MUSIC FROM SPACE: Tim Curry - ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN ON HALLOWEEN

Tempted though I was to link to a Rocky Horror clip in honor of Halloween, those songs are sort of all over the place this time of year. So instead I'll treat you to Anything Can Happen on Halloween, a Tim Curry number from the 1986 TV movie The Worst Witch.

It's a silly kid's movie and by all rights this should just be a silly kid's song, but Curry invests it with that special Dr. Frank N. Furter sass, snarling and swooning around in a crazy glitter cape and turning the sequence into something too weird to forget.




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

Read more...

RINGWALD & MOLLY IN: HALLOWEENIES!

Rob Schrab's classic work of "drawless animation", offering the timeless message: "Halloween kicks Christmas' ass!"

Read more...

The Tim Burton Halloween special that never was

A really fascinating post over on Jim Hill Media about Trick or Treat, the Tim Burton Halloween special that never was. I sure miss this Burton. I keep hoping that the crappy-remake guy will go away, and the Beetlejuice Burton will return to us one day.

Read more...

THRILLER CHILLER THEATER, hosted by Mini Coffee

The Sarah Silverman Program may have been canceled... But the beautiful Ms. Miniature Coffee lives on!

Read more...

SHATNER SUNDAY: Shatner's toupee

Shatner has flat-out denied it. He has half-admitted it. He has joked about it. He has artfully deflected questions about it. He has totally lost his cool when questioned about it.

The question: Does William Shatner wear a toupee? This blog examines the evidence, then examines it some more until it gets kind of creepy, stopping just short of going through Shatner's garbage. (Jeez... Check out the guy who runs a regular blog feature called Shatner Sunday, calling out another blogger for being unhealthily obsessed with William Shatner.)

Read more...

MUSIC FROM SPACE: The Cramps - GARBAGEMAN

Ariel Hahn's animated music video for the Cramps punk rock classic ingeniously brings the song to life with great piles of wriggly, throbbing trash. Stick out your can! Here comes the garbageman!

Read more...

Woman gains "third arm" following stroke

Following a stroke, a woman in Switzerland developed an imaginary third arm that looked and felt as real to her as the arms she'd always had.

Scientists subjected her to tests, and discovered that the phantom limb is indeed just as real as her other limbs, as far her brain's perception of it is concerned. When she is asked to move the arm, her motor cortex shows the signs of moving an actual limb. When she is asked to look at her third arm, her visual cortex responds as if its watching the arm move.

At least the poor woman got one small benefit out her stroke - she's now able to scratch her itches without anybody knowing! While her imaginary third arm passes through solid objects, when she uses it to scratch her own skin, her brain perceives it as actual scratching.

Read more...

Mesmerizing video of giant bubbles on the beach

This is an amazing clip. The bubbles look sort of like the undersea aliens from The Abyss, sort of like those weird soul projection things from Donnie Darko, and sort of like levitating rainbow ghost manatees from another dimension.

Read more...

MUSIC FROM SPACE: David Crowder Band - SHINE (SMS)

The song itself doesn't do much for me, but this video for the new David Crowder Band single is really clever and impressive to look at. What a sight, making things with Lite Brite!

Read more...

SHATNER SUNDAY: Shatner gets interviewed by a snarky idiot

William Shatner was recently interviewed for Vanity Fair, and the tone of the interviewer was just... Well, let's just say that Shatner would've been within his rights to take the jerk out with one of those old school James T. Kirk flying dropkicks. But it's really impressive how Shatner never comes close to losing his cool here, no matter how awkward and insulting the questions get.

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

Read more...

Footage of Eric Stoltz as Marty McFly

Eric Stoltz was originally hired to star in Back to the Future, and apparently the shoot was pretty far along before director Robert Zemeckis decided that Stoltz just wasn't working in the role. By various accounts Stoltz was "too serious" as Marty McFly, and wasn't clicking right with Christopher Lloyd. He was replaced by Michael J. Fox, and for many years the footage with Stoltz in the role was locked away in a vault somewhere. Today a little bit of that footage has finally turned up online.

Read more...

Buzz Lighyear vs. a Dalek

It's good toy vs. evil toy in the ultimate battle for toy supremacy!

Read more...

THE TOMFOOLERY SHOW

The Tomfoolery Show was a very peculiar Rankin/Bass Saturday morning cartoon that aired in the early 1970s. It featured a mix of nonsense poetry, corny old vaudeville gags and mind-fryingly strange character designs.

Read more...

The art of BACK TO THE FUTURE's "Biff", Tom Wilson

Tom Wilson, the hulking character actor best known as Back to the Future's bad guy, Biff, has a surprising sideline as an artist. He paints colorful pop art pieces featuring old toys and other objects from the baby boomer era. His artwork really doesn't suck, which is something of a rarity among celebrity artists. (And I'm not just saying that out of fear that Wilson will hunt me down and knock on my skull with his knuckles, saying, "Hello? Hello?" I mean, yes, that is a factor, but it's not the only reason.)

In the interview below, Wilson talks about his art and repeatedly refers to himself as a pop-cultural icon. It's true, as Biff he pretty much is a cultural icon. But still, walking around calling yourself one is kind of weird.




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

Read more...

STRANGE TOONS: THE SEPARATION

The Separation is a creepy, sad and very well-made stop-motion short by Robert Morgan. Two conjoined brothers are surgically separated in their youth, and spend their lives dealing with the consequences.

Read more...