Horror Series: The Headless Nun

I totally should have started this series off as "Horror Series" and not "Legendary Creature Series." Anyways...

courtesy of miramichionline.com.

Hailing from the great Canadian landscape, the Headless Nun is a ghost story from Miramachi, New Brunswick. According to legend, she was a nun in the area back in the 18th Century who was decapitated... Though it was not known who had done it. Accusations have been pointed towards sailors, a run-of-the-mill murderer or even a crazed woodsman, but there's no consensus exactly who was the responsible party. Nowadays, she is said to wander the area in search for her head.

Sadly, as she has been wandering the land for a couple centuries, we have disrespected her plight by playing a TV show that not only seemed to mock her, but mock her in the worst way. The Flying Nun (1967 - 1970) was a TV show that aired on ABC that starred Sally Field as a nun whose head wear (cornette) and light build would allow her to fly.

Seriously... The Headless Nun is spending an eternity looking for her head and we actually air that show? Seems like a complete dickhole move on our part. Sally Field can fly around because of something she wears on her head, the ultimate freedom... While the Headless Nun doesn't even have the luxury of having a head.

Seriously, we deserve to be haunted.

Courtesy tvtropes.com.
Then again, maybe our curse is to have this series as a part of our collective memory.

Legendary Creature Series: Manananggal

The Manananggal is a vampire-like creature within Philippine folklore. It usually takes the form of a beautiful young woman and has the lovely ability to utterly tear its own torso from its legs, grow wings and begin to fly in search of its prey. ITs preferred prey seems to be women, namely pregnant women that are sleeping.

Similar to western vampires (of the non-glittery persuasion), they seem to be weak against sunlight and garlic. Though instead of a stake through the heart or leaving them in the sun during the daylight hours, the way to defeat a Manananggal is to find its abandoned lower half and cover the gaping wound with salt and ashes before day break to ensure that it cannot reconnect.

Courtesy of booalert.com

Perhaps the most disturbing thing about this creature is the lack of points one can get in Scrabble from it. With no modifiers, this creature can only net you 15 points despite how many letters are required to spell it.

General Mills' Monster Cereals

Damn near one of my favorite things about the entire Halloween season would have to be the time limited release of Count Chocula. Ever since I was young, I was always happy when he made his annual appearance and I know that I'd be soon downing all of his chocolatey goodness and his marshmallows... That are sorta just like pebbles when dry. God forbid you eat one that's stale, by the way.

Count Chocula has been making yearly appearances at your local supermarket since 1971... Regardless of day or night, it seems fluorescent lights aren't enough to burn his flesh. Even though it's enough to burn normal human flesh. Perhaps that's why they use those lights... To appease the grocery vampire gods or something. Or maybe it's to assure that Chocula will come back every year or something.

Back then he was known as Dr. Count Chocula (who in the hell gave him a PhD.?) and debuted alongside Frankenberry.

Seen here being way too happy eating his own cereal in a form of cannibalism both delicious and horrendous.

Speaking of Frankenberry, this is something that has bugged me for quite some time...

This is Dr. Frankenstein...

This is also Dr. Frankenstein... ('s grandson, Frederick)

This is Frankenstein's Monster... NOT Frankenstein.

This is Peter Boyle.

Alrighty... My nerd rage will subside quite a bit with that. Getting back on track.

Count Chocula and Frankenberry were the first two, but in 1973 they were followed by Boo Berry.

Boo Berry, Count Chocula and Frankenberry. This was the trio that I remember for most of my life. I had tried all three and well... Yeah, Count Chocula was the best in my opinion. I mean, he's a bit loony, but at least he's not a cannibal like Frankenberry nor was he higher than a coked out bonobo that just had fifteen balloons pop in its ass.

What I didn't know was that, for many years, there were other monster cereals.

