Month: December 2016

People are strangely fascinated by what other people eat, and even more so when that other person is the president. Here are 10 Christmas dinner menus from presidents past and present.

1. GEORGE WASHINGTON // 1790

Christmas at Mount Vernon was no small affair. In addition to Washington’s super-tasty eggnog, the first president served onion soup, oysters, broiled herring, Yorkshire pudding, roast suckling pig, turkey with chestnut stuffing, boiled beef with horseradish sauce, Virginia ham, lima beans, acorn squash, baked celery with almonds, hominy pudding, candied sweet potatoes, cantaloupe pickles, spiced cranberries, and mincemeat, apple, and cherry pies. There were more desserts, including blancmange, jellied plums, snowballs (whatever those were), ice cream, and plum pudding, plus an assortment of fruit, nuts, cheese and egg-free alcoholic beverages.

2. GROVER CLEVELAND // 1887

After a hearty breakfast of oranges, boiled rice, and salt mackerel, Grover Cleveland and his family and guests were treated to an elaborate dinner menu featuring oysters on the half shell, game soup, boiled fish, roast goose, applesauce, potatoes, parsnips, turnips, more boiled rice, stewed onions, lobster salad, duck, plum pudding, vanilla ice cream, mince pie, salted almonds, various fruit, candies and cookies, and coffee. The White House Christmas Plum Pudding recipe is a monster of culinary proportions: it begins with a cup of beef suet followed by at least 16 more ingredients, 12 steps of preparation, four hours of boiling, and then a brandy sauce recipe to top it off that calls for “a piece of butter as large as an egg.” Though he never found himself stuck in the presidential clawfoot tub, it might be worth noting that President Cleveland was quite large.

3. THEODORE ROOSEVELT // 1907

Whatever else the Roosevelts were planning for their Christmas feast in 1907, they probably didn’t expect the shipment that arrived from Helen Longstreet, a well-known Southerner. She hand-fed a pair of possums for months—”mostly persimmons”—for the sole purpose of gifting them to the president and his family. Longstreet, a postmistress in Gainesville, Georgia, wrote on the box, “These o’possums surrendered near the Wren’s Nest, Atlanta, both contending smilingly for the honor of furnishing the Christmas dinner for the American Prince and his family.” It’s hard to imagine anyone would get away with the shipment of animals or that “American Prince” line today without a surprise visit from men with badges, but it’s a sweet story, if you’re into eating possum.

4. FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT // 1941

As the United States celebrated Christmas for the first time as combatants in WWII (and while still climbing out of the Great Depression), the dinner menu at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue was pared down a bit to reflect the country’s wartime sacrifice. FDR and guest of honor Winston Churchill dined on clear soup, thin toast, turkey and dressing, and beans, and of course a Christmas plum pudding made an appearance as well.

5. HARRY S. TRUMAN // 1947

The Trumans served what was probably the first roll-free White House Christmas dinner: the menu was “minus bread or rolls and butter, in keeping with the national food conservation program,” and included only tomato consommé, curled celery, assorted olives, roast turkey, dressing, giblet gravy, cranberry jelly, mashed potatoes, asparagus, the now-infamous plum pudding, fruit salad, and coffee.

6. DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER // 1960

Details are scant about the Eisenhowers’ holiday menus, but one fact is known: in 1960, the family received a 42-pound turkey and a gallon of oysters for the affair, courtesy of a Mr. Arthur Briscoe. To put that bird into perspective, the average 5-year-old child weighs around 40 pounds.

7. RICHARD NIXON // 1973

Things were not looking great for Nixon’s presidency in 1973, what with that whole Watergate thing. The Nixons had a very small, private dinner in 1973 with just a few family and friends, some turkey, dressing, pumpkin pie, and cranberry sauce. Eight months later, Nixon became the first (and only) president to resign the office.

8. BILL CLINTON // 1993

Since the Clintons were already in the practice of hosting Christmas dinner for both their families, they put out quite a spread to include everyone’s favorites: turkey and ham, bread stuffing and cornbread stuffing, sweet potato casserole and mashed potatoes, green beans, broccoli, ambrosia, a cranberry mold, giblet gravy, a relish tray with green onions, watermelon pickles and olives, and pumpkin, pecan, apple, and cherry pies. And on top of all of that, champagne, wine, eggnog, syllabub, and sweet potato punch (from a recipe clipped from an Arkansas newspaper).

9. GEORGE W. BUSH // 2007

The Bushes enjoyed a relatively low-key Christmas lunch at Camp David in 2007. On the menu? Turkey, dressing, green beans, sweet potatoes, fruit salad, Parker House rolls, pumpkin and pecan pies, and red velvet cake.

10. BARACK OBAMA // 2011

In 2011, the Obamas celebrated in Hawaii with steak, potatoes, green beans and pie. His menu in 2010 was slightly more traditional, though just as simple: turkey, string beans, dressing, and mac and cheese.

