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Nick

@variousvarieties.bsky.social
150 followers 273 following 306 posts

I couldn't think of anything to put here on the bird site, I couldn't think of anything to put here on the elephant site, and I can't think of anything to put here.

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Nick @variousvarieties.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
The comment about it being unusual for Wolverine to wear white boots is a good excuse for me to post this observation about his colour scheme, which I learned a few months ago and will never be able to unsee:
Screenshot of a Disqus comment by J Hendry, 7 months ago:

"Tom Bombadil is palette rotated Wolverine."

Below it is a picture of Wolverine looking mean (bright yellow his jacket is, and his boots are blue).
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Nick @variousvarieties.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Screenshot from The Simpsons episode "A Fish Called Selma": Laszlo Panaflex's walk of fame star
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Nick @variousvarieties.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
This BBC listicle's caption makes it sound like Henry Cavill only played Clark Kent in Man of Steel, and played the completely separate character of Superman in other DC films.
A screenshot from the BBC article "The next James Bond: The (00)7 questions fans want answered".

1. Who will be the next person to play 007?
[Picture of Henry Cavill, with the caption:]
Henry Cavill is possibly best known for playing Clark Kent in 2013's Man of Steel and Superman in the DC Universe franchise, and has appeared in Enola Holmes, The Man from U.N.C.L.E, Mission: Impossible - Fallout and The Witcher
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Nick @variousvarieties.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Digital Spy headline: "James Bond writer tempted to set next 007 movie in surprise location"The spacecraft Starbug in the landing bay of Red Dwarf
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Nick @variousvarieties.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Screenshot from the "sex people" episode of I'm Alan Partridge, with Alan Partridge saying: "Lynn, these are spreadsheet people."
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Nick @variousvarieties.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
Screenshot of two Bluesky posts that appeared together in the timeline:

At the top, a Fesshole confession ("I can rarely walk past people in an isolated place without evaluating my chances of killing them and successfully hiding their body. It is stressful enough imagining it. Being a murderer would break me."), below it a picture of Hank from Kong of the Hill, posted by @kothscreens.bsky.social
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Nick @variousvarieties.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
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Nick @variousvarieties.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
Timmy Turner praying meme: "Please God let this happen because it would be so fucking funny"
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Nick @variousvarieties.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
Today's match will decide which team has the honour of progressing to the prestigious third-place playoff, and who will suffer the indignity of having to settle for the mere World Cup Final.
An Only Connect thumnail showing Victoria Coren-Mitchell holding question cards.
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Nick @variousvarieties.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
They could just copy the caption Red Dwarf used to resolve a decade-long cliffhanger when it was revived in 2009:
First shot of Red Dwarf: Back to Earth. Red Dwarf in space, with a caption: "NINE YEARS LATER"
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Nick @variousvarieties.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
Far from the worst picture of Donald Duck I've ever seen...
Roy Lichtenstein's "Look Mickey", recreating (badly) a cartoon of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck.
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Nick @variousvarieties.bsky.social · 23/05/2026
Title card for an Itchy and Scratchy cartoon from The Simpsons: "AAAHHH! WiLDERNESS!"
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Nick @variousvarieties.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
Frinkiac caption of Bart Simpson reading a book and saying "Don't do what Scrappy Doo does."
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Nick @variousvarieties.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
Alan Partridge's favourite columnist hasn't changed much in the last 25 years.
I'm Alan Partridge screenshot.

Caption:

(COWBOY ACCENT) YEAH. I THINK I'LL GO AND READ SIMON HEFFER ON THE VERANDA.I'm Alan Partridge screenshot. Caption:

AIN'T NO ONE GONNA STOP ME.
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Nick @variousvarieties.bsky.social · 10/05/2026
Screenshot of two posts on Bluesky:

Top: Standplaats Kraków posts an image of a Wikipedia article for "Toe", which says "This article is a stub. Owwow Yeeooooouch!!!"

