Category Archives: Pop Culture

All I want for Christmas is the ‘DeafGeoff’ poster from a Garbage Pail Kids tribute art show. Seriously.

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Deaf Geoff by Ryan Brinkerhoff

This is a poster by Ryan Brinkerhoff from a Garbage Pail Kids tribute art show at Gallery 1988 in Los Angeles

Gallery 1988 in Los Angeles hosted an awesome Garbage Pail Kids tribute art show in September. It consisted entirely of GPK-inspired art, including remakes and reinterpretations of the famous trading card set (and TV show, and movie) that grossly parodied Cabbage Patch Kids, with characters like “Adam Bomb” and “Dire Rita.” The Hundreds posted photos of the gallery’s opening, which featured celebrity guests like Hayley Williams from Paramore and Chad Gilbert from New Found Glory.

My favorite was a piece by Ryan Brinkerhoff, an electro-inspired remake of “Deaf Geoff,” which was an actual Garbage Pail Kids trading card in 1986. (Yes, I have the card.) His design is similar to the original, showing a character literally blowing his ears out by blasting music from a boom box on his shoulder. But Brinkerhoff changes up the colors for a funky interpretation that would have looked cool on the walls of any ’80s dance club.

It’s currently on sale as an 18″ x 24″ poster for $30 on the Gallery 1988 website.

I want it. I want it for Christmas, my birthday, “just because,” whatever — and I’ll totally frame it and hang it in my apartment. It’s too awesome not to have it, especially since it’s a modern art twist on the GPK card inspired my namesake*.

» View a slideshow of the best art from Gallery 1988’s Garbage Pail Kids tribute art exhibit

Here’s what the original “Deaf Geoff” Garbage Pail Kids card looked like, No. 206a from the 1986 set:

***Final Update: Someone wonderful got me the poster. :) Thank you to everyone who offered. Happy holidays!

*A few people have asked me over the years where I got my name “DeafGeoff,” and if it has anything to do with the Garbage Pail Kids card or the ’80s rapper Def Jef (who later produced Shaquille O’Neal’s first album). There’s also an obscure ’80s movie called ‘Plain Clothes’ (starring Arliss Howard, who played grown-up Scotty Smalls in ‘The Sandlot’) that had a character named Deaf Jeff, but my name came from none of those. No, I simply came up with the name myself when I was 12 years old — before I know about any of the other versions of the name — and made it my first screen name on AOL. It’s my DJ name, too, and it’s an easy introduction to the fact that my name is Geoff Herbert and I’m mostly deaf.

Steve Jobs’ lasting legacy isn’t ‘things’ – it’s iVision

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Steve Jobs memorial at Apple store in Sydney, Australia.

Fans pay tribute with a Steve Jobs memorial outside an Apple store in Sydney, Australia.

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs didn’t invent the computer, the laptop, the mp3 player, the smartphone, or cloud-based storage. He didn’t create Pixar, the animation studio behind “Toy Story” and countless other beloved movies, and he didn’t come up with the idea of people paying to download music. But he had the vision to see the potential in all of them and make them unique, changing the world we live in.

The Mac computer line is simply that — a line of computers. They should be considered personal computers (because that’s what most people use them as) but Jobs kept their concept (and especially their marketing) so different and unique from Windows-operating systems that no one will ever call a MacBook a “PC.”

There were hundreds of MP3 players being designed at the turn of the millenium, but one emerged as “the” MP3 player: the iPod. First released in October 2001, it was just a white MP3 player with white earbuds, but the company’s genius ad campaign made it seem like the iPod was a completely different lifestyle. It wasn’t long before any other MP3 player was considered low-tech and the iPod defined the way we listened to digital music.

At the same time, Jobs’ vision helped make legal downloads of music a viable source of revenue — not just for Apple, but for the music industry itself. Napster and dozens of other P2P file-sharing sites like it changed the way users consume music to the point where we expected (and some still do expect) to get music for free, without even considering it “stealing.” But iTunes changed that too. Earlier this year, iTunes celebrated its 10 billionth music download — that’s music that we’re paying for, and 10 years ago it seemed impossible. But Jobs managed to spearhead a revolution that, to a degree, saved the music industry.

