Robo Show and Flower Planet

Two features from the 1990 World's Fair in Japan.

The opening few minutes are a press release for the company that created the exhibit. "Robo Show" begins at the 5:40 mark, and "Flower Planet" at minute 13:00. State-of-the-art stuff for thirty years ago.

Posted By: Paul - Thu Feb 11, 2021 - Comments (0)
Category: Fairs, Amusement Parks, and Resorts, Robots, Cartoons, Special Effects, 1990s, Asia

The Sins of the Children

Article source.

WASHINGTON POST coverage here.

Here is the official write-up of the case and its outcome.

Posted By: Paul - Wed Jan 13, 2021 - Comments (1)
Category: Lawsuits, Parents, Teenagers, 1990s, Pregnancy

Stockpiling toilet paper - 1993

July 1993: A pro-timber group urged consumers to stockpile toilet paper in order to deplete store supplies and thereby raise awareness of the importance of wood and paper products. "You can help by buying one or two (or twenty!) cases of toilet paper," its newsletter declared.

Little did they know that, 27 years later, a pandemic would transform America into a nation of toilet paper stockpilers!

Longview Daily News - July 15, 1993

Posted By: Alex - Mon Jan 11, 2021 - Comments (3)
Category: Bathrooms, 1990s

“Pregnancy forces granny to quit work at age 101”

In October 1990, the Sun ran a story about a 101-year old woman who supposedly had to quit her job as a newspaper carrier because she got pregnant after being seduced by a reclusive millionaire on her route. The story, of course, was totally false. However, the Sun also ran a picture with the article of a real woman, 96-year-old Nellie Mitchell of Arkansas.

Mitchell sued, charging invasion of privacy (she had never given them permission to use her photo) and emotional distress, because she now had to endure people asking her when the baby was due. During the trial, the editor of the Sun explained that they had needed a picture to go along with the fake story, and had found in their archive a photo of Mitchell taken in 1986. They had used it, assuming she must have been dead by then. And dead people can't sue for damages.

Mitchell won and was awarded $150,000 in compensatory damages and $850,000 in punitive damages.

Baxter Bulletin - Oct 19, 1993

Posted By: Alex - Sun Dec 20, 2020 - Comments (7)
Category: Elderly and Seniors, Journalism, Lawsuits, 1990s

Space Race

This is what the passengers would see on a 1990s amusement park ride dubbed "Space Race." It's intriguing to compare state-of-the-art then to now.




Contemporary article on the ride here.

Posted By: Paul - Mon Nov 30, 2020 - Comments (2)
Category: Fairs, Amusement Parks, and Resorts, Spaceflight, Astronautics, and Astronomy, Special Effects, 1990s

Canned Roadkill

1990: T. Roy Gentry began selling cans that he advertised as containing possum run over by a cattle truck 2 miles south of Ozark, Missouri. The cans actually contained potted meat from a local grocery store.

Newsweek - Mar 19, 1990

Kansas City Times - Feb 20, 1990

Posted By: Alex - Wed Nov 18, 2020 - Comments (3)
Category: Food, 1990s, Pranks

Teacher fired for in-class castration

June 1992: Dick W. Pirkey Jr., a teacher at Harmony High School in Texas, was fired from his job after a student in his animal husbandry class castrated a pig with his mouth. Pirkey acknowledged that he had described such a procedure to his students, but insisted that the 17-year-old had performed the procedure without his permission and before he could stop it.

Seven months elapsed between the incident and Pirkey's termination. Explaining the delay, the School Superintendent admitted that when the board had first heard about the in-class oral castration they had thought it was a joke and that someone was trying to play a trick on them.

Pirkey appealed his termination, noting that oral castration was described in a state-approved textbook, and that it was also "routinely practiced throughout the state, but not in our locale, and is normally performed on sheep."

However, his firing was ultimately upheld by the State Commissioner of Education who pointed out that instead of stepping in to stop the student from performing the procedure, Pirkey had actually taken pictures of him as he did it. In fact, Pirkey even took a picture of the student "holding the testicle overhead in a victory stance."

Tyler Morning Telegraph - June 20, 1992

Longview News Journal - Feb 26, 1994

Posted By: Alex - Tue Sep 15, 2020 - Comments (3)
Category: Animals, Farming, Education, 1990s

Nocturnal Butterflies

Posted By: Paul - Thu Sep 10, 2020 - Comments (0)
Category: Art, Surrealism, Cartoons, 1990s

The Life Coffin

The idea behind this coffin, created and sold by Tibbetts Woodworking of Windsor Massachusetts during the early 1990s, was that you would buy it while you were still alive and healthy — use it as a bookshelf, wine rack, or display case — and then get buried in it. It cost $365 for knotty eastern white pine, or $505 for oak or cherry. Below is text from the brochure:


Source: Harper's Magazine - March 1991

Posted By: Alex - Fri Aug 14, 2020 - Comments (3)
Category: Death, 1990s

Burger King’s Secret Ingredient

It's people!!!

Tallahassee Democrat Sun - Feb 28, 1999

Posted By: Alex - Thu Jul 30, 2020 - Comments (6)
Category: Cannibalism, Advertising, Junk Food, 1990s