Immediately below it, Dark Souls Dialog Bot posts: "Ooph!"
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Nick @variousvarieties.bsky.social · 08/05/2026
It won't show anything about the populations that did/didn't have votes yesterday, but Wikipedia has these maps of areas that held elections: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Un...
Screenshot of Wikipedia's maps of areas of England that held local elections in May 2026: map of district, borough, and metropolitan councils at the top; county councils at the bottom.
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Nick @variousvarieties.bsky.social · 04/05/2026
New Frinkiac confuses and scares me. Mankind was not meant to have the power to create things such as this:
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Nick @variousvarieties.bsky.social · 11/04/2026
Both Artemis II YouTube streams are finished! But they're not available to replay yet. Hopefully it'll just take a bit of processing time before they're playable...
Screenshot of NASA's YouTube thumbnails for its two main Artemis II livestreams:

Live Mission Coverage (Official Broadcast) - 230:38:28

Live Views from Orion - 215:58:46
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Nick @variousvarieties.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
Current mood
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Nick @variousvarieties.bsky.social · 02/04/2026
I remember reading Taylor & Wheeler's Spacetime Physics textbook, and their insistence on omitting the definite article stuck out to me. It meant the book was full of awkward sounding phrases like like "a space probe travels to Sun" or "the tide is caused by Moon". eftaylor.com/spacetimephy...
THE TIDE-DRIVING POWER OF MOON AND SUN

Note: Neither astronomers nor newspapers say "the Venus" or "the Mars." All say simply "Venus" or "Mars." Astronomers follow the same snappy practice for Earth, Moon, and Sun. More and more if the rest of the world now follows - as do we in this book - the recommendations if the International Astronomical Union. 

The oceans rise and fall in a never-ending rhythmic cycle bears witness to the tide-driving power of Moon and Sun. [...]Want to see the highest tides in the Bay of Fundy? Then choose your visit according to these rules: (1) Come in summer, when this northern body of water tilts most strongly toward Moon. (2) Come when Moon, in its elliptic orbit, is closest to Earth — roughly 10 percent closer than its most distant point, yielding roughly 35 percent greater tide-producing power. (3) Take into account the tide-producing power of Sun, aksout 45 percent as great as
that of Moon. Sun’s effect reinforces Moon’s influence when Moon is dark, dark because interposed, or almost interposed, between Earth and Sun, so Sun and Moon pull from the same side. But an egg has two projections, so Sun and Moon also assist each other in producing tides when they are on opposite sides of Earth; in this case we see a full Moon.
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Nick @variousvarieties.bsky.social · 02/04/2026
Glad to see they've got this one: www.reddit.com/r/dontyoukno...
Screenshots of a Twitter thread from 2019:

GAIL SIMONE:
The Punisher would be a lot prettier if he smiled more.

TWITTER USER A:
Ummmmm, I know what you're getting at here, but the jab doesn't work due to his backstory and personality. He actually has a huge plot point as to why he doesn't smile alot. Try harder

GAIL SIMONE:
[Posts a photo of a bookshelf full of comic spines]

TWITTER USER A:
Nice collection of what looks to be mostly female centric comic books. That literally has nothing to do with my comment, nor the topic under discussion. Unless if you're pointing out what is the most likely fact that you know very little about Punisher's backstory.

TWITTER USER B:
Read the names of the writer on the spine, now look at her name.

TWITTER USER A:
K, so she's a comic book author. That actually makes her case look worse seeing as how she should know better

GAIL SIMONE
Dude, between the two of us, which one has actually written the Punisher, do you think?
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Nick @variousvarieties.bsky.social · 01/04/2026
Carl from The Simpsons. Caption: "But, Moe, the Dark, the Dark."
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Nick @variousvarieties.bsky.social · 01/04/2026
Screenshot from the Red Dwarf episode "Me2" of the characters Rimmer and Lister watching Skutter robots paint a grey wall.

Caption: "They're changing it from ocean grey to military grey. Something that should have been done a long time ago."
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Nick @variousvarieties.bsky.social · 31/03/2026
Also, on the post about the Bombadil chapter, one of the comments had an observation that I don't think I'll ever be able to forget:
Disqus comment by J Henry:

"Tom Bombadil is pallete rotated Wolverine."

