OWNERS WHO LOOK LIKE THEIR PETS

Owners who Look like their Pets
Uploaded by TertiaryProductions. - Classic TV and last night's shows, online.
Ryan Mcculloch's animated short film is a twisted little treat.

I'D DO ANYTHING

An old-school Cylon sings of his robot love in this funny and surprisingly sweet vignette from those scamps at Fall On Your Sword.

MUSIC FROM SPACE: Neil Innes - URBAN SPACEMAN

From Neil Innes' 1979 BBC series The Innes Book of Records, here's the toe-tappin' video for Urban Spaceman.

Giant Japanese lady invades Tokyo, takes photos

Panasonic unleashed this giant Japanese lady on Tokyo to promote a new brand of camera.

XO: Creepy-as-hell serial killer mini-comics

XO is a grimly effective mini-comic in which a serial killer recounts his various murders with a chilling casualness. Brian John Mitchell writes the stories, with Melissa Spence Gardner's plain, almost childlike drawings serving to make each tale even more creepy. Originally published as tiny comic books, you can see them below in Youtube form. The simple slideshow presentation and lack of music or sound effects actually works remarkably well for these stories.

STRANGE TOONS: Freaky STAR TREK fan film, DICK'S DREAM

No Shatner Sunday this week, but instead here's a very, very odd little stop-motion Star Trek fan film from animator Spockboy. I couldn't begin to tell you what it's all about, but Mr. Spockboy describes the video thusly: "I made this film years ago. It's about a guy named Dick, who dreams that he is in an episode of Star Trek. The heads are made of clay, the bodies of wood......ENJOY!"

Man builds cat village

Craig Grant has built an entire cat-sized village for the formerly homeless cats on his tree farm. It's an awesome little town, complete with its own miniature city hall. Seen here, the cat Wal-Mart. (Jeez, Wal-Mart really is everywhere.)

Edward Gorey reviews SUTURE

A charming, random moment with Edward Gorey and one of his many cats, in which the beloved, eccentric illustrator offers up his opinion of the weird indie picture Suture.

What is the origin of the tooth fairy?

Everybody knows the story of the Tooth Fairy. When kids lose their teeth they place them under their pillow, and then during the night a little lady with wings comes fluttering through their bedroom window and replaces the lost tooth with a coin. It's all very cute and we all just sort of take the tradition for granted... But when you think about it, it's a really weird story. So, just how the heck did this tradition get started, anyhow? The Tooth Tips blog investigates.

What the frack?

"Fracking" is apparently a controversial natural gas drilling process. But as a longtime Battlestar Galactica fan frack means something very different to me, so waking up this morning to find the headlines full of fracking this and fracking that was a surreal experience.

The most perplexing (and delightful) headline of the bunch was the one about Fracking in Arkansas Falling Short of Promise. It sounds so wistful.

Big Daddy cosplay photo shoot at the Georgia Aquarium

A few months back, ingenious costume maker Harrison Krix and his fiancée Emily did an awesome cosplay photo shoot as a Big Daddy and a Little Sister from Bioshock. The costumes were impressive, but Krix and Emily went for an extra dollop of awesome by shooting on location at the Georgia Aquarium. The full gallery is online here, and Krix has a lengthy post about the creation of his Big Daddy suit here.

SHATNER SUNDAY: Shatner's I AM CAPTAIN KIRK

This clip's not much to look at, but the audio is an interesting little curio. If you've ever wondered what it would sound like if Shatner guest starred on Joe Frank's old NPR show, now you know.

AT THE MOVIES returning to PBS

Roger Ebert has announced that At the Movies, the long-running TV show he co-hosted, first with Gene Siskel and later with Steve Roper, will be returning to PBS in January. Christine Lemire and Elvis Mitchell will host, with Ebert (who sadly lost his voice to cancer a while back) contributing commentary via a new, synthesized voice assembled from clips of his old reviews.

I wish I was thrilled about the news, but the promo clip above doesn't fill me with hope. Mitchell and Lemire seem pretty stiff, there's no chemistry there yet. Here's hoping they can kick out the kinks by January.

You won't have Peter Petrelli to kick around anymore

NBC won't be making that Heroes TV movie after all.

