what's just the most bizarre/inexplicable thing (movie, tv show, etc.) you've ever seen. something that made you just shake your head and wonder if you're on the right planet.

i had a moment like this a few nights ago- "barbarella" was completely so strange, yet fascinating... (and, lord, the costume changes!)

give us something to think about...

-- Anonymous, April 26, 2000

Answers

"The Other Sister" I had to imagine the pitch for that one. "Okay, it's this story of star-crossed lovers. The parents won't let them be together. Why? Because the parents hate each other! No that's been done. Because he's got a big nose and is afraid for her to see him! No, Steve Martin did that. Because...they're retarded! That's it! But cute retarded, Stuart Chandler retarded, not real retarded. This is going to be huge." Who let this happen?

-- Anonymous, April 26, 2000

Well, this isn't the weirdest ever, but it was certainly the strangest today. Those of you who read my journal know that I work in a mental hospital, which naturally gives me something fun to report on most days.

Today I was leaving the ward (which is locked down, so any entrance or exit requires a key), and as I was standing there with the door open, one of the patients suddenly called out, "Hey, hold the door!"

I looked over at him and he gave me a weird smile. "Just kidding," he said and walked off.

-- Anonymous, April 26, 2000

Anything seen on Mystery Science Theater 3000 is weird enough. Especially the "curse of the Giant people" or something like that. It had Beau Bridges, Jerry Mathers, and Ron Howard in it. I'm amazed that they had careers after this movie.

-- Anonymous, April 26, 2000

The most inexplicable thing for me is the reason that my roommate and her significant other pick out the worst movies known to humankind when I send them to blockbuster. The worst one lately was called "The Love Letter", I think. It had Kate Capshaw in it, and it was not only complete excrement, the plot didn't make any logical sense at all. I don't mean like the way 2001: A Space Odyssey doesn't make sense - this movie was clearly supposed to have a plot, it just didn't. It was almost as inexplicable as "The Avengers", another roommate hot pick.

Real life is pretty inexplicable too. Rob's story reminded me of this: The other day I was walking home from work through the park, and a group of about 30 mental patients from the local group home were arranged on and around a park bench, singing "This is the Day that the Lord Has Made".

-- Anonymous, April 26, 2000

"Hang 'em High" begins with Clint Eastwood by the campfire, cooking breakfast. A posse rides over the ridge, grabs him, strings him up, and rides away. Opening credits begin as we pan up Clint's body. A blah blah production... of a blah blah move... Hang 'em High... (we get to the face) starring Clint Eastwood.

Gee, I thought. Short movie. Anyway, it's a really weird western; that basically sets the tone for the movie.

I moved to Minneapolis from California; my first winter here, first mornin below freezing, there was a big traffic jam. I got to work, somebody mentioned that it was caused by a guy on an overpass who was naked, except for a green stocking cap. Somebody said, "Must have been a Packers fan." Huh?

Now that the vast majority of the planet realizes professional wrestling is not real, we have actually managed to convince a great many people that shows like Jerry Springer are real. Yikes almighty.

Frosty Paws, ice cream for dogs.

-- Anonymous, April 27, 2000

"The Love Letter" DIDN'T make any sense. I really didn't know what anyone wanted. I was like,"Is that good or bad?" Bad movie. Bad.

-- Anonymous, April 27, 2000

Many Archie McPhee products ("Gee, Mom, this is swell!! Oh, boy, cheese-flavored LARVETTES! A pink latex beehive wig!! And a bag of 2000 fake plastic ants! This is the BEST birthday EVER!!") Hey, I actually LIKE McPhee stuff, I just know it's pretty hard to explain sometimes why you bought it.

People who think it is okay to have arguments on a cell phone while going 80 mph

"City of Lost Children"

Dreadlocks on white people (generally speaking)

"Wash, rinse, repeat; do not put in eye" and other stupid product warnings (as seen on this popular e-mail list):

