When 30-year-old Stephen got married, he wanted a wedding cake based on old school games. Australian cake maker Nicole stepped up to the console and delivered! Check it out: Link - via Technabob

(YouTube link)

A Soyuz capsule brought Commander Chris Hadfield and Flight Engineers Tom Marshburn and Roman Romanenko back from the ISS last night, landing in Kazakhstan. It was Hadfield's first Soyuz landing, as his previous space flights were on the shuttle. The three men of Expedition 35 had been in space for almost five months.

Bob McDonald, the host of CBC Radio's Quirks & Quarks, said the capsule and its crew go through a rapid deceleration as they hurtle back to Earth.

"When they hit the air, they're like a stone hitting water. They're travelling more than 20,000 kilometres an hour.…They have to get rid of all that speed, and they do that just with friction of the air and parachutes."

When the capsule was about 10.7 kilometres high, its parachutes deployed, NASA mission control said. About one second prior to touchdown, two sets of three small engines on the bottom of the Soyuz capsule fired to slow its rate of descent and soften the landing.

After the touchdown, ground crew helped Hadfield and his colleagues out of the Soyuz and put them in chairs so they can begin to re-adapt to gravity.

"[Hadfield's] head is going to feel like a cannonball, his arms are going to feel like logs," McDonald said. "Every time he turns his head the world is going to seem to turn sideways, he's going to get dizzy."

The news story has a much longer video on the landing. Link

Safely home - back on Earth, happily readapting to the heavy pull of gravity. Wonderful to smell and feel Spring.

— Chris Hadfield (@Cmdr_Hadfield) May 14, 2013

Pop Chart Lab offers this chart of cocktails featured in your favorite stories as a fine art print. There are 49 recipes in all, as drunk by James Bond, Hunter S. Thompson, Ebenezer Scrooge, Rocky Balboa, Zaphod Beeblebrox, Jay Gatsy, and more.

Browse the whole thing in full size size at the site. Link -via Nag on the Lake

The anime fight scene photo meme is SO last month. The new hotness in Japan's anime-based photo meme is pretending to to be a giant toying with puny humans. The forced perspective photography trick meme is based on the manga Attack on Titan, which tells the story of a city being attacked by human-eating giants.

Brian Ashcraft of Kotaku has the scoop: Link

The mark the 40th anniversary of the release of Cup Noodles's curry flavors, Nissin is releasing a set of little curry-themed model Gundams armed with tea kettles:

The three kits included in the promotion are 1/380 scale, so we're looking at maybe 2.5-3" in height. Included in three different flavors are the RX-78-2 Gundam, Char's Gelgoog and the classic Zaku II. Each of the kits are done in clear plastic and their weapon of choice is a tea kettle. As much as heating water with a beam saber makes sense, the kits will have tea kettles. 

Link -via Mecha Melissa

(Images: Cup Noodle)

(YouTube link)

A case of sour grapes? Since we can't do it, it must be no good! But when you hear the reasons that time travel can be problematic even if it were possible, you'll see that the speed and direction of time is just fine the way it is. -via UpRoxx

Where have all the jobs gone? Computer scientist, and many people say, visionary, Jaron Lanier (he supposedly coined the term "virtual reality" when he helped pioneer the field), has found the culprit: the Internet.

In his new book Who Owns the Future? Jaron explains why the Internet is destroying the middle class by killing jobs, wealth (except for the lucky few) and even - gasp - democracy itself:

“Here’s a current example of the challenge we face,” he writes in the book’s prelude: “At the height of its power, the photography company Kodak employed more than 14,000 people and was worth $28 billion. They even invented the first digital camera. But today Kodak is bankrupt, and the new face of digital photography has become Instagram. When Instagram was sold to Facebook for a billion dollars in 2012, it employed only 13 people. Where did all those jobs disappear? And what happened to the wealth that all those middle-class jobs created?” [...]

So Kodak has 140,000 really good middle-class employees, and Instagram has 13 employees, period. You have this intense concentration of the formal benefits, and that winner-take-all feeling is not just for the people who are on the computers but also from the people who are using them. So there’s this tiny token number of people who will get by from using YouTube or Kickstarter, and everybody else lives on hope. There’s not a middle-class hump. It’s an all-or-nothing society.