The iPhone was not the first “smartphone” either. But Jobs foresaw a future without physical keyboards, with beautiful screen displays, and with combining talking and surfing the Internet at the same time, he set the standard that all other smartphones compare themselves to. Android loyalists accuse Apple of making “new” features that have already existed, but that was Jobs’ power — he made everything seem unique, and fans ate it up.

No other smartphone gets as much hype, speculation, or anticipation as the iPhone. Rumors spread like crazy for each device, and everyone claims to know what the next one will look like and when it will come out. The media doesn’t do stories on any other product that doesn’t exist without facts or confirmed sources — except the iPhone.

Lastly, Jobs should be given a ton of credit for the iPad. At no time was anyone saying to themselves, “Hmm, I wish I had a computer that was smaller than a laptop but too big to fit in my pocket.” Yet the visionary then-CEO convinced the world that we needed tablet computers, and every other technology manufacturer followed suit — suddenly, millions thought they “needed” a tablet. And the iPad is now “the” tablet.

Jobs may be remembered most for all of the “things” he oversaw and helped create, but he should be remembered most for his vision. His iVision. All of the products he’s been a part of, it wasn’t the products themselves that were unique — it was Jobs that made us see them as unique. And therein lies the genius of his legacy.

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary… Stay hungry. Stay foolish.” — Jobs’ Stanford University commencement speech in 2005.

RIP Steve. (1955-2011)

Want to feel old? Here are 18 things that are older than this year’s college freshmen

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Ah, college. The freshmen that are beginning college this week are, for the most part, 18 or 19 years old which means they were born in 1992 or 1993. (We’ll overlook the Doogie Howser-esque young prodigies for the purposes of this article.) For the class of 2015, LBJ means LeBron James; women have always been on the Supreme Court; Andre the Giant and River Phoenix have always been dead; they’ve never touched a TV dial; and Ferris Bueller is old enough to be their dad.

Want to feel even older? Here are 18 things older than this year’s college freshmen:

1. The Nirvana baby.
Nirvana Baby Spencer Elden
Spencer Elden, who appeared naked on the cover of Nirvana’s Nevermind, was born February 7, 1991.

2. The world wide web.
Tim Berners-Lee published the world’s first website on August 6, 1991.

3. MTV’s “The Real World.”
The Video Music Awards (or VMAs) have been around since ’84 but in 1992 Bunim-Murray started reality television with a simple show about “what happens when people stop being polite and start getting real.” Season 26 starts in September. (It’s my theory that everyone under 40 has one season that they strongly identify with from their youth — mine is 1998’s “The Real World Seattle” with Irene and the famous slap heard ’round the world.)

4. Mariah Carey’s entire career.
Her debut album came out June 12, 1990. She had eight #1 songs by the end of 1993.

5. Pac-Man, Mario, Mega Man, Link (“Zelda”) and Sonic the Hedgehog.
Video games Pacman, Mega Man, Super Mario Bros, Zelda, SonicPac-Man may have been the first major video game icon when it debuted in 1980 until that plucky plumber known as Mario arrived as Donkey Kong’s rival in 1981. Then Link appeared in “The Legend of Zelda” in 1986, Mega Man sprung into action in 1987, and Sonic first appeared on Sega in 1991.

6. Reebok Pump inflatable shoes and L.A. Lights’ light-up sneakers.
Reebok Pumps and L.A. Lights light-up sneakersThe craze of getting “pumped up” before a basketball game started in 1989, and kids have been wearing those cool light-up sneakers since 1992.

7. “Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego?”
Do it Rockapella! This geography show and accompanying theme song both debuted in 1991. (Those of us who watched it will snicker now to realize that the host’s name was Greg Gethard. Tee-hee.)

