A GIANT LEAP FORWARD

If you are one of the literally millions of people who grew up believing that scientists would never be able to teach another species to sing the theme song from the TV show Batman, well, guess what.

(Thanks to Greg)

Comments

[Somewhere North]

Arming dolphins and then teaching them the batman theme song is just one step away from them wearing towels and leaping off furniture. Slippery slope guys...

[tropichunt.com guy™]

They are the FIRST most intelligent species on the Earth, per Douglas Adams!

[tropichunt.com guy™]

Somewhere North: Curses, foiled again!

Why would we make them stoop so low as to try and mimic human music? I mean, that's like getting Stephen Hawking to teach elementary school reading instead of exploring the cosmos...just undignified...

[Chianca at Large]

This is the most horrifying thing I've heard since Prince's "Bat Dance."

On second thought, not quite as horrifying.

[Sean]

Sholdn't they be singing the theme from " Flipper"?

[Christobol]

Hey, they taught Adam West to sing Flipper. At that point I could no longer be shocked by what scienctists do.

[Chianca at Large]

More singing dolphins.

[Lairbo]

So, if I'm scuba diving and a dolphin comes up next to me and starts "singing" old TV show theme songs, I shouldn't freak out or anything (unlike if, say Adam West swims up along side and starts singing the theme song from Flipper, in which case I'll feed myself to the nearest shark).

[MOTW]

Thanks for the earwig, Dave.
♫Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale
A tale of a fateful trip
That started on this tropic shore
Aboard this tiny ship
♫

[MOTW]

Can the dolphins say POW! BOOM! OR ZOCK! ?

[jamie the star wars nerdgirl]

this reminds me of the halloween episode of the simpsons where the dolphins take over springfield. first the ones with explosives get loose in the gulf, and now they can sing too. "so long and thanks for all the fish..."

[randon thunking]

Is this the song they are talking about? I'm a bit confused here.

[randon thunking]

OOOOOPS, This is the link I intended to post.

1000 apologies for wasting everyone's oh-so-precious bandwidth.

[louis gehrig]

I heard they tried to get them to sing "Oops, I did it again", but their brains kept imploding.

Way to go Aunt Nancy!! And in a totally harmless, indifferent way, that has to be the first time I've ever heard anyone thank God for Eli.

[tropichunt.com guy™]

Bah, try THESE singing dolphins on for size...

[Brainy Jello]

Tropic: Nice one. Very snorkworthy.

[Sallyacious]

Wait 'til they learn the drum solo from Wipeout.

[MOTW]

*SNORK* , Sally!

[jamie the star wars nerdgirl]

yessssss, i'm not the only one that immediately thought of a sci-fi book/movie.

[Eleanor]

tropic:

You made me smile and cry (in a good way). That was wonderful. Is it in the H2G2 movie?

[blurkerette]

tropichunt.com guy:

sorry to be the bigger nerd, but dolphins are 2nd behind the mice. however i agree that this is undignified....dolphins are such sluts for fish!

[blurkerette]

anybody have the link where we can heard the dolphins go: nah nah nah nah nah nah batmaaaaaaan!

[Eaglie]

I want an mp3!

[tropichunt.com guy™]

blurkerette: Egds, you're absolutely right. It's why people who post second are first here...which gets me all confused. ;)

Eleanor: Yep, that's the opening song from the movie, although it's done to dolphin footage. I miss Douglas as well. The moment that gets me (in the movie) is when the original TV theme plays...

[Lairbo]

Was this a side effect of some other experiment or did they do it on porpoise? (Hey-ooooooh!)

[Karl]

It has been proven in laboratory tests that the dolphins singing the theme song is approximately 233% more entertaining than the original series.

[Betsy]

I can think of several "short/long" exclamations that a dolphin might produce if folks kept annoying me by waving Batman dolls at me.

[U.O]

So ... the dolphins "sang" the Batman theme when they saw a Batman doll ...

Please, don't anyone show them a Barbie doll ... or Britney ...

[Eleanor]

tropic: I'm reading The Salmon of Doubt right now. Nice little snippets of DA on many subjects.

[Kilmeny]

So the dolphins are being taught to sing? How long before some adolescent dolphin dons a crop top and schoolgirl skirt, sings a hideous yet horribly catchy pop song and goes on to marry a scruffy lazy male dolphin with no dress sense and a pathetic attempt at creative facial hair on his face?

I need coffee. Or a nap.

[Mrs Sinister]

this thread is usless w/o sound. i wanna hear 'em sing!

[Bumble]

Anyone else reminded of a Far Side comic showing scientists on a boat with a microphone lowered into the water listening to a whale sing "Louie Louie?"

[louis gehrig]

Off Topic, but likely to start something-

New York won tonight, and Boston lost!
It is beginning to look like the universe is righting itself.

[Eleanor]

*zips in*

You got that right, louis!!!

Hooray, hooray, Yankees are on their way!!

*zips out doing the I Love The Yankees Happy Dance* (especially A-Rod!)