This post originally appeared in 2011.

L.L. Bean, the outdoor goods company known for cozy slippers, flannel wear, and nostalgia-inducing catalogs, has stayed surprisingly relevant across its 100 years in business. Its original Bean Boot has become a fashion statement of late, while its camping gear remains a go-to for millions of outdoor enthusiasts. Each year, more than three million people visit L.L. Bean’s flagship store in Freeport, Maine, helping fuel the company’s $1.6 billion in annual sales.

And it all started with a man who was tired of wet feet.

Leon Leonwood Bean—”L.L.” to everyone who knew him—was an avid hunter and fisherman who never envisioned himself running a business, much less a multimillion dollar company. All he knew was that he had a persistent problem: Every time he went moose hunting in the boggy Maine wilderness, his feet got soaked. He tried out different pairs of boots, but the result was the same each time. So finally, he decided to do something about it.

The 40-year-old Bean, who left school after the eighth grade, was a career journeyman. He’d worked at a local creamery, sold soap door-to-door, and after his brother Otho opened a dry goods store, L.L. managed it. But Bean had never sewn a stitch in his life, and had zero experience making shoes. So he paid a local cobbler to make a special boot that attached a leather ankle support onto the hard rubber bottoms of galoshes. Bean called his creation the Maine Hunting Shoe.

The boot’s combination of a sturdy base with a lighter support structure was perfect for hunters who needed to walk long distances through adverse conditions. And it was a pretty novel concept for the early 1900s. After completing a successful hunting trip in them, Bean ordered 100 pairs of Maine Hunting Shoes.

To sell the shoes, he drafted an advertising flyer positioning himself as an expert outfitter:

Outside of your gun, nothing is so important to your outfit as your footwear. You cannot expect success hunting deer or moose if your feet are not properly dressed. The Maine Hunting Shoe is designed by a hunter who has tramped the Maine woods for the past 18 years. They are light as a pair of moccasins with the protection of heavy hunting boots.

Bean’s next step was a stroke of genius that, in hindsight, predicted his future success. Gathering all the names and addresses of Maine hunting license holders, he sent his flyer to those residing out of state. His thinking: These individuals were more likely to be novices in need of expert advice. In no time, he sold his first 100 pairs.

Bean’s brilliant marketing would quickly sour, however, when the leather and rubber components of the boots began to come apart. One by one, customers sent their busted-up Maine Hunting Shoes back to him seeking a refund. The final tally was 90 out of the 100 pairs—a devastating failure rate for a new venture with limited resources.

Unbowed, Bean refunded everyone’s money, borrowed $400, traveled to Boston and met with representatives from the United States Rubber Company, who supplied him with new bottoms that would hold the stitching better. After returning to Maine, Bean manufactured the updated boots and sent pairs to the previously dissatisfied customers, free of charge. They were delighted.

This focus on service and quality, supported by a money-back guarantee, would become the backbone of L.L. Bean, the company. This sounds like PR boilerplate, but back in 1912 things like product safety and reliability were far from guaranteed—and it paid dividends for the tiny outfitter from Freeport. As word of mouth grew, L.L. Bean gained more customers, many of whom wrote to request the new and improved Maine Hunting Shoe. Bean sent out the orders, and made sure to slip in a brochure filled with folksy pitches he’d written for his growing lineup of products, which included zippered duffel bags, chamois shirts, moccasins, and fishing lures.

In addition to reliable products, L.L. Bean got a boost from the expanding U.S. Postal Service, which started its parcel service in the early 1900s. In 1917, Bean built a factory and shipment center over the town’s post office. With the help of another brother, Guy, who was the local postmaster, he built a system of chutes and elevators that quickly routed order slips and packages. As these deliveries sped across the northeast and throughout the country, the name L.L. Bean became synonymous with outdoor adventure.

Bean also benefited from the growing number of automobile owners, many of whom began driving up to Maine for fishing trips and family outings. They’d make a special stop at the L.L. Bean showroom, positioned next door to the factory, where they’d often find the company’s affable founder eager to outfit them for their trip.

A few key endorsements fueled further growth for the company: The MacMillan Arctic Expedition of 1925 used its boots, and celebrities like Jack Dempsey and Babe Ruth were frequent customers. In time, names like Franklin Roosevelt, John Wayne, and Ernest Hemingway would sing the company’s praises. But it was L.L. Bean the man who figured most prominently into the company’s early success. According to numerous accounts, Bean was a born salesman who excelled at building relationships with his customers. He had his hands in every aspect of the business, too. He tested every product himself, often taking long lunch breaks to hike and fish using the latest gear. He also controlled everything from the company’s merchandising to ordering to the designing and writing of the company’s seasonal catalogs.

