Before the advent of IMAX, virtual reality, and immersive theme park attractions, Hollywood was trying its best to pry audiences from the warm glow of their televisions and into theaters. The wide, panoramic aspect ratios used in almost all films today were the result of studios hoping to provide a more immersive experience.

That obviously worked. Most of their other gimmicks didn’t. Take a look at some of the more inventive ways theaters and producers have tried to boost ticket sales over the years.

1. LIFE INSURANCE POLICIES

The P.T. Barnum of movie salesmanship was undoubtedly William Castle, who bounced from one gimmick to another in the 1950s and 1960s to bolster awareness for his series of B-minus horror pictures. For the 1958 film Macabre, Castle told audiences that their theater tickets would be redeemable for a $1000 Lloyds of London life insurance policy in the event they died of fright. Castle also parked hearses outside theaters and hired women to dress as nurses to roam the aisles. In trade ads in Variety, there were only minimal stipulations: “Not valid for people with known heart conditions or for suicide.”

No one appeared to have died during a screening, a fact that Castle may have considered bittersweet: It would have made for unprecedented publicity.

2. AROMARAMA

Fun to say, not so much fun to experience. Preceding such gimmicks as Smell-O-Vision and Odorama, AromaRama introduced an additional sensory stimulant to moviegoers via their nostrils. As opposed to scratch-and-sniff cards, the 1959 innovation promised to “suffuse a theater’s air with recognizable smells … on cue, and clear the air of one odor and substitute another every 90 seconds.”

Curiously, AromaRama debuted with a rather dry documentary about China, Behind the Great Wall, at New York’s DeMille Theater. The New York Times found the experience to have only “capricious” odors working in harmony with the visuals and labeled the entire thing a stunt. With expenses running up to $7500 to install the pungent scents and a slightly nauseating deodorant into an air system, few have had the experience of smelling a great film.

3. SENSURROUND

How high was the movie industry on Sensurround, a soundtrack that could produce bass so deep that theater seats rattled? In 1974, Universal was bestowed with a Scientific and Engineering Academy Award for their work in getting the technology up and running. Roughly 17 theaters across the country were equipped with the necessary woofers and amplifiers for Earthquake, a star-studded disaster movie.

That kind of sensory assault came at a price: At Mann’s Chinese Theater, the effect was so profound that it literally shook the plaster from the walls, forcing managers to install a safety net over the audience; auditoriums with massive chandeliers and other light fixtures kept their distance, fearing the vibrations could cause a real-life disaster; the vibrations bled into neighboring screening rooms; projectionists popped aspirin because they were subjected to the thudding soundtracks all day long. Sensurround wasn’t a bad idea—it was just too effective for its own good.

4. DUO-VISION

“See the hunter, see the hunted, both at the same time!” Long before picture-in-picture was ever implemented in televisions, MGM had the novel idea to offer audiences more than one visual feed with 1973’s Wicked, Wicked, a trope-filled serial killer thriller. For its entire running time, viewers were subjected to dual frames, with the figures on the left (the victims) oblivious to what was happening on the right (a murderer lurking in the curtains). Only occasionally did the film use the technique to add depth to the story, as in the case of one frame flashing back to a character’s tumultuous past.

Director Richard Bare allegedly got the idea from driving down a highway and becoming intrigued by the dividing line in the road; MGM had originally intended to require theaters to run two 35mm projectors at once before realizing they could just strike both frames on the same print. While other filmmakers have experimented with the technique, split-screen never caught on.

5. PERCEPTO

Living down to his reputation as a carnival producer, William Castle continued to stir up publicity for his films by installing theater equipment that he dubbed Percepto for 1959’s The Tingler starring Vincent Price. In what must have been one of the earliest examples of interactive entertainment, a select number of seats were equipped to deliver a vibration when the spine-hugging “tingler” creature invaded a theater onscreen. (The boxes were actually airplane de-icing machines Castle bought at a military surplus.) The only way to fight the parasitic monster was to scream, which the audience did, no doubt egged on by the strange and uninvited motor humming beneath their buttocks.

At a theater in Philadelphia, a truck driver became so incensed by the gimmick that he rose and angrily tore the seat from the floor. Castle never brought Percepto out for an encore.

