In the spirit of babies making films better, new Tumblr Don't Call Me Oscar is recreating Oscar nominees with an adorable baby replacing all of the complicated and sometimes awful characters. There's no information as to the identity or motivations of this particular infant, though Vanity Fair's Tumblr cites Maggie Storino and Baby Sophia as the creators. The Artist is the frontrunner, fittingly, but War Horse may turn out to be the fan favorite. All of the Best Picture nominees are there save Hugo, which pretty much already stars a baby. There's also a few 2011 nominees and a rather stretched recreation of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Putting an Ikea in the background was a nice touch, but would a tiny baby leather jacket to go with the tiny baby mohawk be too much to ask? If all the Oscar nominees really are just trying to reassure us about the scary future, an all-baby cast seems like the way to go. It's also the only way The Help or Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close would be worth seeing.

The Help

Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close

Full title sequences are going the way of the live studio audience in television, especially in dramas, which increasingly use only a title card (HBO excepted). That said, Breaking Bad has one of the cooler title cards in the game… but it would be a hell of a lot cooler if it were a minute longer, as evidenced by this clip by YouTube user JamesMontalbano, which extends Breaking Bad’s periodic-table-based title card into a full opening-credits sequence. It's pretty neat... although were it real, that would mean one minute less of Breaking Bad every week, so perhaps it's better it remains in the Internet's imagination. (The music, we should note, was composed by Dave Porter.)

Celebrities endorsing political movements is hardly a new concept but rare is the endorsement that references one of the greatest characters in entertainment history. As more states enact legislation legalizing same-sex marriage — and aren’t subsequently reduced to hellfire and brimstone — other states are starting to ponder this whole “giving everyone equal rights” thing, including Maryland. Enter Michael K. Williams who spent plenty of time in the lovely hamlet of Baltimore, Maryland shooting a small, relatively unknown television show called The Wire in which he played Omar Little, a gay gangster who also has the notoriety of being one of the biggest badasses ever. Williams, who has spoken eloquently on the topic of playing a gay character, has added his voice to a growing bi-partisan group — including Mo’Nique and former Vice President Dick Cheney — calling on the Maryland state legislature to pass a marriage equality bill, closing his ad with the message: "So join us... or Omar gonna came at you." No word if the staunch religious groups who blocked Maryland’s last attempt at passing a similar bill last year have recruited the services of Kenard. [via DCist]

Nicolas Cage has always been something of an enigma, but over the last year, he's become an enigma wrapped in a leather jacket wrapped in a warm blanket of arched eyebrows. In a short amount of time he has: compared himself to Led Zeppelin; become a Serbian textbook cover model; become a fan of LMFAO; been terrorized by a man with a Fudgesicle; expressed an interest in playing a ghost; and had his cover as a vampire blown. And the best part is that he knows it. Maybe that's why he's gaining steam not only as a one-man meme but also as an actor whose finest work deserves the A-to-Z treatment. Such a man is also worthy of his own supercut. Thus, behold the 100 greatest Nicolas Cage movie lines. As Uproxx points out, there's nothing from Peggy Sue Got Married (eh) or Raising Arizona (a blasphemy that nearly undermines the whole endeavor) but it still leaves a lot of Cage to digest and on a Friday afternoon, that's not a bad thing. [via Uproxx]

Until now, the things Bart Simpson writes on the chalkboard during The Simpsons' opening credits were just little jokes that captured a specific point in time, like the time they misspelled Kristen Schaal's last name wrong. UNTIL NOW. These fine folks have compiled all 288 things Bart has written (there have been some repeats) just in time for the show's 500th episode. In the spirit of the South Park episode "Simpsons Already Did It," I should point out that someone has already done this sort of thing before, but now it's written on a chalkboard. For realism. Here they all are:

[Geekologie]

So, you aced that “ABCs of ’70s film” chart we showed you a while back, huh? Well, consider this the lightning round, hot stuff. Granted, the movies in this “ABCinema” by Evan Seitz span pretty much the breadth of film history instead of one decade, but this time you have more than a single image to work with; the nifty clip quickly cycles through 26 mini-animations (about two seconds apiece) corresponding to a movie beginning with each letter of the alphabet, with helpful sound cues for the less visually inclined/easily addled. How many can you get on the first try? (I got 21, so it can’t be that hard.) [h/t The High Definite]

ABCinema from Evan Seitz on Vimeo.

