Category:
1990s
1990s
Chair Safety
1999: Due to a spate of "chair-related injuries", the employees in the Seattle Police Department's Identification Unit all had to take a training session on how to safely sit in a chair.
I guess chair safety is one of those things that sounds silly, until you hurt yourself sitting down wrong. Below, Regina Cochrane, "professional accident preventer," offers some chair safety tips.
Posted By: Alex - Wed Apr 07, 2021 -
Comments (2)
Category: Accidents, Furniture, 1990s
Uke-TEL NAKI-U1
"Uke-TEL NAKI-U1" is the 1993 creation of the 'art collective' Maywa Denki (brothers Masamichi and Nobumichi Tosa), who specialize in creating "useless machines". They offer the following description of 'Uke-TEL' on their website:A thrilling "fish cage" with a special device. The hanging needles fall off from the roof in time to the telephone time signal and may hit the unlucky fish swimming at the bottom
Or, as explained by We Make Money Not Art:
A fish is swimming in a cage, nails hanging on the ceiling. When you call 177 using a phone attached to the cage, nails fall into the water along with the tone.
Seems to me its use is to kill goldfish, which makes it relevant to the controversy, previously posted about, concerning the legal rights of goldfish.
Posted By: Alex - Tue Mar 30, 2021 -
Comments (0)
Category: Art, Fish, 1990s
Oakland Ballet Battles Virginity
1995: In an effort to attract new customers, "including singles, sports-minded men and female shopping-mall patrons," the Oakland Ballet put up billboards that displayed the message, "Go ahead, take another date to miniature golf, and die a virgin. Oakland Ballet. You just might like it."I can understand that the ads were meant to be controversial, but what was with the weird dig at miniature golf?
More info: LA Times
Sacramento Bee - Nov 23, 1995
Posted By: Alex - Mon Mar 29, 2021 -
Comments (3)
Category: 1990s, Billboards
Nuclear submarines as oil tankers
Potentially mad scheme: After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian navy was casting about for ways to raise revenue and came up with the idea of using Typhoon-class submarines as oil tankers. The Soviets had built six Typhoon-class nuclear subs which were, and still are, the largest submarines ever made. The main selling point of this idea was that the subs could travel under Arctic ice, eliminating the need for expensive ice-breakers. From wikipedia:In the early 1990s, there were also proposals to rebuild some of the Typhoon-class submarines to submarine cargo vessels for shipping oil, gas and cargo under polar ice to Russia's far flung northern territories. The submarines could take up to 10,000 tonnes of cargo on-board and ship it under the polar ice to tankers waiting in the Barents Sea. These ships – after the considerable engineering required to develop technologies to transfer oil from drilling platforms to the submarines, and later, to the waiting tankers – would then deliver their cargo world-wide.
The idea was abandoned when someone over there decided that a nuclear sub filled with 10,000 tons of oil might pose some safety concerns.
More info: bellona.org
Posted By: Alex - Tue Mar 16, 2021 -
Comments (7)
Category: Military, Atomic Power and Other Nuclear Matters, Transportation, 1990s
Robo Show and Flower Planet
Two features from the 1990 World's Fair in Japan.The opening few minutes are a press release for the company that created the exhibit. "Robo Show" begins at the 5:40 mark, and "Flower Planet" at minute 13:00. State-of-the-art stuff for thirty years ago.
Posted By: Paul - Thu Feb 11, 2021 -
Comments (0)
Category: Fairs, Amusement Parks, and Resorts, Robots, Cartoons, Special Effects, 1990s, Asia
The Sins of the Children
Article source.
WASHINGTON POST coverage here.
Here is the official write-up of the case and its outcome.
Posted By: Paul - Wed Jan 13, 2021 -
Comments (1)
Category: Lawsuits, Parents, Teenagers, 1990s, Pregnancy
Stockpiling toilet paper - 1993
July 1993: A pro-timber group urged consumers to stockpile toilet paper in order to deplete store supplies and thereby raise awareness of the importance of wood and paper products. "You can help by buying one or two (or twenty!) cases of toilet paper," its newsletter declared.Little did they know that, 27 years later, a pandemic would transform America into a nation of toilet paper stockpilers!
Longview Daily News - July 15, 1993
Posted By: Alex - Mon Jan 11, 2021 -
Comments (3)
Category: Bathrooms, 1990s
“Pregnancy forces granny to quit work at age 101”
In October 1990, the Sun ran a story about a 101-year old woman who supposedly had to quit her job as a newspaper carrier because she got pregnant after being seduced by a reclusive millionaire on her route. The story, of course, was totally false. However, the Sun also ran a picture with the article of a real woman, 96-year-old Nellie Mitchell of Arkansas.Mitchell sued, charging invasion of privacy (she had never given them permission to use her photo) and emotional distress, because she now had to endure people asking her when the baby was due. During the trial, the editor of the Sun explained that they had needed a picture to go along with the fake story, and had found in their archive a photo of Mitchell taken in 1986. They had used it, assuming she must have been dead by then. And dead people can't sue for damages.
Mitchell won and was awarded $150,000 in compensatory damages and $850,000 in punitive damages.
Baxter Bulletin - Oct 19, 1993
Posted By: Alex - Sun Dec 20, 2020 -
Comments (7)
Category: Elderly and Seniors, Journalism, Lawsuits, 1990s
Space Race
This is what the passengers would see on a 1990s amusement park ride dubbed "Space Race." It's intriguing to compare state-of-the-art then to now.Contemporary article on the ride here.
Posted By: Paul - Mon Nov 30, 2020 -
Comments (2)
Category: Fairs, Amusement Parks, and Resorts, Spaceflight, Astronautics, and Astronomy, Special Effects, 1990s
Canned Roadkill
1990: T. Roy Gentry began selling cans that he advertised as containing possum run over by a cattle truck 2 miles south of Ozark, Missouri. The cans actually contained potted meat from a local grocery store.
Newsweek - Mar 19, 1990
Kansas City Times - Feb 20, 1990
Posted By: Alex - Wed Nov 18, 2020 -
Comments (3)
Category: Food, 1990s, Pranks
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| Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1. Contact Us |