Awesome Weird

We honestly have no idea what to say after watching Quentin Smirhes‘ absurdist music video about a guy who thinks he’s a “chooka” train, but all we knew was we had to share it with the rest of the world immediately. Perhaps we’ve been hypnotized into doing it. Enjoy the source material here.

Disproportionately big eyes, a sailor’s outfit, brightly-colored hair… these are but a few of the trademark characteristics of girls in anime. Over at MakeGirlsMoe, machine learning algorithms can generate a seemingly endless set of anime characters, as seen in the video here.

Musician and YouTuber Dan Mace likes to make sounds using mundane objects. After a viewer bet he couldn’t make music using bricks, he rose to the challenge, using the blocks to create all kinds of noises for a cover of The Weeknd’s hit Blinding Lights.

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.