Not content with those boring, run-of-the-mill supercuts, the wizards behind The Eclectic Method decided to have some fun and create something a bit more complicated. The video DJs have replicated Jay-Z's “99 Problems” Girl Talk-style by splicing together quick scenes from dozens of movies to recreate the song's vocal tracks laid down over the actual Rick Rubin beat Hova used on the original track. It feels like the natural progression for a song that helped usher in the age of mash-ups by way of DJ Danger Mouse's The Grey Album lo those many years ago. It also makes for a frenetic video and, subsequently, a fun game trying to suss out which movies are sampled and gives us what is likely the only time an Ace Ventura movie is presented alongside The Godfather. (For the record, though, the original “99 Problems” video was pretty cool to begin with because Rick Rubin is terrifying.) [via Oh Have You Seen This?]

The Internet is kind of a bummer today, unless you’re really into Valentine’s Day cards featuring basically every single television show or, uh, cats as fonts. (That’s more of a Sure, Okay, Whatever Internet.) Frankly, I was ready to call this day a wash, until Vulture pointed out this (old, but whatever) awesome mash-up of Whitney Houston’s unadorned vocal track from “How Will I Know,” which made the Tumblr rounds following the singer’s death on Saturday, with Robyn’s “Dancing On My Own.” If that description sounds good to you, trust me, it’s even better than you think; if it doesn’t, give it a try, you might be surprised at how well it works. Frankly, this warms my heart way more than that video of people saying “I Love You” in different languages, but hey, you’re free to celebrate V-Day however you please… though it’ll probably be better if you open your heart to “Dancing In Houston.”

Is there another TV show on right now more frequently Tumblr-ed (it’s a verb now!) than Parks And Recreation? There’s Texts From Pawnee, Cats That Look Like Ron Swanson, Dogs That Look Like Tom Haverford, and, of course, Parks And Meth, the Breaking Bad/Parks And Rec mash-up site that threatened to cause a singularity and make The A.V. Club explode. Well, add another to the pile: Though it’s not quite as adored as Breaking Bad, Friday Night Lights has plenty of fans ’round the ol’ A.V. Club way, so mashing it up with P&R is some link-bait we just can’t refuse. Plus, unlike Parks And Meth, Clear Eyes, Full Parks, Can’t Lose swings both ways, matching stills from FNL with P&R quotes and vice-versa (with helpful citations!). Some highlights below; click through to the site to see more and start planning your Ron Swanson/Tim Riggins slash-fic.

The trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man hit the Internet recently, and it was only a matter of time before someone spliced in footage of Jean-Ralphio instead of Andrew Garfield. (And by "a matter of time," I mean "I'm extremely grateful College Humor made the time.") I mean, the hair's pretty much the same, and Spider-Man does look good getting run over by a Lexus while daggering Donna on the dance floor. With great power comes great responsibility, and a preowned Acura Legend. Deleted scenes include Peter Parker applying for a job as an accountant and showing himself the door.

See more at CollegeHumor

There are plenty of virtual Valentine’s options for the pop-culture aficionado in your life, from these It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia printable cards to these Skyrim-inspired ones to this lovely e-card tribute to the greatest bromance of our time. But from the "Great Job Internet Question Mark?" files comes a far more awkward, wooden option: these Facebook-hosted video cards starring Channing Tatum, whom you may know from every single movie released in 2012. Because what says “be mine” better than a be-vested Channing Tatum struggling to hide his embarrassment as he tells your friend/lover how awesome he/she is? Or you could just go with the surreal glory that is “Poke”:

