The awkward transitions of Disneyland

Here's one for my fellow Disneyland nerds: the Passport to Dreams Old and New blog has a very, very detailed look at the awkward transitions of Disneyland, those weird, in-between places where one "land" meets another. It's a testament to the skill of Disneyland's designers that you usually don't even notice when, say, the rustic scenery of Frontierland gives way to the futuristic architecture of Tomorrowland. In the picture above, a little bit of New Orleans Square butts up against Frontierland down by the waterfront.


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END PIECE: The final works of fine artists

End Piece, a grim but fascinating Tumblr, is an online exhibition looking at the final works of various fine artists before they died. Seen here, an unfinished 1989 painting by Keith Haring.

Read more by Greg Stacy at GregStacy.com. Got a tip for Monsters and Rockets? Want to contribute to the site? Send us an email.

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A happy ending for the tragic tale of SCTV vet Tony Rasato!

A while back, we told you about the sorry state of SNL/SCTV alum Tony Rasato, who was behind bars, suffering from a serious mental illness and wrangling with the Canadian legal system.

Rasato had developed a condition call Imposter's Syndrome, and he was convinced his wife and daughter had been replaced by lookalikes. Well, I'm pleased to report that Rosato now appears to be doing much better. He's a free man, he's working again, he sounds rational and apparently he's even reconciled with his wife and daughter. For such a tragic story, this is just about the happiest ending anybody could've asked for.

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How many times did Bill Murray relive the same day in GROUNDHOG DAY?

I'd always assumed that Bill Murray spent a few months at most reliving the same day in the 1993 comedy classic Groundhog Day. But it seems his ordeal was actually quite a bit worse than that!

Director Harold Ramis once remarked that Murray must have spent ten years or so trapped in Punxsutawney, given that he had enough time to learn how to be an ice sculptor, play piano, speak French, etc. Wolfgnards.com has broken it all down, with graphs and everything, to figure out exactly how many Groundhog Days Murray endured.

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More Muppets through the years!

Kermit the Frog is not the only Muppet who has changed quite a bit through the years. The Muppet Wiki actually has quite a collection of galleries showing how various Muppet characters have evolved over time, including Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Gonzo and many, many more. It's fascinating stuff, but don't click over there until you have at least an hour to kill looking at pictures of foam rubber animals. (Seriously, never visit the Muppet Wiki on a day when you need to get anything done.)

Read more by Greg Stacy at GregStacy.com. Got a tip for Monsters and Rockets? Want to contribute to the site? Send us an email.

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A visual history of Kermit the Frog

Kermit the Frog did not go directly from being a tadpole to the amphibious superstar we all know and love today! He's evolved quite a bit over the course of his five-decade career. The Muppet Wiki has an interesting gallery of Kermit through the years, from his weird, flipperless beginnings to his appearance in last year's hit movie The Muppets.

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MUSIC FROM SPACE: "Adventures in Success" - Will Powers

Feeling lost and directionless in life? Here's a very 1980s pep talk by Will Powers. Will Powers was actually the brainchild of celebrity photographer Lynn Goldsmith, who provided the creepy robot voice via a Vocoder. Her collaborators on the song included Sting and an uncredited Carly Simon. Apparently Goldsmith makes a cameo here as the lady playing the video game.

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MUSIC FROM SPACE: Galaxie 500 - FOURTH OF JULY

Galaxie 500 - Fourth of July - Music - More Music Videos

And if you want that feeling of wistful nostalgia to descend into a full-blown depressive episode, here are a bunch of 8-year-olds reviewing Galaxie 500's Fourth of July.








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Drawings by famous writers

Salon.com has posted a fascinating gallery of drawings done by celebrated authors. Some of them are rather amateurish, but a few are startlingly good. Seen here, an uncharacteristically cheery collection of paper dolls, designed by a young Ms. Sylvia Plath. (Note that the article has problems loading in my browser. It gets screwy toward the bottom of the page, with text doubling up and running over the pictures. Hopefully you'll have better luck.)

Read more by Greg Stacy at GregStacy.com. Got a tip for Monsters and Rockets? Want to contribute to the site? Send us an email.

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Interview with the guy who builds the props for THE COLBERT REPORT

In a recent interview on the Martha Stewart Living blog, Brendan Hurley describes the process of creating all the props on The Colbert Report. On any given day, Hurley might be tasked to create everything from the sinister products of Prescott Pharmacuticals to Drinky, Colbert's 44 gallon pet soda. On one memorable occasion, he even put together a banana guillotine.

"Stephen wanted to have a banana that had a condom on it, that he puts in a guillotine. There was one place I remembered seeing a mini-guillotine, but it closed down. So I just made one using scrap wood, aluminum railing and a butcher’s cleaver. I waxed the rails so the blade would slide down faster, but it had trouble penetrating both the condom and the banana. So I had to add weights to give it as much force as possible, plus I had to keep sharpening the blade, but it finally worked. And considering we made it in probably an hour and a half..."

 Read more by Greg Stacy at GregStacy.com. Got a tip for Monsters and Rockets? Want to contribute to the site? Send us an email.

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