The L.L. Bean catalog, which began as a simple four-page flyer, quickly grew into a 51-page guide stuffed with clothing, shoes, sporting goods, and home furnishings. Not only did it showcase the products for sale, it conveyed the personality of the company, embodied by Bean himself. “It is no longer necessary for you to experiment with dozens of flies to determine the few that will catch fish,” he wrote in a 1927 catalog. “We have done that experimenting for you.” Friendly, helpful, and a little eccentric, the catalogs made people feel like they were buying from a lovable, excitable uncle rather than a company.

That lovable uncle, though, was also a savvy businessman who relished his role at the top. In his book L.L. Bean: The Making of An American Icon, Leon Gorman, L.L.’s grandson and former head of the company, recalled one executive flourish Bean put on display in the Freeport store:

“I was always struck that, near the cashier station in the retail store, L.L. had put up a big formal portrait of himself in a pin-striped suit. It was incongruous among all the snowshoes, fishing and hunting gear, and other outdoors paraphernalia—certainly not the image people had of this country uncle running a little catalog operation up in the woods of Maine.”

Customer loyalty kept L.L. Bean thriving through the Depression. By 1937, the company had reached more than $1 million in annual sales. Its mail-order service expanded as the catalog grew in size. Now customers could buy everything from business shirts and barn jackets to pocket knives and swivel-head duck decoys. In 1942, L.L. traveled to Washington, where he advised military leaders on cold-weather outfits for troops. The company would end up supplying special boots known as “shoepacs” to the war effort. By the 1950s, L.L. Bean had become a household name.

For years, the company enjoyed sales growth of 25 percent and higher. By 1960, however, that growth had slowed considerably. The competition had caught up to L.L. Bean’s pricing and product quality. And the expansion of retail stores across the country offered a more hands-on buying experience for consumers. Bean, who by this time was approaching 90 years old and was still running the company, was behind the times when it came to manufacturing and marketing, too. His Freeport factory was a tangle of inefficiencies, and relied on an aging, part-time work force that wasn’t keeping up with order volume. In an era when print and television advertising was rapidly evolving, L.L. Bean could no longer rely on the hard work and folksy appeal of its founder to move product.

Bean would stay on as the company head until his death in 1967, at the age of 94. At that time, Gorman, a Bowdoin graduate and Naval Reservist who Bean hired in 1961 as treasurer, took over, becoming only the second person to lead a business that was more than 50 years old.

The company eventually caught up with the times. Gorman increased L.L. Bean’s advertising budget, made its pricing more competitive, streamlined its factory operations, and expanded retail locations throughout the northeast. But it also kept much of the original DNA that gave the L.L. Bean its identity, like the catalog and the Freeport outlet, which features a giant statue of Bean’s famous Maine Hunting Shoe (size 451).

For a company that prides itself on extreme customer service, they have one advantage many other companies can’t claim: The Freeport outlet stays open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and never locks its doors. This practice hails back to 1951, when Bean, after years of agreeably waking up in the wee hours to outfit hunters and fishermen (the store’s doorbell had a sign over it that read, “Ring once a minute until clerk appears”), decided to keep the outlet open all hours.

Over the past 65 years, the Freeport store has remained constantly open, with one exception: February 5, 1967, the day of L.L. Bean’s funeral.

In the movies, private investigators are often depicted as gun-toting outlaws who get results the police can’t by knocking down doors and shaking down suspects. In reality, licensed PIs don’t usually have to nurse any broken knuckles. They tackle insurance fraud, infidelity, and corporate impropriety by diligently combing through records and trailing persons of interest, using experience garnered from backgrounds in law enforcement, loss prevention, or the military.

That doesn’t mean they don’t have to occasionally go undercover, or think fast when they’ve been spotted. Check out these 12 lesser-known facts about what it’s like to be a detective for hire.

1. THEY WORK UNDERCOVER.

Slipping into a new job for investigative purposes isn’t limited to law enforcement. Jordan Smith, vice president of investigative operations at Pilum Defense Agency in Boulder, Colorado, says his firm frequently pursues cases relating to corporate or business fraud by getting one of their PIs hired at the company to see what’s going on. “If you’re a company with a retail location that’s missing deposits, we can go in and see what’s happening for ourselves,” he says. “Right now, we have someone at a hospital to see who might be stealing prescription drugs. Sometimes we can send a certified fraud examiner to work as an accountant.” The best part? “We can get paid the employee rate as well as for the investigative work we do.”

2. BEING CATFISHED? THEY CAN HELP.

Online dating has been a boon for PIs: people intertwined in internet romances sometimes begin to have suspicions about whether the person they’re corresponding with is telling them the truth. “They’re wondering if the person is who they say they are,” says Brendan Burke, a PI with Gilliam Burke Investigations in Edmonton, Alberta. “It gets to the point where they begin asking for money. We had one case where someone was claiming he owned businesses and properties he didn’t. Typically, the client is an older woman who’s divorced and looking for attention. They want to believe. But if you think you’re being scammed, you probably are.”

