Cockroach racetracks were just one of the products sold by the International Mutoscope Reel Company. But the sales just weren't enough to save the company from bankruptcy in 1949.
Here's a little something for the lady WU-vies. This otherwise innocuous home movie features two guys playing handball while wearing only jockstraps.
They come on around the one-minute mark, and play for three minutes. Then they reappear around the eleven-minute mark for another four minutes, joined by a third guy in trunks.
Not sure if this was conventional attire for handball in the era of the filming (1930s-1940s, judging by the clothes). Or if we are just dealing with a couple of exhibitionists.
I do know that even in the 1960s of my youth, the Boys' Club in town featured naked swim sessions for boys. Nobody used to believe me, till I found proof in LIFE MAGAZINE.
Mashable.com is hosting a video that Nascar and Youtube chose to censor. A fan in the stands got some pretty intense video of a very serious wreck from todays race. Part of a car flew into the stands causing injuries to spectators including the person in the video who was apparently hit by a tire. Details of the huge wreck are also available at the link.
UPDATE: Youtube has reinstated the previously pulled video.
Posted By: patty | Date: Sat Feb 23, 2013 | Comments (4)
Category: Sports
According to wikipedia, octopus wrestling "involves a diver grappling with a large octopus in shallow water and dragging it to the surface."
Popular Mechanics (May 1966) provides some more details:
Two things work for the hunters. The octopus is basically timid, and divers work in teams. One man goes down (about 50 feet) and tries to force an octopus from his cave. When he comes up for air, the second man goes down and tries to pry the octopus loose from the rocks. If he's not up in 30 seconds, the third man goes down. They don't harm the animals. They just weigh them and throw them back in. Why do they do it? Well, why not?
He was just a run-of-the-mill talented bowler, until he started bowling backwards. Now he's famous. (famous among bowlers, at least.) Check out his website.
Posted By: Alex | Date: Mon Feb 11, 2013 | Comments (3)
Category: Sports
I venture to suggest that there is no mystery as to what will appeal to the recipient of such gifts. Most men, if presented with an old dishrag by a Christmas "elf" in such attire, would be quite happy.
There aren't that many people who seriously pursue art and wrestling at the same time, but Patrick O'Connor was one of them. Back in the 1940s, he was heavyweight wrestling champion of Ireland, but also had a Greenwich Village art studio. He was an artist of the "conservative Realist and Romantic school." Apparently he viewed art as his true passion. Wrestling was just a way to make money. From The Evening Independent, Sep. 9, 1944:
His portraits were too realistic. If a rich dowager had three chins, he refused to conveniently omit two of them. As a result there was no rush of customers, so the painter turned to wrestling as a means of earning an honest dollar.
Unfortunately I haven't been able to find any examples of his art, except for the ones that can be seen behind him in the pictures below. O'Connor is the one with the beard. The pictures were taken in his art studio.
There haven't been many female bullfighters, and being a female bullfighter back in the 1950s made Patricia McCormick even more of an oddity. Wikipedia offers this brief bio of her:
Patricia debuted as a bullfighter in September 1951 in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua. She joined the Matador's Union soon after and began bullfighting as a professional Matadora in January 1952. Throughout her decade-long career, she fought in 300 corridas throughout Mexico and Venezuela. Six times bulls gored her, once so seriously that a priest administered last rites.
Wikigender has some info about the history of female bullfighting:
Women have fought bulls since the 18th century, but a law in 1908 banned then from the ring on the grounds of "decency and public morality". The restriction was lifted in the 1930s but reimposed by the dictator Francisco Franco in 1940. It was lifted again only after his death in 1975. Women bullfighters still remain rare.
Category: Sports, 1920's