6 ms·
The Rocky Horror Coffin Clock
- ourmandave 3y agoWhile 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 3y agofarmer's daughter, not wife.
- interroboink 3y agoCould be worse! Check out the Indonesian Toraja tribe that keeps dead family's bodies around the house for a long time, and also exhumes them for yearly celebrations: * https://www.escape.com.au/destinations/asia/the-tribe-that-keeps-their-dead-relatives-at-home/image-gallery/6b4fc89987417563bd9f9f128131ec28 https://www.escape.com.au/destinations/asia/the-tribe-that-k... * https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/09/29/764638760/photos-the-dead-live-with-their-loved-ones-on-this-indonesian-island https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/09/29/7646387...
- mynameishere 3y agoIn 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.
- lisper 3y agohttps://historycollection.com/buried-alive-common-victorian-era-doctors-used-10-methods-prevent/ https://historycollection.com/buried-alive-common-victorian-...
- glitchc 3y agoTo provide early warning in case someone does make it back from the other side?
- hutzlibu 3y agoLike 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.
- gumby 3y agoA 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-safety-coffins-from-ancient-to-modern-times/ https://www.ancientpages.com/2016/02/09/strange-history-of-s...
- Mistletoe 3y agoI'm way too old to have finally realized what they mean by "wake".
- throwaway049 3y agoNot 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 3y agoPeople 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-funeral-home/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/07/us/new-york-woman-found-alive...
- maxden 3y agoYour post prompted me to look into it, as I'd not made that connection either. However Wikipedia says that's not the case and "a wake for the dead harks back to the vigil, "watch" or "guard" of earlier times. "
- bombcar 3y agoIt’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.
- pfdietz 3y agoI suggest selling inferior grade coppper. Your name will be immortalized!
- bouvin 3y agoIf fame is the objective, there is also arson to consider: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herostratus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herostratus
- bqmjjx0kac 3y agoI hate to undermine your point, but I have no idea what you're referring to :)
- jklehm 3y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complaint_tablet_to_Ea-nasir https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complaint_tablet_to_Ea-nasir
- IntrepidWorm 3y agohttps://xkcd.com/2758/ https://xkcd.com/2758/ Another whimsical XKCD reference.
- bombcar 3y agoOne of the oldest recorded writing is a yelp complaint about crappy copper.
- JoelMcCracken 3y agohttps://xkcd.com/1053/ 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.
- riffraff 3y agoIt 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/nov/27/stuart-little-art-historian-long-lost-hungarian-masterpiece https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2014/...
- drfuchs 3y agoDr. 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-trek-instruments-salt-shakers/ https://www.cbr.com/tv-legends-revealed-were-mccoys-star-tre...
- tkanarsky 3y agoHah, there's a subreddit r/thatsabooklight dedicated to stuff like this.
- msla 3y agoWorking link: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/27/stuart-little-art-historian-long-lost-hungarian-masterpiece https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/27/stuart-little-...
- jzb 3y agoIt 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?
- Sharlin 3y agoRelated: Commercially Available Chairs in Star Trek https://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/database/chairs-trek.htm https://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/database/chairs-trek.htm
- fknorangesite 3y ago
- ricktdotorg 3y agoi 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 3y agoIf 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.
- School-Cotton 3y agoHow can I sign up to be used as a cinema prop after I die? Would be cool.
- shellac 3y agoI'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/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/dead-man-gawking/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmer_McCurdy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmer_McCurdy
- GauntletWizard 3y agoI just watched a rerun of CSI that was clearly a homage to this. I remember thinking "What kind of crazy murder will they think up next?" Truth is stranger than fiction. https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/csi_vegas/s02/e02 https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/csi_vegas/s02/e02
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- trhr 3y agoAnd I was worried I wouldn't have anything to leave my grandkids. A Grandfather Clock is a perfect idea!
- nineteen999 3y agoInteresting fact I learned recently - the actor who plays Riff Raff in the movie (Richard O'Brien) is actually the writer of the original stageshow.