Further examples of why the human race has probably evolved as far as possible:
*** Actual label instructions on consumer goods ***
On Sears hairdryer: Do not use while sleeping. (Gee, that's the only time I have to work on my hair!)
On a bag of Fritos: You could be a winner! No purchase necessary. Details inside. (The shoplifter special!)
On a bar of Dove soap: Directions: Use like regular soap. (and that would be how?)
On some Swann frozen dinners: Serving suggestion: Defrost. (But it's *just* a suggestion!)
On a hotel-provided shower cap in a box: Fits one head. (The big one or the little one?)
On Tesco's Tiramisu dessert:(printed on bottom of the box) Do not turn upside down. (Too late! You lose!)
On Marks & Spencer Bread Pudding: Product will be hot after heating. (Are you sure??? Let's experiment.)
On packaging for a Rowenta iron: Do not iron clothes on body. (But wouldn't that save more time?) (Whose body?)
On Boot's Children's cough medicine: Do not drive car or operate machinery. (We could do a lot to reduce the rate of construction accidents if we just kept those 5 year olds off those fork lifts.)
On Nytol sleep aid: Warning: may cause drowsiness. (One would hope!)
On a Korean kitchen knife: Warning keep out of children. (Or pets! What's for dinner?)
On a string of Chinese-made Christmas lights: For indoor or outdoor use only. (As opposed to use in outer space.)
On Sainsbury's peanuts: Warning: contains nuts. (but no peas?)
On an American Airlines packet of nuts: Instructions: open packet, eat nuts. (have a lobotomy)
On a child's Superman costume: Wearing of this garment does not enable you to fly. (That's right, destroy a universal childhood fantasy!)
On a Swedish chainsaw: Do not attempt to stop chain with your hands or genitals. (What is this, a home castration kit?)

Why a particular friend (who shall go nameless) can be completely self-absorbed, rude, immature, selfish, and unpleasant but still have three attractive, normal, sweet-natured men pining after her for an average of five years each. She's very pretty and intelligent but she's also built like a Pixy Stick, does unattractive things with her hair (like forgetting to wash it), relies on her parents to bail her out all the time, and she is a tease (waiting for marriage but will do almost anything but "that" and she's 30-something...goes through a 'boyfriend' or two per month, on average, because they find out). I end up defending her self-absorbed (etc) behavior all the time to mutual friends. She's mean and dismissive to the crushed-out men, calling one "sneaky and deceitful", one "unintelligent and boring" and one "rude and is in general a troll". (Only one of these descriptions might actually apply to the boy in question.)

$700 to fix a small scratch on a plastic bumper

Wayne Newton

Cars with 4000 small furry animals along the back window

8-track tapes. What genius thought these would be okay? Nowadays some restaurant PA systems still use them, and my family never owned one, but I vividly recall riding in a vehicle with an 8-track player and the experience was like this:
BAD MUSIC (because the artists on 8-tracks tended to suck, generally speaking): la la la, la la la, chorus, music, la la...
(silence for 2 minutes)
MACHINE: *gronk! KA-thud! Squee! CLICK! fpt fpt fpt! KA-thud! grrrr- gur-gronk*
(silence for two minutes)
BAD MUSIC: ...la, la la la!
(Yep you may have forgotten what song was cut off by the time it blared back on, mid-note)

Smokers who refuse to use the ashtrays in their car and hang their arms/discard butts out the window instead. If you smoke, why not use the ashtray? It's not like the smoke isn't going to blow BACK in the car.

Padded toilet seats. I generally don't want to be there long enough to require the extra 'comfort factor', you know?

Paper dolls and Colorforms. I know people get all nostalgic, but I never got the appeal.

Things (like fabric dolls, geese and butlers) that dress up rolls of toilet paper, vacuum cleaners and toilet brushes. Either put it in a closet or leave it alone, please.

Jar-Jar Binks

Monster trucks

Lawn art

Why Leonardo DiCaprio is considered a sex object. He's TWELVE, people.

Blonde, blue-eyed Jesuses (Jesii)

Why people do the sort of brainless things that earn them Darwin Awards

Costumes for pets

-- Anonymous, April 27, 2000

Dave Van.

-- Anonymous, April 28, 2000

When you are in an public restroom doing your business with 50 empty stalls and someone comes in and sits right in the stall beside you.

What? You need me to hold your hand? Can't do your business without company? UGH!

-- Anonymous, April 28, 2000

"The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation"

Ok, ok, ok......I mean with a name like that, why would anyone watch it? Well, 'cause Matthew McConaughey is in it, that's why. But WHY was he in it? Did he need the money that badly? It had to be the WORST movie I've ever seen. I kept watching it to see if it would get better, but I was sadly disappointed.

-- Anonymous, April 28, 2000

Has anyone else seen the movie "Your Friends and Neighbors"? I figured that since Ben Stiller was in it, it had potential. Bzz. Wrong. Try again. The ONLY reason I sat through over half of it was because I had this sick desire to actually find the plot. There wasn't one, people. I still don't understand its purpose. Anyone have any input on this?