3. THEY PEE IN BOTTLES.

A key element of surveillance work—typically done to observe behavior like infidelity, or unwarranted physical exertion in the case of worker’s compensation—is remaining undetected. That means not getting out of a parked car constantly, and handling personal business during a typical 12-hour spy shift any way you can. When it comes to bathroom behavior, Smith says, “You need to go before you get there. But we’ll bring a pee bottle.”

For number twos? “We just hold it. I’ve never not held it.”

4. THEY’LL GO DUMPSTER DIVING.

Despite having a wealth of information available both online and at public records locations, detectives sometimes find their best resource is a trash can. “Once something is thrown away, we can collect it,” Burke says. “It depends on your local municipality. But we’ve had success with it. With one child custody case, we were able to find evidence of drug use—crack pipes and powders.” And yes, it’s gross. “We use face masks with some Vicks rubbed into it.”

5. THEY’LL CREATE FAKE FACEBOOK ACCOUNTS TO CHECK YOU OUT.

For intel, nothing beats “friending” a case subject on Facebook. Since subjects probably won’t accept a request from a PI, some opt for creating fake accounts. “It’s safe to say most of us have a few different accounts,” says Skyler Crowley, a private investigator in Florida. “Some guys like blondes, some guys like redheads. Whatever gets us in. My fake accounts are exponentially more popular than me.”

6. THEY CAN FIND OUT HOW MUCH MONEY YOU HAVE.

Depending on their location, it might be permissible for PIs to get access to your bank accounts—not to manage your funds, but to find out exactly how much money you have to see if you might be withholding assets during a divorce or other litigation. “It’s a trade secret, but we do have ways of finding out where someone has an account and how much money is in it,” Smith says. “It’s generally not admissible in court, but it’s info we’re allowed to give to attorneys.”

7. THEY GET ASKED TO INVESTIGATE THE PARANORMAL.

Every so often, someone will confuse Burke for a Ghostbuster. “The most unusual request, I think, was from someone who thought their TV was haunted,” he says. “That’s … well outside of what we do.”

8. SOCIAL MEDIA IS LIKE ONE GIANT DATABASE.

Having a social media profile is probably bad news if you’re trying to stay off a PI’s radar. “It’s a gold mine of information,” Smith says. “People like to document their entire life. I’ve seen people who were supposedly ‘injured’ at work posting pictures of exercising. I’ve also been able to figure out what vehicles a person owns because of photos online.” And remember, even when you delete something it might still be retrievable. “Nothing just goes away,” Smith says.

9. THERE’S A TRICK TO FOLLOWING CARS.

Non-paranoid people aren’t generally suspicious of someone following them, but there’s a good way to avoid detection when PIs want to track a car on the road. “When we have to follow people, we use two drivers,” Smith says. “That way, they’re not seeing the same car behind them all the time.”

10. CLIENTS AREN’T ALWAYS FORTHCOMING.

Sometimes PIs get hired for jobs without getting the full story. “One guy called me at midnight for me to do surveillance that night on his house because he was out of town and his teenage daughter was home alone,” Cowley says. “I thought it was very weird and last minute but I wasn’t going to turn down the job. He called me every 10 minutes until 4 am. Eventually he asked me to get out of the car and sneak up to the windows to see if another man was with his daughter. That’s when I realized something more was going on there. It turns out the man was separated from his wife and was extremely jealous of her new boyfriend. He wanted me to watch them. I said no.”

11. THEY HAVE INFORMANTS.

Some PIs have a good enough rap to convince some of your associates that informing on you is in their best interests. Once, Smith was having trouble getting information on a woman who had custody of her children and spent most of her day in her apartment. “I was able to convince her landlord to call me two to three times a day with information,” Smith says. “It resulted in custody going to the father.”

12. SOME OF THEM AREN’T CRAZY ABOUT THE PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR LABEL.

Some detectives might not tell you they’re detectives, using terms like “legal investigator” instead to help ward off any stereotypes from pop culture. “Some PIs I know don’t like to use the term because there’s a certain image of being shady, like a Philip Marlowe character,” Burke says. “But I find that most people think it’s interesting. It’s nothing I shy away from. I operate legally and ethically, and I’m proud of the work that I do.”

All images courtesy of iStock.

Next to a house, buying a motor vehicle is going to be one of the largest purchases you’re ever going to make—especially when the sales price keeps creeping up from the number displayed on the car window. Dealers use every opportunity to up-sell consumers on additional safety or entertainment features, rust-proofing, and extended warranties.

Whether an in-seat DVD player is worth it is subjective. But should you consider adding extra repair coverage to a brand-new car?

