After Meco Monardo created a hit disco version of the Star Wars soundtrack in 1977, the next album he planned was Meco's Time Machine. He explained, "We'll visit eight different time periods of Earth's history and observe events. Those events will be translated into music. We'll start before the dawn of man, in prehistoric times, and we'll end in New York in 1980."
But it doesn't seem like that album ever came out. Instead, Meco spent his entire career producing disco versions of movie soundtracks, including Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Star Trek, and An American Werewolf in London.
Plenty more of his stuff on YouTube, if you're interested.
Nick Belluso, while running for governor of Georgia in 1978, came up with the idea of hypnotizing the voters to vote for him. So he hired a hypnotist and created a TV ad which went as follows:
Candidate: This is Nick Belluso. In the next ten seconds you will be hit with a tremendously hypnotic force. You may wish to turn away. Without further ado let me introduce to you the hypnogenecist of mass hypnosis, the Reverend James G. Masters. Take us away, James.
Hypnotist: Do not be afraid. I am placing the name of Nick Belluso in your subconscious mind. You will remember this. You will vote on Election Day. You will vote Nick Belluso for governor. You will remember this. You will vote on Election Day. You will vote Nick Belluso for governor.
However, Belluso's scheme was foiled when every TV station but one refused to run the ad, fearing the hypnosis might actually work, which would open them up to potential legal liabilities.
So Belluso lost the election. Though he subsequently became a perennial candidate running for many offices, including President of the United States in 1980.
You can see most of the ad in the clip below.
Also worth noting: Belluso claimed he had been endorsed by "The Force."
In our untiring quest to find the most boring material ever filmed or written, which began with "Timber Bridge Inspection," reposted below, we bring you the entire contents of a scintillating pamphlet.
In 1971, eight tons of these biscuits, or crackers, caused the floor to collapse at the South Carolina State House:
"All of a sudden the walls of the State House began to shake and then the whole world fell in," said Woody Brooks, whose office is next to the storage room...
"We know there were some crackers back there," Brooks said, "but who would have thought there were eight tons of them."
In 1974, the public library in Upper Arlington, Ohio added scratch-and-sniff scents to its card catalog. They called it the "Stick Your Nose in the Card Catalogue" program.
The idea was that the card in the catalog would have a scent, and then the book on the shelf would have a matching scent. So you could find your books by smell. There were about 60 scents in total, including apple, chocolate, garlic, lemon, roses, root beer, leather, pizza, orange, strawberry, candles, pine, cheddar cheese, clover, and smoke.
I was curious what became of the scented catalog, so I emailed the library and asked. The reply came just a few minutes later:
Unfortunately, the UA Library no longer has this catalog, and has not had a physical card catalog since around August 1989. We aren't sure what exactly happened to the scented catalog, but we guess that the cards eventually lost their scent over time, but remained part of the catalog until it was decommissioned.
And they also emailed me a news clipping about the catalog (in extended, below) from the local Upper Arlington paper.
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.