September 2020
September 5, 2020
Umbrella Cover Museum
Nancy 3. Hoffman is a self-confessed eccentric. For a start, she decided to legally change her middle name to '3'. She's a professional accordion player, which is definitely an unusual occupation. And then she created the world's only Umbrella Cover Museum on Peaks Island, Maine in 1996. The museum is still going strong. Due to Covid, it had an outdoor exhibit this year.Back in 2012, Guinness recognized Nancy 3 for having the largest collection of umbrella covers in the world. At the time that was 730. She now has around 2000 covers.
More info: Maine Today, twitter
Posted By: Alex - Sat Sep 05, 2020 -
Comments (4)
Category: Museums, Collectors
Dali’s Drunken Montage from MOONTIDE
Surrealist Salvador Dali was hired to create the drunken montage at the top of the story but his sketches were deemed too bizarre, and the scene was shot with only some of his influence (most likely the close-up of the clock, the headless woman) intact.
Wikipedia source.
Posted By: Paul - Sat Sep 05, 2020 -
Comments (3)
Category: Movies, Surrealism, 1940s
September 4, 2020
A silly millimeter longer
In 1966, Benson & Hedges introduced the "100" — an extralong, 100-millimeter cigarette. Their tongue-in-cheek commercials focused on the supposed disadvantages of such a long cigarette.Not to be outdone, the makers of Chesterfields responded by introducing the "101", which was 101 millimeters long. As they put it, it was a "silly millimeter longer."
As far as I know, no one ever introduced a "102" cigarette.
Posted By: Alex - Fri Sep 04, 2020 -
Comments (5)
Category: Smoking and Tobacco, 1960s
Follies of the Madmen #486
Just a sample of the horrors you'll see after you drink enough of our booze.
Source.
Posted By: Paul - Fri Sep 04, 2020 -
Comments (2)
Category: Animals, Business, Advertising, Corporate Mascots, Icons and Spokesbeings, Delusions, Fantasies and Other Tricks of the Imagination, Horror, 1950s, Alcohol
September 3, 2020
Pawtable High-Five Machines
These are the latest product created by weirdo taxidermist Jack Devaney. They're rat legs mounted on springs. He explained to the NY Post:He's selling them for £12.00. But they're already sold out.
Posted By: Alex - Thu Sep 03, 2020 -
Comments (3)
Category: Taxidermy
A Phantasy
A Phantasy, Norman McLaren, provided by the National Film Board of Canada
Creator's Wikipedia page.
Posted By: Paul - Thu Sep 03, 2020 -
Comments (3)
Category: Surrealism, Cartoons, 1950s, North America
September 2, 2020
Why aren’t your feet as sexy as the rest of you?
One of life's great mysteries.The ad ran in Cosmopolitan magazine (and probably other publications) in the late 1960s.
I found it in The Sex Life of the Foot and Shoe (1976) by William A. Rossi.
Posted By: Alex - Wed Sep 02, 2020 -
Comments (4)
Category: Advertising, 1960s, Feet
The World’s Fastest Shed
Posted By: Paul - Wed Sep 02, 2020 -
Comments (4)
Category: Eccentrics, Motor Vehicles, United Kingdom
September 1, 2020
Potato Ice Cream
Idaho farmer Alan Reed invented Potato Ice Cream in the mid-1980s. This wasn't potato-flavored ice cream. Instead, it was ice cream that included potatoes (in addition to dairy) as an ingredient. The advantage of this was that the potatoes sweetened the ice cream, eliminating the need to add sugar. The result was a lower-calorie, sugar-free ice cream. Reed claimed it tasted as good as regular ice cream.However, Reed had trouble getting his potato ice cream distributed, so he sold the formula and marketing rights in 1988 to businessmen Rich Davis and James McFrederick. I assume (because I've never seen potato ice cream in a store) that they didn't manage to make a go of it either. The fact that there were better (or cheaper) sugar substitutes probably doomed Potato Ice Cream.
Reed is still operating his dairy farm and selling ice cream. But his website makes no mention at all of potatoes.
However, I don't think he's entirely given up on the idea of using potatoes to sweeten dairy, because his chocolate milk contains potato flakes (if you look closely at the ingredients). And this chocolate milk is sold in the gift shop of the Idaho Potato Museum.
San Francisco Examiner -Dec 6, 1987
Longview Daily News - Nov 16, 1990
Posted By: Alex - Tue Sep 01, 2020 -
Comments (2)
Category: Food, 1980s
Rescued by Rover
The first film to star a dog.
And the first to pay its actors!
Posted By: Paul - Tue Sep 01, 2020 -
Comments (0)
Category: Movies, World Records, Dogs, 1900s
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| Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction books such as Elephants on Acid. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1. Chuck Shepherd Chuck is the purveyor of News of the Weird, the syndicated column which for decades has set the gold-standard for reporting on oddities and the bizarre. Our banner was drawn by the legendary underground cartoonist Rick Altergott. Contact Us |
