Awesome Weird

The idea of a pork patty “restructured” into the shape of ribs is just wrong to us, but that didn’t stop McDonald’s from doing it, nor did it stop millions from craving this boneless fast food oddity. Weird History dives into the origins of the McRib sandwich in this lighthearted lesson.

With people wearing all kinds of improvised protective gear these days, an outing to the grocery store can be a strange and surreal experience. But Pouff’s trippy grocery shopping video was created back in 2015, using neural network technology which attempted to identify animal faces in places where they didn’t actually exist.

Actor Burt Reynolds famously turned down the role of James Bond after Sean Connery stopped playing the character. But thanks to the wonders of machine learning tech, we can now see what that might have looked like, courtesy of deepfake expert Shamook, who inserted the actor’s visage into scenes from Dr. No.

LEGO builder Baron Julius von Brunk created this deranged stop-motion short which envisions an alternative universe version of The Simpsons, in which Bart, er Bort likes to sniff gasoline fumes and burn down lemon trees. Can Milhaus stop him before he destroys Sprungfeld?

While stuck home on lockdown, VFX artist Anselm von Seherr-Thoss decided to experiment and see what kind of visuals he could come up with by manipulating digital skull models, assembling them from unusual materials, and distorting them into new shapes using particle simulation tools from the TyFlow library.

This crazy video loop shows what happens when grass grows on top of boggy marsh. Basically, the water forms a large bubble underneath the turf layer, which can actually be ridden like a wave – at least until you fall through it.

Sushi Ramen Rick is a tough guy, like it really rough guy. At least that’s what we got out of his goofy cover version of Billie Eilish’s hit that he made primarily using sounds produced by smacking himself about, and a weird musical instrument that looks like something from a Blue Man Group x Dr. Seuss collaboration.

Being in a car crash can be quite terrifying. But what might crashes be like if other cars were invisible? With a little visual effects trickery, Donato Sansone created this surreal sequence of car crash footage, in which one of the involved vehicles was digitally removed from the scene.

This off-the-wall animation from Devin Flynn and Jon Vermilyea follows the travels of three ice cubes and their passengers, as they descend into the stomach of a bar patron and compete for a frozen gem that grants them special powers. If that sounds weird, that’s because it is. Thanks for the trip, Adult Swim.

The #1 requirement for getting into the Olympics is that you’re an exceptional athlete. Half as Interesting explains how in 2018, a woman managed to hustle her way into an event at the Pyeongchang games with not much more ability than a bunny hill skier. You can watch Elizabeth Swaney’s amazingly mediocre ski half-pipe run here.

Engineers from Stanford University have been working on an unusual design for a robot that uses inflatable tubes for its body. It can move about and change shapes by squeezing on its air bladders, and can pack up small when not in use. It’s like the more evolved cousin of the wacky waving tube guy.

Pendleton Ward, creator of Adventure Time and Duncan Trussell of the Duncan Trussell Family Hour team up for a trippy Netflix animated series about an interstellar broadcaster who roams the universe looking for beings to interview. It sounds like Space Ghost Coast to Coast meets Rick and Morty. Drops on 4/20/20, of course.

This weird and wonderful very short film attempts to answer the question “what kind of food would androids consume, if they needed to eat?” Apparently, the answer seems to be something very colorful and strangely textured. Directed and animated by Lukas Vojir, with music and sound by Resonate for XK Studio.

(PG-13: Language) The Sony PS4 game Dreams lets players create their own games from scratch. But the latest from the creator of LittleBigPlanet might not have enough guard rails to keep people from designing complete garbage. At least that’s what Dunkey shows us in his demo of some user-submitted content.

We’ve already seen how computer graphics tech can be used to replace Back to the Future’s DeLorean with a Cybertruck. Now watch as Spider-Man’s Tom Holland and Iron Man’s Robert Downey, Jr. are placed into the roles of Marty McFly and Doc Brown, courtesy of EZRyderX47 and some sophisticated deepfaking software.

This quirky platform puzzle game has two interesting constructs: 1) you can only jump twice in each level; and 2) you break one leg each time you jump. Azaan Lambkin’s submission to itch.io’s Finally Finish Something 2020 contest ironically has a bug that keeps some players from seeing the game’s ending.

What do you get when you take a bunch of old Garfield comic strips and feed them into a machine learning algorithm designed to morph them into a cohesive animation sequence? Nightmares, that’s what. Go figure it was the guy behind Garfield Gameboy’d that tipped us off to Daniel Hanley’s bizarre AI experiment.

This unusual guitar effects pedal changes its sound based on whatever liquid you pour into it. Unscrew the watertight lid, pour in the beverage of your choice, and the conductive properties of said liquid will influence signal gain, while its opacity affects the equalization of the sound. Demo video here. (Thanks Mike!)

Michael Jackson’s 1982 hit Billie Jean is one of the most played music tracks of all time. But we’ve never heard it played almost entirely on one of those springy door stopper things – until now. Musician Beeble recorded a variety of sproingy sounds and edited them together to create this very silly version.

Art of Play’s limited edition deck features imagery by illustrator Jenny Gebhardt, who provided each of its 54 cards with a uniquely warped and twisted character or scene. Printed by the U.S. Playing Card Co.

Just because two foods can be combined doesn’t mean it should be done. But Good Mythical Morning’s series Snack Smash does just that all the time. In this clip, host Josh Scherer managed to make Pop-Tarts that taste like Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, and we got heartburn just looking at the video.

A charming and hard to describe new game from the creator of Katamari Damacy, Wattam is about as wacky and weird of a game as you can imagine. It’s filled with goofy anthropomorphized objects living together in a dreamlike world where these characters team up to complete puzzles. It’ll land on PC and PS4 any minute now.

Animator Cyriak Harris takes us on a typically trippy journey through one of his weird and imaginative worlds. This time, the place is populated with self-replicating fractal teddy bears, spiraling highways, and cats operating mechs made out of buildings. As the insanity passes by, it eventually circles back on itself.