Campbells tapped Goerke to come up with a kid-friendly pasta, and after trying shapes like cowboys, spacemen, stars, and sports shapes, he chose the simple O. He obviously chose wisely; SpaghettiOs sell over 150 million cans per year and are a staple with kids everywhere. In addition to creating SpaghettiOs, Goerke was also behind the ever-popular Chunky soup, a product that has provided extra income to NFL players for years.

To celebrate Allina’s legacy, here are a few fun Pez facts:

• The name “Pez” is derived from the German word for “peppermint”, “Pfefferminze”
• It was originally marketed to adults
• Allina added the cool dispenser in 1955 and they started marketing them to kids
• A Tweety Bird Pez dispenser was at the center of one of the best episodes of Seinfeld EVER
• The most expensive Pez dispenser is from the 1982 World’s Fair, and it sold on eBay in 2006 for over $32,000. Seriously.

Farewell Curtis, and either thank you for bringing joy to children across the world, or screw you for unleashing an incredibly irritating hobby on the world.

“You’re a Mean One Mr. Grinch” – It’s become an integral part of Christmas. In addition to being a heartwarming anti-consumerist tale, it’s also a catchy as hell song:

“The Sneetches” – A commentary on racism, classism, and the inevitable unhappiness associated with chasing fads, wrapped in a kids story. The message in The Sneetches is just as relevant today as it was in 1961. It even serves as a warning against opportunistic hucksters waiting to pounce on people’s insecurities. That’s a lot of messages for a rhyming cartoon.

My personal favorite Suess story is Green Eggs and Ham. It’s a remarkable example of what you can make out of limited materials. If you don’t know the story, Seuss’ publisher bet him $50 he couldn’t write a whole story using only 50 unique words. So he did. There are exactly 50 different words in Green Eggs and Ham, and 49 of them are one syllable. The repetition this creates, along with the rhythm of the monosyllabic words gives the story a distinctive tone and sound. That distinctiveness lends itself to re-interpretation.

One example is some guy interpreting Bob Dylan interpreting Green Eggs and Ham

(from the now defunct DylanHearsAWho.com)

But the greatest example of an interpretation of Green Eggs and Ham is Jesse Jackson’s reading on Saturday Night Live, shortly after Seuss’ death:

“Green Egg and Ham”

If anyone has any idea of the context of this photo I’d love to hear it…

I was 17 years old in 1993. Musically I was just coming of age. I had just left behind the atrocities of Hammer’s 2 Legit 2 Quit and Another Bad Creation’s Coolin’ at the Playground Ya Know!, and had just gone through a Beatles and Zeppelin intervention. I was listening to a lot of grunge, diving heavily into Nirvana, Soundgarden, and especially Pearl Jam. Through high school band I was listening to and playing a lot of classical and jazz. With that mix of music stewing around in my head it’s amazing that I was able to understand and appreciate something that didn’t fit into any category I’d heard before: Björk’s Debut.

From the opening notes of “Human Behaviour” I realized that the Icelandic pixie’s breakthrough album was completely outside any frame of reference I had. I was studying music, playing it at every opportunity, reading about it constantly, and listening to it all the time. So I thought I understood things like rhythm, phrasing, and instrumentation. But what I heard in just the first song wiped away any pride I had made me realize that I knew nothing at all about where this music was coming from. The syncopated percussion line, fuzzed-out bass sounds, and Björk’s distinct vocals were like an unexpected slap in the face from a beautiful woman: jarring, but oddly exciting.

“Human Behaviour” was a revelation to me. I was exhilarated, yet humbled. How could I know so much about music, but have no frame of reference for this? Obviously I didn’t know as much about music as I thought I did, a revelation that continues to this day. But “Human Behaviour” isn’t the only track that shook my musical foundations.

“Big Time Sensuality” is dance music. But not a kind of dance music I’d ever heard before. There’s not a lot of bass. In fact it’s mostly snare and hi hat. But it moves. And it makes you move. Björk’s semi-suggestive lyrics, her growls, and her off-kilter inflection combine into an intoxicating cocktail, especially for a teenager. It’s safe to say I had a bit of a crush on Björk after hearing this song.

“Big Time Sensuality” was dance music as I’d never heard it before, but “Venus as a Boy” reinvented something I was even more familiar with: the ballad. The arrangement is so unique that at the time I couldn’t even identify all the instruments. Hell, who am I kidding, I can’t identify some of them now. Once again, Björk’s delivery of the vocal was the truly special part. She lays down phrases in ways I had never imaged, ways nobody’s imagined since. They’re so distinctive one can’t imagine anyone else even trying them. Yet they work so well for her. It’s truly amazing.

Debut may have been released 16 years ago, but it’s so unlike anything that came our around it that it has a timeless feeling to it. It’s every bit as enjoyable to listen to today as it was then. And even though my musical knowledgebase has grown and my tastes have gotten more sophisticated, I still don’t know quite where to put this album. And that’s a great compliment.

