When Paddington Bear hears a mysterious noise out on the rooftop on Christmas Eve, he manages to save the holiday without even realizing it. His clueless Christmas caper makes him a hero, but he still has marmalade on his mind.
While the John Lewis Christmas ad is designed to touch your heart, the Marks & Spencer Christmas ad is designed to make you laugh -and send you to the theater to watch the new Paddington bear movie. Oh yeah, they want you to shop at Marks & Spencer, too. Somehow, I just can't imagine people in the UK watching Christmas ads from the US as entertainment. -via Metafilter
Let the Christmas advertising season begin! The John Lewis Christmas ad campaign has started. This year's theme is the monster under the bed. Moz the Monster is not only scary, but annoying, too, because he snores, farts, and disrupts a little boy's sleep.
But this is a John Lewis ad, so it can't be scary. The kid finds that when you look for the good in others, even a monster can be a friend. Knowing that will not spoil the twist at the end. This year's ad was directed by Michel Gondry. -via Metafilter
George Lucas once said he labeled the first Star Wars movie "episode IV" because he envisioned a set of three trilogies. He let us think he had the stories for them, even though he didn't at the time. But that original idea of nine movies may well be all there is in the story of the Skywalker family. However, it will be far from the end of Star Wars. Disney has announced that Rian Johnson, the director of The Last Jedi, will be responsible for creating an entirely new trilogy set in the Star Wars universe.
As writer-director of The Last Jedi, Johnson conceived and realized a powerful film of which Lucasfilm and Disney are immensely proud. In shepherding this new trilogy, which is separate from the episodic Skywalker saga, Johnson will introduce new characters from a corner of the galaxy that Star Wars lore has never before explored.
“We all loved working with Rian on The Last Jedi,” said Kathleen Kennedy, president of Lucasfilm. “He’s a creative force, and watching him craft The Last Jedi from start to finish was one of the great joys of my career. Rian will do amazing things with the blank canvas of this new trilogy.”
That's a big show of confidence from Lucasfilm and Disney. There has been no timeline mentioned for the new trilogy, and we still have two more movies in the Skywalker saga to go. -via Uproxx
What’s in a name? Not much, if you believe Shakespeare. On the other hand, if someone’s name makes you laugh, that’s a good thing. Example: we knew a woman named Grace Moak. Said fast, it sounds like “gray smoke.” Funny, right? And memorable. So here are three funny names for three funny critters that you’ll never forget.
WUNDERPUS PHOTOGENICUS
What It Is: A small (just 9–16 inches long) and spectacularly patterned octopus found in the western Pacific Ocean.
There are plenty of things cats can enjoy to celebrate a birthday, even if they have no concept of why one day should be more special than another. However, a day with balloons, ribbons, games, something good to eat, and a nap is a really good day. And Simon's Cat is definitely a party animal!
Simon Tofield made a short but colorful video in anticipation of Simon's Cat (the cartoon) approaching ten years of age. That's still a few months away, but who cares? We'll celebrate anytime!
For the third year in a row, the Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards are back, with more silly-looking animals than ever. Wildlife photographers who were in the right place at the right time bring us images that are crying for funny captions, from motorcycling monkeys to a polar bear looking for her cub.
You know how cows are attracted to music, people, and animals? That they'll follow anything around because their existence is so boring? This is not that.
Joe Millionaire was a reality TV show that aired in 2003 in which a group of woman competed to be chosen to marry a young, hot millionaire. What they didn't know what that it was all fake. The "millionaire" Evan Marriott, although hot, was a construction worker and underwear model. The winner would split a million dollars with Marriot, and maybe they'd find happiness together. Sarah Kozer was the ultimate runner-up, and tells us what went on during the filming of Joe Millionaire.
The premise of this show was supposed to be "A bunch of gold-diggers learn the guy they're swooning over is actually poor!" And then both Evan and the "winning woman" who doesn't care that he's broke would walk home with half a million bucks each. So none of the women could know about that prize money. According to Sarah, the only reward they were promised was jewelry:
"We did realize at a certain point that you received a 'gift' of jewelry if you 'passed' a round. So considering that we weren't being compensated for appearing on the show, the necklaces could've been a motivator to want to get picked. It also went along with their 'romance story' BS, so [it] seemed less skeevy than if we had known all along that there was prize money. They basically sold it as Evan was the big prize, so to speak, and that certainly wasn't a motivator."
