May 28th
Today is International Hamburger Day and I'm going to use this as an excuse to talk about a hamburger related mystery. At the oldest still open McDonald's in Downey, California there is a description of a Pre-Ronald McDonald's mascot named Archie, a fast food man with the McDonald's logo in his stomach.
On the plaque they talk about an early restaurant TV advertisement featuring Archie dancing around in the restaurant. Nobody has any idea where this ad is. It's not online anywhere, McDonald's corporate claims to not archived their ads, and nobody has come forward with a copy since the advertisement has found itself listed on the Lost Media Wiki. It feels bizarre that a company as big as McDonald's would publicly brag about an ad they don't have on hand at all, but I know how much any company that big really cares about people, so I can't say I'm too surprised.
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May 29th
Today is a grab bag day, specifically one with Cal:
Hello World, It's Calexta. I come to you with the story of a PSA character invented to scare children into safety, and it kinda worked.
The kids thought the skull and crossbones marking toxic substances were cool so some of them wanted to drink it on purpose, which is a major problem. Thankfully, a children's hospital in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania had an answer to this problem. And their solution was Mr Yuk, a green circle with a sour expression, accompanying villain song telling children he will hurt them if they consume him, and free stickers given to parents so he could mark their poisons with his image.
Results were a little mixed. In a study, kids were more weary of the abstract threat of Mr Yuck than the skull and crossbones, and likewise were less likely to mess with dangerous substances marked with Mr Yuk. But a counter study said it wasn't very effective with kids too young to really process being afraid of Mr Yuk.
Regardless of this, Mr. Yuk maintains a level of popularity. In particular, he's recently been adopted by the Washington State poison control. Washington State has a Mr Yuk mascot performer who drives a Yuk-Mobile with the poison control number printed on the sides and back.
Personally, I feel like it's very appropriate to have a scary character to teach kids about self preservation. What is fear but the body's attempt to protect itself? Why not have a spooky green ball with a deep voice as a tool to help teach kids about not drinking poison? It's better than poison.
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May 30th
Today is the birthday of the first Bejeweled game. Bejeweled is pretty interesting for a puzzle game juggernaut because it started out as a browser based game called "Diamond Mine" in 2001. The game is a simple match three, but the gems’ designs were chosen to make the game more accessible to colorblind people. When it was being properly published with help from Microsoft, it turns out there was already a game called "Diamond Mines", so they went with Bejeweled, a Portmanteau of "Bedazzled", a 2000 romantic comedy film, and"Jewel".
The game's sequels, Bejeweled 2 and Bejeweled 3, give the match 3 gameplay a bit of a boost with different game modes, some of which are complex enough to be proper minigames. Personally I'm most familiar with Bejeweled 3, and funny enough it does have a game mode named "Diamond Mine". My favorite game mode however is the Poker mode. I don't know what it is. I just love virtual gambling in video games as long as no actual money is involved. Like it feels really weird they banned slot machines from Pokemon games now that loot boxes are a major thing.
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May 31st
Today is National Macaroon Day. Now I'm actually in an odd spot for this day because a lot of the time when people talk about macaroons, they mean macarons. Although the words are a single "o" apart, they refer to two very different cookies.
The first is an actual macaroon, which is a cookie made from ground coconut and almonds.Then there are macarons, which are bright, egg white based sandwich cookies.
I think a major factor in the confusion on this one is the fact the words are a letter off, and Macaron is a french word that doesn't roll off the tongue in English like macaroon does. The problem is you would think the single o would be on the beige cookie and the double o would be on the technicolor sandwich cookies, but the opposite is true. It's like Iceland and Greenland but more subtle and by accident.
[EDITOR’S NOTE: I believe the cookies once shared a common name, and we use “macaron” for the French cookie because it’s the French variant. Yes, I know the cookies are nothing alike.]
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June 1st
Today is Oscar The Grouch Day, the one and only holiday dedicated to everyone's favorite grumpy green muppet monster. Originated by Caroll Spinney, the same puppeteer known for playing Big Bird, Oscar has been on the street since the show's fist season. Reportedly, Oscar was named after the poorly mannered owner of a seafood restaurant that the puppet’s creators, Jim Henson and Jon Stone, went to at the time.
Funny enough, Oscar wasn't originally green. In the show's first season he was bright orange, but was changed to green for season two onwards. In universe, this was handwaved by saying he was permanently dyed by some swamp time. Then it got to a point where the show ran so long he had been green longer than the show's audience had been alive, which probably wasn't actually that long given how the show's primary audience is toddlers. Anyway nowadays he's played by Eric Jacobson, who is also the current puppeteer for Miss Piggy and Fozzy Bear.
[ASSOCIATE NOTE: Ok, I have to tell you all a funny story about Eric Jacobson. He guest starred on the Disney tv show Big City Greens (do not spoil this one for me I haven't finished season 2 yet). The thing is they got him to voice a dentist while doing the Fozzy voice the entire episode, so they actually Credited Fozzy Bear for the voice role, with Jacobson in the credits as Mr. Bear's "personal handyman". I showed his episode to Tom. As soon as the dentist character started talking, Tom almost immediately asked me "Is this guy doing a Frank Oz impression or is the sleep deprivation getting to me?" I laughed hard enough that Joey had to check up on me that I wasn't dying or something. Then as the episode and credits went on Tom started laughing hard enough his mom had to check on him too! If that's not the power of the muppets and cartoons I don't know what is.]
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June 2nd
Today is "Yell ‘Fudge’ at the Cobras in North America Day". you may be thinking "you have got to be kidding me! that's so oddly specific who would come up with that?" And I can promise you, I'll be discussing that over any actual snakes today.
Thomas and Ruth Roy are a married couple, who under the company name of Wellcat, made up a number of absurd holidays that they trademarked and licenced out to the long-running "Chase's Calendar of Events," a publication documenting the dates of every holiday and observation out there. I've unknowingly talked about a few of these Wellcat Holidays before, and I intend to talk about more of them in the future. The only difference is that in the future I'll have some foresight that their holidays were created to be sold to a calendar company instead of anything anyone was actually doing. I think these holidays can still be enjoyed despite this, but I'll keep the nature of these holidays in mind for future articles.
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June 3rd
Today is the last day of my May article block, and likewise I figured I'd give a sneak peek to the June thumbnail. I know I'm going to spend a good chunk of June getting ready for artfight in July, as my Mod numbers have pretty much doubled since last year and I'm thinking about bringing a couple more people on the site soon so I'll have their Websonas to get ready too. I always attack back and my ratio last year was 70% with 52 attacks and my art is going to be a lot better this year and I'm excited! But that's July and I've got a month to get ready.