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About This Author
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Max's Musings
A math guy's random thoughts.
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While they are fun, this blog is not about the coloring hard-boiled ova from hens. Instead, this is about clever hidden references that directors and authors sometimes plant inside creative works. For example, in my most recent novel The Hounds of Hollenbeck, the protagonist's address is the same as Franz Kafka's when he wrote Metamorphosis. There's also a little min-scene with earthworms that's an homage to David Lynch and Blue Velvet.
It can be lots of fun finding Easter eggs in movies. A famous example is Alfred Hitchcock, who made a cameo appearance in nearly every film he directed. Other directors have imitated this. For example, in Jurassic Park, Stephen Spielberg's reflection appears in the hum cab of the jeep after it falls out of the tree. M. Night Shyamalan makes a cameo appearance in his movies, too.
I thought about this topic the other night while watching an old Columbo episode with Suzanne Pleshette in a guest-starring role. Remember, she played Bob Newhart's wife in the 1970s sitcom, but before that she was in Hitchcock's The Birds, playing a school teacher who gets pecked to death. In the Columbo episode, Falk asks her what she does, and she says she "used to work with children and animals." I immediately thought of her earlier Hitchcock roll, and wondered if this was an Easter egg homage to Hitchcock. Only the writers know.
Anyway, here are a few fun Easter eggs for your enjoyment.
Rocky Horror Picture Show
Apparently while shooting, the cast had a real Easter egg hunt on the set. They neglected to clean up thoroughly, though, and sharp-eyed fans spotted Easter eggs scattered here and there throughout the film. Folklore says this is the origin of the term "Easter egg."
Newhart.
In the final episode, Bob wakes up in the apartment he and Emily shared in Chicago in his prior sitcom, The Bob Newhart Show, where Suzanne Pleshette played his wife. Suzanne is there, and he tells her he just had a horrible dream about running an inn in Vermont. In another episode of Newhart, Bob and Mary Frann, who plays his spouse in Newhart, go to a psychiatrist’s office where Mr. Carlin and Mr. Petterson, two of Dr. Hartley’s patients from the 1970s sitcom, appear. The psychiatrist comments it’s taking him years to correct the damage done “by that quack in Chicago.”
Silence of the Lambs
The Easter egg here is in the poster. It's memorable: it shows Jody Foster's face with the death's head moth splayed over her lips. Of course, the moth has a skull on its carapace, hence its name. But on the poster, the artist was able to be more detailed and more creative. It's actually shows seven nude women arranged to look like a skull, taken from a famous Phillipe Halsman photo  of Salvador Dali.
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Hidden in the hieroglyphs on the wall of the well of souls are images of R2-D2 and C3PO. They do get around, don't they?
Return of the Jedi
Three of Jabba the Hut's workers on his barge are named Klaatu, Barada, and Nikto, a reference to the classic SciFi film The Day the Earth Stood Still.
The Phantom Menace
E.T. appears in the senate cheering as Palpatine announces the formation of the Empire. Of course, Yoda appears in E.T., at least as a costumed child. In fact, there's a whole web page that speculates E.T., Indiana Jones, and Star Wars are from the same universe, all based on Easter eggs.
Back to the Future
Marty crashes into a farmhouse where the son is named Sherman and the name on the mailbox is Peabody, a reference to the famous time-travelling cartoon duo.
3rd Rock from the Sun
When Dick Solomon, played by John Lithgow, greets his boss the Big Giant Head, played by William Shatner, the latter complains about a crazy person on his flight to earth who claimed gremlins were sabotaging the space ship. Solomon says, "The same thing happened to me!" Of course, in Twilight Zone the Movie, Lithgow reprised Shatner's roll in the TV series where exactly the same incident happened.
Hannibal
In Florence, Hannibal's first victim peals and eats an orange, in tribute to Coppola's Godfather, where an orange appears in the scene where any character about to meet their death.
Toy Story
The carpet in Sid's house is the same as the carpet in the Overlook Hotel in The Shining. Of course, those two movies are exactly the same (eye roll).
20th Anniversary of The Simpsons
Fox put Easter eggs in many of their shows during the week of the anniversary. For example, in Bones, there's a scan of Homer Simpson's brain (Season 5 - Episode 7, 5:19 to 5:21). In House, the eponymous physician refers to Cuddy's breasts as "Patty and Selma."
Roseanne
In 1993, the actress who played Becky left the show and the producers replaced her with a new actress, Sarah Chalke. In the final scene of her first appearance, the family is watching re-runs of Bewitched and discuss the fact that two different actors played Darrin in the series. Rosanne makes a sarcastic comment about the producers thinking the audience must be idiots to not notice. Then the new Becky, Sarah Chalke, remarks that she thinks the second Darrin is "much better."
As with everything else, Google is our friend. There are web pages of Easter eggs for movies and for TV shows. Even these enormous lists, with have thousands of eggs, are not comprehensive. They miss the Roseanne and 3rd Rock eggs I mentioned above, for example.
Do you have a favorite Easter egg? Let me know.
Reposted from the blog on my website, which includes some photos of the above eggs. |
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Meow. My name is Dinger, and I'm taking control of my pet human Max's blog this morning.
Max is kinda dumb, even for a human. Sometimes he can't even remember my name and calls me Nonobadcat. I mean, how silly is that? I'm too genteel to repeat what he called me this morning as he dashed out to the farmer's market. All I did was trip him because he gave me the wrong kind of cat food. I know: for the last 286 days I've refused to eat anything but the gravy-ladled salmon and whitefish cat food, but this morning I wanted the beef morsels. With gravy, of course. How hard is that?