If you missed all the fuss about Harry Potter both the first (the books) and second (the films) time around, there's still time to catch up. But if you're too lazy to actually read books or watch movies (why do you read this website again?), then you can settle for the third best thing and watch this 60-second video, which attempts to squeeze the entire Harry Potter saga into one short clip. Except for Quidditch, which, ugh, why does everyone hate on Quidditch, anyway? According to the short film's Facebook page, the clip is actually a remake by its creators so it could be entered in a Virgin Radio Fake Film Festival. If anything, though, it'll just make the non-initiated even more confused while their Harry Potter superfan friends nod their heads, chuckle, and condescendingly mutter, "You wouldn't get it." Oh, and spoiler alert: everything. [via The Daily What]

Talk about two pop-cultural entities long enough and they’re bound to eventually merge into one zeitgeist-y mongrel somewhere on the Internet. As there are few things buzzing louder right now than Lana Del Rey and the upcoming Hunger Games film adaptation, Chicago filmmaker Steve Delahoyde (who’s married to A.V. Club contributor Claire Zulkey) took the perhaps-inevitable but still brilliant leap and merged the two together with this video for Lana Del Rey’s “Hunger Games.” Second City ensemble member Holly Laurent sings with pitch-perfect Del Rey lethargy through lyrics (which she also penned) that both succinctly sum up the book series’ premise and manage to rhyme “Katniss” with “rat piss.”  

By now, it’s no surprise that the Star Wars crowd has the market on DIY tributes cornered, even the aspects of the Star Wars Universe that most fans loathe. What other fanbase would sew together a fan-made scene-by-scene remake of a film? The fanbase that would also pour time into creating a “filmumentary” of said film, a sort-of mashup that takes the original film and adds in commentary bits, alternate takes, behind-the-scenes footage, and other fantastic tidbits. Jambe Davdar has gained a following creating “filmumentaries ” of the entire Star Wars trilogy: Star Wars Begins (2011), Building Empire (2006), and Returning To Jedi (2007). Previously, these films have been available in a variety of formats, inclduing torrents and YouTube (albeit in 10-minute clips). But late last week, Davdar posted the full version of Building Empire to Vimeo where he's already posted the full version of Star Wars Begins and a similar take on Raiders of the Lost Ark. Bonus points to Davdar for eschewing the Special Editions in favor of the original theatrical versions. [via Oh Have You Seen This?]

TV has to think long and hard about what its characters know about the outside world. Like, on Community, the characters know what South Park is, but Doctor Who has been replaced by Inspector Spacetime; and on Entourage, Jeremy Piven has been replaced by the shell of the hairpiece he once was. (Did Ari Gold produce I Melt With You?) It's so hard to follow—if only there were some sentient entity that could create a video that loops all references on TV shows to other shows, and demonstrate that Saturday Night Live is the Kevin Bacon of TV pop-culture reality. Oh well. Maybe some other day.

[Pop Culture Brain]

Did you know there’s a 30 Rock web series called The Jack Donaghy Files? (Or maybe it's called Jack Donaghy: Executive Superhero? Picking a name and sticking to it would be a good first step in building an audience for your web tie-in series, NBC.) Neither did we, but a surefire way to draw our attention to your web-based supplementary cartoon series is to feature Michael McDonald, Ryan Adams, and GJI-catnip Childish Gambino doing their own versions of classic NBC themes. Well played, NBC. The short centers on Alec Baldwin’s Jack Donaghy finding last-minute fill-ins for Madonna’s Super Bowl halftime show, and pokes the usual 30 Rock-mandated fun at NBC Universal, which is all well and good, but let’s get real: We’re in this for McDonald singing the Saved By The Bell theme song. 

Community is a television sitcom on the National Broadcasting Company, or NBC as it's commonly known. It is quite popular among "fans" of television, though for whatever reason it hasn't been covered much on this website until this very moment. Donald Glover, presumably while doing an interview for something else, created an impromptu PSA urging viewers to save his show, which has been on indefinite hiatus since December. And I suppose if you care enough (and really, who does?), you could do as Donald says and call the number that doesn't appear on the screen. Or, write your governor, or some other lawmaker, and tell them to keep Community on the air so they can file your complaint away as "non-essential." But if any of you are reading this from the corporate headquarters of Sony Pictures, the company that makes Community, you know what to do. And it's called "5,500 comments on this article."

