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May 4

and then it's lunchtime!

It's stupid but it bugs me sometimes: I have a half-memory of a Saturday cartoon, thirty-odd years ago, in which a cat (or other predator) chortles over his plans for an unlucky prey-animal, concluding with "And then it's lunchtime!" Does anyone else remember that bit? —Tamfang 07:19, 4 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately there are probably more fictional cats than any other animal(?) If no one else remembers this, try looking through our list of fictional cats#Cats and felines in animation, comics and puppetry.--Shantavira 10:56, 4 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, perhaps the most common cat to fit that description is Sylvester (Looney Tunes), who normally hunted Tweety Bird, but occasionally also hunted other animals, such a kangaroo he mistook for a giant mouse. Those characters were commonly shown in syndication in the time frame you've specified. StuRat 05:50, 5 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes but I don't remember Sylvester ever describing his schemes in advance. —Tamfang 07:26, 6 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I believe, in the episode with the kangaroo, he described his plans to his son. StuRat 17:09, 6 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Foreign bonus tracks

Why do bands often include extra tracks on the export versions of their albums, especially Japanese versions? For example, UK band Muse included the bonus track "Futurism" on the Japanese version of Origin of Symmetry, the Arctic Monkeys included two new songs on Favourite Worst Nightmare while US band The Killers included three extra songs on the Japanese release of Hot Fuss, while Oasis included bonus tracks for US, Canadian and Japanese iTunes users on Don't Believe the Truth. Laïka 16:28, 4 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know, but someone asked the same thing a few days ago (scroll up to April 30). Recury 16:36, 4 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oh yes! Great minds think alike... Laïka 17:11, 4 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Film soundtracks

Hi- I have noticed that sometimes on TV and movie soundtracks, songs will be ever-so-slightly sped up, so it is transposed just a little bit. A good example of this is in Seeing Double, when many of S Club's songs are played in a slightly higher pitch. Why is this? Is it for copyright clearances, or just for timing reasons?

I wouldn't think it would be for copyright, since making a song higher-pitched wouldn't really make any difference as far as that goes. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think there are tools that can make a song faster/slower (shorter/longer) without changing the pitch, so I wouldn't think it was that either. It could just be a creative thing, maybe they just thought higher-pitched sounded better. I can't say I've noticed anything like this in any movies I've watched, though. Recury 20:50, 4 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Standard movies are filmed at 24 frames per second, and this also applies to TV shows that are shot initially on film. In North America where TV is at 30 frames per second, the duration of the movie frames is varied cyclically to achieve the right speed: if you play a movie tape in slow motion on a VCR, you can see this. But my understanding is that in Europe (including Britain), where TV is at 25 frames per second, movies shown on TV were traditionally just played at a slightly increased speed. Unless they went to the trouble of using the technology the last poster referred to (and of course at one time it just wasn't available), this would produce results like the original poster described. A 4% speed difference would correspond to about 1/3 of a whole tone in musical pitch, raising C about 2/3 of the way toward C#, for example. Whether this uncompensated speeding-up still goes on today, I can't say. See Telecine. --Anonymous, May 4, 2007, 22:40 (UTC).

You're not wrong Recury; there are programs/devices that can alter the length of a sound while keeping its pitch intact. The problem is that the technology isn't very good yet (although it does work better for increasing rather than decreasing speed). I think this process actually takes longer (at least on my computer) than simply speeding it up a bit. Most people won't even be able to notice the difference unless listening to the original and the altered version side-by-side. And, if you're unfamiliar with a tune, it's extremely hard to notice these changes. As an aside, some television shows are sped up in syndication (e.g. The Simpsons) and edited in order to fit in more commercials. It can be quite hard to notice these dropped frames, but you can cut something like a minute off of a 1/2hr show this way. I also remember seeing The Terminator being shown on TV NOTICEABLY sped up and had a good laugh at everybody speedwalking around. - Zepheus <ゼィフィアス> 00:25, 5 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]