Category: Bizarre

Saturday Matinee Halloween Edition – The Ramones, Sally Cruikshank & Oingo Boingo

First recorded in 1976, The Ramones‘ I Don’t Wanna Go Down To The Basement is sort of appropriate.

Sally Cruikshank‘s animations are Betty Boop on acid.
Face like a Frog (1987) includes the Cab Calloway-esque song Don’t Go In The Basement (starts at 02:26 ). In 2017, Cruikshank herself added this to the YouTube comments:

“Danny Elfman composed the track for this film. Period. Copyright mine. Then a year or two later I gave his agents permission to include it on a compilation LP, I guess put out by [David] Geffen. Now they claim I got the music from the album or something. They’re wrong. My film came first. My husband’s going to get into it with Geffen.”

“I don’t always listen to Dead Man’s Party, but when I do so do the neighbors.” – YouTube comment

Oingo Boingo was a standout band of the 1980s, combining ska, punk, jazz & rock, and Dead Man’s Party became a Halloween party standard. According to Wikipedia:

The lyric, “I hear the chauffeur coming to my door / Says there’s room for maybe just one more,” is a reference to “The Bus-Conductor,” a short story by E. F. Benson about a hearse driver, first published in The Pall Mall Magazine in 1906.

Video is from the 1986 movie Back To School. Yeah, 34 years ago…

Happy Halloween, folks!
This year I’m gonna scare half the neighborhood by NOT wearing a mask. Hope you get all the tricks you deserve and all the treats that you don’t.

[Paranoia moons previously posted here. More Halloween-related posts in the archives.]

16 Big Halloweenies

[Some found in here, others found somewhere else.
Related post here.]

16 Little Halloweenies

[Images found all over the damn place. Click on any image to enlarge.]

Spaceman Spiff

[Found in here.]

The .Gif Friday Post No. 655 – Fido Fort, Streaming the Sliders & Skydancer Attack

[Found here, here and here.]

Something Big Stops Here.

[Found here.]

Home Delivery

Sideshow manager carries snakes from a small tent to his trailer.

[Image found here.]

The Fife Cantilever

‘The Fife cantilever’, c 1880s.

Photograph of the construction of the Forth Railway Bridge in Scotland. Undoubtedly Britain’s most famous railway landmark, The Forth Bridge was opened by HRH The Prince of Wales in March 1890 following eight years of building, and completed the east coast railway route between London and Aberdeen. It spans the Firth of Forth, joining the city of Edinburgh and Fife in Scotland. The bridge was designed by Sir John Fowler and Sir Benjamin Baker, and built by engineer Sir William Arrol. It contains almost 54,000 tons of steel and when completed, the 1.5 mile long bridge was the biggest in the world. It is the world’s oldest cantilever railway bridge and remains in use to this day.

[Image from Feral Irishman‘s awesome rotating banner. Description from here.]

Haruspicational Hot Links

All Shook Up, Ry Cooder (1987) Album: Get Rhythm, Warner RecordsCooder took the 1957 Elvis classic and made it all sweaty ‘n’ swampy.

Cough it up.

Zinc ionophones.

Mr. Sunshine Lollipops.

Cool interactive 3D model.

Two full minutes of St. Bernards.

Janet Nguyen’s story. (Here’s her home page.)

Dental training robot creeps me right out [via].

“The people who are their own spiritual directors have fools for disciples.”  Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090 -1153 AD)

Just in time for Halloween: Candy corn (and candy carrots & candy green beans) that taste like the real thing.

[Top image from here. Screamin’ Jay Hawkins put a spell on you.]

From the Archives: 1 year ago. 5 years ago. 10 years ago.

The .Gif Friday Post No. 654 – Bottle Washer, Snow What & Mentos Russian Roulette

[Top & bottom .gifs found here and here; misplaced the source for Snow Way.]