8. Non-Communist Russia.
Unless they’re studying history, the class of 2015 has little to no knowledge of the fact that Russia used to be known as the U.S.S.R. and was the foremost Communist power in the world until it dissolved in 1991.

9. Pamela Anderson’s ginormous boobs.
Pamela AndersonShe later had them removed (and got them again in 2004), but “Baywatch” lifeguard CJ Parker first got breast implants in 1990, going from a 34C to a 36DD.

10. Barney.
Barney the purple dinosaurBarney the purple dinosaur was created in 1987 and debuted on PBS in “Barney & Friends” in 1992.

11. Mark Wahlberg’s non-acting career.
When today’s college freshmen were born, he was known as Marky Mark, modeled for Calvin Klein and had a #1 rap hit with “Good Vibrations.” His first movie role was in 1993’s The Substitute.

12. Miami Heat, Minnesota Timberwolves, Orlando Magic, Tampa Bay Lightning, Ottawa Senators, San Jose Sharks.
These NBA and NHL expansion teams were all added between 1988 and 1992. The Florida Marlins and Colorado Rockies joined the MLB in 1993.

13. Beauty & The Beast, The Little Mermaid, The Brave Little Toaster and Aladdin.
Disney's Beauty & The Beast, The Little Mermaid, The Brave Little Toaster, and AladdinThese four Disney movies came out between 1987 and 1992. The first Pixar movie, Toy Story, changed animated films forever when it came out in 1995 when today’s freshmen were just 2 or 3 years old.

14. The Silence of the Lambs.
Sir Anthony Hopkins starred as Hannibal Lecter for the first time in 1991. He won an Oscar despite only appearing on screen for 16 minutes, the shortest ever for a Best Actor winner.

15. Hello Kitty.
Hello KittyThe cute Japanese bobtail cat with no mouth is even older than you might realize. She first appeared in the U.S. in 1976 and now is the face of more than 12,000 products worldwide and has earned Sanrio billions of dollars.

16. Jonathan Lipnicki.
Jonathan LipnickiThe cute “the human head weighs 8 pounds” kid from Jerry Maguire was born October 22, 1990. He was adorable when he was 6, but his cuteness (and his career) faded as he got older.

17. “Blossom,” “Doug,” “Rugrats,” “Clarissa Explains It All,” “Ren & Stimpy,” and “The Jerry Springer Show.”
Blossom, Clarissa, Jerry Springer, Rugrats, Doug and Ren & StimpyAll of these premiered in 1991. Yes, Jerry Springer has been interviewing Nazi midgets with clown fetishes on TV for 20 years, and Mayim Bialik and Melissa Joan Hart are both now 35. “Whoa!”

18. Otto the Orange.
Otto the OrangeSyracuse University, back when their sports teams were still called Orangemen and Orangewomen, did not make Otto the official mascot until 1995. However, according to the SU website, the cheerleading squad first picked the name Otto for “The Orange” in 1990.

Speaking of Syracuse (my alma mater), Michael Jordan’s daughter Jasmine is a freshman at SU this year. Yes, MJ’s youngest child is in college and she was born two years AFTER Syracuse basketball great Derrick Coleman won the NBA Rookie of the Year award in 1991. How old do you feel now?

Video Game Stats: The average gamer is 34 years old? [infographic]

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Whether your favorite game is Mario Kart, Call of Duty, Rock Band or Madden NFL, it seems almost everyone can enjoy a video game once in a while. In fact, 67% of American households — that’s 2 out of every 3 — have a video game console in their home. Even more surprising, the average gamer is NOT a little kid who isn’t even old enough to get a job. The average person who plays video games is 34 years old. Wow.