Read more in this interview with Scott Timberg of Salon: Link (Image: My Dream is to cut all ties with civilization but still be on the Internet)

Seulbi Kim, a student at the Rhode Island School of Design, offers this one-handed solution to transporting food from your local burger joint. She writes:

The carrier will reduce the volume by about 50% compared to that today because I tried to simplify the design and minimize the amount of paper used with a hook for French fries, a sleeve for a burger, and a hole for soda drink, which causes people to carry it easier, and more materials saving. It is one-handed, convenient, practical, and compact, so your hands can be more free by holding all in one.

Link -via Foodbeast | Designer's Website

Spider-Man Collapsible Water Bottle

Are your spider instincts telling you that you need to get hydrated? Let the Spider-Man Collapsible Water Bottle from the NeatoShop leap into action. This 12 oz. plastic water bottle is collapsible so that you can fold it up and slip it into your spider suit when you are all done.

The Spider-Man Collapsible Water Bottle is BPA free, lightweight, and durable. It features a convenient keychain hook. 

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Water Bottles and fantastic Spider-Man items. 

Link

In 1968, Howard Johnsons produced a children's menu and a comic book in conjunction with the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. The comic explains the movie to Debbie and Robin, who are attending the premiere. It would have been nice if there had been a Howard Johnsons where I lived, because I couldn't make heads or tails out of the most of the movie. At the end of the comic, the children are acting like they don't want to give away the ending, but they are actually hiding the fact that they didn't understand a bit of it. Read the whole comic at Dreams of Space. Link -via Metafilter

The following is an excerpt from The Resurrectionist: The Lost Work of Dr. Spencer Black
by E.B. Hudspeth

Philadelphia, the late 1870s. Doctor Spencer Black, a son of a grave robber and a gifted surgeon, had a revelation: what if mythological creatures like mermaids, minotaurs, and satyrs were, in fact, evolutionary ancestors of humankind? The good doctor dedicated his life studying the anatomy of such beasts, until he mysteriously disappeared years later, leaving only a body of work called The Codex Extinct Animalia, detailing the anatomical structures of mythological beasts.

In the first half of the sci-fi/fantasy book The Resurrectionist, author and illustrator E.B. Hudspeth, retold the fictional biography of Dr. Spencer Black - beginning from his humble childhood, medical training, travel with the carnivals, and his mysterious disappearance. In the later half, Hudspeth included the meticulous anatomical drawings of mythological creatures.

If you love Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and the gorgeous anatomical drawings of Gray's Anatomy, The Resurrectionist is the book for you.

Publisher Quirk Books has graciously supplied a sample of the marvelous illustrations you'll see in book:

Many details regarding the heraldry of the sphinx are still unknown. These creatures varied widely throughout the African continent. In Egypt, there are great statues of this animal - the sphinx sol, the protector and scourge of Ra, the sun god. Sphinxes are shown bearing a ram's head (a criosphinx) or a goat's head. These species are typically depicted without wings; I suspect that, like many flightless birds, the sphinx lost its need for flight because of geographical isolation. This evolution likely occurred before the animal's arrival in Egypt or Africa; however, I cannot determine whence it originated.

The famed sphinx of Thebes appears strikingly similar to the specimen in my record. Though few in number, the species had a developed human mind with an advanced intellect; they were more than likely fierce and successful predators.

Philadelphia. The late 1870s. A city of cobblestone sidewalks and horse-drawn carriages. Home to the famous anatomist and surgeon Dr. Spencer Black. The son of a “resurrectionist” (aka grave robber), Dr. Black studied at Philadelphia’s esteemed Academy of Medicine, where he develops an unconventional hypothesis: What if the world’s most celebrated mythological beasts—mermaids, minotaurs, and satyrs— were in fact the evolutionary ancestors of humankind?

The Resurrectionist offers two extraordinary books in one. The first is a fictional biography of Dr. Spencer Black, from his humble beginnings to the mysterious disappearance at the end of his life. The second book is Black’s magnum opus: The Codex Extinct Animalia, a Gray’s Anatomy for mythological beasts—dragons, centaurs, Pegasus, Cerberus—all rendered in meticulously detailed black-and-white anatomical illustrations. You need only look at these images to realize they are the work of a madman. The Resurrectionist tells his story.

E. B. HUDSPETH is an artist and author living in New Jersey. This is his first book.

Get it from The Resurrectionist official webpage | E.B. Hudspeth's official website

View more Neatorama Book Excerpts | Authors & Publishers: Get your books reviewed on Neatorama. Contact us for details.