6. AUDIENCE VOTING

The CD-ROM gaming craze of the 1990s didn’t go ignored by Hollywood, which began to anticipate that audiences would want to exert more control over their entertainment. What if they could choose whether Rocky won or lost a bout, or whether Dorothy stayed in Oz? To test the waters, a production company called Interfilm released the revenge action-comedy Mr. Payback, written and directed by Bob Gale (Back to the Future), in 1995. In 44 theaters, attendees could choose a course of action onscreen by “voting” with colored joystick buttons installed in their armrests. Laserdisc players running in concert would then broadcast their selection with no noticeable delay.

It was not the revelatory experience they had hoped for. Roger Ebert labeled the 20-minute film “offensive and yokel-brained” for being preoccupied with toilet humor. He did not specify which color button he used to later vote it the year’s worst film.

7. ALTERNATE ENDINGS

The real secret to huge box office is to convince audiences to see films more than once. That kind of repeat business helped films like Star Wars, Avatar, and Titanic to record grosses. Paramount attempted to cheat the system a bit with 1985’s Clue, a murder mystery based on the board game. Theaters screening the movie would get one of four endings that would reveal a different killer, with the hope being that fans would then see the movie over and over to catch the alternate finales. (After dropping one ending during production, the studio used a letters system—A, B, C,—in newspaper listings so people could keep track of the remaining three.) Unfortunately, most didn’t want to see it even once: it was pummeled by Rocky IV in its opening weekend, ultimately grossing just $14 million.

8. HYPNOSIS

At the height of the gimmick craze of the late 1950s, Horrors of the Black Museum (1959) made the most audacious attempt to date to please audiences by offering—or threatening—to hypnotize them. Dubbed Hypno-Vista, the conceit consisted of nothing more than a prolonged introduction by hypnotist Emile Franchel before the British-produced movie—about a writer hypnotized to become a killer—begins. Producer Herman Cohen later insisted the introduction was taken out of prints sent for television broadcast because it actually did put viewers under Franchel’s influence. Watch a portion of it above, if you dare.

Recently, Google released a group of new online artificial-intelligence experiments powered by its cloud services, but one stands out more than the others. Quick, Draw! is a new game that guesses your drawings, no matter how crude, within a 20-second time limit, CNET reports.

Here’s how it works: Once you start the challenge, Google will tell you to draw something using your mouse on desktop or finger on mobile. Similar to charades or Pictionary, you have 20 seconds to draw it, and Google’s A.I. will try its best to figure it out while tossing out possible answers using its advanced neural network technology. In fact, it uses the same handwriting technology as Google Translate. The game learns from its mistakes and tries to improve its recognition skills with each round. Items drawn can be simple like a paperclip or more intricate like a hospital, police car, or fireplace.

After playing for one round, I drew four correct items out of six, as Google’s A.I. had trouble figuring out my shovel and fireplace (or I just need to do a better job drawing them). When my drawings were incomprehensible, it chimed in with “I have no clue what you’re drawing. Sorry I couldn’t guess it.” before it moved on to the next item to draw.

Quick, Draw! is similar to Draw Something, but you’re playing with a computer instead of a friend. It’s very addicting and a good way to kill your work productivity.

[h/t CNET]

Images: Google

In space, completing simple actions like clipping your nails, washing your hair, and crying can be a challenge. Pooping presents an especially pesky hurdle for astronauts to overcome. When they aren’t doing their business on suction-based toilets that shoot waste into space, astronauts are forced to relieve themselves in the adult diapers they wear in their suits. NASA believes there’s a better way, and they’re asking for your help to find it.

As Fast Company reports, NASA’s Space Poop Challenge is calling on citizens to submit their ideas for collecting human waste inside space suits and routing away it away from the body hands-free. The crew aboard a spacecraft can be stuck inside their space suits for up to 10 hours at a time during launch and landing, and up to six days in the case of a disaster. To prepare for such emergencies, NASA asks that the system be capable of collecting urine, feces, and menstrual fluid for 144 hours straight.

In addition to devising a mechanism that’s safe and sanitary, inventors will also need to account for the conditions in space. As you can imagine, microgravity, unwanted waste, and a cramped suit don’t mix well together. Anyone who’s up for the challenge has until December 20 to send in their proposals. The winner will be rewarded for their dirty work with a $30,000 prize.

[h/t Fast Company]

Between the early morning walks, the chewed-up furniture, and the trips to the vet, dog parenting is hard work. But at the end of the day, the payoff is worth it: Canine owners report that their pets make them a better person in more ways than one, a new survey finds.

