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Monday, November 21, 2016 – 01:45
Anyone who has ever seen Cartoon Network’s surreal hit show Adventure Time knows that the Land of Ooo is a pretty delicious place. From bacon pancakes to candy townspeople, the show is a smorgasbord for the eyes. Now fans can get a taste of what they’ve been watching on television with Adventure Time: The Official Cookbook.
According to the product description, the book was discovered by Finn in the Founders’ Island Library. The old cookbook was filled with strange recipes for things like “lasagna” and “boiled eggs.” Many of the pages were lost, so Finn, along with Jake, Marceline, Princess Bubblegum, and the other citizens of Ooo, came together to create an extensive collection of fun recipes.
Whimsical cooks can make things like Prince Gumball’s pink and fluffy cream puffs, Jake’s everything burrito, and whatever apple-related baked good Tree Trunks has for us. The 112-page book has over 45 recipes, which are all separated by meal or course. The cookbook is available for presale on Amazon for $30 and will ship November 29. Now every meal can feel like it’s been prepared the best chefs in the Candy Kingdom.
November 21, 2016 – 6:30am
There are only seven books in the original Harry Potter series, but there’s no shortage of swag related to J.K. Rowling’s wonderful wizarding world. Here are 11 gifts to give your favorite magic-loving muggle this holiday season.
Hermione’s time turner was one of the most desirable items from the Harry Potter franchise—and it also made for a pretty stylish accessory. Now, you can rock Hermione’s powerful pendant with an authentic replica of the prop used in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. The 24-karat gold-plated necklace features rotating inner rings with a miniature hourglass inside. The time turner is more of a collector’s item than a toy, and it comes with its own special display case for safe-keeping. Unfortunately time-traveling abilities aren’t included.
Find It: ThinkGeek
Ever wonder what butterbeer or pumpkin pasties taste like? The Geeky Chef Cookbook gives readers the chance to find out without making the trek to Hogsmeade. Written by fictional food chef and blogger Cassandra Reeder, this book includes treats from Harry Potter as well as other sci-fi and fantasy classics like Doctor Who, The Legend of Zelda, Star Trek, and Game of Thrones. The recipes have been tailored to only include non-magic ingredients, though the end results taste pretty magical.
Find It: Amazon
J.K. Rowling’s break from the Harry Potter universe didn’t last long. She recently tried her hand at writing for film for the first time with her script for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. The story follows magizoologist Newt Scamander in early 20th century New York, 70 years before the events of Harry Potter take place. After watching the story unfold on the big screen, fans can pick up a hardcover copy of the original screenplay.
Find It: Amazon
Writers who solemnly swear they’re up to no good will love this ruled notebook from Moleskine. The cover design features the Marauder’s Map with the layout of Hogwarts castle continuing on the inside. The book also comes with a set of Harry Potter stickers and a polyjuice potion ribbon bookmark to hold your place when mischief’s been managed.
Find It: Amazon
From the invisibility cloak to the sword of Gryffindor, the world of Harry Potter is full of fantastical objects. PopChartLab managed to fit the most comprehensive list possible onto one 18-inch-by-24-inch poster. The items are broken up into categories, including portkeys, legendary magical artifacts, and Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes. If you can’t make it to Diagon Alley to pick up some items in person, this illustrated chart is the next best thing.
Find It: Pop Chart Lab
This detailed coloring book lets you explore places from Harry Potter in a whole new way. It contains 96 pages of settings from the fictional universe, from the Dursleys’ living room to Hogwarts’s great hall. No wand is required to bring these scenes to life—just a set of colored pencils.
Find It: Amazon
There’s no better way to start the morning than with a cup of hot-brewed mischief. This Marauder’s Map-inspired 11-ounce mug changes color from black to white, reading “I solemnly swear I am up to no good,” and then “Mischief managed.” Any magic trick that’s also an excuse to drink coffee is a good one in our book.
Find It: Harry Potter Shop
If you’re having trouble picking out just one Harry Potter keepsake, Loot Crate offers bimonthly boxes of goodies for $35. Each crate offers exclusive and officially-licensed figures, memorabilia, and apparel relating to Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts. Just input your Hogwarts house and t-shirt size to get a customized Loot Crate delivered straight to your door.
Find It: Loot Crate
With this cooperative deck building game you can take your love of Harry Potter to the next nerdy level. Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle is made up of seven sequential games that become increasingly difficult as they progress. As players defend Hogwarts from villains like Voldemort, they collect items, learn spells, and make allies along the way.
