Tag: NASA

JULY 22, 1959: THE MOON IS ALIVE WITH THE SOUND OF MUSIC

Posted on by Richard Daybell

Plan 9 From Outer Space is not the worst picture ever made. It’s probably not even the worst film to premier on July 22, 1959. The film has been featured in countless retrospectives, Turner Classic Movies, and documentaries. It’s been adapted for the stage, in comic books and computer games. It’s music has been featured on a CD. It’s been colorized!Plan_9_Alternative_poster

     And, of course, it was obviously the model for NASA’s grand hoax ten years later, the so-called moon landing and moonwalk.  Rumor has it that NASA even gave its charade the code name Plan 10 from Outer Space. Yet  even with all those scientists working on it, they couldn’t get the string holding up the Apollo spacecraft just right.  Nor did they include a single Bela Lugosi walk-on – his emerging dramatically from a crater would have been the perfect touch.

     And there you have the main argument – can any film featuring Bela Lugosi be the worst film ever made.  No way.   Lugosi has several scenes in Plan 9, even though he was dead and buried with a stake through his heart when the film was produced.  And narration by the Amazing Criswell. Had Criswell narrated the moon landing many more people would have believed in it.

     Some naysayers fault the film’s dialogue. “Can your heart stand the shocking facts about grave robbers from outer space?” Is that anywhere near as bad as “Doe, a deer, a female deer?”  Plan 9 from Outer Space is not the worst film ever made. The Sound of Music is.

And the Dish Ran Away with the Spoon

Or the Mound of Susic as the Reverend William Archibald Spooner, born July 22, 1844, might have called it.  The Reverend gave his name to that bit of word play known as a spoonerism. For example:

“Give three cheers for our queer old dean.”

“Is it kisstomary to cuss the bride?”

“The Lord is a shoving leopard.”

 

JULY 20, 1969: I SEE THE MOON, THE MOON SEES ME

Posted on by Richard Daybell

Mention the moonwalk, and Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin naturally spring to mind. You know, “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”   That is unless you’re Google. To Google, that magical searching apparatus, the moonwalk is a dance step popularized by Michael Jackson. That’s it, nothing else. If you’re an astronaut, you might just as well have done the cakewalk or the Lindy back there on July 20, 1969, with the whole world watching.

See the thread holding up the fake New York Times?

     Folks other than Google did watch the moonwalk as performed by the astronauts. It was the real thing not some abstract space adventure you might read about. It was there before our eyes, an “As Seen on TV” moment. Conspiracy theorists, along with Google, have different ideas of course – that the astronauts were actually doing Michael Jackson imitations on a secret sound stage somewhere out in the desert.  And they are joined by such notable sources of knowledge as Fox News and the Flat Earth Society. At any given moment over the past years, up to 20% of Americans have believed that the manned landings and moonwalks were faked. Many of these Americans are, of course, the same ones who believe that evolution is a communist plot, that Barak Obama was born in Kenya, and that Donald Trump is . . . well, the Almanac won’t go there.  They’ve even worked out all the little details. NASA, it seems, faked the landings to win the Space Race. The make-believe landings were staged by Hollywood under the aegis of Walt Disney, based on a script by Arthur C. Clarke and directed by Stanley Kubrick.

     A number of these skeptics even believe that the moon itself is a fake. If you’re not convinced, try Googling it.

JULY 22, 1959: THE MOON IS ALIVE WITH THE SOUND OF MUSIC

Posted on by Richard Daybell

Plan 9 From Outer Space is not the worst picture ever made. It’s probably not even the worst film to premier on July 22, 1959. The film has been featured in countless retrospectives, Turner Classic Movies, and documentaries. It’s been adapted for the stage, in comic books and computer games. It’s music has been featured on a CD. It’s been colorized!Plan_9_Alternative_poster

     And, of course, it was obviously the model for NASA’s grand hoax ten years later, the so-called moon landing and moonwalk.  Rumor has it that NASA even gave its charade the code name Plan 10 from Outer Space. Yet  even with all those scientists working on it, they couldn’t get the string holding up the Apollo spacecraft just right.  Nor did they include a single Bela Lugosi walk-on – his emerging dramatically from a crater would have been the perfect touch.

     And there you have the main argument – can any film featuring Bela Lugosi be the worst film ever made.  No way.   Lugosi has several scenes in Plan 9, even though he was dead and buried with a stake through his heart when the film was produced.  And narration by the Amazing Criswell. Had Criswell narrated the moon landing many more people would have believed in it.

     Some naysayers fault the film’s dialogue. “Can your heart stand the shocking facts about grave robbers from outer space?” Is that anywhere near as bad as “Doe, a deer, a female deer?”  Plan 9 from Outer Space is not the worst film ever made. The Sound of Music is.

And the Dish Ran Away with the Spoon

Or the Mound of Susic as the Reverend William Archibald Spooner, born July 22, 1844, might have called it.  The Reverend gave his name to that bit of word play known as a spoonerism. For example:

“Give three cheers for our queer old dean.”

“Is it kisstomary to cuss the bride?”

“The Lord is a shoving leopard.”

 

JULY 20, 1969: I SEE THE MOON, THE MOON SEES ME

Posted on by Richard Daybell

Mention the moonwalk, and Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin naturally spring to mind. You know, “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”   That is unless you’re Google. To Google, that magical searching apparatus, the moonwalk is a dance step popularized by Michael Jackson. That’s it, nothing else. If you’re an astronaut, you might just as well have done the cakewalk or the Lindy back there on July 20, 1969, with the whole world watching.

See the thread holding up the fake New York Times?

     Folks other than Google did watch the moonwalk as performed by the astronauts. It was the real thing not some abstract space adventure you might read about. It was there before our eyes, an “As Seen on TV” moment. Conspiracy theorists, along with Google, have different ideas of course – that the astronauts were actually doing Michael Jackson imitations on a secret sound stage somewhere out in the desert.  And they are joined by such notable sources of knowledge as Fox News and the Flat Earth Society. At any given moment over the past years, up to 20% of Americans have believed that the manned landings and moonwalks were faked. Many of these Americans are, of course, the same ones who believe that evolution is a communist plot, that Barak Obama was born in Kenya, and that Donald Trump is . . . well, the Almanac won’t go there.  They’ve even worked out all the little details. NASA, it seems, faked the landings to win the Space Race. The make-believe landings were staged by Hollywood under the aegis of Walt Disney, based on a script by Arthur C. Clarke and directed by Stanley Kubrick.

     A number of these skeptics even believe that the moon itself is a fake. If you’re not convinced, try Googling it.