BarkBox, the monthly subscription box for dogs, recently conducted its first-ever BarkBox Dog Parent Study. They hired a research firm to ask more than 1000 adult, dog-owning Americans how their relationship with their furry friends affects their lives.

In total, 93 percent of respondents said their relationship with Fido inspires them to become a better person in at least one way. Seventy-one percent of people said their dogs make them happier, and nearly 80 percent said getting up in the morning is easier knowing that their canine companions are there to greet them. More than half of participants said their pups make them more patient and responsible (and just under half said their pets make them more affectionate).

According to BarkBox’s survey, your furry friend can also help with your physical fitness: 83 percent of dog owners said that their four-legged companions make them more physically active, with 72 percent reporting that their pet influenced their workout choices.

Most of these findings aren’t likely to shock dog owners—or scientists, for that matter. Studies have found that interacting with dogs can improve mood and reduce anxiety; that children who grow up with animal companions might be more empathetic than their pet-less peers; and that dog owners get more exercise than people without dogs.

That being said, BarkBox’s survey revealed a few surprising details about pet ownership that canine parents probably won’t confess to their dog-less friends. For one, nearly half of dog owners said their dog “always or frequently” sleeps in their bed—and 36 percent said they were willing to sleep in an uncomfortable position to keep their dog next to them. And privacy seems to be of little concern to pet parents: A third reported having  “gotten intimate” with someone while their pooch was present, and 43 percent said they typically let their dog wander into the bathroom while they are using it.

Most importantly, 85 percent of subjects said their dogs have helped them weather a tough time in their lives, and 97 percent said they’d do something to make their pups happy, too. And on average, they tell their pets “I love you” six times a day. (Awww.)

Curses! They’re fun to say, but not fun to deal with. But the lifting of the curse of the Cubs is a reminder that being cursed—whether by witchcraft, voodoo, or just some jerk—is an unavoidable, timeless part of life. Here are some older, out-of-use words for the next time you need to put the whammy on somebody. Use these imprecations with diabolical care.

1. DODGAST

This term—which is very similar to terms such as dadblasted and dagnabbit—is one of many euphemistic terms for blasphemous thoughts. The idea is that saying “God damn!” would just be wrong, but “Dodgast!” is just fine, because I guess God can’t decode euphemisms for some reason. An 1888 use from the Detroit Free Press voices a common sentiment: “It’s a dodgasted funny thing … but it’s a fact.”

2. WILLER

A willer wills something to happen—sometimes that involves ill will. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) records a few examples from around the 1500s that make the diabolical aspect of the word clear: evil-willer and cursed willer. Still, an evil-willer is better than an evil-doer.

3. AND 4. PIG-FACED LADY AND HOG-FACED GENTLEWOMAN

Now let’s take a break from causes and move to effects, the kind of effects that sound plausible if you believe a few evil words can produce an animal-human hybrid. As the OED puts it, a pig-faced lady is “a legendary woman of noble birth said to have been born with a pig’s face as the result of a curse; also known as the hog-faced gentlewoman.”

5. SAILOR’S FAREWELL

Since sailors are known for their salty language, it’s no surprise this is a euphemistic term for what is actually more of a fare-ill. This one has been around since at least the 1930s.

6. FLEMISH COMPLIMENT

Here’s a similarly understated term that’s insulting to a particular nationality. If you give someone a Flemish compliment, you’ve done just the opposite: cursed them, or at least buried them with verbal abuse. A dry use from 1847’s Settlers and Convicts shows this term in action: “The other hands never fail to pay the blunderer some very Flemish compliments.”

7. PLAGUEY

Though it sounds like a product of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, this (originally) quite literal term has been around since the 1500s. Anything plaguey caused the plague, was infected by the plague, or had a whole bunch of plaguiness going on. Then it gradually softened, not always referring to plagues but operating as a synonym for goddamn or confounded. This one turns up in the recent past, as seen in a 1990 use from Brisbane’s Sun newspaper: “Have someone pick a quarrel with the plaguey, superfluous little rascal.”

8. PUT THE BLIND ON

Green’s Dictionary of Slang—now available online—records this term in the 1990s. When you put the blind on, you put a curse on someone. Why blind? It appears to be a euphemism of bloody. Since the late 1900s, to blind was to swear, and there’s also the expression “Blind me!”