According to Sarah, none of the women ever actually bought Evan Marriot as a real rich dude.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi is set to hit theaters December 15. However, Disney will want to have its Christmas toys not only available, but sold out by then. The new alien species in the movie that we're all supposed to love and purchase is the porgs. We got our first look at them back in July. But now we know what porgs look like in their infancy, or maybe we just think we do. The picture above is a toy from a Japanese website depicting baby porgs. You will be forgiven for shuddering. They resemble mastectomy inserts from a distance. Up close, you see they are wrinkled, bodiless heads waiting to be fed. Let's hope they are a little more attractive onscreen. Would you buy these for a Christmas gift for a child? -via Mashable
Michael Klimkowski is comedian who happens to resemble televangelist Joel Osteen. At an Osteen event in Inglewood, California, he showed up dressed as the prosperity gospel advocate and managed to fool a bunch of Osteen fans. And Forum employees, too.
Henke also tells us that the confrontation recorded at the end of the video was with Osteen’s head of security. Though that guy asserts they’re going to the jail, Henke notes the “real police” just thought it was funny. “Especially because Mike, our ‘Joel,’ never really dropped character and kept getting approached by ‘fans’ even as we were detained.”
The stunt was engineered by the sketch comedy group Dabs Den.
From 1996 to about 1998, the Spice Girls were on top of the world. The British singing group sold 85 million records and became the best-selling female group of all time. They rose fast and flamed out quickly. The Spice Girls released three album, the first two of which were blockbusters. Riding on that wave of popularity, they made a feature film. Although it was a box-office hit, the 1997 comedy Spice World became famous for being terrible. Nevertheless, we want to learn more about it.
4. John Cleese turned down a cameo in the movie.
Whether he didn’t want to be associated with the Spice Girls or had scheduling conflicts is unknown but he turned it down regardless.
3. The film actually made Roger Ebert’s “most hated” list.
Now think about this. Ebert made a good living trashing films or talking them up. If he didn’t care enough about a film he said his piece and let it be. But the truly good or bad ones were those that he felt that strongly about.
A new study from the Copenhagen Studies on Asthma in Childhood Research Center (COPSAC) in Denmark has found that having cats around the house can help newborn babies avoid developing asthma. In a study of 377 babies who have mothers with asthma, scientists studied a gene variant (TT) that doubles the chance of developing asthma. They took environmental samples in the home and had mothers fill out surveys over time to try to isolate factors that affect the chances of the child developing asthma. They found that when the home has a cat when the baby is born, the TT variant is not activated.
The result surprised co-author Hans Bisgaard, professor of paediatrics and the head of COPSAC. Not because the results will lead to any new treatments—they will not—but because the study shows that the genes behind a disease can be switched on or off depending on the environment around us.
“For me, this is the core message because it’s a recognition in the direction of how disease occurs. It documents the interplay between genetics and the environment we live in, and in particular that this occurs very early in life, both during pregnancy and in the home,” says Bisgaard.
Comic artist Abby Howard has a door in her kitchen. It's behind the refrigerator, and there's no other place to put the refrigerator, so she doesn't know what's behind the door. To be honest, Howard might know what's behind the door, or it might belong to someone she knows. She didn't say. But the door is real, and it served as an inspiration. She wrote an entire story around it, and it's rather creepy.
When you teach kids to drive, you stress that the top priority is to not hit anything. The second priority is to keep other cars from hitting you. It turns out that a driverless shuttle was good at the former, not so much the latter. The small bus made its debut in Las Vegas Wednesday. It was scheduled to take tourists around the city in a route that circles downtown, but less than an hour after it launched, a semi truck hit it.
The accident was not the fault of the shuttle. The driverless vehicle sustained only minor damage, and none of the eight passengers were injured. -via Jalopnik
Taras Kulakov, or the Crazy Russian Hacker, got a hold of some newfangled alarm clocks that make getting out of bed an ordeal. You know, the kind that require you to actually wake up in order to turn them off. They come in a lot of clever designs now.
Some these would scare the living daylights out of you, but they do the job. However, if you are sleepy and frustrated enough, you could always chuck them out the window. Keep this video handy in case you need to buy a Christmas gift for someone you hate. If you snooze, you lose! And remember, safety is numbern prerty. -via Tastefully Offensive