Some of the more interesting statistics:
» 40% of gamers are female; 80% of female players use Wii
» 41% of male gamers use Wii, 38% XBox and 21% PS3
» 48% of parents play video games with their kids at least once a week
» The average gamer plays 8 hours of video games per week

More stats on the video game industry:
Gamer Statistics
[via]

Now for the big question: What’s your favorite video game? I personally love DJ Hero, Mortal Kombat, Mario Kart, NBA 2K11 and Madden 10. I really wish they’d bring back Mutant League Football, though…

Leave a comment with your favorite video games!

PHOTO: ‘Transformers 3’ star Rosie Huntington-Whiteley sticks her tongue out at Megan Fox

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At left, 'Transformers 3' star Rosie Huntington-Whiteley poses for the June 2011 cover of Complex magazine. Eerily similar to previous 'Transformers' femme fatale Megan Fox's October 2008 GQ cover, isn't it?

Is Rosie Huntington-Whiteley sticking her tongue out at Megan Fox? I think so.

In October 2008, Megan Fox stuck her tongue out provocatively at GQ readers. And for most of the past three years, horny boys and perverted men have been obsessed with her. And it’s hard to blame them, because Megan Fox is pretty easy on the eyes. But let’s be honest — she was never talented, and she knew it. In that same issue of GQ, she admitted as much: “I’ve done one movie. And it’s not a movie I want to stand on as far as acting ability goes. I mean—I’m not going to win an Oscar anytime soon. I’m not Meryl Streep.”

So — and fanboys everywhere may hate me for saying this — I’m not too sorry to see her leave the Transformers franchise, no matter how good she looked when lifting the hood of a car or straddling a motorcycle. The second movie wasn’t as good as the first, and I think a big part of that was the wasted time on the drama between Sam (Shia LaBoeuf) being away at college and meeting other girls, including one who inevitably turned out to be a Decepticon with an evil metal tongue.

Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, a 24-year-old British model/actress who has just as little to her credit as Fox did when she starred in the first film, is a perfectly acceptable replacement. I have yet to see her acting ability as this is her first major role, but she seems a little more humbled (and less crazy) than Fox. “I’ve had nine years of working before this kind of movie happened to me,” she told Complex. “I’m really glad I’ve had struggles in my career. When success finally hits you, it helps put things in perspective. We’re so small. You see these kids get success straight away or they grew up with it, and I feel for them ’cause how do they gauge any sense of reality?”

“Kids who get success straight away” sounds like a subtle dig at Fox, doesn’t it? Yeah, she’s definitely sticking her tongue out at her.

And — in case you didn’t notice — Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, who appears to be wearing nothing but a Julien MacDonald blazer on the Complex cover, isn’t bad to look at either. But who cares? Honestly, who’ll notice the difference when Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon hits theaters June 29? I’m in it for the toys cool cars that transform into kick-butt alien robots. Autobots, roll out!

How many people REALLY watched the Royal Wedding? Analyzing the ‘estimates’ and cutting through the hype

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Prince Wiliam and Kate Middleton kiss at Buckingham Palace, shortly after being married and named the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. How many people watched the royal wedding? Let's cut through the hype.


The New York Times estimated that 3 billion people (give or take 500 million) watched the royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. Really? Come on.

Let’s imagine for a minute that we’re “giving” 500 million to that number, which would mean 3.5 billion watched it — last I checked, there were just about 7 billion people on the planet, which would mean literally 1 out of every 2 people spent their Friday morning watching a wedding.

There’s a quick and easy way to prove that’s not true: Poll 20 people. Did 10 of them watch it? No. Even my girlfriend, who LOVES weddings, didn’t get up at 6 a.m. to watch.

America, who left England’s rule to get away from royalty 235 years ago, was strangely interested but not as much as the media would have you believe. Only 22.76 million Americans watched the wedding, according to Nielsen TV ratings. For frame of reference, “American Idol” is averaging 25.9 and 24.0 million viewers this season — at the height of its popularity three or four years ago, “Idol” averaged 35 million.

