Blood and Brains – can vampires survive a zombie apocalypse?

In an all-out war between relentless, shambling hordes of zombies and bloodthirsty legions of vampires, which side will ultimately emerge victorious and claim world domination? The Southern Fried Scientist investigates.


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The so-called "Quasi-Interesting" horror art of David W.

David W.'s Quasi-Interesting Paraphernalia Inc. blog is really underselling itself. It's more like the Cavalcade of Freaking Awesome!

David W. (no last name given) is an artist and a monster buff, and on his blog he offers up all sorts of classic monster souvenirs along with his original creations. On "Monster Monday" he'll post a monster drawing he did when he was a kid...















And the more slick, professional drawing he did of the same monster as an adult...



Call me crazy, but I kind of prefer the kid version! It has a nice, Tim Burton-ish scratchiness to it.

He also takes old concept drawings that Disney Imagineers did for the Haunted Mansion ride, and he animates them. It's a strange hobby, there's no denying that, but you also can't deny that the results are pretty spook-tacular. (Insert horrible Crypt Keeper-esque laugh here.)

Ghosts and Witches from David Witt on Vimeo.

There's much (much!) more on his blog. Check it out.


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THE OCCULTERERS

Hayden Black, the fellow behind the brilliant web series Abigail's Teen Diary and the upcoming The Cabonauts, has debuted a new online horror comedy taking aim at those ghost hunter "reality" shows.

The Occulterers follows the goofiest troop of paranormal investigators since Scooby Doo and the gang first hit the road in the Mystery Machine. The cast includes Black himself as the group's resident psychic Herve, with other characters played by folks familiar from Buffy, Evil Dead and other genre classics.

Quickly written and shot, the show is sloppy and low-budget and plenty of fun. (Although the green screen shots are sometimes a little distracting. Was it really that hard to find a spooky corridor to shoot in?) In an interesting promotional gimmick, the first series premiered an episode a night with an accompanying "live feed"; when viewers spotted anything unusual in the feed they were supposed to alert the Occulterers via Twitter. The first series recently concluded, and apparently production of a second will depend on viewer demand.




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DAVID TENCH TONIGHT

David Tench was an Australian talk show host who was created using motion capture technology. His show David Tench Tonight, featuring real-time interviews with various celebrities, had a brief run on Australia's Channel Ten in 2006. (The name "Tench" was actually a combination of "Channel" and "Ten".)

He was not the first "virtual" host - I believe that honor goes to the great Max Headroom. But he was arguably the creepiest, with a giant Mardi Gras head and tiny baby arms. Here's the Tenchbot in action:

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Woman gains "third arm" following stroke

Yes, this is another re-post, from back in May before this site was getting any serious traffic. I've got months of stuff just gathering dust in the archives, folks. Have yourself a little look back there, if you've got a few minutes to kill.

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.

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DEATH BY TRAY!!

Perhaps that last post got you wondering what life on the Death Star was really like. Comedian Eddie Izzard explains, with help from a little Lego stop-motion. (Language NSFW.)




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How does the Death Star really work?

Well, the truth is that the Death Star does not really work, because it is imaginary. (Thank goodness!) But if we were living in the Star Wars movies and the Death Star was real, how would it really work? HowStuffWorks explains.

It's incredibly geeky but undeniably interesting stuff, culled from all sorts of Lucas-approved sources.

Tours on the Death Star last at least 180 days and usually much longer. Personnel are often in deep space without leave for months at a time, and since the location of the Death Star is always classified, contact with family or friends is strictly prohibited. This can make life on the Death Star very difficult. To ease the burden of this duty the station is outfitted with many civilian amenities. The general sector of each zone in the Death Star has a park, shopping centers and recreation areas that include restaurants, a cinema and fitness centers.

I'm inexplicably amused by the idea of a couple of Storm Troopers grabbing a bite at the Death Star Burger Barn and then catching Die Rebel Scum: The Movie at the Death Star Cinema 9.

