pigpencil

Q: Who can help Batman stop bad guys
and help babies sleep at the same time?

A: Robin the cradle.     (rimshot)

And in case that joke isn’t bad enough for you, Kara’s latest Confessions of a TV-holic entry examines the “Pow,” “Bam” and “Oof” behind the campy 60s TV show, Batman. Holy hole in a donut!

But wait, there’s more! How much would you pay for a Confessions of a TV-holic column like this?

No CODs accepted. Operators are standing by!

Not all Giants fared as well as New York’s football team did this past Sunday. In fact, Giants have a stigma attached to them nearly as large as their heads, as these seven examples will reveal:

1. That’s One Big Link!

In 1961, Jimmy Dean introduced the world to the giant known as “Big Bad John” via his #1 hit song of the same name. Such was decency in our nation at the time that the radio wouldn’t play the version that ended by calling John “a hell of a man.” Instead, a second rendition referred to him as “a big, big man.” Mind you, this was decades before anyone thought of putting parental advisories on recordings, or releasing “clean” and “dirty” versions of singles. Dean also became a giant in the sausage world by investing nearly all of his music proceeds into a pork business. (Yes, he’s that “Jimmy Dean” too.)

2. Some Giants are Bright

Giant Stars should enjoy being big, ’cause they won’t be around very long. While our Sun, for instance, will stay bright and yellow another 5 billion years or so, it will then expand into a red giant for, oh, 500 million years or so. It will actually grow larger than the Earth’s orbit, meaning we’re not going to be around to enjoy the show. But once it’s done puffing out, it will shrink to a white dwarf – about the size of what would be Earth if it were still there. So if you’re going to clean your basement, now’s the time.

(more…)

Sandy recently submitted a psuedo-book-review to mentalfloss.com, gathering information about salt additives from Simon Quellen Field’s Why There’s Antifreeze in Your Toothpaste. (And yes, it’s much more interesting than it sounds, we think.)

UPDATE: This article was linked by CNN.com in July 2008.

Penned by Kara, this mentalfloss.com article celebrates seven classic 1960s TV appearances by musical acts ranging from Chad & Jeremy to The Seeds.

For mentalfloss.com this Hallowe’en, Sandy has put together a collection of his favorite questions-and-answers about Frankenstein’s monster. (His editor insisted on posting the article as being about “Frankenstein” instead of the more correct “Frankenstein’s monster,” but that’s what editors do.)

Anyway, the article received several favorable comments and continued to receive hits well after the holiday had ended. And yes, it’ll probably be posted again in October 2008!

Here‘s Sandy’s latest article, “A Disturbingly Long List of Motorbike Crash-Ups,” as seen on mentalfloss.com.

In this sobering piece, Sandy presents “A Surprisingly Long List of People Who’ve Attempted Suicide.” What’s even more frightening? These are just celebrities who tried to kill themselves and failed. And it’s most definitely an incomplete list.

UPDATE: This article caused a bit of a stir and was tracked by several blogs, resulting in more than 90,000 reads on mentalfloss.com.

In this quick follow-up to the Quarter Backs Quiz on mentalfloss.com, Sandy takes a look in your pocket. (Careful, now.) Actually, he did some research to find out if any of the older coins you might find in your everyday change are really worth holding on to.

In a nutshell: it’s not bloody likely.