By now, everyone is sick of the drama surrounding wannabe chanteuse Lana Del Rey. Or they at least have an opinion about said drama or the singer herself, whose Born To Die was released this week to a resounding critical “meh.” All of the hype, the vitriolic backlash, the SNL appearance, and the think-pieces defending Del Rey against the backlash—all before the album's release—make the Del Rey saga a good candidate to receive the Taiwanese animation treatment. It’s shorter compared to the animators’ other videos but it manages to tackle all of the elements described above and even takes a minute to wag a finger at the publicists responsible for the Del Rey “fame bubble.” Heavy is the head that wears the Hipster Runoff Crown. [via BuzzFeed]

In the nearly 19 years since the song’s release, amazingly, no one had figured out exactly which day Ice Cube was talking about in his hit single “Today Was A Good Day.” That mystery, however, is now solved, thanks to some excellent and detail-oriented sleuthing that’s not nearly as complicated as might have been imagined. Using the song’s lyrics and actual historic events—like the debut date of Yo! MTV Raps and results of games between the Lakers and Sonics—Donovan Strain over at Murk Avenue used some Sherlock-like deductions to reach the conclusion that Ice Cube’s “good day” was Jan. 20, 1992. Other stories of interest from that day in Los Angeles can be found here. (In case anyone was wondering, a quick search only turns up one other significant historical event on this day: the crash of Air Inter Flight 148 in France. So, yeah.) Next up: figuring out on which specific Tuesday the Moody Blues wrote “Tuesday Afternoon.” [via Vulture]

UPDATE: In response to all this sleuthing, Vulture reached out to Ice Cube for confirmation of this fateful day but received only a cryptic, two-word reply: “Nice try.” No one knows what ...

In case you haven’t been around for the past few years, we here at The A.V. Club are mighty big fans of AMC’s Breaking Bad, and we’ll use any excuse to talk about it. This includes sneakers, Tumblr mashups with Parks And Recreation, and now videos of a hypothetical RPG game based on the series.

Sure, it’s not playable like the NES version of The Great Gatsby—it’s only a CollegeHumor trailer for what a game would look like, including an 8-bit audio version of the title sequence—but it still has some pretty great old-timey videogame moments (that are also spoilers, so beware). Gus uses his box-cutter attack in the RPG-style battle, while Walt is able to combine unique items from his inventory to create the weapon able to defeat Gustavo Fring—but at what cost? If some intrepid game designers want to make this thing happen for real, we’re going to see a pretty big dip in productivity.

See more at CollegeHumor

Over the course of editing Monday’s "When The Commentariat Attacks" Inventory I ran across this terrifying horse mask. What I didn't realize until now is that the terrifying horse mask has an amazing gallery of customer images. My favorite is above. There are 11 pages of such photos, including some featuring real horses and one demonstrating the mask is, as the capsule notes, “fully drink-thru-able.” Enjoy, and sleep well tonight.

Look, I don’t know why this melodica cover of the Jurassic Park theme song is making me cry with laughter at my desk. It just is. That’s the magic of the Internet: It gives you things you didn’t even know you—or anybody, ever—wanted. Thank you YouTube user PLOface. I’m not sure if you’re male or female, but you are most decidedly a clever girl. 

[h/t Buzzfeed]

You know when you say a word over and over again in your mind, it loses all meaning? Be prepared to feel the opposite effect watching this montage of great moments in cinematic history where human characters (and sometimes monkeys) flick each other off. It's strangely empowering to watch the bird be flipped so many times in a row—set to the tune of Cee-Lo's "Fuck You," no less—and makes me want to rush off into the world, both middle fingers flying high. AMERICA!