Most new vehicles are covered for their first 36,000 miles or three years miles on the road, with engine and transmission warranties extending up to 100,000 miles or 10 years. (These figures can vary depending on manufacturer: Always check the fine print.) At the point of sale, dealers will often offer to extend the life of the warranty under many of the same terms, or to tack on additional coverage for repairs not included under the manufacturer’s terms for hundreds or thousands of dollars more. Essentially, an extended warranty offers a longer peace-of-mind period than what comes with the car off the lot.

If you’re prone to worrying, it might be worthwhile. Otherwise, some statistics point to a very uncertain return on investment. A 2013 Consumer Reports survey of 12,000 readers found that 55 percent of respondents never had to use their coverage during the period their vehicle was protected. Those that did usually had repair bills that were less than the total sum of the warranty’s cost, meaning they still lost money.

Warranty terms can also be problematic: You might be restricted to certain locations, or stumble upon an issue that isn’t covered. When discussing a warranty with a dealer, it’s a good idea to get the terms in writing to read over when you’re out of the pressurized atmosphere of a showroom. If you like to tinker with or modify cars, then you may also void the coverage.

The warranty may also be worth it to you if you feel that an inflated car loan beats the risk of high repair bills, or if you enjoy certain towing, tire repair, or car loan perks. With more and more cars relying on electronic components, diagnosing problems can get expensive. But a better idea might simply be to look for makes and models that have a positive history of minimal repair problems, reducing the odds you’ll need the coverage in the first place.

Nintendo may be causing consumer hysteria with its NES Classic Edition this holiday season, but it’s not exactly a museum to retro gaming. With only 30 titles from one console to choose from, there’s a lot of ground left to cover if you’re really trying to scratch that classic gaming itch. Doyodo is looking to do just that with the RetroEngine Sigma, a device not unlike the NES Classic Edition in size, but one that has the potential to pack thousands more games onto it.

RetroEngine Sigma is a device designed to run games from consoles such as the Nintendo 64, PlayStation, Super Nintendo, Genesis, Atari 2600, and more than 20 other devices from years past. The device itself comes with 15 pre-installed games (they haven’t revealed which ones yet), and has internet capabilities and media functionality, which allows gamers to go online and download emulators and ROMs that will play thousands of other classic titles through a smartphone app.

The Sigma comes with two USB ports used to attach retro gaming controllers or Bluetooth devices, and will feature an HDMI port that allows you to connect directly into a modern television and an A/C adapter. Gamers have been using emulators and ROMs to run classic games on their computers for years, but the Sigma looks to cut out the installation confusion, optimize the ROMs for easy playability, and be the type of all-in-one experience that the NES Classic Edition isn’t. Plus, the RetroEngine’s 4K media center and television hookup make it far more attractive than wrestling with ROM downloads on your computer.

This isn’t necessarily the “plug in and play” model that the NES Classic Edition is, though. Outside of those 15 pre-installed games, finding the right console emulators (basically software that mimics a classic gaming system) and ROMs (the games themselves) to install on the Sigma is up to you. Also, the legal waters surrounding such emulators are confusing to navigate, and RetroEngine Sigma’s Indiegogo campaign states, “If you decide to install the additional Emulator Pack to enable the system to run game backups from older systems, the legality of using such ROMs depends on your countries [sic] laws and on additional circumstances such as for example your continued possession of the original copy of the game as well as the original hardware it ran on.”

The RetroEngine Sigma has already far exceeded its $20,000 Indiegogo goal and is currently sitting at more than $360,000 raised. You can still back the campaign and get various rewards, including 16GB or 32GB micro SD cards to store more games, depending on your donation size. The RetroEngine Sigma is expected to ship before the second quarter of 2017.

Like Eli Cash, you probably always wanted to be a Tenenbaum. Here are some facts that will help you fit right into this family of geniuses, on the 15th anniversary of its release.

1. THE PRIMARY STORY CAME OUT OF THE DIVORCE OF WES ANDERSON’S PARENTS.

Though it was partly inspired by real life, writer-director Wes Anderson admits on the film’s DVD commentary that the film itself ended up being very different from his own personal experience. Still, some small details remain, such as the fact that Ethel Tenenbaum is an archeologist, and so was Anderson’s mother. 

2. THE NAME “TENENBAUM” CAME FROM ANDERSON’S COLLEGE FRIEND.

Anderson’s longtime friend, Brian Tenenbaum, appears as a paramedic in one of the film’s final scenes. Tenenbaum also appeared in Anderson’s previous films Bottle Rocket and Rushmore in similar background roles.

3. WES ANDERSON MAKES A CAMEO.

It’s the filmmaker’s hand that stamps the library card of the book at the beginning of the movie.

4. THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS IS THE THIRD MOVIE TO BE CO-WRITTEN BY ANDERSON AND OWEN WILSON.