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SHATNER SUNDAY: William Shatner serenades George Lucas

That's right, yet another ongoing feature here at Monsters and Rockets! Shatner Sunday will be our weekly chance to bask in the greatness of Canada's favorite son, James Tiberius Kirk himself... The one and only Mr. William Shatner, ladies and gentlemen.

Here's a clip I've never seen or even heard of before, which is frankly kind of amazing. In 2005, William Shatner appeared at the AFI tribute for George Lucas, and... Well, this happened.



Was the joke about Lucas' magnificent mane of hair a self-deprecating reference to the long-standing rumor about Shatner wearing a rug? If so that's pretty amazing, because in years past I've seen The Shat get very peeved indeed when people have brought up the wig question. Actually I suspect he finally got hair plugs a while ago, because these days he's got a close-cropped head of hair that would be pretty hard to fake. Or, maybe his hair grew back because he willed it to do so. He's just that cool.

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H.R. PUFNSTUF movie(?!) to use WILD THINGS tech

In an article published last Tuesday in The New York Daily News, Marty Krofft says that he and his brother Sid are at work on a movie version of H.R. Pufnstuf that would see the show's characters brought to the screen using puppet bodies and CGI heads in a process not unlike that used for Where the Wild Things Are.

" 'Wild Things' is very, very good for us," says Marty Krofft. "We always wanted to do low-tech costumes and high-tech heads. But it'll be a big difference in tone, of course — we'll be bright, not dark."

I don't know, to me half the charm of those old Krofft shows is the way those big, ugly puppet heads flop around, the lips rarely coming close to matching the dialogue.

Here are the opening titles for the show, which I haven't seen since I was seven or so. So, was this the weirdest show that ever aired on American TV? Could be, could be.



(And what the heck does "Can't do a little cause he can't do enough" mean, anyhow? Even the theme song for this show was a head scratcher!)

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Muppets return online, Dr. Bunsen Honeydew more creepy than ever

Not sure how I missed this, but it seems the Muppets have returned in a new series of online shorts. Most of the original Muppet puppeteers (Muppeteers?) have died or retired, so now you have a new crew handling Kermit and company. While the clips don't compare to the best of the original Muppets, they come closer than most of the Muppet stuff I've seen in recent years. There are some real laughs in there, even if they don't always seem to have the characters down quite right.

The clip below features Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and his perpetually alarmed lab assistant, Beaker. It's great to see them again, although somebody needs to tell the guy doing Beaker's voice that Beaker communicates entirely in "meeps". He comes close to saying actual words a few times here, and that simply won't do.

Fair warning: the ending is freaking disturbing. Sure, Beaker was subjected to all sorts of nasty things on the original show, but this is genuinely nightmarish. Show this clip to a child, and that child will grow up to have a disabling phobia of pumpkin carving. Seriously, he'll be afraid to leave the house, for fear of somebody coming after him with a candle to stick in his head.



Self-indulgent aside: I get a little tired of that meme about how Bert and Ernie are gay, because Bert and Ernie are such innocent characters - a lot like little kids, in a way - that reading anything sexual into their relationship just seems wrong. But the good Dr. Honeydew? So gay. While his attitude toward Beaker's various sufferings is often alarmingly callous, there's something rather, er, unprofessional about the way that Honeydew refers to his subordinate by little pet names like "Beaky" or "Beaky-Poo". And then there's this clip from the original show. I mean, there's really no ambiguity about it, there: Honeydew is horny for Beaker. I don't enjoy typing it and you probably didn't enjoy reading it, but it's the truth.

So, when Beaker finally files that inevitable lawsuit against Muppet Labs - for being cloned against his will, shrunken, having his head carved into a pumpkin, et al - hopefully he'll also throw in a sexual harassment charge against Honeydew. Wipe the smug smirk off of that jerk's big, bald, foam rubber head, Beaky!


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