​Freakazoid!, the third cartoon produced by Steven Spielberg for Warner Bros. (after Tiny Toon Adventures and Animaniacs) may remain the most obscure of them all, but it may also have been the most ambitious. Initially conceived by Batman: The Animated Series co-creator Bruce Timm and producer/writer Paul Dini as a Spider-Man-esque, dark but funny teenage hero, Spielberg and Tiny Toons/Animaniacs creator Tom Ruegger spun it into a show brimming with increasingly crazy pop-culture references and some of the most rewarding gags for nerds anywhere.

When nerdy teenager Dexter Douglas gets zapped by a faulty computer chip and endowed with the information overload of the Internet (this was before Wikipedia, mind you), he turned into Freakazoid, a blue-skinned, wild-haired bundle of energy who faced a dastardly rogue's gallery with traditional superpowers and grin-inducing wit and charm. With a bevy of lovable sidekicks, including no-nonsense butler Professor Jones and some-nonsense police Sgt. Mike Cosgrove, Freakazoid also defended the airwaves from boring after-school entertainment for two short but sweet seasons. Fifteen years later, Freakazoid! still maintains a devoted cult following, most recently rewarded by the release of the complete series on DVD over 2008 and 2009. This countdown of some of the best moments in the show's history is infinitely better than -- dare we say it? -- poo gas! More >>

​More than 60 years after they first hit the market, Colorforms are still being produced today. That my friends is called staying power. The brand is currently owned by University Games, who in recent years have released Colorforms based on Yo Gabba Gabba! and SpongeBob SquarePants. Even though it is extraordinarily difficult for such a low-tech plaything to compete these days, these toys that "stick like magic" continue to endure. This is due to issues ranging from familiarity and nostalgia to the fact that Colorforms still inspire imagination in an era when most of their competitors do not.

Back in 2008, Topless Robot looked at the 5 Greatest (and 5 Most Ridiculous) Colorforms Playsets. Today's Daily List drops the negative aspect of its predecessor to again focus on the cream of the Colorforms crop. From oddities that reveal the secret kinks of your favorite Hanna-Barbera characters to playtime's final frontier, here are 10 more of the greatest Colorforms playsets.More >>

​Several months ago, I wrote a list of the 11 Greatest and Nerdiest Fictional Bands, a salute to the best fictitious musicians nerd-dom has to offer, those marvelous bands created as parts of -- or occasionally starring in -- movies, TV shows, videogames, and similar fare. Based on sheer volume of comments it was possibly the most popular list I've ever written... and unfortunately the most incomplete list I'd ever written, as well.

Suggestions for a follow-up were numerous, varied and frankly a bit embarrassing, as many were bands I should have thought of myself. To correct this grievous wrong, here are nine bands that certainly should have made the original list. For the record, that original list included Dingoes Ate My Baby, Jeffster, Timmy and the Lords of the Underworld, Shallow Gravy, Billy and the Boingers, Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem, the Weird Sisters, Spinal Tap, Wyld Stallyns, Dethklok and Sy Snootles and the Max Rebo Band, so these bands are not missing from this new list. They're in the old one. Surely there's some other awesome nerdy band besides these 20 that you can be appalled that I missed in the comments. More >>

​Pardon the exhausted cliché, but Godzilla is one of the biggest stars in the world. Counting the 1998 American abomination, he has appeared in 29 films, with a possibly-more-faithful second American take on the way from Legendary Pictures. He's one of the most recognizable monsters in film history.

And yet, many Americans -- not geeks of course, but the general public -- may have some mistaken beliefs about the big green guy. Often they're a result of licensed American products, like dubbed versions of the Japanese films or comics and cartoons, that tried to make Godzilla more "accessible" by turning him into a more traditional fire-breathing dragon.

Well, we here at Topless Robot are nothing if not pedantic about the most minor points regarding our geekish obsessions, so we're going to set the record straight. Here are nine common misconceptions people have about Godzilla. More >>

​Minimates, those 2-inch block figures put out by Diamond Select Toys and Art Asylum, turn ten years old in 2012, and it's been a pretty eclectic decade. While they're best known for their line of Marvel minifigures (42 waves and counting) and DC minifigures (a co-production with DC Direct), they've also tackled dozens of other properties over the years, from TV shows like 24 and Battlestar Galactica to film classics like A Fistful of Dollars and Silence of the Lambs, and even video games like Halo and Uncharted. Sadly, they still get compared to Lego and Kubrick figures, but articulation, accessories and sheer character selection put them in a different class altogether. While there are over a thousand Minimates to choose from, these are the essentials -- or as Minimates fans say, "a good start." More >>