Anyway, Max was in such a rush to get away that he left the door to his office open. Since I'm an especially catty cat, I decided to show him. So here I am, to tell you the truth about one Max Griffin, human.
Ordinarily, I'd never read another cat's email, but Max isn't a feline so who cares? The first thing I saw was a note from his publisher that his short story collection, What in Dreams Abides, is releasing today. What a great opportunity for my revenge, thought I. I'll write a review. I purred and narrowed my eyes at the thought, just like I do when he scratches my tummy. He is good for something. Sometimes.
I just pawed my way through this volume. I'm relieved to report that there are almost no dogs in this book. The last two books by Max have had those mangy creatures. The dog in The Hounds of Hollenbeck was even supposed to be super smart, which I guess doesn't take much for a dog. Anyway, this new book has only one dog which is a big plus.
This one is all short stories. I guess as Max ages, his attention span is fading and he can't get it together to write novels any more. I mean, he can't even pet me for than two or three hours at a time before he has to use the bathroom or something. Bless his heart.
Some of the short stories are pretty scary, I admit. There's one based on the old fable "The Tinder Box" that's set here in Tulsa, or maybe in Kandahar. It's kind of hard to tell, since the character seems to hop back and forth between the two, and then into a Disney animated movie at the end. Really, Max is getting so scatterbrained. This story has the only dog in the collection, guarding a dried-up river of sticks. Max is so subtle. Not. Dog, sticks, Cerberus, Styx. Anywhose, this dog doesn't have much to do besides be a metaphor and gnaw on a bone. And slobber. After all, he's a dog.
At least three of the stories are updates on classic Edgar Allen Poe tales. "The Eye" was really creepy, except for the crickets in the wall. They sounded tasty. The narrator needed a cat to eat them, along with that thing he left in the closet.
Other stories read like they belong on the old Alfred Hitchcock TV shows. There's one, "Fred Cleans House," that Max said he wrote to prove that a story about housework could have tension. I don't get that. There was plenty of tension last night when Max and his partner Gene discussed whose turn it was to clean my litter box. I threw up on the DVD player to calm them down. It didn't have the desired effect, though. Humans are so stupid.
Oh wait! I hear Max's car driving down the street. I need to run downstairs and help him unload things in the kitchen. He likes it when I do that, especially when I follow him in front of him.
So, I guess Max's new book isn't bad, if you like short stories. It's kind of scary and icky in places, and it re-works some old tales and folk legends in new ways. Most important, it's only got one dog, and he's in a minor role.
I'm outta here.
Dinger
You can purchase Max's new collection in paperback on Amazon
What in Dreams Abides
The Kindle version will be available soon.
Max Griffin
Please visit my website and blog at
http://MaxGriffin.net
http://MaxGriffin.net/blog/
Check out my latest release!
| ASIN: B00THNWLJY |
Product Type: Kindle Store
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Amazon's Price: $ 5.99
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It's amazing what you can find on the internet.
I recently wanted to find a list of positive words in order to construct an acronym from the word "nice" -- see "Standards Based Learning and Contests" . What I came up with was this:
Nurture talent;
Inspire excellence;
Celebrate creativity; and
Encourage improvement.
But what's interesting was that I found an internet page of positive words. Who knew such things existed?
I tried to use the list of positive words to construct an acronym for how I try to write reviews:
Respect the author;
Promote Excellence;
Value what is done well; ;
Suggest ways to Improve;
Encourage creativity; and
Affirm the Worth of the creative impulse.
Well, okay, that didn't work so well, but you get the idea.
I confess to a bureaucrat's delight in acronyms. Sometimes they are less direct. In jest, I suggested a colleague in the school of electrical engineering name his lab the "Wireless Electronic Compatibility and Advanced Design" Lab because you could pronounce WECAD as "wicked." He loved it, and that's now the name of his lab.
Of course, finding a list of positive words naturally led me seek out a list of negative words. Turns out there are several pages with such words, including one that charges for the list. That struck me as avaricious. For what it's worth, I didn't need a list of negative words come up with that description.
Thinking about it, I don't generally need help coming up with negative words. You know old conundrum: "is the glass half full or half empty?" My daughter pointed out it didn't apply to me, since I'd think the glass was poisoned. She knows me so well.
Anyway, this list of negative words includes a list of links to other word lists. There's even one for math words.
I have to say the math list is pretty disappointing. Key words from calculus like integral and derivative don't appear. More advanced words like transfinite, accretive, induction, and topology are absent. Mathematicians also name things after people, like Zorn's Lemma. Who couldn't love something with that name, even if it does involve the controversial Axiom of Choice? Then there's Peano arithmetic, which has nothing to do with counting to 88.
But I've digressed. Chances are, if you want to find something on the internet, you can. Even a pointless
Banal
Lousy
Out of touch
Grumpy
blog.
Max Griffin
Please visit my website and blog at
http://MaxGriffin.net
http://MaxGriffin.net/blog/
Check out my latest release!
| ASIN: B00THNWLJY |
Product Type: Kindle Store
|
Amazon's Price: $ 5.99
|
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© Copyright 2024 Max Griffin 🏳️🌈 (UN: mathguy at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
Max Griffin 🏳️🌈 has granted InkSpot.Com, its affiliates and its syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work.
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Take on me is an excellent choice.
Interesting... and thankfully, not germaine to me at this time 
