Thank you all for playing, you're making this very difficult for me.
There may be a winner, but we'll see what's here in the morning.
I would love to use #145!

Thanks for playing, everyone! It's been a very difficult decision. I'll have the winner to Alex within the hour.

Ha! You are all making this very difficult for me. Thank you, and keep it up.

The winner has been decided! I'll let Alex announce it. A big huge thanks to everyone who entered, this was a lot of fun.

Hi! Ape Lad here. I'll be deciding around Noon eastern today and will email Alex with the results. You people have made this very difficult for me, and for that I thank you.

Andrew Loomis' books are incredibly important, and I heartily endorse them. It's a shame they are not still in print.

I think David Letterman plays that clip from time to time. It never gets old. Maybe that's the secret to cat washing: hire a monkey.

I think a strong case can be made for comic books as an influence on Star Wars as well, the Green Lantern Corps and Jack Kirby's New Gods in particular:
GLC: a group of universe-trotting cops who share a similar weapon and travel in pairs. Their bosses live on a central planet and are tiny and blue and wear robes. Their arch-enemies were prototypes for Green Lanterns but instead want to hunt them down and destroy them.
New Gods: the main bad-guy in this series was named Darkseid. Sound familiar? His arch enemy was his son, who lived on the edenic planet of New Genesis. Darkseid lived on the machine planet Apokolips which features a smoldering circular pit or two.

Early 90's nothing. This crew is still very much around. Though they seldom show up in commercials, they still festoon the Kids Club mailers and kids meal sacks from time to time.

Slices of glass?? Scissors anyone?

Will one of you please just try it? He says in the comments on youtube to use thin glass like from a frame. Go go go!
btw complaining about online video quality is like complaining about the weather.

There will be no satisfactory answer till someone tries it.

It's a beautiful day in the neigborhood, a beautiful day in the neighborhood...

This is from the 14 hour documentary that is going to air on discovery soon, except with Sigourney Weaver doing the narration. If you get EW, there was a preview dvd in it a couple weeks ago. It looks absolutely fascinating.

Oingo Boingo fans should recognize the second image from the left. They used it on buttons and other merch in the 80s.