Skulls in the Stars

Entertainment

Optics in the Haunted Mansion!

Entertainment / Optics

During our visit to Walt Disney World, the new wife and I made sure to hit all the classic rides in the Magic Kingdom: Pirates of the Carribean, The Tiki Room, The Haunted Mansion, even It’s a Small World (though, alas, not Space Mountain, which is under renovations until November).  The Haunted Mansion is one of my favorites, with its classic Gothic ghost story atmosphere and dark sense of humor.  As a child, I was terrified of the essentially harmless attraction.  This trip, as a professor of optics, I was delighted to not only see the clever special effects, but deconstruct them — to “peek behind the curtains”, so to speak.

I suppose some would think that this peek would “ruin the magic” or “unweave the rainbow“.  For me, though, I find it a joy to see how people’s ingenuity can lead to wonderfully fun, even beautiful, attractions.  The Haunted Mansion is filled with clever applications of very simple optics, and I can’t resist explaining one of them.

SPOILER ALERT!  IF YOU FEEL THAT UNDERSTANDING HOW AN ATTRACTION WORKS RUINS IT, DON’T READ ANY FURTHER…

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SOS: Save Our (favorite) Shows!

Entertainment

The fiancée pointed out to me today that one of our new favorite shows, Life on Mars, will not be surviving to season 2.  This is a real shame; though it was a remake of a classic UK show, we’d grown really fond of the series.

In fact, there have been a lot of good shows on television this season; for the first time in a long time, I’ve actually found much of my weeknights filled up with good television viewing.  Quite a few of these shows, however, are wavering in the ratings and could share the fate of Life on Mars.  I thought I’d do a post about, and a general appeal for, those shows I’ve fallen in love with in recent months/years:

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Adventures in iRiff-ery!

... the Hell? / Entertainment

I’ve been a fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000 for years.   If you’re not familiar, the show consisted of a human host and two wisecracking (puppet) robots ridiculing bad science fiction, fantasy, and horror films, and was generally a hoot! (I pay tribute to the show with my category, “…the Hell?“, which was a common refrain by Tom Servo.)

Like plenty of fans, I  found myself almost uncontrollably ridiculing films and television shows, much to the chagrin of my friends and fiancée!  After MST3K ended its run in 1999,  the comedians on the show apparently felt very much the same way: several of them started a company called RiffTrax, in which they record audio commentaries for movies (‘riffs’) which can be played in sync with the DVD audio track.  This brilliant premise means that the RiffTrax folks don’t need to fight for costly film rights and can riff on pretty much any film they like, including new and terrible releases such as The Happening!

Well, last fall they introduced a new innovation: iRiffs, in which the fans can write, record, and sell their own riffs through the RiffTrax store!  I was intrigued, and started writing a script almost immediately.  A recent deadline for an iRiff contest (which I didn’t really make) spurred me to finish my iRiff of the 1998 American version of Godzilla, which is now available online!  I thought I’d share some observations about the iRiff construction process in this post.

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