The other two were Bottle Rocket and Rushmore. The two writers would be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for the movie. 

5. THE MOVIE’S TITLE CARD SCENE WAS INSPIRED BY ANOTHER FILM.

Anderson was inspired to include a title card scene featuring the actors and the characters they play after a similar scene in the 1934 film Death Takes a Holiday.  It was the first image for the movie Anderson had in his head.

6. THE MICE WEREN’T ACTUALLY SPOTTED.

The spots on Chas Tenenbaum’s fictitious dalmatian mice were created by drawing dots with a sharpie on regular mice.

7. ANDERSON INTENDED MARGOT’S WOODEN FINGER FOR A CHARACTER IN ANOTHER ONE OF HIS FILMS.

Rushmore‘s Margaret Yang would have had the digit blown off in a science experiment, but it was scrapped and later included in this movie. 

8. THE ROLE OF ROYAL TENENBAUM WAS WRITTEN WITH GENE HACKMAN IN MIND.

But when Anderson approached Hackman to be in the movie, the actor declined because he’d have to work for scale and didn’t like the idea of having a part written exclusively for him. His agent eventually convinced him to take the part. It was well worth it; Hackman would go on to win a Golden Globe for Best Actor for his performance. 

9. HACKMAN WASN’T THE ONLY ACTOR TO HAVE A ROLE WRITTEN SPECIFICALLY FOR HIM.

Anderson and co-screenwriter Wilson specifically wrote the role of Etheline for actress Anjelica Huston. She would go on to work with Anderson again in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.

10. THE GO-KART SCENE WITH ROYAL, ARI, AND UZI WAS A NOD TO ANOTHER FILM.

The 1971 film The French Connection featured Hackman (who won the Academy Award for Best Actor for the role) and a legendary car chase sequence.

11. BEN STILLER WAS CAST AS CHAS TENENBAUM BECAUSE HE WAS AN EARLY FAN OF BOTTLE ROCKET.

Stiller liked Anderson’s debut movie so much that he cast actor Owen Wilson, who played Dignan in Bottle Rocket, in The Cable Guy, which Stiller directed.

12. MARGOT AND RICHIE HIDING IN A MUSEUM OVERNIGHT WAS INSPIRED BY A CHILDREN’S BOOK.

In E.L. Konigsburg’s 1967 book From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, two kids run away from home and stay at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The book was a favorite of Anderson’s as a child.

13. THE ACTOR WHO PLAYS YOUNG RICHIE HAS A FAMOUS DAD.

Amedeo Turturro is the son of actor John Turturro. 

14. ANDERSON’S BROTHER CHIPPED IN TO HELP ON THE FILM.

Eric Chase Anderson is an illustrator; he created all of Young Richie’s drawings.

15. THE BB LODGED IN CHAS’S HAND IS BASED ON A REAL-LIFE INCIDENT.

Owen Wilson shot his older brother Andrew in the hand with a BB gun when they were younger, and the hand with the BB in it shown in the movie is actually Andrew Wilson’s. This isn’t his only appearance in the movie; he can also be seen as Margot’s biological Amish father and as the voice of one of the sports commentators who covers Richie’s tennis match meltdown (the other commentator’s voice is actually Wes Anderson). Wilson also played Future Man in Bottle Rocket and Coach Beck in Rushmore.

16. RICHIE’S FALCON, MORDECAI, WAS PLAYED BY THREE FALCONS AND A HAWK.

The falcons were used for close-up shots and the hawk was used for the longer flying scenes, like at the end of the film’s prologue. 

17. BILL MURRAY’S CHARACTER, RALEIGH ST. CLAIR, IS BASED ON NOTED NEUROLOGIST AND WRITER OLIVER SACKS.

Anderson was a big fan of Sacks’s four-part documentary from 1998 called The Mind Traveler.

18. RALEIGH’S RESEARCH SUBJECT, DUDLEY, WAS ORIGINALLY SUPPOSED TO BE PLAYED BY ANDERSON’S FRIEND AND ACTOR, WALLY WOLODARSKY.

But Wolodarsky dropped out in order to direct his own movie, Sorority Boys. Wolodarsky had previously appeared in Anderson’s movies as a wrestling referee in Rushmore, and would go on to appear as Brendan in The Darjeeling Limited, as the voice of Kylie in Fantastic Mr. Fox, and as M. Georges in The Grand Budapest Hotel.

To replace Wolodarsky, Anderson cast actor Stephen Lea Sheppard, who was recommended to him by Anderson’s friend and fellow director Judd Apatow. Sheppard was previously in Apatow’s TV show Freaks and Geeks.

19. ANDERSON WAS A BIG DANNY GLOVER FAN.

The director cast the actor because he liked his performances in To Sleep with Anger, Beloved, and Witness. The name of Glover’s character, Henry Sherman, is the name of Wes Anderson’s old New York landlord, who wore blue suits similar to the ones Glover’s character wears in the movie.