NME reports that, even in the UK, only 24.5 million people watched on terrestrial broadcasts. Including Internet coverage, that number is still less than 34 million — and this is in the only country that should care about the royal wedding, since it’s their prince and princess (or duke and duchess, whatever). More British people watched Princess Diana’s funeral, and even the 1966 World Cup.

Okay, so if we’re going to come anywhere close to 3 billion people worldwide, it’ll have to be from international Internet streaming — times have changed since the last royal wedding, and you can’t rely on TV ratings to get an accurate estimate of live events like this anymore.

Akamai, which provides approximately 20% of the Internet’s streaming traffic for 300 news sites like MSNBC, saw about 5.4 million viewers per minute at its peak. The 2010 World Cup averaged twice as much.

Granted, a lot of people did watch and the royal wedding did occupy all of Friday’s trending topics on Google, Twitter and Facebook — but it didn’t “break” the Internet, like Michael Jackson’s death did. Perhaps the media was leading the conversation too much, trying to convince people that what they were reporting on was an accurate representation of what their audiences actually cared about. Fox News even desperately wrote an article giving three reasons why you “should” care about the wedding.

When’s the last time someone told you that you should care about something actually made you care about it? People can make up their own minds to decide what they care about.

Ironically, a New York Times poll said only 6% of Americans truly cared about the royal wedding — the same source that estimated 3 billion people watched the ceremony. Lesson? Don’t believe the hype, and take everything you read with a grain of salt.

Note: I did, in fact, watch about 45 minutes of the wedding — including the weak first kiss. The horse-drawn carriage afterwards was fairy tale-esque, but let’s face it. At the end of the day, it was just a couple who met in college getting married.

Goodbye, Michael Scott: The top 20 Steve Carell moments on ‘The Office’

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Steve Carell is leaving “The Office” tonight in a special extended episode. As you brace yourself for the tears, remember the laughs he brought us. Here are my favorite Michael Scott moments from the past 7 seasons:

20. The Golden Ticket Idea
Michael adopts a little Willy Wonka ingenuity and hides “golden tickets” in random paper shipments. One company received all of them, getting 40% off their purchase, causing everyone in Scranton to freak out about the consequences.

19. Michael speaks to Ryan’s business school
In the middle of every speech, a speaker should throw out candy bars.

18. Dunder Mifflin’s local ad: The Michael Scott Director’s Cut
Great Scott!

17. Stanley and Michael LOVE Pretzel Day
“Can I get one with everything on it?” The pretzel with the works sends Michael into a sugar coma.

16. Scott’s Tots
Apparently, Michael promised a bunch of students 10 years ago that he would pay for all of their college educations. They’re so pleased when they finally graduate high school that they put on a big production to thank him — until they discover he can’t afford it.

15. “Lazy Scranton”
Michael welcomes his new employees from the merger with an introduction to Scranton – what! – the Electric City.

14. “Hug it out, bitch.”
Michael busts Dwight’s attempt to overthrow the position of office manager after his appointment with a dentist named Crentist… after his hilarious dude hug, he later forces Schrute to wear a sign that says “Liar.”
>> Watch the clip on NBC.com

13. Michael starts a Cafe Disco
After leaving the Michael Scott Paper Company to return to Dunder Mifflin, he used his old office space to be a combination dance party venue and coffeehouse for him to escape work once in a while.

12. “I… declare… bankruptcy!”

11. Michael kisses Oscar after his gay witch hunt
This scene was improvised — Carell wasn’t supposed to kiss his outed employee, but he did and it’s easily one of the 10 most unforgettable moments on the show.

10. Which Asian girl is Michael’s date?
After picking up two girls at a Japanese restaurant, Michael marks one of their arms with a pen so he can remember which one is supposed to be his date.

9. The Dundies
Best. Awards. Show. Ever.

8. “Booze Cruise” Motivational Dance
It’s a toss-up between this and his speech about how the ship is sinking for best moment of the episode. Okay, maybe it’s a three-way tie with “I’m king of the world!”

7. Michael vs. Toby
“I hate so much about everything you choose to be.” He just wanted to have a kickass Casino Night, yo.