Disney has crowned Merida, the heroine of the 2012 Disney/Pixar movie Brave, as the 11th official "Disney Princess" In the process, Merida has undergone an image makeover to better fit in with the group. Her dress has been upgraded, her waist thinned, she now wears makeup, and her hair looks less wild and more, um, "expensive." Brenda Chapman, the creator and co-director of Brave, does not like the makeover one bit.

Chapman fumed. "When little girls say they like it because it's more sparkly, that's all fine and good but, subconsciously, they are soaking in the sexy 'come hither' look and the skinny aspect of the new version. It's horrible! Merida was created to break that mold — to give young girls a better, stronger role model, a more attainable role model, something of substance, not just a pretty face that waits around for romance."

Chapman, the first woman to win an Academy Award for an animated feature, said she has added her name to a petition with more than 50,000 signatures that has gone viral on the female empowerment website "A Mighty Girl," joining other mothers outraged by Disney's sexualization of her headstrong young Scottish heroine, an expert archer with a head of wild, curly red hair and a mind of her own.

Chapman had modeled the character after her 13-year-old daughter Emma, intending her as a strong independent role model for little girls. Link -via reddit

POLL: What do think of Merida's new look?

• Disappointing. Go back to the original!
• Looks good to me, like a princess should.
• I don't see that much difference; she just grew up.
• I honestly don't care.

So this is what it feels like to be able to control the rain. The Rain Room, an art installation by rAndom International, is a large room where it rains indoor. The trick is that cameras detect the visitors' positions to turn off the individual rain strems directly overhead. The result is quite magical: you can walk through pouring rain without getting wet, no umbrellas required.

The art installation, which made its splash at the Barbican in London, is now coming to the MoMA in New York. If you can't make it, check out the video clip below:

America doesn't have many roundabouts because even if you understand how one works, you have to worry about other drivers who don't. But they are a fact of life in Britain. The ultimate roundabout is this one in Swindon that is actually a cluster of roundabouts in one intersection.  

The Magic Roundabout in Swindon, England, constructed in 1972, is the most brilliant and at the same time, the most confusing roundabout ever built. The roundabout, named after the popular children's television series by the same name, is located near the County Ground and consists of five mini-roundabouts arranged in a circle. At first sight, it might appear to confuse or amuse new visitors and certainly baffle tourists but once you understand how the roundabout works you will realize how revolutionary the idea is.

Other pictures and diagrams at Amusing Planet may help you parse out what is supposed to happen. Keep in mind that driving on the  left side of the road is the correct thing to do in this location. Link -via the Presurfer

(Image credit: Google Earth)

Redditor mystery_smelly_feet spent $2,000 and 2 months of work building this magnificent arcade cabinet that looks like a classic Nintendo Entertainment System. It has a PC inside with emulators that permit him to play the old games.

Link -via Technabob

This bird is Nyctibius griseus, or the common Potoo. The nocturnal bird of Central and South America is a master of camouflage, but you'd never know it by looking at those crazy eyes. See more pictures of this funny-looking bird at imgur. Link -via reddit

(Image credit: Carlos Gussoni)

(Video Link)

It's not enough to just spoon in their cereal. The stars of Star Wars have to stay in character while eating. Here's a funny video by Teddie Films, maker of Star Wars parodies of Rebecca Black's "Friday" and Gotye's "The Star Wars I Used to Know."

-via Foodiggity

Storm Neon Candy Trooper by DarkChoocoolat

w00t! We'd like to welcome a new T-shirt artist to the NeatoShop. Check out the nifty Tees by French designer Florent Rousseau AKA DarkChoocoolat (why, my favorite kind of snack!), visit his Facebook page, then head on over to the NeatoShop to get the t-shirts: Link

Storm Candy Trooper	Octosushi	Keep Calm Dharma	Banana Trap

View more T-shirt designs by DarkChoocoolat | Funny T-shirts

P.S. Are you a T-shirt designer? Get your tees listed on the NeatoShop and get featured here - we've got a great profit sharing program for professional artists and illustrators. Email us to find out how!