Find It: Amazon
The folks at Juniper Books have found a way to make your collection of Harry Potter books feel a little more personal. Each brand-new book in the set has been slipped into a jacket displaying original designs inspired by the four houses of Hogwarts. The covers depict the vibrant house colors as well as the animal mascots. Whether you’ve been sorted into Ravenclaw, Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, or Slytherin, these sets are a perfect way to show the world where your allegiances lie.
Find It: Juniper Books
Whether you’re watching a quidditch match in the rain or strolling through the grounds of Hogwarts, it’s important to stay bundled up. This reversible scarf—officially-licensed by Warner Brothers—features the Hogwarts name and logo on both sides. You can wear the black and white side facing forward and then flip it over to reveal the same design in black and gray. The maroon, yellow, green, and blue tassels represent colors from all four Hogwarts houses, which means a Gryffindor will look just as sharp in it as a Slytherin.
Find It: ThinkGeek
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November 21, 2016 – 6:00am
Taronga Zoo via Facebook
Baby Echidnas Are Called Puggles And They Are Awesome. Sydney’s Taronga Zoo recently hatched three of the little mammals.
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5 Things You Didn’t Know About Alan Shepard. The first American in space had plenty of tales to tell.
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MST3K Turkey Day 2016 Marathon Details. This is its fourth year, so we can consider it a tradition.
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12 Disney Movies That Have Horrifying Origin Stories. Fairy tales were once horror stories.
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Hilarious Photos of Jumping Cats Not Giving a Damn. Photographer Daniel Gebhart de Koekkoek says he spent weeks gaining the cats’ trust, but it still looks like he threw them.
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The Latest Rx for Obesity: Sleep Off the Fat. Studies show insomnia and obesity are linked, and tackling one may affect the other.
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How to roast a perfect turkey. Honestly, with enough dressing and gravy, any way you cook it is fine.
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7 Intriguing Turkey Recipes From the 1800s. You won’t want to try them yourself, but they’re fascinating to speculate on.
November 21, 2016 – 5:00am
Sylvester Stallone wasn’t born a leading man. Complications at birth left the son of a hairdresser with nerve damage that slurred his speech and curled his lips into a permanent snarl. His childhood wasn’t easy. His parents fought constantly, and he and his brother slipped in and out of foster care. By high school, they’d moved back in with their mother in Philadelphia, but Stallone’s emotional problems followed him. He struggled academically and was expelled from multiple schools. The arts became his refuge. He spent his free time painting and writing poetry, but his real dream was the silver screen. By the time he was 18, he knew he wanted to act.
Stallone studied drama at the American College of Switzerland and then at the University of Miami, but then abandoned school to pursue a career in New York City. By his mid-twenties, he was getting by on odd jobs like cleaning lion cages and ushering at movie theaters. The bit parts he did manage to land were few and far between. Once, when funds were short, he took a role in an adult film to keep from living in a bus station. When Stallone landed bigger parts, it was because his drooping, stone-chiseled face made him the perfect heavy (Subway Thug No. 1. wasn’t an uncommon credit). By 1975, the 29-year-old actor was desperate for something bigger, so his agent sent him to the L.A. offices of Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff, two producers who had a standing deal with United Artists.
The meeting didn’t go as planned. When Winkler and Chartoff met Stallone, they didn’t see a movie star. Dejected, Stallone had his hand on the doorknob when he turned and made one last pitch. “You know,” he said, “I also write.”
The script Stallone turned in was an underdog tale, the story of Rocky, a streetwise palooka who gets an unlikely opportunity to fight the heavyweight champion of the world. But the story of how the film itself got made is even more improbable.
Earlier that same year, a boxer named Chuck Wepner had silenced the world. Pitted 40:1 against the heavily favored Muhammad Ali, Wepner landed a blow that knocked Ali down. Though Ali ultimately knocked out Wepner in the 15th round, Stallone was riveted by those moments in which it seemed like Wepner stood a chance. When he sat down to write a screenplay, it took him just three days to dash it off.
Stallone centered his story around Rocky Balboa, a club boxer plucked from obscurity and eager to go the distance. But Rocky would have the odds stacked against him. Even his trainer, a salty old cynic named Mickey, would write him off—until a once-in-a-lifetime chance to fight against brash champion (and Ali stand-in) Apollo Creed arises.
To ground his story, Stallone drummed up a love interest for Rocky: Adrian, a shy pet store employee. The unlikely romance allowed the film to become as much a character study as a genre slugfest. But when Stallone’s wife, Sasha, read an early draft, she pushed him to sand down his hero’s rough edges even more. In the rewrites, Rocky, who had started out as a violent thug, emerged as a gentle and deceptively wise soul who, in the actor’s words, “was good-natured, even though nature had never been good to him.”