6. Scott cooks his foot on a Foreman Grill
“I like to wake up in the morning to the smell of bacon.”

5. Threat Level Midnight
The Michael Scarn movie is finally realized, and it was even funnier than I imagined. Extra thumbs up to Jim playing “Goldenface.”

4. Michael hits Meredith with his car
It’s okay, it actually ended up saving her from the “incurable” disease of rabies. Of every season-opener, this was by far the single best moment.

3. Prison Mike
In Season 3, Michael got a little jealous of the attention that one of his new employees from the Stamford branch was getting when they found out he had a prison record. Scott’s solution? To scare people straight with his own prison experiences.

2. “That’s what she said!”
There are countless TWSS moments on the show, but the best one had to have been when Scott told his employees he was retiring from comedy over concerns of sexual harassment. Jim made it hard. (That’s what she said.)

1. Michael Scott vs. Michael Scott
When he waited to find out if Holly was engaged to her New Hampshire branch boyfriend, he recorded two videos to help him get through the result. One was a sad Michael to talk him out of killing himself. The other, the one we got to see, was a happy Michael that talked back at himself and danced along in a ridiculously awesome moment. Two Michaels are better than one.

By the way, Steve Carell grew up in Acton, Massachusetts — my hometown — and attended school in Concord, the next town over. (Sigh.) I’m going to miss him, but I’m still optimistic the show will be good after he leaves. But, as the 20 clips above show, it’s hard to imagine life at Dunder Mifflin without Michael Scott.

When false news spreads: Has Twitter become one giant version of the ‘telephone’ game?

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We’ve all played the telephone game at one point when we were kids. One kid says “My aunt Sally usually likes to bake cookies using lots of sugar,” and by the time it gets to the 12th kid it’s become “My aunt Sally makes cookies with sugar and chocolate chips.” It’s a very human behavior, and sometimes the meaning is still intact, but… have you noticed news reporting, especially on a social medium limited to only 140 characters, has become sloppy?

First of all, fake celebrity deaths is a separate problem. We see a famous person’s name trending on Twitter and, morbidly, half of us assume the person has died without even checking to see what people are saying. If you do actually click to see what “William Shatner” tweets are saying, half of them are saying “Why is William Shatner trending?” and most of the rest will say “William Shatner is 80 – happy birthday, Captain Kirk!” But there’ll be a few that say “RIP William Shatner” and that will spread.

The real issue with “telephone” news is that a rumor quickly becomes fact without any proof or change, except in the flow of information from one person to the next.

On Monday, ONE source had claimed Katie Couric was “thinking” about leaving CBS Evening News since her contract is up in June. By Monday night, everyone had reported on it and moved on and said “I can’t believe Katie Couric quit” and “Now that Katie Couric has confirmed she’s leaving CBS Evening News, who should replace her?”

False. No one had confirmed anything.

But that’s the telephone game. “Source says” and “confirmed” are two different things, people. It’s more exciting to say you’ve confirmed something than “report claims” or any other softer approach. Plus, we’re often so excited at “big” news that we like to be the first to tell our friends, so often we’ll retweet or add our own $.02 without confirming anything or even bothering to read past one headline.

Are we victims of our own human nature to spread false information on the Internet? Speaking especially as a hard-of-hearing person, I’ve noticed that we often hear what we want to hear and interpret it in our own way. Then when we relay the information, the facts change. Sometimes slightly, sometimes completely.

News media has always been more interested in being FIRST than being correct, and the Internet has perpetuated that incredibly in the SEO and SMO game. Plus, if you post a false story on your Twitter or your blog, all you have to do to correct it later is other post something new or just edit the original story. Tempting, I know, but please… check your facts before you spread news.

The oddest early movie roles played by 19 of today’s biggest actors

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It’s amazing that Johnny Depp can go from a random dude killed by Freddy Kreuger in A Nightmare On Elm Street to a major Hollywood star, earning $20 million for most movies these days. What other crazy first roles launched the careers of today’s biggest stars?