In today's Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss, you'll find out how much you really recall about your favorite sitcoms of the past. Sure, you know who Mr. Belvedere was, but do you know in what town the show was set? You'll have to know that for 15 different shows to ace this quiz! I only scored 47%, but I knew all the right settings of the shows I actually watched. Link

Hello Kitty Metal Studded Handbag

Attention Hello Kitty fans! Are you on the prowl for the purr-fect handbag? You need the Hello Kitty Metal Studded Handbag from the NeatoShop this edgy, faux patent leather bag is in the shape of Hello Kitty's Head. The purse features a metal studded front and bow. A chain and faux patent leather handle finish off the look.  

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more fantastic Hello Kitty items and fun Bags & Totes. 

Link

It has taken more than two years of work, but Detroit, the city in which the movie RoboCop takes place, will finally get a statue of its favorite son:

The 10-foot tall statue that pays homage to a crime-fighting cyborg from a 1980s action film based in Detroit has been put together and is ready to head to back to the Motor City. [...]

The fundraising effort to build the monument raised $67,436 through 2,718 backers about two years ago. So far, that funding has been enough to cover the cost of the monument's construction, though organizers have not ruled out the need for an additional round of fundraising or a corporate partnership as the project moves further along.

The effort to build a Robocop statue in Detroit began in 2011 when a Massachusetts resident posted a Twitter message to Detroit Mayor Dave Bing, saying that "Philadelphia has a statue of Rocky & Robocop would kick Rocky's butt. He's a GREAT ambassador for Detroit."

Mayor Bing responded to the Tweet by saying, "There are not any plans to erect a statue to Robocop. Thank you for the suggestion."

Link -via Jalopnik

(Photo: Imagination Station Detroit)

When I was a kid, my introduction to classical music was via Bugs Bunny cartoons. That's where I first experienced composers like Wagner ("Kill the Rabbit!") and Rossini ("Although your face looks like it might have gone through a machine..."). And who can forget Michigan J. Frog's rendition of Rossini's "Largo al Factotum?" ("La, la-la-la-la-la-la LA la!")

For better or worse, kids aren't watching the old WB cartoons like they used to. Maybe they're not PC enough or look too faded next to the awesomeness of The Clone Wars. But kids still need to be exposed to classical music in a way that's accessible. That's why I recently took my son to an evening of John Williams's music, conducted by the maestro himself.

Wow!

Besides the fun atmosphere (like a mini-Comic-Con, people were all decked out in Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Superman garb), my son really enjoyed watching and listening to the big orchestra play all his favorites: "Princess Leia's Theme,"  "The Imperial March," "Luke's Theme," and also the theme from E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.

Having studied classical music in college, I was able to give him special insight and explain which instruments he should watch as different sections of the orchestra brought forth different parts of the themes. If a similar concert comes to your town, I strongly recommend it as a great intro to the symphony orchestra.

Two great things have happened since the concert:

First, I notice when I'm driving him to school in the morning and have the local classical station on the radio, he'll call out which instruments he hears playing. And while not always correct, at least we're not listening to The Backyardigans and Yo Gabba Gabba every day now.

But even better, once, on the way to school, the radio was playing "Habanera" from Georges Bizet's opera Carmen and my son called out: "Hey dad! It's the song from Up!" Indeed it was! If you remember the good folks at Pixar used it extremely effectively when Mr. Fredricksen was coming down the stairlift to get to the main floor of the house.

It doesn't get much better than that! Pixar will be his WB.

(YouTube Link)

Would you sing on TV for a free tank of gas? You would if you were as good as this couple who jumped at the offer! In other news, there was something worth watching on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. -via Uproxx

Continue reading to see part two.

(YouTube link)

All three of Patrick Connan's movie posters that use chess pieces to tell Tolkien's story are excellent, but I especially like the arrangement for Fellowship. Who would have thought that a mere pawn would bear the One Ring and ensure its destruction?

Link -via Geek Art

In nations that were under Hitler's thumb during World War II, it was often difficult to know anyone's actual allegiance. There were those who truly believed in the Nazi cause, others who knew which way the wind blew, and some who put on a Nazi face while secretly fighting for the Allied cause. In the week between Hitler's death and VE Day, these different allegiances turned on each other as Allied forces swept in. The Last Battle is the story of one fight in World War II that you won't find in history textbooks.

