The BLT Episode 15: Gourd of the Rings

This week’s BLT reimagines the poster for Apocalypse Now, replacing Colonel Walter Kurtz with a crying dog. To find out how it all connects to the real world, read on.

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Row, row, row your pumpkin

A Missouri man has broken a lesser-known world record: The longest journey down a river by pumpkin. Duane Hansen paddled his 846-pound homegrown pumpkin for 11 hours, taking him 38 miles down the Missouri river. He named the pumpkin Big Berta, and even added a custom-made cup holder.

You can catch Duane and Berta in action here.

Dino Prints Discovered

While Duane completed his journey, rivers elsewhere in the world have been drying up, as droughts strike. In the process, hidden history is being discovered through a myriad of previously hidden objects and artefacts.

In Dinosaur Valley State Park, 113-million-year-old dinosaur tracks have once again become visible on what’s dubbed the “lone ranger trackway”. Most of the prints are from a carnivorous Acrocanthosaurus, a two-legged creature with three toes on each foot.

A Village ReVisited

Earlier this year, droughts uncovered Concello De Lobios, a ghost village on the Portuguese-Spanish border. It resurfaced as a reservoir plunged to historically low levels.

Walking on the cracked ground among spookily grey ruins tourists can see abandoned cafés, an old water fountain and rusted cars.

Harrowing message from the past

In another eerie consequence of this years’ droughts, hunger stones are being read. Inscribed hundreds of years ago, they were intended to appear when river levels got down to dangerously low levels and warm future generations that famine was around the corner

One stone on the bank of the River Elbe, was recently spotted by a German journalist Olaf Koens, in the Czech Republic town of Decin. This one, from 1616, read: “If you see me, then weep.”

China plans to make it rain

China has a plan to curb the damage of its record-breaking heatwave: cloud-seeding. This is a form of weather modification that involves spraying cloud with chemicals to prompt rain. Aircrafts, rockets or drones can be deployed to release silver iodide and other materials into the clouds.

Cloud-seeding is being used around the basin of the Yangtze River. Some controversy exists around the effectiveness and systemic consequences of the pricey technique. Nevertheless, cloud-seeding looks primed to be a major part of the climate-fighting agenda.

You aren’t imagining it: dogs cry tears of joy

A small study of 22 dogs has confirmed something many people have anecdotally experienced. Dogs can be reduced to joyous tears when they see their owner. The study was published in the journal Current Biology.

Scientists used the so-called Schirmer tear test (STT), placing strips under the dogs' eyes and reuniting them with owners after 6 hours apart.

The Return to Middle-Earth

Dogs’ tears aren’t the only thing streaming. Amazon’s epic huge-budget Lord of the Rings series is finally here, building the J.R.R. Toilein’s legacy with tales set before the iconic movies.

Blackbird has Fallen Flat-ley

Michael Flatley – shown mid-jig in the BLT - has written, directed and starred in a self-funded spy film “Blackbird”. The film, by “Dancelord Pictures” follows a retired spy dragged back into his dangerous life by a former flame. But it has fallen flat with critics, with reviews ranging from “fabuously bad” to “oddly entertaining”.

Apocalypse Now Reimagined

All these stories didn’t exactly put us in the most positive mood, but we’ve leaned into it, and payed homage to the poster for the film Apocalypse Now.

We’ve tied the stories together, unveiling them one by one as we got to the big reveal. Did you see it coming? We hope you like our reimagining.

We love using visual thinking and visual storytelling to create connected and layered whiteboard animations like this. We’d love to talk to you about how your message could look as a whiteboard animation, contact us today!