... With a picture of Wolverine in his yellow and blue X-Men costume.
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Nick @variousvarieties.bsky.social · 31/03/2026
Have you seen Abigail Nussbaum's current blog posts about re-reading LOTR? www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/category/tol... She is not a fan of Tom Bombadil, but she did a post collecting several recorded versions of his song: www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2026/02/tolk...
Blog post screenshot:

I am an extremely unmusical person, and one difficulty I’ve always had with Tolkien’s writing is being able to imagine the poems in his books as sung work. So during this reread, I’ve made a point of seeking out musical adaptations of the poems and songs I’ve encountered in each chapter. In the chapter “In the House of Tom Bombadil”, the title character’s song—which he sings all the time, peppers into his speech, and teaches the hobbits as a means of calling him to their aid—has always baffled me. This is a song that canonically calls people back from the dead. It should be an irresistible earworm, an absolute bop, and yet I’ve never been able to make the lyrics sound anything but awkward and cumbersome in my head. The versions I’ve found online haven’t fully alleviated this difficulty, but they’re a fascinating showcase of different attempts at the problem.
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Nick @variousvarieties.bsky.social · 28/03/2026
Screenshot of tweet by Jared Yates Sexton (11 July 2017):

"I...worked on this story for a year...and...he just...he tweeted it out."
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Nick @variousvarieties.bsky.social · 25/03/2026
Reported a minor Bluesky bug: using a mobile web browser, post timestamps are overlapping with usernames. Possibly related to that text alignment issue: the browser's view begins slightly zoomed in by default, hiding the bottom bar with the Home/Search/Notifications icons.
Screenshot of a bug report submission for Bluesky:

Viewing Bluesky on mobile web browsers, usernames and timestamps are overlapping, making both of them unreadable. Additionally, the browser view of the UI starts slightly zoomed in by default, hiding the buttons at the bottom of the screen.

This happens with the web interface on both Chrome for Android and Firefox for Android.Bluesky screenshot showing overlapping post timestamp and account username.Bluesky screenshot showing overlapping post timestamp and account username.
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Nick @variousvarieties.bsky.social · 10/03/2026
That reminds me of this bit of dialogue from the third Honey, I Shrunk the Kids movie. (This joke is pretty much the only thing I remember about that film.) m.imdb.com/title/tt0119...
Wayne Szalinski: Your dad's invention is going to be in the Smithsonian alongside the gramophone!
Adam Szalinski: What's a gramophone?
Wayne Szalinski: An early record player.
Adam Szalinski: What's a record player?
Wayne Szalinski: An early CD player.
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Nick @variousvarieties.bsky.social · 17/01/2026
I knew it had to happen eventually: the word that's been my regular Wordle starting word almost every day for the last few years turned out to be the answer! Wordle 1,673 1/6 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Wordle in 1! Woo-hoo! At long last, I'm free to swap to a different starting word!
Wordle results screen, with a "Congratulations!" message and the following statistics:

1436 played
97% win
59 current streak
109 max streak 

BADGE EARNED: Wordle in 1

Guess distribution:

1: 1 😁😁😁 (That's today!)
2: 46
3: 348
4: 522
5: 348
6: 134
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Nick @variousvarieties.bsky.social · 16/12/2025
Chrome on Android no longer displays an image's full alt text when you long press an image - it gets truncated. Looks like this bug was first reported in 2019, but that bug report thread has received new replies in the last week: bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/i...
Screenshot of xkcd website, with the Chrome menu that appears when long pressing the comic image. The alt text only shows 2 lines, then is truncated.
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Nick @variousvarieties.bsky.social · 13/12/2025
I'm not sure if Glinner is referring to Peter Serafinowicz or James Serafinowicz there. James tweeted the below comment about how he'd tried to talk sense into him, but I can't remember what Peter has said about him publicly.
Screenshot of tweets from 7 May 2020, in replies to a deleted tweet by Glinner. 

First reply by @justwanttorea15: "I've tried copying some folks in to have a word with him, but not optimistic. This is something which needs sensible discussion, not blunderbuss accusations of paedophilia."