In 1975, Fruit Brute made his debut. This was a multi-fruit flavor cereal on par with Trix or Fruit Loops... But with a rainbow overall wearing brute of a wolf. Though it was around for a few years, sharing the limelight with the Count, Fruit Brute was discontinued in 1984. Though this year, General Mills had re-issued Fruit Brute and you can buy it once more.

To fill that hairy, fruity void in our lives... General Mills released Yummy Mummy in 1987. Yummy Mummy was, essentially, the same as Fruit Brute but with a minor change. Fruit Brute had lime flavored marshmallows, Yummy Mummy had vanilla flavored marshmallows. Yummy Mummy was discontinued in 1993, having a shelf life shorter than Fruit Brute. Again, in 2013, Yummy Mummy was re-issued... So now we have TWO fruit flavored marshmallow monster cereals. Clearly this is a great idea.

I need to point out that, thus far, we have a number of the Universal Monsters in cereal form: Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster, Wolf Man and the Mummy. Boo Berry is the only exception, maybe he's like, the Invisible Man or something. I mean, he's wearing a hat and all.

So there you have it. Take this chance to try each and every one of these cereals. The main trio should stick around, but Yummy Mummy and Frute Brute may not, if history is any indication. Enjoy them and get some of the taste of Halloween in you... For those who absolute must live, breathe and eat Halloween... These are all essential.

October 1st!

Today is the beginning of what I believe is the "holiday season." The first day of the long holidays has officially begun in my eyes... And which holiday takes the cake for October? That's right, Columbus Day! ...Wait, I mean, Halloween.

Halloween has been one of my all time favorite holidays for a number of reasons. It's when the weather finally starts turning fall/winter-like here, it's when I view the holiday season as starting and the entire spooky, superstition stuff that goes along with it. It also helps that a plethora of items get Halloween themed makeovers and Count Chocula comes out of hiding to become the best cereal of the year. This year, I sincerely hope I actually get around to making a few posts about Halloween related items within the month of October.

Then again, my track record exemplifies Halloween at its best: Horrific. I hope to finally change that this year and make a number of posts that are Halloween themed. Whether they're good or not is up for potentially ironic discussion.

Anyways... Happy Holidays everyone! I can finally say it!

FACT! #67

Courtesy of jimscoins.
I don't recall ever seeing Washington with a copper visage. Probably just a spray tan or something.

No, what you're seeing isn't Photoshopped. That is indeed a US quarter minted on a penny planchet. This kind of error is one of the more jarring and unique ones out of the dozens of errors out there. The error is happened when the wrong kind of planchet is fed into the wrong coin stamping press. In this case, the planchet for pennies was fed into a stamper meant for quarters.

Courtesy of coinquest.
"In your face FDR! My coin is bigger than your coin!"

There are numerous cases of this error out there; different denominations, different combinations of material and sometimes... The same denomination with different composition. That's the case with the insanely rare (and very, very valuable) 1943 Copper Cent and 1944 Steel Cent.

Courtesy of Wikipedia.
In 1943, the US Mint switched to steel for pennies that year due to copper being used for the war effort.

Courtesy of coinsdig.
In 1944, the US Mint switched back to copper planchets for pennies.

All of these coins go for premium prices, with the 1943/1944 composition swapped coins going for insane prices. The 1943 Copper Penny fetches in the tens of thousands, with some examples going for around $100,000 in mint condition. The 1944 Steel Penny tends to fetch a slightly higher average price, with only 25 - 30 known examples; they tend to fetch between $75,000 and $110,000.

Courtesy of jimscoins.
Penny stamped on a stamped Dime. "I am an abomination!"

Slightly related to the wrong planchet strikes would be double denomination coins. When a coin has already been stamped, it sometimes ends up getting stamped again with another die. The last die to stamp the coin is usually the strongest (in the case above, the penny die was the last to stamp), but details of both are visible (such as the "ONE DIME" to the top right of the above coin.)

FACT! #66

Courtesy of Wikipedia. The original prototype burned the retinas of artists using it.

