1960s
Octopus Wrestling
According to wikipedia, octopus wrestling "involves a diver grappling with a large octopus in shallow water and dragging it to the surface."Popular Mechanics (May 1966) provides some more details:
Posted By: Alex - Sat Feb 23, 2013 -
Comments (7)
Category: Sports, Wrestling, 1960s
Early Solar-Powered Car
A 1912 Baker Electric car that was retrofitted with a solar panel by Charles Escoffery for the International Rectifier Corp. back in 1960. The panel cost $20,000. (I don't know what that would be in present-day money, but it wouldn't be cheap.) With the panel, the Baker could run at 20 mph for three hours. International Rectifier hoped to soon be churning out "noiseless, smogless" solar cars for $5000 each. It's 53 years later now, and we're still waiting. Source: Newsweek (Mar 7, 1960) & M3GA.
Posted By: Alex - Sat Feb 16, 2013 -
Comments (4)
Category: Inventions, 1960s, Cars
Follies of the Madmen #199
Special smokes for wimps!
Posted By: Paul - Thu Feb 14, 2013 -
Comments (2)
Category: Business, Advertising, Products, Television, Tobacco and Smoking, Wimps, Milquetoasts and Cowards, 1960s
International Times
IT was a London-based underground newspaper founded in 1966. (Wikipedia entry here.)
Their online archive provides lots of groovy browsing.
Posted By: Paul - Sun Feb 10, 2013 -
Comments (1)
Category: Newspapers, Bohemians, Beatniks, Hippies and Slackers, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s
Gary Usher: Driven Insane
The YouTube user who goes by the handle "Mr. Teenagedreams" has nearly 2000 rare TEEN AND WHITE DOO-WOP videos up at his channel. Some of them are delightfully weird and demented, but all are utterly captivating glimpses of a strange and remote, now vanished era.
More on Gary Usher here.
Posted By: Paul - Thu Jan 31, 2013 -
Comments (2)
Category: Eccentrics, Music, Outsider Art, Teenagers, 1950s, 1960s
New from Cyriak
Bonobo - 'Cirrus' (Official Video) from Ninja Tune on Vimeo.
More on the visual artist here.
Posted By: Paul - Mon Jan 28, 2013 -
Comments (3)
Category: Movies, Music, Technology, Twins, Lookalikes & Doppelgangers, Surrealism, 1950s, 1960s
Weird Snowmen
Evil snowmen is a horror trope that had never occurred to me. But I'm sure it's in one Stephen King novel or another already.
Anthropomorphic icicles is another notion I was blissfully unfamiliar with. Can they really run far enough and fast enough to the north to escape Spring?
Posted By: Paul - Mon Jan 28, 2013 -
Comments (3)
Category: Anthropomorphism, Destruction, Evil, Seasonal, Cartoons, 1930s, 1960s, Fictional Monsters
Les Baxter
It's never not a good time to contemplate the miracle of Les Baxter and his music.
Posted By: Paul - Thu Jan 03, 2013 -
Comments (2)
Category: Music, Space-age Bachelor Pad & Exotic, 1950s, 1960s
Follies of the Madmen #196
This is a particularly egregious cut and paste job, even for the pre-Photoshop era. Never mind the far-fetched association of lady astronauts and booze.
Posted By: Paul - Wed Dec 26, 2012 -
Comments (4)
Category: Business, Advertising, Products, Spaceflight, Astronautics, and Astronomy, Stereotypes and Cliches, 1960s, Alcohol
| Who We Are |
|---|
| Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes. 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. Contact Us |