Reply by James Serafinowicz: "Tried for two years. Have given up as have a lot of people."
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Nick @variousvarieties.bsky.social · 25/11/2025
During the trial, the judge allowed the complainant to use she/her pronouns, and Glinner & defence to use the misgendering "he/him". The judgement document begins by saying that "they" will be used throughout...
Screenshot from the first page of the court judgment Rex v Graham Linehan:

Furthermore, I wish to make it clear how parties have been and will be referred to. I am grateful 
to counsel for agreeing before the start of the trial a use of language document. In summary the 
prosecution referred to the complainant using female pronouns and/or referring to the 
complainant as Ms Brooks or “Brooks”. The defence, defendant and defence witnesses referred 
to the complainant with male pronouns and referred to the complainant as Ms Brooks. I will 
refer to the complainant using gender neutral pronouns and as “the complainant”.
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Nick @variousvarieties.bsky.social · 25/11/2025
It looks like that BBC page has been updated in the last few minutes, so that's no longer the last sentence. I think part of it has been moved to this paragraph in the middle of the article, and the age is no longer mentioned: www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Screenshot from BBC News article "Linehan cleared of harassing trans activist but guilty of damaging phone":

She also did not find that the complainant, a biological male who identifies as a woman, "was as 'alarmed and distressed' as they portrayed themself to be by these messages and this course of conduct".
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Nick @variousvarieties.bsky.social · 11/11/2025
But even that was immediately followed by an editorial paragraph pointing out that it's not really a problem at all:
Screenshot from the above linked Radio Times article from September 2025:

"The last time we saw Bond he was poisoned and blown to smithereens – how will they get past the fact he is dead with a capital D?" he said. "I think that was a mistake, because Bond is a legend. He belongs to everybody, he is eternal – except in that film.

"If I was asked tomorrow to write the script, I wouldn’t be able to do it. Where would you start? You can’t have him waking up in the shower and saying it was all a dream."

Of course, in reality, the new film will not be based in the same continuity as the previous version – serving as a relaunch of the series with a new actor playing Bond – so it seems very unlikely that the end of No Time to Die will actually be referenced at all.
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Nick @variousvarieties.bsky.social · 11/11/2025
It's not shown in the original screenshot above, but Oates's tweet was quoting another one that included a screenshot of Musk's comments about "takers and makers". So she *was* explicitly referring to him - he hasn't just jumped to that conclusion.
Screenshot of Joyce Carol Oates's tweet about Musk. At the bottom, it's quoting a tweet by another user, which includes a screenshot of Musk's tweet about "takers and makers".
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Nick @variousvarieties.bsky.social · 11/11/2025
Since then, he's attempted to prove that he appreciates culture by replying "great" to a few movies mentioned by the account @TheCinesthetic:
Musk replies to a tweet by @TheCinesthetic about Man on Fire: 

"Man on Fire is great!"Musk replies to a tweet by @TheCinesthetic about Edge of Tomorrow: 

"Great movie"Musk replies to a tweet by @TheCinesthetic about The Fifth Element:

"Fifth Element has great style"
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Nick @variousvarieties.bsky.social · 09/11/2025
I think this one has got to him because he's posted at least three separate responses to this over the last 10 hours:
Musk whinging about Joyce Carol Oates, in three tweets posted 1, 2, and 10 hours ago.
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Nick @variousvarieties.bsky.social · 09/11/2025
What were the studio head's insults/dismissals? I looked at the Twitter account of Secret Level's Jason Zada, and now his only mocking tweet is a "haters gonna hate" GIF. But the reply at the bottom mentions a deleted tweet: presumably he said worse in that, and that's what you're referring to?
Screenshot of a Twitter thread from 6 November:

Two pro-AI people at the top mocking "haters", followed by Jason Zada posting a Pikachu "haters gonna hate" GIF.

Then another user replies: "Proceeded to post a gif of actual art, and deleted previous tweet."
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Nick @variousvarieties.bsky.social · 28/10/2025
As nicely illustrated in @9mmballpoint.bsky.social's "Political Journey" comic: 9mmballpoint.blogspot.com/2023/02/poli...
Three panel webcomic by 9mmballpoint:

Me in 2003: "Everything is Bush's fault."

Me in 2013: "History is a vast web of political, economic, geographic, and social factors that are all constantly shifting over time. There are always deeper layers and new perspectives, so we have to view it as a complex system instead of looking for easy narratives about heroes and villains."