Here are the basic facts: on 5 May 1945—five days after Hitler’s suicide—three Sherman tanks from the 23rd Tank Battalion of the U.S. 12th Armored Division under the command of Capt. John C. ‘Jack’ Lee Jr., liberated an Austrian castle called Schloss Itter in the Tyrol, a special prison that housed various French VIPs, including the ex-prime ministers Paul Reynaud and Eduard Daladier and former commanders-in-chief Generals Maxime Weygand and Paul Gamelin, amongst several others. Yet when the units of the veteran 17th Waffen-SS Panzer Grenadier Division arrived to recapture the castle and execute the prisoners, Lee’s beleaguered and outnumbered men were joined by anti-Nazi German soldiers of the Wehrmacht, as well as some of the extremely feisty wives and girlfriends of the (needless-to-say hitherto bickering) French VIPs, and together they fought off some of the best crack troops of the Third Reich. Steven Spielberg, how did you miss this story?

You can read the story in an article at The Daily Beast, as excerpted from Stephen Harding's new book The Last Battle: When U.S. and German Soldiers Joined Forces in the Waning Hours of World War II in Europe. Link

(Image credit: Svíčková)

This hardened criminal was apprehended on Oct. 17, 1893. The nefarious François Bertillon, aged 23 months, was nabbed for "gluttony, nibbling all the pears from a basket."

Parents of toddlers: you know how to use this photo. Keep it handy.

Link -via The Oddment Emporium

(Photo: Metropolitan Museum of Art)

The following is an article from Uncle John's Giant 10th Anniversary Bathroom Reader.

This article by Lisa Bannon, which appeared in the Wall Street Journal on October 24, 1995, tells the story of how a significant rumor was born. It's one of the best investigative pieces we've ever seen on the spread of an urban legend.

Anna Runge, a mother of eight, was so enamored of Walt Disney Co. that she owned stacks of its animated home videos, a Beauty and the Beast blanket and a Disney diaper bag. ''Disney was almost a member of the family,'' she said.

Until, that is, an acquaintance tipped her off to a startling rumor: The Magic Kingdom was sending obscene subliminal messages through some of its animated family films, including Aladdin, in which the handsome, young title character supposedly murmurs, sotto voce, ''All good teen-agers take off your clothes.''

''I felt as if I had entrusted my kids to pedophiles,'' says the Carthage, New York, homemaker, who promptly threw the videos into the garbage. ''It's like a toddler introduction to porn.''

A PERSISTANT RUMOR

By now, just about everyone has heard the rumors that so shocked Runge. Indeed, Disney catapulted into the headlines a few weeks ago on reports that there are subliminal sexual messages in three popular Disney videos: The Lion King and The Little Mermaid, as well as Aladdin. The charges were reported around the world; TV news shows broadcast the offending snippets in slow motion, among them a scene from The Lion King in which dust supposedly spells out the word ''sex.''

Disney denies inserting any subliminal messages. And the three allegedly obscene sequences are hardly crystal clear; even using the pause button on a videocassette recorder, viewers may debate whether they exist. Yet those sequences have quickly become the stuff of suburban myth, like the ''Paul is dead'' rumor from the heyday of the Beatles or the persistent allegations that Procter & Gamble Co.'s moon-and-stars logo symbolizes devil worship.

As the rumors spread, though, so did a common refrain: Where does this stuff come from?

In the case of Aladdin, the allegation crisscrossed the country, traveling mostly through conservative Christian circles and helped by, among others, Runge; a high-school biology class in Owensboro, Kentucky; an Iowa college student; and a traveling troupe of evangelical actors. It was passed on by some people who didn't believe it, by others who thought it was a joke, and by a Christian magazine that later -and apparently to no effect- retracted its story. At least two waves of the rumor swept the country, from very different starting points.

AN AVUNCULAR BISHOP

Most people probably first heard about the allegations in early September 1995, after the Associated Press ran a story saying a Christian group had identified the three subliminally smutty incidents. The article described the Aladdin and The Lion King scenes, as well as one in The Little Mermaid in which it said an avuncular bishop becomes noticeably aroused while presiding over a wedding ceremony. Disney quickly fired back. ''If somebody is seeing something, that's their perception. There's nothing there,'' said Rick Rhoades, a Disney spokesman. Aladdin's line is ''Scat, good tiger, take off and go,'' Disney said. The company maintains that Simba's dust is just that, dust. And Tom Sito, the animator who drew the Little Mermaid's purportedly aroused minister, said, ''If I wanted to put Satanic messages in a movie, you would see it. This is silly.''

