[HN Gopher] The Rocky Horror Coffin Clock
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The Rocky Horror Coffin Clock
Author : Amorymeltzer
Score : 167 points
Date : 2023-05-07 13:14 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (burialsandbeyond.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (burialsandbeyond.com)
| riffraff wrote:
| It is quite surprising yo discover that some of the props used in
| tv/movies/theatre are actual real objects that just "fit", but it
| makes sense if one thinks about it.
|
| I think I heard the story of a "lost" Hungarian picture
| rediscovered through becoming a movie prop on HN some time ago,
| and while not as interesting as the clock coffin, it's still
| quite good[0].
|
| [0]
| https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2014/...
| jzb wrote:
| It really makes sense if you consider the budget for RHPS was
| less than $1.5 million... why make a custom prop if you can
| just rent it?
| msla wrote:
| Working link:
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/27/stuart-little-...
| drfuchs wrote:
| Dr. McCoy's medical instruments on Star Trek TOS include artsy
| salt shakers. This sort of thing is very common.
| https://www.cbr.com/tv-legends-revealed-were-mccoys-star-tre...
| tkanarsky wrote:
| Hah, there's a subreddit r/thatsabooklight dedicated to stuff
| like this.
| Sharlin wrote:
| Related: Commercially Available Chairs in Star Trek
| https://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/database/chairs-trek.htm
| shellac wrote:
| I'm reminded of the funhouse dummy that turned out to be a real
| corpse. [1][2]
|
| Discovered while they were filming the Six Million Dollar Man.
|
| [1] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/dead-man-gawking/
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmer_McCurdy
| umanwizard wrote:
| How can I sign up to be used as a cinema prop after I die? Would
| be cool.
| ricktdotorg wrote:
| i was involved in the assset-categorisation of my family's ~130yr
| old UK funeral directing business prior to it's sale to a
| "funeral conglomerate" in the mid-90s. deep in the basement (of a
| basement!) in the family "brownstone", we found a fake coffin.
| seems it was made by the family firm (we used to actually make
| the coffins back in the day) for a local vaudevillian/magician in
| the very early 1900s, who never actually came back/paid for it --
| which is why i assume we still had it? it was full and
| structurally complete when we discovered it, worked just fine
| after being emptied of a few rolls of wool (we assumed for death
| pillows). i was a teenager then, wish i had had the wherewithal
| to take some photos! after we dragged it out, we had a good
| couple of days of fun playing around with it, seeing how it
| worked, trying it out, and even sleeping in it! TL;dr it had a
| smoothly-weighted raised sliding false "third bottom" that slid
| in between two layers that made up the upper two thirds bottom.
| it was a much darker wood than the usual coffins, which always
| surprised me. perhaps coffins were much darker a century earlier?
| golergka wrote:
| If by any chance you haven't seen the movie -- please, do.
| There's a reason it became a cult classic and a lot of people
| watch and re-watch it many, many times.
| bombcar wrote:
| It's interesting to realize that only a few scant centuries, and
| even with the skeleton, you might be completely unknown.
|
| Perhaps I should develop a way to tattoo bones in life so that in
| death you can be known.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I find it interesting the people actually think they might be
| special enough that people in a "few scant centuries" would
| even care to know who you were. We've long left the 15 minutes
| of fame to thinking we'll live in history.
| bombcar wrote:
| It's less that people will remember dylan604 and more that
| they find your skeleton laying around and can't figure out
| whose it is (and therefore assume it must be King Charles').
| robinwassen wrote:
| Well, there are highs and lows when it comes to being known a
| century later.
|
| From my hometown I think there are two past living things
| that people are aware of a century later.
|
| First is Alfred Nobel of the Nobel Prize, no further
| explanation needed I guess.
|
| The second is a circus horse that I couldn't explain why
| people care about 100 years later even if I tried.
| pfdietz wrote:
| I suggest selling inferior grade coppper. Your name will be
| immortalized!
| josefx wrote:
| If you plan to immortalize yourself in a negative way you can
| just pull a Pompeii and start doing graffiti. A few crude
| dick drawings and raunchy jokes signed with your name should
| be enough to keep future archeologists entertained.
| bombcar wrote:
| The graffiti is the easy part. The city destroying volcanic
| explosions right afterwards is the tricky part.
| tremon wrote:
| ...but if you can put your name to _that_ , others will
| do the immortalizing for you.
| bouvin wrote:
| If fame is the objective, there is also arson to consider:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herostratus
| bqmjjx0kac wrote:
| I hate to undermine your point, but I have no idea what
| you're referring to :)
| jklehm wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complaint_tablet_to_Ea-nasir
| bombcar wrote:
| One of the oldest recorded writing is a yelp complaint
| about crappy copper.
| molotovh wrote:
| The goal was not that "everybody knows your name"; only
| that one's identity be well-known enough that it will not
| be forgotten, or at least (in this particular case) be
| rediscoverable. So the point is not undermined at all.
| JoelMcCracken wrote:
| https://xkcd.com/1053/
|
| I don't generally like obligatory xkcd references, but this
| one is an exception. I like how it reminds us that our
| experiences are not universal, and people have all kinds of
| experience spatterings, even if we may come from a shared
| cultural background. And, instead of the inclination to
| feel superior to someone who doesn't know a thing, we can
| instead feel pleased to share our beloved cultural
| touchstones.
| pfdietz wrote:
| I had a coworker, originally from India, who had not
| heard of the 1918 flu pandemic. (This came up back when
| COVID was first ramping up.) Apparently it's not taught
| about in India, even though it killed many millions.
| JoelMcCracken wrote:
| But yeah, this meme goes deep. I saw this the other day,
| and it took me a second to get it https://twitter.com/Leg
| bootLegit/status/1652003586740502545
| [deleted]
| mynameishere wrote:
| In a typically bad episode of the simpsons, they had a coffin
| cam, which always struck me as something that you definitely
| don't want to do, but probably someone has.
| gumby wrote:
| A battery powered one would be adequate for what I presume is
| the primary application, a problem that stretches back
| millennia. And cheaper than hosting a wake.
|
| https://www.ancientpages.com/2016/02/09/strange-history-of-s...
| Mistletoe wrote:
| I'm way too old to have finally realized what they mean by
| "wake".
| throwaway049 wrote:
| Not all the way to the coffin, but just the other day I saw
| a news report of EMTs calling time on a patient with no
| pulse who is in fact still alive today.
| bragr wrote:
| People still occasionally wake up in morgues and funeral
| homes. Rare but it happens, though often only a very
| temporary reprieve.
|
| https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/07/us/new-york-woman-found-
| alive...
| lisper wrote:
| https://historycollection.com/buried-alive-common-victorian-...
| glitchc wrote:
| To provide early warning in case someone _does_ make it back
| from the other side?
| hutzlibu wrote:
| Like you also see referenced in the sibling comment - yes,
| some people indeed come back. And it is probably not funny,
| if you come back to life, but find yourself buried alive.
| ourmandave wrote:
| _While I don't have any deceased lovers to immortalise in a
| ticking coffin, I'd argue that it's a conversation piece that
| every home needs._
|
| Hard pass.
|
| Meanwhile, I noticed the farmer's wife in the _American Gothic_
| is giving it a WTF stare.
| af78 wrote:
| farmer's _daughter_ , not wife.
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