I watched Heroes from the beginning to the end, and while the show definitely had its problems I never thought it deserved the endless abuse it got. Once the fanboy pile-on begins and it becomes an established "truth" that a given movie/TV show/whatever is the "worst thing ever," the actual quality of the thing becomes irrelevant. People start trying to top each other with how much they hate it, the hater hyperbole gets out of control and eventually nobody will admit that they ever liked the damn show.

So, now Heroes is done. It ended on an ambiguous note, but it wasn't a huge cliffhanger or anything. I'm a little bummed that we'll never find out what was up with the eclipse, and we'll never know if Sylar finally decided to be good or evil or if Claire-bear decided she was straight or bi.

But maybe it's worth it to end the show here, just so the geeks won't be able to spew their venom all over a proper series finale.

AUSCHWITZ - a Uwe Boll film

It sounds like a College Humor sketch, but it's really happening: Uwe Boll, the director behind such infamous cinematic stinkers as Alone in the Dark and Bloodrayne, is at work on a film about the Holocaust. The trailer above features some very graphic, disturbing imagery. That's Boll himself as the bored guard outside of the gas chamber.

This movie will probably be a hideous mess, but part of me is actually rooting for Boll, here. People are always telling him that he sucks, and he's obviously not a guy who takes criticism well. It would be kind of neat if he could surprise the heck out of everybody and make a WWII drama that really works.

Ben Zurawski's custom PEE-WEE'S PLAYHOUSE figures

You might say Ben Zurawski is a fan of Pee-Wee's Playhouse. How much of a fan is he? Well, he proposed to his girlfriend onstage during Pee-Wee's live show, for one thing. For another, he custom makes awesome Pee-Wee's Playhouse toys! Seen here, Pee-Wee with the notorious Door to Door Salesman.

Gilliam's on again/off again QUIXOTE is back off again

Terry Gilliam may well be the most unlucky director alive, and none of his productions have been so cursed as The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. After the project fell apart in a most spectacular fashion some years ago, Gilliam recently managed to revive it. But now Variety reports that Quixote is dead, yet again.

"Don Quixote gives me something to look forward to, always," Gilliam told the paper. "Maybe the most frightening thing is to actually make the film."

New Zealand's Riff Raff statue

Rocky Horror creator Richard O'Brien grew up in Hamilton, New Zealand, and in 2004 the town honored its favorite son with a pretty snazzy statue of Riff Raff, O'Brien's Rocky Horror Picture Show character. This site is all about the statue, and includes a gallery of concept designs by artists from WETA, the NZ special effects company that worked on the Lord of the Rings movies.

Got a tip for Monsters and Rockets? Want to contribute to the site? Send us an email.

MUSIC FROM SPACE: Paperhand Lincoln - OLD GHOST

Paperhand Lincoln is back with another neat music video demonstrating a lot of funky creativity (and a very impressive use of garage space.)

SHATNER SUNDAY: THE MANY ITERATIONS OF WILLIAM SHATNER

Normally on Shatner Sunday we feature a video clip showcasing William Shanter at his most Shatner-y, but today we have a change of pace as we direct your attention to this rather excellent New York Times profile. Nearing 80(!), Shatner crashes through his day with the vigor of a man half his age. He is ridiculous. He is sublime. He is... Shatner.

(Seen here: Lego Shatner, as depicted by artist Sean Kenney.)

STAR WARS: THE SOLO ADVENTURES

Han and Chewie return at last in this animated Star Wars fan film. It's a lot of fun, and they do a good job of capturing Han Solo's personality. (It must be said, however, that the Chewbacca we know and love was never this much of a badass.)

Sigh... When will George Lucas get it into his head that something like this is basically what the fans have been waiting for since 1983 or so?

PULP RAVIOLI

If you've seen those Chef Boyardee commercials where a young girl's security blanket comes to life and nags her while she's eating lunch with a couple of pals, you probably thought they were the creepiest things you'd ever seen. Well, now somebody has made them even creepier (and a lot funnier) by dubbing in some of Samuel L. Jackson's NSFW dialogue from Pulp Fiction.

Yes, we've already seen lots and lots of clips that've been dubbed over with this scene. But somehow they never stop being funny...

SEASONS

Seasons is an enchanting little flash thing (you can't quite call it a game) where you steer Thomas - a sort of egg-man on a unicycle - through various pastoral, surreal scenes. Don't hurry through the various environments. It's worth it to take your time pedaling around and seeing what Thomas discovers.