Philip Seymour Hoffman

Nominated for three Oscars (and won for Capote), Hoffman has a diverse filmography, but who would have guessed the tornado-chasin’ hippie in 1996’s Twister and high-school thug in the 1993 zombie satire My Boyfriend’s Back was secretly a great actor?

Sandra Bullock

Before she was Miss Congeniality or winning an Oscar for The Blind Side, she was a buck-toothed biochemist in Love Potion #9 (1992) and an ass-kicking futuristic cop in Demolition Man.

Matthew McConaughey

This southern charmer appears shirtless in just about every movie he stars in now, but in 1994, he was just an average baseball player who needed a little divine help in Angels In The Outfield (along with Adrien Brody).

Amy Adams

She’s been nominated for three Oscars?!? Wait, the same chick who played Kathryn in the horrible direct-to-video Cruel Intentions 2 sequel/remake?

Hilary Swank

This swanky actress won two well-deserved Oscars for Boys Don’t Cry and Million-Dollar Baby. In her first role, on the other hand, she and Kristy Swanson were cheerleaders in the original Buffy The Vampire Slayer movie.

Brad Pitt

Still hunky today and fun to watch on screen, Pitt followed his big break as a one-night stand in Thelma & Louise with, a year later, a cop protecting toons for 1992’s Cool World.

Kirsten Dunst

Sofia Coppola’s muse in both Marie Antoinette and The Virgin Suicides, Dunst is better known as Spider-Man’s girlfriend or a spirit-fingered cheerleader — but before that, she was the little girl in Jumanji and a bloodsucker’s jailbait in 1994’s Interview With The Vampire.

Jack Black

He’s appeared in more than 90 titles, which eclipses his music career (it’s easy to forget Tenacious D sometimes). When he started out, he must’ve auditioned for anything and everything — he was even a “smoker” pilot in Waterworld and a DJ at a party in the divorce comedy Bye Bye Love, both in 1995.

Gwenyth Paltrow

More famous for her relationships (engaged to Pitt and later married Coldplay’s Chris Martin) than her acting, Paltrow has a lot of variety in her career — Shallow Hal, Iron Man, Great Expectations, Duets, “Glee,” and an Oscar-winning performance in Shakespeare In Love. In 1991, she played young Wendy in Hook.

Robert Sean Leonard

Dr. James Wilson on “House” is a fantastic actor, but he’s sadly unrecognized for it. He delivered truly Oscar-worthy performances in Dead Poets Society (1989) and Swing Kids (1991, alongside Christian Bale).

Zooey Deschanel

The voice of She & Him, Zooey is perfect to star in anything that requires singing as well as being cute. She sang a duet with Will Ferrell in Elf, and played guitar in a high school funk band in 2002’s The New Guy.

Paul Rudd

The go-to guy for “bromances” today, people forget he was Cher’s stepbrother (whom she made out with, ew) in Clueless. Rudd also was a goofy college student on a road trip in 1998’s overlooked Overnight Delivery with Reese Witherspoon.

Rachel McAdams

Before she blew up on the scene as Regina George in Mean Girls and Allie in The Notebook, she switched bodies (literally) with Rob Schneider in 2002’s The Hot Chick.

Keanu Reeves

Alex Winter (Bill S. Preston, esquire) and Reeves (Ted “Theodore” Logan) both starred in 1989’s Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, but only one survived with a career.

Meg Ryan

Even before she met Harry, the queen of romantic comedies in the 90’s was Goose’s wife in Top Gun, yelling “take me to bed or lose me forever!” (People also forget that the first Tom Hanks-Meg Ryan movie was the campy 1990 film Joe Versus The Volcano.)