Me in 2023: "Everything is Reagan's fault."
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Nick @variousvarieties.bsky.social · 16/10/2025
Everyone is focusing on Grant Morrison's comments on AI art. But their Reddit AMA featured another question, which may be of interest to @eruditorumpress.com:
Screenshot from Grant Morrison's Reddit AMA:

fainting_goat_games:
Who is currently winning in the ongoing wizard war between you and Alan Moore?

GrantMorrisonReal:
Donald Trump.

fainting_goat_games:
Fair point. Though I'd argue we're all losing that one.
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Nick @variousvarieties.bsky.social · 06/10/2025
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Nick @variousvarieties.bsky.social · 01/10/2025
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Nick @variousvarieties.bsky.social · 21/09/2025
A paragraph from the above Telegraph article: "An independent candidate is also on track to take Health Secretary Wes Streeting's Ilford North seat, Ruth the Left-wing alternative there expected to take 34pc of the vote, polling shows."Timmy Turner praying meme: "Please God let this happen because it would be so fucking funny"
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Nick @variousvarieties.bsky.social · 17/09/2025
Eureka's Blu-rays normally have good subtitle quality control. But today I watched their edition of The Bride With White Hair, and I think it's the first time I've ever seen a translator/editor's note accidentally make it into the subtitle track!
Photo of a TV screen showing the 1993 film The Bride with White Hair. The subtitle's first line is the female character's movie dialogue: "*I'm* asking you where the jade is." (The word "I'm" is in italics.)

The second subtitle line is definitely not in the movie, and reads: "The 'I'm' should be  italicised, please look into and correct."
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Nick @variousvarieties.bsky.social · 07/08/2025
Whenever I'm browsing DVDs/BRs in charity shops, I check my Letterboxd collection list to make sure I don't get duplicates. But today this habit failed: I accidentally acquired a second DVD copy of Face/Off. 😢 However, the cases are NOT QUITE IDENTICAL. So I *could* swap the discs around...
The spines of two UK DVD copies of the movie Face/Off. One (The Film Factory edition) has a code, a hologram, and the blue IFCO 18 certificate; the other does not have those, and has the BBFC 18 cert in a different position.The back covers of two DVD copies of Face/Off. The Film Factory edition on the left has a slightly different layout, and a "Not for rental" message.
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Nick @variousvarieties.bsky.social · 05/08/2025
This will be Morrisons supermarkets tomorrow. BECAUSE OF YOU.
Screenshot from the Simpsons episode "Homer vs. the Eighteenth Amendment": the Duff factory with an "OUT OF BUSINESS" sign.
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Nick @variousvarieties.bsky.social · 30/07/2025
Album cover for the Queen album "The Miracle", with the four band members' faces blended together side-by-side.
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Nick @variousvarieties.bsky.social · 20/07/2025
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... "Ain't no rule says the sheep can't travel by train!" -- Air Baaaad (1997)
Screenshot from the BBC article "Mystery solved: Why this man took a sheep on a train".

Photo of a sheep on a train, with the text: "ScotRail said there is nothing to say sheep are not allowed on trains and the animal complied with its rules that pets should be on a lead."
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Nick @variousvarieties.bsky.social · 23/06/2025
Poster of the Simpson family against a white background, looking toward the viewer. Homer makes a rabbit ears V-sign behind Bart's head, Bart does the same behind Lisa's head, Lisa does the same behind Maggie's head.

Homer says (with a speech bubble *and* quotation marks): "Remember, as far as anyone knows, we're a nice, normal family."
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Nick @variousvarieties.bsky.social · 21/06/2025
A bit of pointless film trivia that I noticed a while ago: The directors of the two Short Circuit movies had each previously directed separate unrelated adaptations of Dracula, both of which were released in 1979.
Screenshot of the Letterboxd page for Short Circuit (1986), directed by John Badham.Screenshot of the Letterboxd page for Dracula (1979), directed by John Badham.

The summary begins: "Romanticised adaptation of Bram Stoker's 1897 classic."Screenshot of the Letterboxd page of Short Circuit 2 (1988), directed by Kenneth Johnson.Screenshot of the Letterboxd page of The World of Dracula (1979), directed by Kenneth Johnson. 

Summary reads: "Originally broadcast in short weekly installments as part of the series 'Cliffhangers', The World of Dracula is a collection of segments edited together to create a feature film."
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