Perhaps best known for his creation Betty Boop and his work on the Popeye and Superman cartoons; Max Fleischer (b. 1883 - d. 1972) also pioneered a number of techniques used in animation and was quite the innovator. Today, we'll be focusing on one of the more elaborate techniques he created, along with the machine named after it; Rotoscoping and the Rotoscope.

Rotoscoping is the process of tracing the outline of live action footage and was first used in his "Out of the Inkwell" series in 1915 when he filmed his brother, David, in a clown suit as he performed... Which led to the creation of his first major character, Koko the Clown. Max designed and patented the Rotoscope and went on to use it quite extensively at his animation studio. The Superman cartoons from the 1940s used rotoscoping heavily. Though a personal favorite use of it would have to be in 1932's Betty Boop cartoon "Minnie the Moocher" where he used the technique to animate Cab Calloway's dance moves.

Courtesy of moviefest2012. Why Cab Calloway was rotoscoped into a walrus ghost is beyond me. Then again, pot wasn't exactly illegal until 1937. Mystery solved?

Though Fleischer Studios used it extensively, they weren't the only animation studio to use it. Disney used it in "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." Ralph Bakshi used it quite a bit in the 1970s, most famously in 1978's "Lord of the Rings." Later uses could be found in a-Ha's "Take on Me" music video, "He-Man and The Masters of The Universe" cartoon, both in the 1980s, and Don Bluth's "Titan A.E." released in 2000. Even Star Wars got into the game using the technique to add the glow to the lightsabers.

The prominence of rotoscoping has waned quite a bit, but it has lasted the test of time. It's still being used and is fondly remembered as a unique technique. There were other innovations made by Max Fleischer (which I'll get around to eventually), but this was perhaps the most inventive.

FACT! #65

Courtesy of Wikipedia. They didn't even believe in truth in marketing, the soda wasn't even OK.

OK Soda is what happens when you try to can the alleged essence of Generations X/Y and their anti-corporate, apathetic, angst-filled and disillusionment. Conceived by Coca-Cola in 1993 and test marketed in a number of "hip" cities that summer, OK Soda had a limited life span on grocer's shelves.

The marketing campaign was created by Portland, Oregon based Wieden & Kennedy and centered around a sense of irony that only the teens and 20-somethings in the 1990's seemed to grasp. Unfortunately for Coca-Cola, it turns out that they were the victims of irony when their campaign was met with apathy and a general anti-corporate attitude.

There were a number of different cans styles that were released, above is just four of them. The artwork was done by Daniel Clowes and Charles Burns. There was also an "OK Soda Manifesto" that was released with the soft drink:

1. What's the point of OK? Well, what's the point of anything?
2. OK Soda emphatically rejects anything that is not OK, and fully supports anything that is.
3. The better you understand something, the more OK it turns out to be.
4. OK Soda says, "Don't be fooled into thinking there has to be a reason for everything."
5. OK Soda reveals the surprising truth about people and situations.
6. OK Soda does not subscribe to any religion, or endorse any political party, or do anything other than feel OK.
7. There is no real secret to feeling OK.
8. OK Soda may be the preferred drink of other people such as yourself.
9. Never overestimate the remarkable abilities of "OK" brand soda.
10. Please wake up every morning knowing that things are going to be OK.

Don't worry, that feeling of your brain melting out of your ears is really just blood. Okay, maybe you should go to the hospital. It's definitely a natural reaction to reading something like. For the kids of today, imagine that in hipster speak... It's essentially the same thing. This is precisely why you don't try to corner the market exclusively on the counter-culture, you really just end up lampooning yourself.

Since it left the shelves in 1995, it has attained a bit of a cult status. The flavor is, apparently, more like Diet Coke than the supposed, marketed taste of "fruity." Though I haven't been able to find anyone or any reviews of the taste back from 1993... Then again, I didn't exactly do much research into this one.