-- Anonymous, April 28, 2000

As for "The Other Sister," one of my best friends was, as she calls herself, a 'tard tender. She worked in a group home for the mentally challenged, and was often called upon to do hideous things like rub Crisco in the rashy fat folds of some of her residents. You so needed to hear that, I know.

Anyway, she claims that "The Other Sister" was fairly accurate, but for the fact that the Other Sister herself had eyebrows that were far, far too nice to truly belong to the mentally challenged. That was her major quibble.

Anyway, the most surreally bizarre thing I've had to wrap my head around lately has been those new gold dollar coin ads.

That the government feels the need to advertise money blows my mind, straight out of the gate.

But the ads themselves are just spooky. Truly spooky. I don't know if this is just in New York, but they feature a business man's body, topped with an enormously oversized George Washington head, and tag lines like "Money's Just Gotten Better" or something equally odd.

I don't get them. I just don't. - Jen

-- Anonymous, April 28, 2000

My college roommate and I were walking around the leafy green streets west of the University in the wee hours of an Austin morning. This after we had succeeded in consuming a case of Bud. We came upon a house with the light shining through a large plate glass window which opened onto a living room. There was a 6 foot tall robot standing in the room looking out. It wasn't a Lost in Space kind of robot with a bubble head, more like a big Tinman in Wizard of Oz. Anyway, we looked at each other and asked "Do you see that?" We both assured ourselves that we did. It was not the beer talking. This was in 1973 and I still have not forgotten how weird it was.

-- Anonymous, April 28, 2000

Japanese clip. Two physically deformed men fighting one normal martial arts guy. The two deformed men had birth defects; one was without functional arms and the other without functional legs. The kind of thing where for the life of you you can't figure out the purpose in filming this. Two deformed guys won, of course, and the whole thing ended with a frozen shot of the dying guy falling to the ground with one hand on his leg and the other over his crotch.

-- Anonymous, April 29, 2000

I hope I can put an image code here. if it doesn't work just go to the link in the tag...

-- Anonymous, April 29, 2000

*I hope its not explicit content*

-- Anonymous, April 29, 2000

Those Census ads. They're truly scary, and I wonder who, after watching them, has the balls to ignore the Census. Soon, I expect to see a Census ad that goes:

"Hey you! Yeah, you! Did you fill out your 2000 Census form?

You know what the Census is for, don'tcha? it counts how many people are in any particular area of the United States! If you don't fill it out, we won't know you exist! And if your neighbors ignore it, we'll forget your whole TOWN exists!

If your town neglects to fill out the 2000 Census, we'll declare it an Unoccupied Zone. And you know what the U.S. Government does with Unoccupied Zones, don't you?

We TEST NUCLEAR WEAPONS!

That's right! If you don't fill out your 2000 Census form, we're gonna BOMB YOUR ASSES! So get on the stick, people!

And while you're at it, pick up a few of those new golden dollars. They're a lot more tolerant of radioactive fallout. Did you know that?"

-- Anonymous, April 29, 2000

My friends and I were driving along when we saw someone had been pulled over from the on-coming traffic lane. As we drove by, a cop and 3 people were standing around the open trunk and we noticed a blow-up doll wearing a helmet had become the object of interest.

-- Anonymous, April 30, 2000

Just about everything featured at the Institute of Official Cheer is pretty inexplicable, but my vote goes for the Art Frahm stuff. It just defies all that is good and wholesome in the world.

-- Anonymous, May 01, 2000

watching "cops" the other night...

a woman pulled a cop over (she was on the sidewalk) demanding that he get another woman to give her back her $20. why? she was buying crack and the other woman just gave her some pieces of plaster.

my god, could DARE be true, and you really are a complete idiot on crack?

-- Anonymous, May 01, 2000

Melissa-

How odd is this? I just saw that martial arts movie this past weekend. It was playing in a bar. So it was even weirder with no sound and well a little inebriated...

-- Anonymous, May 01, 2000

A faux-stained glass window (it's a sheet of colored plastic) depicting Twinkie the Kid. I picked it up in a junk store years ago, & it's one of my prize possessions, but I still can't figure out what made Hostess think one of their anthropomorphic snack cakes would make a subject for a church window.
----------------------------------

-- Anonymous, May 02, 2000