Justin Long

He’s not a household name yet, but you know him from Dodgeball, He’s Just Not That Into You and the voice of Alvin in Alvin & The Chipmunks. (He’s also “the Mac guy.”) His first roles included a sci-fi fanboy in Tim Allen’s 1999 bomb Galaxy Quest and the nerd who tried to sleep with Britney Spears in 2002’s Crossroads.

Anthony Rapp

Also not a marquee name (unless you’re a Broadway fan – he played Mark in the original production of “Rent”), he’s been in a variety of movies but his first role was as a horny teenager in 1987’s Adventures In Babysitting.

Jennifer Connelly

Consistently sexy without looking slutty (unlike her younger doppelganger Megan Fox), Connelly won Best Actress for A Beautiful Mind and should’ve at least been nominated for Requiem For A Dream. She also starred in The Rocketeer (ha) and John Hughes’ underrated Career Opportunities, but her big start was opposite David Bowie in 1986’s The Labyrinth.

Elijah Wood

He may be most famous for playing a hobbit now, but Wood’s resume is pretty diverse. In 1989, the first time we saw him on screen, he only had one line: “That’s like a baby’s toy” in Back To The Future Part II.

What other fun, wacky first movie roles did your favorite actors play?

Charlie Sheen gets one million Twitter followers in 24 hours – the fastest ever to reach the mark

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@CharlieSheen on Twitter

“I am on a drug. It’s called Charlie Sheen. It’s not available, because if you try it once, you will die and your children will weep over your exploded body. Too much?”

Charlie Sheen’s Twitter account is powered by tiger blood, battle-tested bayonets and a drug called Charlie Sheen — and he is WINNING.

The “Two and a Half Men” actor’s very first tweet was Tuesday, March 1st at 6:43 p.m. EST. It was a picture of him and one of his “goddesses.”

The insanity has spread at blinding speed. At 6:43 p.m. Wednesday, 24 hours later, Sheen’s account had 996,395 followers.

A few minutes later, he passed the one million mark. Boom!

The previous fastest to hit one million, to my knowledge, was @Oprah, who took 28 days (from April 16, 2009 to May 14, 2009) to reach the mark. She joined when Ashton Kutcher showed her how the micro-blogging social site worked, a day before Mr. @aplusk beat @cnnbrk to be the first Twitter account to hit one million followers.

Fastest people to reach 1,000,000 Twitter followers:
1. Charlie Sheen (24 hours, 3/1/11-3/2/11)
2. Oprah (28 days, 4/16/09-5/14/09)
3. Kanye West (80 days, 7/28/10-10/15/10)
4. Conan O’Brien (90 days, 2/25/10-5/25/10)
5. Ashton Kutcher (92 days, 1/16/09-4/17/09)
6. LeBron James (97 days, 7/6/10~11/10/10)

According to Twitaholic, there’s just over 300 Twitter accounts with over one million followers. Who’s the most influential? You could argue Lady Gaga (8.5 million followers) and Justin Bieber (7.8 million followers) but neither of them have created such a stir in such a short amount of time.

Sheen’s crazy rants and beyond-out-there interviews have fueled a limitless collection of Internet memes and viral spinoffs, including:
– New Yorker cartoons based on Charlie Sheen quotes
– Superheroes using Charlie Sheen quotes for dialogue
– Charlie Sheen soundboard (audio)
– Cats quoting Charlie Sheen
– Bunnies quoting Charlie Sheen
– Charlie Sheen Book of Poetry
– Sheen Family Circus: Family Circus with a dose of the drug called Charlie Sheen
– Charlie Brown / Charlie Sheen mashup by Jimmy Kimmel
– Charlie Sheen crazy rant quotes inserted in Charlie Sheen movies & shows
– Cleen Sheen (the kid-friendly version of Charlie Sheen’s rants)
– Live the Sheen Dream (random quote generator)

Maybe Charlie Sheen will use this media frenzy and newfound Twitter popularity to win back his role on “Two and a Half Men,” or maybe he’ll do something else entirely. Like get psychiatric help. Only time will tell, and Charlie’s got the watch that keeps Warlock time.