Hope you enjoyed the first Rewind Review. Stay tuned for more. By the way, this post is the 1,000th in the history of Pop Culture Will Eat Itself. Thanks to everyone who’s contributed, shared links with their friends, left comments, or even just read. You keep reading, I’ll keep writing. And now back to our regularly scheduled program.

I’ve been very skeptical of this project from the first report. It seems like simply another attempt to cash in on 30-something nostalgia. Plus the first attempt at a movie was an absolute abomination (Dolph Lundgren anyone?). And in retrospect He-Man was a pretty stupid cartoon and toy line (why is he fighting guys who shoot lasers with a sword? And how did we miss the fact that the guy with the Mary Tyler Moore haircut goes from pink shirt and tights to bondage gear?). But…

I like Kung Fu Panda. Quite a bit actually. So can the man behind that movie actually make Masters of the Universe interesting? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. Not sure how long we’ll have to wait though; no release date has been set.

via Latino Review

Check out this amazing commercial from 1994, which couldn’t possibly be 15 years ago now, because that would mean I graduated from high school 15 years ago…Oh god…it’s been 15 years since I graduated from high school…if you need me I’ll be crying in the corner…

Wait, what just happened? I blacked out for a second there. Where were we? Right, the commercial. It’s for a classic infomercial gadget that helps you clean fish. And naturally it’s called the Wunder Boner. Don’t drink anything during this, as it will likely come right out your nose:

If I’m not mistaken that’s Baltimore’s own Mike Rowe doing the voice-over (from Dirty Jobs, Deadliest Catch, American Chopper, and probably 15 other shows on the Discovery Channel). And “My wife would like that” is just about the funniest line ever uttered in a commercial. Ah, I love the internet.

via BoingBoing

In addition to the thousands of kitschy products available, Lucas saw fit to create new material to add to the Star Wars canon. The results were fairly horrendous, as evidenced by the Star Wars Holiday Special. Another of these ill-fated efforts was Christmas in the Stars, a 1980 album featuring R2D2 and C3PO working in a droid-operated Christmas toy factory. While they’re not making toys they introduce Star Wars-themed Christmas songs. Song with titles like “What Can You Get a Wookiee for Christmas (When He Already Owns a Comb?)” and “The Odds Against Christmas”. Sounds like something that probably should have slipped into the mists of time and never resurfaced, right? Maybe, if not for a certain singer on one of the songs.

Producer Meco Monardo knew in order for the album to work the songs had to be performed by professional singers, not the droids themselves. Co-producer Tony Bongiovi recommended his cousin, who worked at the studio sweeping floors, for one of the songs. “R2D2 We Wish You a Merry Christmas” is a fairly terrible song, but it’s notable for being the first professional recording for John Bongiovi, who you may know better by his stage name Jon Bon Jovi.

“R2D2 We Wish You A Merry Christmas”

And that, my friends, is the story of how R2D2 and Jon Bon Jovi became inexorably linked to Christmas. Merry Christmas everyone!

Turns out it was a simple mistake. Ripken got a shipment of bats from Louisville Slugger that he wasn’t happy with. Rather than waste the whole batch he decided to use one of them for batting practice. To tell it apart from his game bats he wrote “Fuck Face” on it. Then one fateful day in Fenway Park, during batting practice, Fleer’s photographer asked to take his picture. Not thinking twice about it he grabbed his bat and posed. Amazingly the photographer didn’t see the writing. Neither did whoever developed the photo. Nor did anyone at Fleer, or the printing plant. So the card made its way into normal packs of 89 Fleer cards.

Once they hit store the shit hit the fan. What should have been an eminently forgettable card instead became hot commodity and a lighting rod of criticism. Instead of just admitting it was a mistake Ripken blamed his teammates. He told the Baltimore Sun’s Tim Kurkjian (now one of ESPN’s top baseball reporters) “It appears I was targeted (by teammates). I know I’m kind of a jerk at times. I know I’m a little off. But this is going too far.” That’s pretty low if you ask me.

But Ripken’s admitting to the mistake know, which is commendable. And he’s apparently got a sense of humor about the whole thing. He got copies of the cards from Fleer, signed them, and gave them out to his groomsmen.

Hollywood has been churning out remakes lately. Most of them suck. This week we even found out that Red Sonja is being remade. 100% chance of suckage. But there’s hope. Once in a while a remake comes along that actually makes sense. Where modern technology can actually help tell the story in a more convincing way. I know humbly present one of these rare opportunities: Clash of the Titans.

Incredible Hulk director Louis Leterrier is set to direct an updated version of the 1981 classic. If his last film is any indication, Leterrier knows how to use special effects, which should greatly help improve the story’s presentation.

Admittedly there was something charming about the special effects in the original Clash of the Titans. Ray Harryhausen’s stop motion effects are great, but they look dated. Really dated. If the remake can keep the same spirit as the original, but update the effects to modern standards, the result could be fantastic. If they try to go overboard and rely on effects at the expense of the story, it will suck hard. I guess we’ll just have to wait until 2010 to find out.