Impressed by the story’s heart, Winkler and Chartoff agreed to produce the film with United Artists, which gave them creative freedom for any picture budgeted under $1.5 million. But the studio balked. A boxing picture and all its trappings—extras, location, and arena shooting—just couldn’t be made for so little money. And with a nobody in the lead role, the flick seemed doomed to box office failure. Chartoff and Winkler countered by offering to make the movie for less than a million, promising to cover any overages out of pocket, and the producers sent the studio a print of Stallone’s recent independent film, The Lords of Flatbush, to seal the deal. With no one in the screening room to recognize him, the executives assumed handsome costar Perry King was the young nobody who had written the script.
Fine, they said. Go make your boxing movie.
The small budget meant that the production team had to get creative. Interiors were shot in L.A., since a full 28-day shoot in Philadelphia was too pricey. Instead, the team spent less than a week on location, quietly shooting exteriors using a nonunion crew. Driving around in a nondescript van, director John Avildsen would spot an interesting locale—a portside ship, a food market—and usher Stallone out to jog, sometimes for miles, while he rolled film. It wasn’t long before the actor gave up smoking.
The slim budget was evident everywhere. Stallone’s wardrobe was plucked from his own closet. His wife worked as the set photographer. But it was more than that— the movie’s finances also meant that the director had to be choosy about how many shots to film. A crucial scene where Rocky confesses his fears about the fight to Adrian (played by Talia Shire) was almost cut before Stallone begged the producers to give him just one take. The scene became the film’s emotional spine.
When the director proposed shooting a date between Rocky and Adrian at an ice rink, the producers laughed. A rink full of extras, combined with the costs of filming all the takes, seemed risky. But when Stallone convinced them of the scene’s worth, they wrote around it. In the movie, Rocky pays off a manager to let the duo skate in an empty rink. The result was easier to shoot and made for a beautiful metaphor: a clumsy dance between two misfits, each holding the other up.
But improvisation wasn’t always an option. For Rocky’s climactic bout with Creed, Stallone and actor Carl Weathers rehearsed five hours a day for a week. Though both were incredible physical specimens, neither had ever boxed and their earliest attempts were exhausting. (Ironically, only Burt Young, cast as Rocky’s sad-sack pal Paulie, had any actual ring experience: He was 14–0 as a pro.) When the director saw their first sparring efforts, he told Stallone to go home and write out the beats. Stallone returned with 14 pages of lefts, rights, counters, and hooks, all delivered using camera-friendly gloves too small to be legal in a real prizefight. As they practiced, Avildsen circled them with an 8mm camera, recording them to point out their weaknesses. He even zoomed in on Stallone’s waistline to remind him he needed to shape up.
Studying all that footage paid off. The fight was shot in front of 4,000 restless extras, corralled with the promise of a free chicken dinner. In the original ending, Rocky walks off with Adrian backstage. But composer Bill Conti’s score was so soaring that the director decided to reshoot the finale, despite having run out of funds. The producers paid for the overage themselves, allowing for the unforgettable final scene: Rocky in the ring, with Adrian fighting through the crowd to reach him, her hat pulled off by a crew member using fishing wire. The image freezes with Rocky embracing her— stopping at what Stallone later called the pinnacle of Rocky’s life. It was the perfect crescendo to an emotional journey—not only for Rocky, but for his alter ego.
The parallels between the actor’s story and Rocky’s were not lost on United Artists’ marketing strategist, Gabe Sumner. A clever publicist, Sumner knew he had quite the task in front of him: selling an old-fashioned boxing movie starring a nobody. Rocky’s competition at the box office didn’t make it any easier. Late 1976 was filled with blockbusters, and Stallone’s hero had to battle with King Kong, a new Dirty Harry sequel, and Carrie for ticket sales.
To compete, Sumner turned up the volume on Stallone’s shaggy-dog story. He sold the narrative about Stallone, a self-made actor-writer who had scraped and clawed his way to the top, as irresistibly American. And he bent the facts a little, too. In Sumner’s version, studio execs offered Stallone hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep the script if they could cast a bankable movie star in the role. The impoverished actor, despite having a pregnant wife and just $106 in the bank, stood his ground. He hitchhiked to auditions. He had to sell his dog. But Stallone wasn’t a sellout, and this was his one chance to break through. The truth, Sumner later admitted, was that the studio had never met Stallone. None of it mattered, though—this was Madison Avenue mythmaking at its best.
