Weird Universe Archive

October 2023

October 6, 2023

October 5, 2023

Heterochromatic Girl

AKA Norma Eberhardt. Her heterochromia was reportedly the trait that initially attracted the attention of a photographer, leading to a modeling (and later acting) career.

Wikipedia has a list of other actors with heterochromia, but Eberhardt's condition was far more pronounced that most of the other people on the list.

More info: curator's cabinet

Life - July 18, 1949



Posted By: Alex - Thu Oct 05, 2023 - Comments (4)
Category: Actors, Eyes and Vision

Twiggy Lookalike Contest

Searching the historical record for 1967 reveals numerous Twiggy Lookalike contests scattered around the USA and elsewhere. Here's the best one, at least photo-wise.

Posted By: Paul - Thu Oct 05, 2023 - Comments (3)
Category: Awards, Prizes, Competitions and Contests, Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues, Celebrities, Fashion, 1960s

October 4, 2023

Jesus Jeans

Info from Adland: A global history of advertising (2007) by Mark Tungate.

The ad that really got [Emanuele] Pirella noticed was for a brand called Jesus Jeans, launched in 1974 by MCT (Maglificio Calzificio Torinese), the company that makes Kappa sportswear today. According to Pirella, the brand was vaguely inspired by the previous year's hit musical Jesus Christ Superstar. Clearly something provocative was needed, so a young photographer named Oliviero Toscani was hired to shoot a young woman wearing the jeans, the zipper open in a manner that indicated she was not wearing any underwear, while casting a coy shadow over the evidence. Pirella's copy read: "Thou shalt not have any jeans but me."



Mixing fashion, sex and religion — in a Catholic country? No wonder Pirella got himself in the papers. The second execution was the line, "Whoever loves me, follows me,", printed over a pert bottom in denim hot-pants. (The bottom, by the way, was that of Toscani's girlfriend at the time.) The Jesus Jeans brand clearly hasn't stood the test of time, but the furore surrounding the campaign did much for Pirella's career.




Posted By: Alex - Wed Oct 04, 2023 - Comments (1)
Category: Fashion, Denim, Advertising, 1970s

October 3, 2023

If war gas falls from the sky

Buy scotch tape, because it might help you in the event of chemical warfare.

Life - Sep 20, 1943

Posted By: Alex - Tue Oct 03, 2023 - Comments (3)
Category: War, Advertising, 1940s

War of the Networks Board Game

Does it include dealing with a writers and actors strike?

The entry at Board Game Geek.

Posted By: Paul - Tue Oct 03, 2023 - Comments (0)
Category: Games, Television, 1970s

October 2, 2023

The Chimpomat

In one of our recent posts, there was a reference to the Chimpomat, a token-operated vending machine for chimpanzees created at the Yerkes Laboratories in the 1930s. Here's more info about it.

"Subject Kambi is shown about to drop a token into the slot of the chimpomat to 'purchase' food."



Info from The Ape People (1971) by Geoffrey H. Bourne:

The Yerkes Laboratories eventually developed a device known as a Chimpomat. This Chimpomat would receive either metal or plastic disks and would dispense some form of food reward in return for the insertion of a disk. Animals were eventually taught to pull the box of weights up to the cage in return for plastic or metal disks which they could then take and put in the Chimpomat to get their reward.

By the process of lengthening the time between which they could earn the reward and when they could actually receive it by using the Chimpomat (by making the Chimpomat available only certain times of the day), the animals could be trained to collect plastic disks, in other words, to work for money. They would store up this money until the time came for them to spend it. Eventually they were trained to earn the money one day and spend it in the Chimpomat the following day.

On these occasions the animals used to walk around clutching their earnings to their breasts, sleeping on them at night so they would not be stolen, and getting very hysterical if any other animal came near their earnings or tried to take any of them away—a very human side of their actuvity and the dawn of ownership of private property and capitalism, a thought that has intriguing implications.

Posted By: Alex - Mon Oct 02, 2023 - Comments (1)
Category: Animals, Science, 1930s

October 1, 2023

Python on the golf course

1952: Finding that her golf ball had come to rest on top of a 10-foot python, Mrs. Bobbie Pritchard shot the python and then continued to play the ball from on top of the (now dead) snake.

I guess that taking a penalty and using a new ball was, for whatever reason, out of the question.

Glasgow Daily Record - Dec 24, 1952

Posted By: Alex - Sun Oct 01, 2023 - Comments (3)
Category: Reptiles, Snakes, Worms and Other Slithery Things, Golf, 1950s

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