Hey That's Smooth

Do you know the lyrics to "Smooth Criminal"? I assumed I did without thinking about it, until this subtitled version (music starts ~01:30) made me realize that despite hearing the song thousands of times, throughout almost all of my life, I had absolutely no idea what the lyrics were. Well, aside from the one, obviously.

1911 - Little Nemo

This was a hard opening scene to see:

 I mean, I just watched an "attempt drawing pictures that will move" that was made three years earlier. Plus, Wikipedia seems to think pictures had already been moving for more than 80 years already, at least.

But then again, Little Nemo! Created by and starring the original artist! WHILE LITTLE NEMO WAS STILL BEING PRODUCED! And Nemo himself is pretty wild. Here he is warping space locally to trip you out.

I'm still alive

... and I'm still planning to continue with Chrono Order.  I relocated to my Dad's place in Portland to be more productive, and so far I have been. But I also have internet access at home here, which means too much of my leisure time has been spent doing things like this:

The novelty should wear off in a few days. I should have the universe pretty much figured out by then.

1910 - Frankenstein

I'd been looking forward to seeing this since Pud told me that it existed. Thomas Edison's version of Frankenstein! In 1910! I forced myself to finish the book (finally) before watching it. It did actually make it more interesting: What did people think Frankenstein's monster looked like before everyone knew he was big and green and bolty?

That stuff isn't in the book - Dr. Frankenstein refuses to reveal how he created life so that it could never happen again. So instead of electrocuting something, Edison's Frankenstein just dumped a bunch of stuff in a cauldron and locked it in a room, peering in to see what happened.

THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED

AND IT MOVES. WHILE IT APPEARS TO BE ON FIRE. BACKWARDS.

So, yeah, you should watch the scene where the monster is created for sure.

1909 - Princess Nicotine; or, the Smoke Fairy

Another short special effects comedy that I chose for the preposterous name. It's mostly about smoking and mischievous fairies. The fairies play pranks on the much larger smoking protagonist. For example, they hide in his corn cob pipe and cover themselves with tobacco:

Ha! What a foolish smoker! He is about to smoke a MAGICAL FAIRY without even knowing it. Fans of psychedelic drugs may not find this so foolish, of course: Given the chance, a mind-expander would EFFING LOVE the chance to smoke a (n apparently willing) magical creature in their pipes. Anyway, the film still represented a milestone for me. This smoking fairy rose flower:

... eventually broke down into petals, and those petals rolled themselves into a cigar, all in stop motion. That's right: This is the first stop-motion animation I've seen in this project, which made it pretty rad. Even though the things being animated were mostly boring.

1908 - Fantasmagorie

One of the world's first animated films, by Émile Cohl, this film is less than two minutes long. Here is what watching the film is like:

"Ha ha! What an outrageous hat! I wish I had a hat like that. Oh, now he's..... Wait he's.... WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING"

I can see why Wikipedia considers him part of the "largely forgotten incoherent movement".

But do not mistake me: this film as rad.

1907 - Laughing Gas

Another Edwin Porter/Thomas Edison film, Laughing Gas is a comedy starring Bertha Regustus. Regustus is a Black woman, so we can now date the loss of funnyness among women to some time in the 100 years between this movie and this article, which you shouldn't bother asking me about since I don't plan to read it.

At any rate, the film is a 9-minute morality play about how you should definitely do nitrous and then interact with as many people as possible. Sure, you may [SPOILERS] steal seats on the trolley, destroy the milkman's livelihood and get taken to court for it, and dump soup on the people that you're a domestic servant for, but nobody will care.  They will laugh their asses off. Because you are.

Also, the survey for 1916 is still up. Thanks for your responses so far.