​Unfortunately, Douglas Adams is still dead. He's been this way since he died following a workout at his gym in Santa Barbara, California on May 11, 2001. He had moved from his home in England to the States with his wife and young daughter to get a film version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy completed after years of development hell (we all know how that turned out). Like Jim Henson before him, Adams was a huge thinker and a true larger than life personality who died suddenly and left behind a grief-stricken fan base and a powerful legacy. He will always be best known for his peerless work on The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy radio series and its offshoot novels, LPs, computer game, television series, tie-in towel and so on. That achievement alone would have earned him pop culture immortality. But despite a legendary inability to make deadlines -- one that is an inspiration to writers everywhere -- Adams actually did achieve quite a lot more than just Hitchhiker's in his 49 years. Here's a look at the seven most noteworthy things that he did that have nothing to do with The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. So read on all of you hoopy froods. Just put your towels away, you won't be needing them today.More >>

​Game consoles. They are our life, our love, our best escape until someone finally gets around to inventing the Holodeck. Unfortunately, like anything mass-produced from the same source, they are certain to have a few... glitches (kind of like the Royal Family). Most present in people's minds is the Red Ring of Death, the blinking red indication that your Xbox 360 has up and died.

However, almost every single console since time immemorial (i.e., 1977) had had its own glaring problem, which frustrated nerds then just as much as the RRoD does today. Take an aggravating walk down down the Hall of Videogame Console Failures Past, won't you?More >>

Ah, deleted scenes. Sometimes they should've been left in the original cut of the film, and sometimes they should be wiped from existence all together. But then you have the deleted scenes that are neither good nor bad, that aren't great or horrible. But, if they were left in the film, they would've helped the final cut make a lot more sense. This is the case for many of the Star Trek films.
​From unexplained crying fits to disappearing parts of someone's anatomy, the Star Trek film franchise is chocked full of little glitches and plot holes that might confuse the average viewer and infuriate the above-average fan boy. So, without further ado, here are six deleted scenes from the Star Trek films that would've made them a little less confusing. More >>

​After five years, the nerd/spy comedy Chuck is finally coming to an end tonight, having unofficially earned the title "Geekiest Show on Television." Not only are their series regulars a who's who of sci-fi -- aside from star Adam Baldwin (Firefly), the show has featured Linda Hamilton (Terminator), Timothy Dalton (Rocketeer), Brandon Routh (Scott Pilgrim), Scott Bakula (Quantum Leap) and Carrie-Anne Moss (The Matrix) -- their guest stars frequently drew from the casts of the very TV shows and movies that the main characters grew up watching. These are 10 of the show's geekiest guest stars (pro wrestlers not included. On purpose).More >>

​When you think about slide projectors, chances are you either recall memories of excruciating family photos or that really neat ad presentation Don Draper did that one time for Kodak. If either is the case with you, then you probably missed out on much of the wonderful world of slide projector toys. From the 1960s to the 1980s, Kenner released a ton of these things under such names a See-A-Show, Screen-A-Show, Give-A-Show, the Talking Show Projector, etc. Although the branding may have been different, each of the items essentially was a miniature projector that came packaged with a large variety of slides featuring complete stories from several popular properties of the time. These toys were a fun, lawsuit-free place where Popeye could rub elbows with the Flintstones or Mister Spock with Archie. Meanwhile, over in the UK, the Chad Valley company was also offering their own sets using the same low-fi technology (i.e. slides lit by a flashlight battery that could be projected onto any flat surface). Highlighted by psychedelic art, these tended to showcase popular UK shows like Doctor Who. But both Chad Valley and Kenner's slide projectors made pop culture available to kids in an era before home video was commonplace.

Yet just as video killed the radio star, it also decimated the Give-A-Show projector industry. After all, why would kids watch drawings of cartoon characters when they could catch the real thing anytime they liked? Seemingly overnight a 30-year toy industry staple became obsolete and largely forgotten. One person who still remembers is Jon B. Knutson, who has meticulously scanned hundreds of old sets from Kenner and Chad Valley through his Give-A-Show Blog and his YouTube page. For collectors who love this stuff, Knutson is doing invaluable work. Those of you who fondly remember sitting on your rec room floor making your own picture shows will find today's list of the 10 greatest slide projector character sets to be a welcome trip down memory lane. As for everyone else, here's a terrifying glimpse at what life was like before VCRs. More >>