one Amazon review for Anonymous (group) makes it very clear that the book is nothing more than various Wikipedia articles, sometimes with the citation marks still intact.  Then again, this book might have been written by a member of Anonymous in order to annoy the book world with how bad it is.  Because, to Anonymous, annoying people is hilarious.

8. Denis Leary’s Tweets

A Twitter account is the easiest thing in the world to follow.  Click that you want to follow it, and then do so.  No harm, no foul, no charge.  Comedian Denis Leary, however, realized that compiling some of his funniest tweets into book form could make him some money, so he did just that.  Never mind that you can easily read the entire book in less than ten minutes while evading bookstore staff; you’re still expected to pay eight bucks for it.  To be fair, some of the money goes to his firefighter’s charity, but if you really wanted to make a difference, donate the entire eight dollars directly to the charity, and then follow his tweets as you normally would.  No need to clutter your bookshelf further.

7. Garfield Minus Garfield

The webcomic is genius, and we’re taking nothing away from it; remove Garfield from his own comic strip, and you’re left with Jon: lonely, highly depressed, and talking to himself until the end of days.  But since the comics are still available online (all 110+ pages of it), it makes actually buying the book an exercise in futility.  Jim Davis, the creator of Garfield, tried his hand at a few Minus Garfields, and that would be the bulk of the book’s exclusive content.  Sadly, his attempts aren’t nearly as good or as biting as the original webcomics; this makes sense, as they are written by the guy who does Garfield, after all.

6. Postsecret

The original PostSecret blog allowed people to anonymously confess things along the lines of “I thought of him when I was marrying you” in convenient postcard form.  Fair enough, yet this managed to become a book compilation, allowing the author to profit off of other people whose pain is so intense they can only bring themselves to talk about it in nameless postcard form.  On the other hand, if you buy this book, and find yourself identifying with “my wife thinks I’m having an affair with her sister…wrong sibling,” then you can confess with a real live postcard of somebody else’s very own.

5. Stuff White People Like

White people like lame things!  There, we just saved you ten bucks.  Seriously, that’s the entire gist of this site-turned-book.  Evidently, they enjoy soy lattes, scarves, the World Cup, recycling, dogs, and all other sorts of stupid things that, by extension, non-white people don’t like at all.  To give the author credit, he at least wrote up actual essays about each thing white people like, and put some thought into them.  This is opposed to the usual viral blog approach: one goofy picture and one sentence such as “They like sushi?  Uncooked fish!?  That’s sooooo white!”

4. Oolong the Rabbit

And now we start to scrape the bottom of the barrel.  Oolong was a rabbit that was photographed by his owner balancing things on his head.  Sometimes it was a pancake.  Sometimes it was a CD.  Sometimes it was toilet paper.  Each time, it was adorable.  But adorable enough to compile into coffee table book form?  Evidently, because that’s exactly what happened.  A 120-page book of free-on-the-Net pictures does in fact exist; perfect for when you want to glance at a cute bunny with something on his head, but have neither the ability to print the pictures yourself, nor an actual bunny that can balance things just as well.

3. Barack Obama is Your New Bicycle

This is the Obama meme, in a nutshell: white background with gigantic text describing a random act of kindness Barack Obama just did for you.  That’s all.  And that is now a book.  In exchange for money that could be used to buy food or real literature, you can buy 366 random sentences such as “Barack Obama remembered your birthday”, or “Barack Obama tuned your guitar for you.”  Great for those days when you want to read one meaningless sentence involving the President, but just don’t feel like clicking any links.

2. I Can Has Cheezburger

Remember the rabbit from earlier?  Well, multiply that by a billion and you have the cheezburger cats.  More than likely you’re aware of this phenomenon; take funny pictures of cats and add comically misspelled captions to make them seem uneducated.  There are multiple books compiling these cats and they are, in fact, bestsellers.  And don’t you dog people feel superior, as there are books featuring cheezburger dogs saying stupidly misspelled things while riding invisible snowboards or something along that line.  To be fair, there are now millions of funny animal pictures on the website, and some people need an author or two to pick their absolute favorites out for them.

1. (Bleep) My Dad Says

This is number 1 for one reason and one reason only: it transcended being a pointless book and became a pointless TV show as well.  The original meme was a Twitter feed where a guy recorded a bunch of comically grouchy quotes his Dad may or may not have actually said.  It was a monster hit, and naturally spawned a book version for those who hate when their Internet comedy is free.  But this somehow was not enough, and CBS greenlighted a TV show based on the idea of a lovably grumpy old man saying off-the-wall one-liners.  Despite “lovably grumpy people spewing one-liners” being the central theme of 80% of sitcoms filmed, ever, this one was different because it came from the Internet, and we all know the vast literary muses that pop up there.