The officiant in The Little Mermaid.

From another angle, it was obviously his knees.

AN INADVERTENT FIND

The Associated Press, as it turns out, didn't ferret out the story itself. It picked up the item from the Daily Press in Newport News, Virginia. The reporter on that story, Jim Stratton, himself stumbled on the allegations inadvertently. On a slow day at the end of August, Stratton, who now works for The Orlando Sentinel, was casually flipping through a copy of Communique, a biweekly newsletter published by the American Life League, an anti-abortion group based in Stafford, Virginia. He was struck by an article warning parents about a scene from The Lion King in which Simba, the cuddly lion star, stirs up a cloud of dust. ''Watch closely as the cloud floats off the screen,'' the newsletter instructed, ''and you can see the letters 'S-E-X.' ''

Bemused, Stratton called the league, where a spokeswoman told him about the illicit messages in Aladdin and The Little Mermaid. He decided to see for himself and gathered a dozen or so reporters around a newsroom TV to view The Lion King scene. They weren't convinced. ''We didn't make a final decision either way on what exactly people were seeing,'' he said. Still, he decided to write a breezy tongue-in-cheek article about all three incidents for his paper. ''We handled it lightly,'' he said.

Stratton's source for the story, the American Life League, meanwhile, hadn't actually found the alleged subliminal scenes itself, either. Its article was prompted by phone calls and letters from Christian groups. One of the callers had first read about the Aladdin allegation in the March issue of Movie Guide magazine, a Christian entertainment review based in Atlanta.

ALADDIN EXPOSED

In a story titled ''Aladdin Exposed,'' Movie Guide alleged that, in a scene on the palace balcony with love interest Princess Jasmine and her pet tiger, Aladdin murmurs the ''take off your clothes'' line. The article likened the line to allegedly demonic messages in some 1970s rock songs that can be heard only when the albums are played backward. The magazine urged ''moral Americans'' to write to Disney's chairman, Michael Eisner, asking him to remove the ''manipulative subliminal messages.''

(YouTube link)

Overlooked by the Movie Guide reader who repeated the allegations to the American Life League, though, was one important fact: Movie Guide later ran a retraction. After its piece ran, Movie Guide received a letter from Disney saying that the line was actually ''Scat, good tiger, take off and go.'' Movie Guide's publisher, Ted Baehr, took the video to a digital recording studio to decipher the questionable passage syllable by syllable. While the line is hard to understand, Movie Guide concluded, it ''falls short of the charge of subliminal viewer manipulation,'' as the newsletter put it in its July issue. Added Baehr: ''We messed up by not listening before.''

THE PLOT THICKENS

Movie Guide, in any case, hadn't ferreted out the alleged subliminal message on its own, either. Baehr said the publication received ''a flood of letters and calls complaining about Aladdin'' last December, January and February.

One of the letter writers was Gloria Ekins, Christian education director of First Christian Church in Newton, Iowa. ''I heard it from my daughter'' last winter, Ekins said. Her daughter Jenny, 17, heard it from her friend Jane Ford, a classmate at Newton Senior High School. Jane, in turn, first learned of the Aladdin message from her older brother, Matthew Ford, a college senior at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls, Iowa.

Ford would prove to be one of the central figures in the Aladdin saga: He heard the line on his own. The college student, who works part time at a local video store, is an electronic-media major who hopes to go into the movie business. A self-confessed movie buff, he happened to be watching Aladdin one day last January when he stumbled across the alleged line. He had no moral or religious purpose in spreading the word about it. He simply thought it was funny...

''We watch movies to try to find mistakes all the time. Like, there's a car in the background of Maverick when Mel Gibson is talking to the Indians. And if you look in the foreground of First Knight when the horses are charging into battle, you see tracks from a car,'' he said.

''We were all sitting around the dorm back in January watching Aladdin, and I couldn't figure out something he was saying,'' Ford recalled. ''I said, 'Rewind that,' and then we heard it.'' He adds, "My friends think it's funny because it's a Disney movie." Months later, when the Aladdin line showed up on the national news, Ford never imagined he helped start it all. ''When I saw the news,'' he said, ''I just thought I wasn't the only one who noticed it.''