9. AND 10. GOOFER AND GOOFER DUST

A goofer is far from a goofball. The word, believed to derive from the Kikongo word kufwa, has meant “witch doctor” since the late 1800s. A goofer could also be a curse, and there’s a curser’s tool too: goofer dust, a powder used in hoodoo to cast a spell that can harm an individual.

Earlier this week, Oreo’s parent company Mondelez International delighted sugar lovers everywhere with the news that the beloved cookie would now be in chocolate bar form. The cookie is teaming up with German chocolate company Milka to bring fans two new candy bars this winter. The chocolate is hitting shelves nationwide in January, but if you can’t wait that long (we know we can’t) you can buy them on Amazon. 

There are currently two Oreo chocolate bars available, which have been selling in Europe since last year: a chocolate bar filled with vanilla creme and cookie chunks, and a “Big Crunch Bar,” which Thrillist describes as “an inside-out Oreo stuffed into a chunk of German chocolate.” 

Currently, Americans can already find 10.5-ounce Big Crunch Bars at select stores like Walmart, Kroger, ShopRite, and Albertsons. It’s very likely your local Walmart is completely sold out of these coveted sweets, so it’s a good thing we have the internet. Currently you can buy both varieties of the chocolate without having to fly to Germany or to fight off other patrons at the grocery store. The original chocolate bar sells in packs of three or five and the Big Crunch Bars are sold in single, 300 gram bars. 

If you’re still looking for more creative ways to satisfy your cookie fix, Milka also makes Chips Ahoy! chocolate bars that look pretty darn good.

What’s a modern, abstract sculpture in honor of an obscure American balloonist doing in the capital of Estonia? Good question. The man in question was named Charles Leroux, and though you probably have no idea who he was, he once found fame in the U.S. and abroad demonstrating something that seems commonplace today: parachutes.

Leroux was rumored to be the grandson or great-nephew of Abraham Lincoln (he wasn’t). He wasn’t even named Leroux—his birth name was reportedly the rather more prosaic Joseph Johnson. He appears to have been born in Connecticut in the 1850s. At some point, Leroux must have realized that it would be more profitable and exotic to take on a French-sounding name—especially because he adopted a French-seeming sport that had been making waves worldwide since the late 1700s.

By the time Leroux started tinkering with parachutes and balloons around the 1880s, the French were the undisputed kings of aviation. From the Montgolfier brothers, who invented the first hot air balloon anyone could actually use, to Jean-Pierre Blanchard, who managed to cross the English channel by balloon in 1785, the French had pioneered early flight.

Parachutes, though, were another story. Leonardo da Vinci designed an early prototype, but it took until the early 20th century for the modern version to get a patent. Meanwhile, parachuting was anyone’s game—and, like balloons before it, it was a game for daring showmen.

With a spiffy new name and an apparent daredevil streak, Leroux began to test a parachute of his own design. He was already an accomplished East Coast trapeze artist and gymnast, and he designed a breathtaking parachute to top off his performances. In 1886, for example, he shut down traffic in Philadelphia (performing as “Prof. Charles Leroux”) by climbing 100 feet up the Dime Museum, clad in “light blue silk tights and satin trunks.” Before a packed and terrified audience, he jumped off of the building holding a 16-foot-wide parachute and nearly running into a lamp post (a nearby man wasn’t so lucky—Leroux ran right into him instead). The New York Times report of his feat notes that it was Leroux’s 38th ascent, and that his other accomplishments included jumping off of New York’s High Bridge.

 
That was just one of Leroux’s leaps. His feats took him all over the world. In 1889, for example, he demonstrated the parachute he had designed—complete with backpack-style straps—to a group of impressed German officers. (Given that he jumped 1000 meters from a balloon, the equivalent of about 3280 feet, they had reason to be dazzled.) And in 1887, Leroux lent his design to Charles Broadwick, who would become one of the most famous parachutists of all time.

But eventually, Leroux’s derring-do got the best of him. On September 24, 1889, he braved a difficult jump from an airborne hot air balloon in front of an audience of onlookers in Tallinn, Estonia, which was then called Reval. An errant wind swept him away toward the Baltic. A woman supposedly died of heart failure just watching the tragedy. Leroux died, too—his body was recovered by fishermen two days later. Today, a modernist monument in his honor stands in Tallinn, a strange and little-known testament to a man who managed to withstand 238 jumps before his untimely death—and whose daredevil acts with a parachute helped inspire interest in more modern versions of the lifesaving invention.