The marketing strategy struck a chord. The actor’s tale so perfectly mirrored his onscreen role that the film received significant attention from both the media and audiences. And as word of mouth spread, Rocky became the highest-grossing picture of 1976, earning more than $117 million at the box office (the average ticket price at the time was just over $2). Audiences were equally captivated by the soundtrack. “Gonna Fly Now,” Conti’s trumpet-heavy theme, which accompanied Rocky’s training montage, moved more than 500,000 units.
Though some critics, including The New York Times’ reviewer, panned the flick for its sentimentality, most media embraced it. “Rocky KOs Hollywood,” crowed a Newsweek cover. The Academy agreed. At the 1977 Academy Awards, Rocky became the first sports film to win Best Picture, beating out heavy hitters Network, All the President’s Men, and Taxi Driver. Frank Capra and Charlie Chaplin wrote Stallone congratulatory letters. He became a bona fide movie star, anointed by two Hollywood legends who had built their careers making heroes of the common man.
Today, Rocky’s boxing trunks hang in the Smithsonian. Wedding ceremonies have been held at his statue near Philadelphia’s Museum of Art. Fans still run up the adjacent steps, mimicking his sprint to glory. As for Stallone, he was inducted into the Boxing Hall of Fame in 2011, making him the only actor ever to receive the honor. In his vision of a gentle slugger searching for an opportunity to shine despite the longest odds, Stallone crafted a story that continues to resonate with millions of moviegoers: It’s the American dream played out at 24 frames per second.
When Sumner’s publicity exaggerations were discovered in 2006, few seemed to care. Perhaps that’s because as a character, Rocky did more than go toe-to-toe with Apollo Creed. At a time when Taxi Driver’s sociopathic antihero Travis Bickle preyed on audience fears and Network played to the bleak pessimism of a struggling nation, Rocky reminded the country what it means to hope. As Sylvester Stallone once said, “If I say it, you won’t believe it. But when Rocky said it, it was the truth.”
November 21, 2016 – 4:00am
If you’re a pop culture junkie with a thirst for the open road, consider driving to one of the attractions featured in the infographic below.
UK-based travel broker AttractionTix located the real-life filming locations of movies and TV shows including Friends, Harry Potter, Gilmore Girls, and Game of Thrones. To make the journey easy for fans, they listed the addresses below, along with other handy details including the logistics on how to get there, how long it takes to see the sites, and the best time to go. A word to the wise: Some of these filming locations are abroad, so you’ll have to book a plane ticket and rent a car overseas before channeling your inner Jack Kerouac.
November 21, 2016 – 3:00am
Since making its premiere on November 4, The Crown has become an indisputable hit for Netflix. The 10-part series, created by two-time Oscar nominee Peter Morgan (The Queen, Frost/Nixon), follows the ascension and early reign of Queen Elizabeth II (played by Claire Foy) and the challenges it creates in her personal life, particularly in her marriage to Prince Philip (played by former Doctor Who star Matt Smith). As the streaming channel’s latest binge-worthy offering, fans are already clamoring for details on the second season. Here’s what we know.
Just days after the first season of The Crown dropped, Netflix confirmed that it would be returning for a second season. Though there’s no official release date, all sources point to a similar premiere time frame, in October or November of 2017.
Last week, while speaking on a panel for the nonprofit organization Visionary Women, Netflix’s chief content officer Ted Sarandos confirmed that production on the show’s second season is already underway. “We’re in production now on the second season,” Sarandos said. “This is going to take Queen Elizabeth from age 29 to, presumably, the current day. We’ll see it lay out over decades. We’ve seen a lot of things about Queen Elizabeth, but we’ve already learned more about her than we ever had by watching the first 10 hours.”
In an interview with Vanity Fair, published on November 18, Foy revealed that they were already a month into shooting. “We literally pick up where we left off—in 1956,’’ she said. “I think Peter’s taking [us up to] ’63 or ’64. We get into the 60s, and it is a whole other world happening. It’s really exciting, especially because we’ve had such a positive response and everyone’s been really encouraging. It just makes everybody, especially the crew, work even harder. When we first started shooting, and it hadn’t come out. We were like, ‘Oh god, what if they hate it?’ And then we’ll [still have to film a second season] knowing that everyone hated it.”