A SECOND WAVE

In fact, almost a year earlier, in the spring of 1994, another teen-ager did notice the supposedly salacious line -and he started a separate wave of the rumor that also ended up tearing through Christian circles. Jon Wood, now a 16-year-old sophomore at Green Mountain Senior High School in Lakewood, Colorado, said he was watching his younger sister's new copy of the video when he ''heard a whisper.'' He added, ''It was weird, I just felt like something was wrong. I heard something in the background and rewound it, and I just heard it.''

Jon, who said he was ''shocked'' by the line, immediately called his 16-year-old brother, Jake, into the room to show him, too. A few weeks later, the boys showed it to their aunt, Chris Leach, of nearby Fort Collins, Colorado, who had just bought the video for her own five children.

Leach, whose husband is a pastor, passed the word on to a friend from religious circles, Glen Lee, who at the time was the youth pastor at Calvary Temple Assembly of God in Owensboro, Kentucky. Lee told a neighbor, Becky Tomes.

Tomes, the mother of two toddlers, listened to the tape in June 1994 with her husband, but ''we didn't really hear it,'' she said. That didn't stop her, though, from spreading the rumor to another friend, Sheryl Arnold, who listened for herself and decided that, no doubt about it, it was indeed an obscene subliminal message. ''We have surround-sound TV,'' she explained. ''And when I listened to it, it was very clear.''

Arnold told a friend of hers from church, Eva Sturgeon, a Pentecostal singer at Calvary Temple. After church one day, Sturgeon passed the word to her brother's girlfriend, Casey Ranson, now a junior at Apollo High School, a public school in Owensboro. Intrigued, Casey brought the Aladdin cassette into school last winter and played it for her English and biology classes. ''Nobody believed me when I told them, so I brought it to school and when I played it, they heard it,'' Casey says.

SOME SKEPTICISM

Casey herself told, among others, a classmate named Whitney Underhill, who said with some skepticism, ''The more I listen to it, it doesn't sound like 'take off your clothes.' It drops off and is hard to understand.'' But Whitney repeated the tale to a friend of hers, Johnny Henderson, who at the time was a senior at Owensboro Catholic High School. He told schoolmate Courtney Lindow, who in turn told classmate Lauren Hayden.

Lauren proved to be a providential choice. Her father, P.J. Hayden, is principal of a Catholic elementary school in Owensboro, St. Angela Merici elementary. Lauren told him the tale, and Hayden promptly spread the word among his school's parents, showing the Aladdin scene at parent-teacher meetings. "I know a lot of our parents are concerned about subliminal messages," Mr. Hayden says. "I tell them, monitor [Disney movies] like you would anything else. The Disney name is not as …clean as we thought it was."

Among the parents he alerted was Lisa Bivens, who has three daughters. On a February afternoon, she took her children to a local church to see a performance by Radix, a traveling evangelical troupe of performers based in Lincoln, Nebraska, that uses song and dance to bring home biblical stories and tell morality tales. After the show, Bivens mentioned the Aladdin episode to the troupe's leader, 30-year-old Doug Barry. In May, Barry and Radix traveled to tiny Carthage, New York, 45 minutes from the Canadian border, for another performance. Among the audience members was Runge, the mother of eight. They spoke together later at a brunch, and as talk turned to the dangers of sex and violence in the media, he repeated the Aladdin tale, throwing in another allegation he had heard from a teen-ager who wrote to him, about the supposed ''S-E-X'' in The Lion King.

IT SMELLS "PERVERT"

Runge was furious -and determined to do something about it. Over the summer, she began calling Christian organizations and conservative groups, from Pat Robertson to Phyllis Schlafly. She hit pay dirt when she reached the American Life League, which politely thanked her for passing on the Aladdin allegation -it had already heard about that one from Movie Guide readers- but which promptly published the article about The Lion King that led to the Associated Press story that started the avalanche of unwanted publicity for Disney.

No matter that Runge wasn't even sure initially that all the allegations were true. ''I really couldn't see The Lion King one myself,'' she said, ''until my teen-agers traced it for me on the screen.'' No matter that her source, Barry of Radix, now said he isn't convinced himself about all the allegations. ''I'm not sure about The Little Mermaid,'' he said. Nor does it concern Runge that Movie Guide, after spreading the Aladdin rumor, has since retracted its story.

''It may be Disney,'' Runge explained. ''But it still smells 'pervert' to me.''

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