Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2012 September 3

Welcome to the Wikipedia Entertainment Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

September 3

"Mermaids: The Body Found"

What kind of game are the producers playing in Mermaids: The Body Found? It's aired on Discovery affiliates like a documentary; it starts out with a very plausible description of the Navy being involved in some kind of very loud low-frequency sound production that injured and killed whales. But then it moves into complete weirdness about mermaids at sea, based on photos so iffy that even a sympathetic eye can't find in them what is claimed. I looked up "Paul Robertson" and NOAA and see claims online that he is altogether imaginary. Is this some kind of Navy disinformation campaign about what's really going on with underwater noise, or producers with half a dozen reels of snippets trying to splice together an hour-long feature, or what? Can anyone explain the genesis of this ... object? Wnt (talk) 01:29, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

The article Aquatic ape hypothesis could be of interest. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 11:03, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately, some of the specials run by channels that are supposed to be "educational" are giving false credence to conspiracy theories and hoaxes. I recall something the History Channel ran last May,[1] which was riddled with factual errors and consequent crazy speculation. I saw that "mermaid" ad the other day, and my immediate thought was, "The Discovery Channel has literally gone off the deep end." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:34, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Hey, I believe in the "aquatic ape hypothesis", sort of, if you count that what I mean is an origin at the Okavango Delta where fire and water periodically reshape a highly chaotic landscape. Several species evolved special foot adaptations there, of which humans would be one; navigating the deep waters upright is known to the Chacma Baboons ... and the regular pattern of wildfires surrounding the area creates a huge precedent of cooked food waiting for those clever enough to dodge the flames. And I believe in mermaids, at least if you count sirenomelia... it's just the part about free-ranging tribes of ocean-faring humanoids that I balk at. Wnt (talk) 23:42, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

If they've got evidence to present in support of that hypothesis, that's fine. But as you noted, the ads for the show are slanted in the same way as you might expect from a pseudo-documentary about the Loch Ness Monster. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:00, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Oh, to be clear, that's not just the ads - the "documentary" involved more computer animation footage of tribes of underwater humanoids than many sci-fi series; they were not thinking about Namibia, that's just me. Wnt (talk) 22:40, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Junk like that may draw viewers, but it harms the credibility of the channel. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:21, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

The NYT review cited in the article says:

... if you take “Mermaids: The Body Found” seriously. Which you shouldn’t. The film, Sunday night on Animal Planet and part of its Monster Week, is a fictional account built on a few strands of fact and made to look like an actual documentary. If you know those ground rules, it’s a rather enjoyable and intriguing piece of work, in the same vein as “The Blair Witch Project.”

--115.67.130.50 (talk) 07:30, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

I am looking for a good RP(Role playing) experience online

I am looking for a good RP(Role playing) experience online. where can i get one i have thought of making a few games on here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.16.47.115 (talk) 03:35, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Our article Role-playing game links to various places you may find helpful, including various lists of role-playing games. If by "on here" you mean hosting role-playing games on Wikipedia, I'm afraid that's not permitted: Wikipedia is not a webhost or a social networking site. - Karenjc 08:22, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Crazy Horse

I'm trying to identify the band members of Crazy Horse on this picture. I'm fairly sure the one on the left is Danny Whitten, and the one on the right might be drummer Ralph Molina. The picture was taken on 21 June 1972. Who can help me? Mathonius (talk) 16:16, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

I think the one with the mustache is Billy Talbot (bass) - check this photo here. --TammyMoet (talk) 18:04, 3 September 2012 (UTC) And the one with the shades is Jack Nitzsche, per this image here. --TammyMoet (talk) 18:09, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you very much! :) Mathonius (talk) 18:34, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

I'd've thought the guy on the left would be Sitting Bull. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:03, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

By the way, the photo is a cropped, b/w version of (or, at least, taken at the same shoot as) the photo on the cover of Gone Dead Train: The Best of Crazy Horse 1971–1989. The full photo shows a 5th person, standing with their back to the camera. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 08:28, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Episode plot about a community in which everyone stays youthful but has to die when reaching a certain age

I think it's an episode of some TV show that I saw years ago. The storyline is roughly this: there's an out-of-the-way town or community with a secret--the residents stay youthful despite their physical age but they have a covenant among themselves that when someone reaches a certain age (100 years old, or something like that), the person will have to die.

I thought it was an episode of The X-Files, but I've searched the Web and couldn't find the it.

Can someone help? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.49.9.225 (talk) 22:39, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

It sounds like a varient on the well known book and film Logan's Run, though the age when everyone is expected to die is 21 (in the book) or 30 (in the film), not 100. There was also a short lived TV series Logan's Run (TV series). The theme of programmed death at a certain age is a common one in various works of dystopian science fiction as well. --Jayron32 22:43, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

The arrangement Jayron32 describes – a government/society imposing mandatory suicide/euthanasia at a specified age – has long been a theme in science fiction. Our article on benevolent suicide mentions several works that incorporate this concept; Isaac Asimov's Pebble in the Sky is probably the earliest well-known work of this genre.

However, none of those stories deal with effectively-immortal (or extremely long-lived) individuals who commit suicide as a (rather dramatic) way to conceal their extremely slow aging. Most secretly-immortal fictional characters tend to take the less-final approach of periodically assuming new, younger identities (sometimes as 'their own' child or grandchild); see TV Tropes' entry for My Grandson Myself for any number of such examples.

TV Tropes also offers up the theme of We Will Have Euthanasia in the Future for yet more mandatory-suicide dystopias. Unfortunately, I still can't find the TV episode the original poster is looking for. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 23:26, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

"Miri" (Star Trek: The Original Series)? Clarityfiend (talk) 03:25, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Also "Half a Life" (Star Trek: The Next Generation).    → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ Ⓜ 03:57, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Darn. Someone beat me to the Star Trek cites. Newyorkbrad (talk) 13:26, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Closest X-Files storyline is Gender Bender, which is half the story arc. Dru of Id (talk) 04:39, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Jack Vance's novel To Live Forever has a related motif. —Tamfang (talk) 19:21, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

It's a little bit like Children of the Corn, although they age and have to die to the "man who walks through the corn" when they reach a certain age. Shadowjams (talk) 06:23, 7 September 2012 (UTC)