Season two will focus largely on the Suez Crisis of 1956. “Initially, I thought this would only be three seasons,” Morgan told The Hollywood Reporter. “It would be one season of her as the Young Queen, one season of her as the Middle-Aged Queen, one season of her as an Old Queen. It’s only in the writing of it that I said, ‘Oh, my God I need more time.’ The truth of the matter is, I could’ve written three or even four seasons of her as the Young Queen. I did get to the point where I thought, ‘Actually no, let’s leave it on the knife’s edge of Suez because Suez feels like a changing point for the country. Britain was never the same again after Suez.’ Therefore, I was going to deal with that at the beginning of season two. Which we do.”
Though it’s the most expensive production (so far) in Netflix’s history, Sarandos seems rather pleased with the results of The Crown—and the audience’s reaction to it. Even if season two does bring viewers up to the present day, the series won’t stop there. In fact, from the get-go, Netflix saw the series as a long-term investment. “The idea is to do this over six decades, in six seasons presumably, and make the whole show over eight to 10 years,” Sarandos said.
For his part, Morgan isn’t able to look beyond season two at the moment. “I cannot think beyond season two and I’m not going to think beyond season two,” he told The Hollywood Reporter. “Of course by virtue of the fact that we continue to have Prime Ministers and the Queen has continued to stay alive and on the throne, there is a possibility of further material … The agreement I made with Netflix is that I would wait and see how the show was received before ever considering continuing. Because there’s simply no point in continuing unless what you’re doing has somehow connected or punched through at a significant level. It’s simply too overwhelming a commitment. I haven’t thought for one second about future seasons because I’m almost living in denial of the possibility of this continuing.”
Though Foy and Smith are both back for season two of The Crown, it will reportedly be their last. Because of the chronological nature of the narrative, seasons three and beyond would focus on the Queen in the later years of her reign, which would require an older actress. According to Digital Spy, if all six seasons of the series shake out as planned, the cast will change for season three then again in season five, for the final two seasons. Producer Andrew Eaton said that he and the rest of the team have had some “conversations” about who might play the royal couple next, but right now they are firmly focused on Foy.
“We saw a number of actresses in the beginning [to play the young Elizabeth] who were all brilliant, but Claire … there was something about her,” Eaton said.
“If you’re going to take this character—and she’s doing all of the first two seasons, so it’s 20 hours with the same character—it’s got to be someone that you can identify with and feels vulnerable and sympathetic and she has that quality as a person.”
The Crown is streaming now on Netflix.
November 21, 2016 – 2:00am
David Iliff via Wikimedia Commons // CC BY-SA 3.0
As part of The Telegraph’s ongoing 360-degree video series, you can now take a tour of one of the oldest library systems in Europe. The halls of Oxford’s Bodleian Libraries are stunning and full of glorious biblio-history, but they also have another notable draw: They happen to be where the library scenes in the Harry Potter films were shot.
The reading room known as Duke Humfrey’s Library served as the Hogwarts library for the movies. It’s the oldest reading room at the library, dating back to 1488. It was refurbished in 1598 by Sir Thomas Bodley, who the current library system is named after.
The Bodleian Libraries are legally entitled to a copy of every book published in the UK and Ireland—one of six such “legal deposit” libraries in the UK—and the system includes around 12 million volumes right now. Go ahead and take a look around, and discover just how Hogwarts-y it is.
[h/t The Telegraph]
November 21, 2016 – 1:00am
(Banner image courtesy of iStock)
November 21, 2016 – 12:00am
New York City’s public libraries have an open secret: There are (mostly were) apartments above 30 of them.
When the library system was built early in the twentieth century, apartments were included on the top floors of the branches funded by Andrew Carnegie. These quarters were built so that custodians could live alongside the library. While living in a secret apartment above a library seems like a dream to most of us, it was a practical reality for almost a century for the NYPL. It wasn’t particularly glamorous, though: The main reason for these round-the-clock custodians was that the branches funded by Carnegie were heated by coal furnaces, so the job entailed shoveling coal to keep the furnaces running.
Today, only 13 NYPL apartments remain. The rest have been re-purposed, as the need for coal-shoveling has been eliminated, and other demands on the space have arisen. Some of the remaining apartments have been deserted for decades, and Atlas Obscura got to take a peek inside.
For more images, check out this Atlas Obscura article.
You might also enjoy this Gothamist article, which includes this tidbit:
There were also two non-Carnegie branches (George Bruce Library and Ottendorfer Library) which had similar apartments. In 1949, an advertisement for a custodial job at one of the branches listed a monthly salary of $60.83, and with that salary came a five-room apartment (ft. a dumbwaiter!) in the building.
Images courtesy of New York Public Library Digital Collections: find originals here and here.
November 20, 2016 – 8:00pm
