BEAR MASCOT FACEPlANTS ON ICE IN VIRAl BlOOPER REEl
A Minnesota car dealership’s commercial outtakes are going viral thanks to a polar mascot’s trouble with walking around an ice rink. White Bear Mitsubishi posted a video to YouTube showing the outtakes from a recent commercial shoot on the ice at the home of the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers hockey team. The video shows the dealership’s White Bear, a mascot that has been appearing in commercials for five years, slipping and falling repeatedly on the freshly manicured ice.
“The ice was freshly Zamboni’d, which is super slick. And the bottom of the bear’s paws in the bear suit is really slippery, and he just kept falling and falling,” Richard Herod III, the general manager at White Bear Mitsubishi, told KMSP-TV. “And at the end, that face plant, we were like we should probably look at the blooper reel to see what we had.” Herod said the video quickly went viral — but he wasn’t entirely surprised. “Obviously, there’s something hysterical about a huge bear having a face plant on the ice,” Herod said. “I think people were just ready for a good laugh, and slap stick is kind of where it’s at.”
(UPI)
ICE CREAM RECORD FOR MICHIGAN CITY
Moo-ve over: One Michigan city has officially claimed another’s ice cream world record. The Muskegon Chronicle reports that Moo-ville Creamery in Nashville has been recognised by Guinness World Records for staging the longest ice cream sundae in September.
Three months earlier, the massive dessert in the lake Michigan town of ludington organised by the House of Flavors measured roughly 2,970 feet long and fed thousands of people along eight blocks. Nashville, more than 100 miles to the southeast, broke that record by making a dessert that spanned 3,656 feet.
Moo-ville manager Tina Westendorp says she and others travelled to ludington to see how it was done. Nashville’s main thoroughfare wasn’t long enough, so organisers had to create two dessert tracks next to each other.
(AP)
MAN TRYING TO HIDE ARREST BUYS 100S OF NEWSPAPERS
The owner of a weekly upstate New York newspaper says a man bought hundreds of copies in an unsuccessful effort to keep people from reading about his drunken-driving arrest.
State police arrested Joseph Talbot on December 29 in Wayne County and charged him with driving while intoxicated. Police also charged him with refusing to be fingerprinted or photographed. They say he told troopers he didn’t want his mugshot in the newspaper.
The 12,000-circulation Times of Wayne County says it obtained a mugshot from the county jail. It says it printed the mugshot and a story on New Year’s Eve and published them online. Newspaper owner and editor Ron Holdraker says Talbot bought nearly 1,000 newsstand copies at $1.25 each.
(AP)
TENTH ANNIVERSARY OF CAT ‘STATIONMASTER’ CElEBRATED
A Japanese railway station celebrated the tenth anniversary of its late cat ‘stationmaster’ recently. The calico cat named Tama served as the stationmaster for Wakayama Electric Railway’s Kishi from 2007 to 2015 when she died and was commemorated with the ‘Tama Shrine.’
More than 100 fans, including Wakayama Gov Yoshinobu Nisaka and Wakayama Electric Railway President Mitsunobu Kojima, gathered for a ceremony to remember Tama, who was credited with saving the railway from financial struggles, according to Japan Times. The station also introduced its newest stationmaster recruit, an eight-month-old calico cat named Yontama, who will join the present stationmaster Nitama beginning soon.
“I have been a fan of Stationmaster Tama for more than 10 years,” 22-year-old Kanna Matsumoto said. “Yontama is also adorable. I hope she will keep the station lively.”
(UPI)
RARE PlANT NAMED AFTER ROCK lEGEND HENDRIX
California researchers have named a newly discovered rare plant after Jimi Hendrix. The plant, found in Baja California, Mexico, has been christened Dudleya hendrixii , or ‘Hendrix’s liveforever’.
liveforevers are a kind of succulent with enormous lifespans. This one is a stalky plant less than a foot tall with pinkish-white flowers that dies in summer and re-sprouts in fall.
San Diego State University says a former graduate student, Mark Dodero, discovered the plant — supposedly while listening to Hendrix’s song ‘Voodoo Child’. The university says Dodero and Stephen McCabe of the University of California, Santa Cruz, decided to name it for the late rock guitarist.
However, unlike Hendrix’s music, the plant is in peril. San Diego State says its two-acre habitat is threatened by farming, off-road vehicles and development.
(AP)