Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Happy Historic Birthday!

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was born today in 1859. Totally randomly, Caitlin and I watched the 1925 silent movie The Lost World, which was based on Doyle's 1912 novel, just last night.

The movie made media history in a couple of ways. One, Willis H. O'Brien, who did the special effects and stop-motion animation, went on to do King Kong, as well. His work inspired later stop-motion animators such as Ray Harryhausen.

Secondly, a Lost World game was marketed in conjunction with the film. Basically a sliding puzzle without the containing frame, the game consisted of tiles players could move one space laterally in order to rearrange into the finished image. I'm curious whether that's one of the first example of movie tie-in merchandising.

2 comments:

Joe said...
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Joe said...

Sun Ra too -- Mystery, Mister Ra! (Not to mention John Barth...)