20. GLOVER ISN’T THE ONLY LINK THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS HAS TO THE MOVIE WITNESS.

The line “I know you, a**hole!” that Royal screams at Eli Cash as he escapes from the house is the same exact line that Harrison Ford’s character says to Glover’s character in Witness. 

21. 111 ARCHER AVENUE ISN’T REAL, BUT THE TENENBAUMS’ HOUSE IS.

It’s located at 144^th Street and Convent Avenue in New York City. The production used both the exterior and the interior of the house for the movie (the only interior of the house in the movie that isn’t from the real-life location is the kitchen scene between Royal and Henry Sherman, which was shot in the house next door because it had windows). The production convinced the owner of the house, who had recently bought it in foreclosure, to delay moving in so they could renovate it as they needed. It’s believed that the production paid the owner roughly the same amount the owner had paid to buy it, so the owner effectively got the house for free. 

22. THE LINDBERG PALACE HOTEL, WHERE ROYAL STAYS, ISN’T REAL EITHER.

The location for the hotel was the actual exterior and lobby of the Waldorf Astoria in New York. The hotel only gave Anderson and the production two hours to get all of the shots they needed.

23. THOUGH THE MOVIE WAS SHOT IN NEW YORK, ANDERSON DIDN’T WANT TO INCLUDE ANY NYC LANDMARKS IN THE FILM.

During the scene where Pagoda meets Royal near the water, Anderson intentionally positioned the actor playing Pagoda (Kumar Pallana, who also appeared in Rushmore and The Darjeeling Limited) to stand directly in front of the Statue of Liberty.

24. ONE OF RICHIE’S LINES CAME FROM ANOTHER FILM.

Richie’s seemingly bizarre line “I’m going to kill myself tomorrow,” immediately before trying to take his own life, is actually a line Anderson took verbatim from director Louis Malle’s 1963 film Le feu follet (a.k.a. The Fire Within). Spoiler: In that film, the main character actually does kill himself the day after uttering the line. 

25. RICHIE AND MARGOT’S ROMANCE IS A REFERENCE TO A FRENCH FILM.

The semi-incestuous subplot is Anderson’s nod to director Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1950 film Les enfants terribles about a similar relationship between an actual brother and sister. In Tenenbaums, of course, Margot is adopted.

26. THE MOVIE PARODIES AUTHOR CORMAC MCCARTHY.

The excerpt that Eli Cash reads from his book, Old Custer, is Anderson’s parody of the style and subject matter of writer Cormac McCarthy, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of books like No Country for Old Men, The Road, and Blood Meridian. 

27. CHAS WAS ORIGINALLY SUPPOSED TO WEAR A BLACK ADIDAS TRACK SUIT EACH TIME HE WENT TO THE CEMETERY.

But Ben Stiller thought it would be a funnier reveal if he only wore it at Royal’s funeral.

28. ONE OF THE FINAL SHOTS IN THE MOVIE WAS DONE IN A SINGLE TAKE.

The technically complex shot moves from person to person after Eli crashes his car at the wedding. The production did 20 takes of the shot; take 18 is the take included in the final movie. 

Additional Sources: Blu-ray special features; The Wes Anderson Collection.

Screenshots courtesy of Film-Grab.com and LeaveMetheWhite.com.

Unless teachers have a specimen ready for dissection, it’s hard to turn a lesson in fish anatomy into a hands-on experience. But artist and designer Rachel Ciavarella thinks she’s found a way. Her reversible plush dolls use different materials to bring the inner workings of an anglerfish to life through touch.

According to Colossal, the toy originated as a class project. After seeing the excitement it inspired, Ciavarella decided to take her product to Kickstarter with hopes of making it available to a wider audience.

From the outside, the fish looks like a normal stuffed animal, with a fleece body and jagged teeth cut from felt. But once you turn it inside-out, all the glorious guts are on display. Each part is crafted from a different touch-friendly material like canvas, sateen, faux sherpa, and chiffon. He even has a cute name. Ciavarella writes,

“Morris is named after all of my dead goldfish. As a child, every time I got a new goldfish I would name it Morris and it would inevitably die, as goldfish eventually do. Their memories can now live on through the immortal toy Morris fish.”

With a week still left to go in the campaign, Ciavarella has already raised more than $26,000 of her $25,000 goal. Backers can reserve a Morris of their own for a pledge of $40 or more with shipping set for June of next year.

[h/t Colossal]

First published in English in 1780, “The Twelve Days of Christmas” (actually the 12 days after Christmas) is thought to have originated in France as a children’s forfeit game with ever more elaborate gifts added to the collection, verse by verse, as a test of memory. Whatever its origins may be, however, as the carol grew in popularity throughout the 19th century, numerous different versions and variations of its lyrics began to emerge.

