Awesome Weird

After giving us his “realistic” versions of a LEGO Minifig, Winnie the Pooh, and The Simpsons, Adam from North of the Border has created nightmarish interpretations of two beloved characters from Sesame Street, Bert and Ernie. The famous friends look especially creepy, with Bert wearing a unibrow and both with wrinkled skin and bulbous humanoid noses.

Adam from North of the Border apparently got confused and got the names of two of Marvel’s superheroes backward. His Man-Ant and Man-Spider sculptures are two of his most disturbing creations to date, making the insects the hosts with human genetics taking over their bodies. It’s the human skin that really creeps us out.

A typical ATV has four wheels, and a tank rolls on tracks driven by several smaller wheels. This unique ATV from Finland marches to the beat of a different drummer, rolling on 18 wheels, each with its own motor and springy suspension. Invented by Eldar Aliev, the 18-wheeler can crawl over rocks up to 14″ tall, fallen trees, ride through water, and even climb stairs.

Usually, candles are supposed to smell pleasant. But The Stinky Candle Co. has carved out a niche by making candles that smell like strange, unexpected, and downright gross stuff. Fragrances include gasoline, garlic, exhaust, skunk, and dill pickles. They also make pleasant scents like chocolate cake and bubble gum.

About the only thing Marshall Mathers and David Byrne have in common is that they both had hit songs. But what if the Talking Heads had written a song about Eminem’s career and his rhyming abilities? It might have sounded something like this track by Nick Lutsko. So put your orange door hinge in storage and hit play now.

Known for their ridiculous mods of crappy little cars, Carmagheddon is the Italian equivalent of Russia’s Garage54. Perhaps their greatest achievement to date is this junkyard FIAT Panda hatchback that they turned into the lowest drivable vehicle ever. And yes, there is a driver inside. You can watch the full build process Part One and Two.

After building a bicycle that rides on square wheels using tank-like tracks, The Q applied his creativity and engineering skills to create a bike that has no wheels at all. Instead, it rolls around on skinny, angular tracks with a very small contact point with the ground. We’re impressed he can balance on this thing.

The members of the Japanese group Bozestyle are proud of their bald heads. In fact, they’ve made them part of their performances. To bring their music to life, they rig their heads with buttons that can be used to trigger electronic sounds. Their version of The Imperial March is one of our favorites, but check out their Instagram for more.

The early days of AI filmmaking are here, and the results are just as strange as you might imagine. Justin Hackney’s short film takes us to a carnival filled with freaky characters and retro-futuristic tech. He used DALL_E and Midjourney to generate style references, then entered modified prompts into Runway Gen-2 to create the footage. (Thanks, Gregory!)

This wildly imaginative short film from Panic takes us on a tour of the creative studio’s methodology, using animation to guide our way. The story is driven by a goofy character named Berthold, who learns about the meetings, scripting, storyboarding, illustration, sound design, and editing processes that went into bring his own story to life.

After showing off his square-wheeled bicycle, maker, The Q is back with another bike with oddly-shaped geometry. This model features triangular wheels with a slight curve. The trick to maintaining contact without huge bumps is a flexible suspension and a pair of conveyor belts that press against the tires as he pedals.

We’ve finally found Bigfoot, and it turns out the elusive beast is not what we thought it was. Actually, Sasquatch is just a bunch of cats smooshed together. This delightfully weird 1000-piece Catsquatch puzzle was illustrated by artist Shyama Golden, as part of Fred’s Artist Series.

We’ve seen what artificial intelligence can do when asked to make a pizza commercial; now AI has been turned loose on a beer spot. Private Island used Stable Diffusion, Runway, and Modelscope to generate their version of those summertime commercials with bros ogling women while they sip their bland light beer.

(Gore) This darkly comedic horror film drops us into an insane world where a plant monster grows human houseplants. Filmmakers Benjamin Roberds and Katie Gregg of Dominar Films flip the script on the relationship between living organisms in this award-winning and unhinged short.

If you’re familiar with The Last of Us, the idea that a fungus could turn us into zombies isn’t that far-fetched. ZeFrank looks at three cases where this happens in nature, with a nasty infection that takes over the bodies of insects and controls them. You might not want to eat before watching this video.

“Girls with blue whiskers tied up with noodles… These are a few of my favorite things.” Sound collage artists Negativland’s deranged edit of My Favorite Things from The Sound of Music dates back a decade but was too hilarious to pass up. Their take on There’s No Business Like Show Business is similarly bonkers.

Humans like to give flowers and chocolates as part of our dating ritual. Other species offer gifts as part of their courtship too, but their selections aren’t nearly as appealing. SciShow explains some of the strange and downright gross-out gifts that animals and insects present to each other as an offering to potential mates.

Wist uses your iPhone or Oculus Quest headset to capture live 3D models of memories and lets you play them back as an augmented reality experience in the same location. Because of technical limitations, the models and textures have a weird torn-edge look straight out of science fiction. Sign up to join the waitlist.

Pneumatic tubes were a popular way for companies to send documents between offices. These days, the only place we still see them is at bank drive-thrus. Tom Scott visited C1 Espresso, a Christchurch, New Zealand café that uses the tubes to send orders to the kitchen, and delivers some food items to customers’ tables.

Modern cars have some really useful tech, like adaptive cruise, backup cameras, and heated seats. But not every idea automakers come up with is good. Rhetty for History explores some of the weirdest ideas for car features that have popped up over the years, from a triple-lever shifter to an in-dash record player.

Perhaps it’s because they think nobody can see them down there, but the deeper you go beneath the water’s surface, the weirder-looking the creatures get. MBARI takes us on deep-dive with the strange animals that dwell in the depths of Monterey Bay and beyond. That black seadevil is some major nightmare fuel.

Felix Colgrave is known for his weirdly imaginative animations. His latest short film features a collage of silly creatures made of objects at the bottom of the sea. “Donks” comes from his 2-year-old’s pronunciation of “gonks,” the artist’s term for “things that are not categorically blocks or figurines or anything describable.”

If you’ve watched all 180 episodes of Seinfeld and are looking for more, then tune in now. Nothing, Forever is an AI-generated Twitch stream about nothing that runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, churning out stand-up bits from AI Jerry and uncomfortably weird storylines with AI Elaine, AI George, and AI Kramer.