[AlanBoss]

Yes, I really need an MP3 of the dolphins singing to add to my collection of variations of the Batman theme. Really. I'm not kidding!

[U.O]

Bumble! ---

Speaking of singing ... How'd the wedding go? And your musical presentation?

Got a tale of ours, to share ... hope the intrusion onto the blog is not too unmannerly ... (no worse than the spammer above, one hopes ...)

So: I'm in a cheerful mood (despite having to shoot the pix of the whole deal) and getting ready ... I'm singing a bit ... my 11.7-year-old granddaughter [who was her mom's Maid of Honor] is in the room:

"Grandpa, are you going to sing at the wedding?" (Honest question, no 'attitude' or sarcasm or desperation perceived ...)

"Not if I can help it. ...
...
...
"So, is that a good thing, or a bad thing ... ?"

...
(No answer, she's got a lot on her mind, including her Maid of Honor's speech @ the reception ... and she's used to not listening -- or, not hearing -- she sometimes is in a world of her own -- as any erudite 11-going-on-37-year-old might be)

"So, is that a good thing, or a bad thing ... ?"

...
(Preparation continues ... time gap of a minute or so between questions ...)

"So, I still don't have an answer, Langley ... {That's her name] ... is that a good thing, or a bad thing ... ?"

"Well, um ... yes -- no -- um -- GRANDPA !!!"

I about split a gut, laughing ... I love to make my grandkids laugh, but I love to embarrass them (in a gentle way) too ...

Hope you had as much of a good time @ your wedding as I did @ ours ...

[Guin]

Bumble - that's one of my favorite Far Sides. ;)

I believe that dolphins are really just toying with us when they "learn" to do something. They know that due to global warming, the seas will swamp all the land masses and humans will become fish food pretty soon.

[Bumble]

U.O~ I did. The actual wedding and reception went off well, but there were a few problems beforehand. For starters, the programs for the ceremony weren't completely printed or put together; we finished them morning of, and when I was at my sister's house with her to help her finish them and pack what she needed, she had a little accident. She was walking into the bathroom to shower and she slipped on the wet floor and cracked her toe on the underside of the door; almost fell. the toenail cracked horizontally across the toe; it bled pretty badly. There was a nice string of profanity coming out of the shower for a while, but she kept it together. Fortunately one of the wedding guests was a doctor friend of hers; she bandaged the toe and wrote her a prescription for some antibiotics. The dress had a huge skirt and she was only wearing little soft slippers, so no problems there. The skirt was very puffy; the bottom probably had a circumference of about 6 feet, and when my two-year-old nephew (the ring bearer) came in with his mother in his little tux, he went over to the bride and leaned up against her skirt like it was a mattress and went "Ahhhh." It was adorable. Tell your granddaughter I sympathize with her about the maid of honor speech thing. I'd thought it out before hand, but when it actually came time to do it my extra crispy cynic's shell dissolved into a big fluffy marshmallow and I broke into tears. Everyone kept saying how sweet it was, but they only got the cliff notes; I didn't get all of it out. No one knew the difference. The song went well, too. We didn't have a chance to practice with the band, but they were very good, and we all remembered our parts and got through it. The band was kind of loud though. Some people said they couldn't hear us very well. It was a lot of fun, but I'm glad it's over. I even resigned myself to the scary strapless bridesmaid outfit after a dozen people told me how beautiful I looked; don't hear that much, except from my biased mother. :-) It was fun to do for someone else, but I don't think I'd ever want the trouble of having a wedding that big. Wow that's long. Shutting up now.

[Bumble]

Guin~ Remember the one where the scientists are trying to interpret dolphin sounds, and they've got a blackboard full of phonetically spelled out words and phrases that are quite obviously Spanish? "It's another one of those Awww blah ess pan yoll sounds."

[U.O]

Bumble -

Yup. Been there. Done that. Puked on the T-shirt.

My daughter cracked her to on a chair leg @ the dance ... thinks she broke it ... Granddaughter said "I had my speech written out, but I forgot it at school ..." and at the end, everyone went ... "AAAAwwwwwwwwwwwww" (with the "how sweet" implied"

At my son's wedding, My Bride and another gal had to rebuild all the Bridesmaid's dresses between 8 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. ... I just sorta hid out, away from the damage zone ...

[tropichunt.com guy™]

U.O's comment above was comment #42. Since that is the answer to Life, The Universe and Everything, there must be some special meaning hidden in there. Begin looking!

[jamie the star wars nerdgirl]

should we start building bridesmaids' dresses for dolphins, then?

[triller]

I'm not sure I like the concept of being 'reinforced'.

[U.O]

No, hidden meaning is more like ... be like Ford Prefect and "hide out -- away from the damage zone" ... until the noise level subsides ...

[everysandwich]

Blurkerette -- thanks so much for the clarification on the order of intelligence. I thought Tropic might be mistaken in naming Dolphins number one, but how could I be sure, being a member of the number three species? But I do know this. The Burmese python is not even in the top 5,000.