Some of these differences still survive in different versions sung today: the traditional “five gold rings” are sometimes described as “five golden rings,” and while some performances describe what “my true love gave to me,” others say the gifts were “sent to me.” But these kinds of subtle differences are nothing compared to some of the gifts in the song’s earlier incarnations.

1. A VERY PRETTY PEACOCK

One early version of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” was recorded by the Scottish poet and artist William Scott Bell in 1892. Although most of Bell’s lyrics are identical to what we sing today, in his version each verse concludes not with “a partridge in a pear tree,” but with a considerably more ostentatious “very pretty peacock upon a pear tree.”

2. FOUR CANARY BIRDS

In the original 1780 version, the “four calling birds” are instead described as “four colly birds,” colly—literally “coaly”—being an old English dialect word meaning “soot-black.” By the mid 19th century, however, the word colly had largely fallen out of use, leaving several Victorian editions of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” to come up with their own replacements. “Colour’d birds” and even “curley birds” were used in some editions, while an exotic “four canary birds” were added to the lyrics of one version. The now standard “four calling birds” first appeared in the early 1900s.

3. AND 4. EIGHT HARES A-RUNNING AND ELEVEN BADGERS BAITING

In 1869, an article appeared in an English magazine called The Cliftonian that described a traditional Christmas in rural Gloucestershire, southwest England. The author of the piece wrote that he had heard some local carol singers singing a curious Christmas song, which he noted for the “peculiarity and the utter absurdity of the words.” After outlining the first two of “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” he went on to explain that the carol “proceeds in this ascending manner until on the twelfth day of Christmas the young lady receives … [an] astounding tribute of true love”—among which are “eight hares a-running” and “eleven badgers baiting.”

5., 6., 7., AND 8. SEVEN SQUABS A-SWIMMING, EIGHT HOUNDS A-RUNNING, NINE BEARS A-BEATING, AND TEN COCKS A-CROWING

One of the earliest American versions of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” was listed in The American Journal of Folklore in 1900. Credited to a contributor from Salem, Massachusetts, and dated to “about 1800,” there are no pipers, drummers, maids, or swans here (and lords and ladies had a number change). Instead, in their place are “ten cocks a-crowing,” “nine bears a-beating,” “eight hounds a-running,” and “seven squabs a-swimming.”

9. AND 10. TEN ASSES RACING AND ELEVEN BULLS A-BEATING

An edition of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” included in an anthology of Folk Songs From Somerset published in 1911 [PDF] discarded the “pipers piping” and “lords a-leaping” in favor of “eleven bulls a-beating” and “ten asses racing.” In fact, not even the partridge in the pear tree made the final cut here: in its place was a “part of a mistletoe bough.”

11. AND 12. TEN SHIPS A-SAILING AND ELEVEN LADIES SPINNING

In an 1842 edition of Specimens of Lyric Poetry, out went the “ten drummers drumming” and the “eleven lords a-leaping” (downgraded to only nine lords, still a-leaping) and in came “ten ships a-sailing” and “eleven ladies spinning.” Not only that, but this edition also explained in a footnote how “The Twelve Days of Christmas” might once have been used: “Each child in succession repeats the gifts of the day, and forfeits for each mistake. The accumulative process is a favourite with children.”

13. AN ARABIAN BABOON

An alternative Scots version of “The Twelve Day of Christmas” was reported in use in Scotland in the first half of the 19th century, before finding its way into a collection of Popular Rhymes of Scotland published in 1847. Although there are a handful of similarities between this version and the version we’d sing today (“ducks a-merry laying” and “swans a-merry swimming” both make an appearance), relatively little of what we’d recognize remains intact. “The king sent his lady on the first Yule day,” is the new opening line, and many of the gifts are given in sets of three rather than as part of a larger 12-part sequence—but it’s what the gifts themselves are that is the most striking. Alongside the swans and ducks, the king sends his lady “a bull that was brown,” “a goose that was gray,” “three plovers,” “a papingo-aye” (an old Scots dialect word for a parrot, although occasionally translated as peacock)—and, just when things can’t get any stranger, “an Arabian baboon.”

When viewing Andy Warhol’s iconic works, like Campbell’s Soup Cans or Brillo Boxes, you’re probably not thinking about bringing them home to snuggle. At least not until now. These new Warhol-inspired toys might just be the perfect cuddly addition to any art lover’s bed or couch.

Kidrobot has whipped up a whole collection of plush toys based on the late pop artist’s work. From small Brillo boxes to giant bananas, there’s something for everyone. The smaller pillows are $20 each, but the larger toys (which can be 22 to 30 inches long) are a hefty $150 each. Still, the toy versions are a lot more affordable than the real thing.

[h/t Gizmodo]