[IWatchStuff]

As Kim Jong Il proved, few can resist the siren song of LMFAO, which is perhaps the reason why, in between time travel, appearances on Serbian textbooks, and Fudgesicles, Nicolas Cage can be cajoled into reading the “Sexy And I Know It” lyrics on British radio. When a listener asked Cage to recite the words to the pop duo/noted party advocates’ hit single on Capital FM, he was happy to oblige, breathing life into lines like “I do the wiggle, man” in a way that only the pathos of a Cageian delivery truly can. Happy Monday! [via The Daily What] 

Earlier today, upon receiving a press release for a board-game adaptation of Neil Strauss’ The Game, all I could think about was how much I wish there was a button I could press that would play a clip of Aisha Tyler yelling “NOOOOPE!” from Archer. It would make the daily influx of stupid press releases that much more bearable, and surely delight my coworkers in the process. Alas, a simple, button-based solution proves elusive (can someone get on that please?), but my search led me to two other almost-as-useful Archer-based soundboards: Danger Zone and Yyyup! They each include several different line readings of Sterling Archer and Lana Kane’s signature exclamations, and will definitely not annoy your coworkers when pressed again and again and again. Enjoy!

As a recent episode of Portlandia joked, Doctor Who might be the ultimate small-screen feast for TV bingers who’ve exhausted their DVDs of Battlestar Galactica and other addictive series—but the six-series, 26-season, 784-episode show is not the easiest franchise to dive into, particularly if you’re the sort who has to start at the beginning of things. We here at The A.V. Club have done what we can to ease newbies into the world of the good Doctor(s), from a Primer to TV Club Classic recaps, but this nicely edited video from YouTuber Stuart Humphryes may be the most comprehensive catch-up—assuming a couple of seconds of each episode constitutes “catching up” in your book. This video covers every Doctor Who adventure—including clips from the 106 episodes that are missing from the BBC archives—from 1963’s “An Unearthly Child” up through last year’s Christmas special. It may not be canon, but it’s still pretty cool.

The universe of Parks & Recreation has been rightfully compared to that of The Simpsons—even its most minor characters and plotlines are rife with neverending silliness. And if Glee has taught me anything (it really hasn't), it's that sometimes joy cannot be adequately expressed through mere words, only through song. Enter Adam Warrock, a Parks & Rec fan who self-produced a three-track rap EP with songs about his favorite aspects of the show. Fittingly, Entertainment 720 and Ron Swanson are celebrated with badass lyrics and phat beatz—technically speaking—but the real surprise is his ode to Leslie Knope's 2012 city council bid, drawing parallels to Obama and marrying the rhymes perfectly with John Legend's "Number One." His work is evidence that perhaps Mouse Rat should reinvent itself as a hip-hop outfit.

Thanks to Ben Schwartz (aka @rejectedjokes) for the tip.

Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman decided to make all other marriages look like gray, boring shams this morning by creating a country-music video for College Humor that's so good it will give you goosebumps, despite it being about wagons and dragons. Offerman's paleontologist character seeks to woo Mullally's staunch creationist, who insists he quit his evil job. So she convinces him the way any red-blooded American would: through a country song, complete with saloon hallucinations, soft focus, and a chorus of angels. It is a bit unnerving to see Ron Swanson smiling, but him playing Jesus makes a certain amount of sense. Now let's see the Chris Pratt/Anna Faris music video. 

Do you have room in your heart for another entry in the unstoppable Downfall meme? Here’s a good one: “Hitler Learns That Albert Brooks Was Not Nominated For Best Supporting Actor Oscar.” After trading year-end awards with Christopher Plummer for the last two months, Brooks was expected to cruise to an Oscar nomination for his performance as a vicious gangster in Drive, but his bid instead became the biggest and most inexplicable of snubs. While most cite Max Von Sydow’s turn in the soul-destroying Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close as the spoiler, Hitler directs his considerable ire on Moneyball’s Jonah Hill, dissecting Hill’s career in a hilariously apoplectic rant. “Don’t cry. At least he won the New York Film Critics Circle award.” 

 Comedian Mark Malkoff is carving out an unusual career as a professional wacky-stunt-guy, most notably in his recent attempt to get thrown out of the Apple Store through a series of deviant behaviors, including bringing a pet goat inside. He’s also visited every Starbucks in Manhattan in a single day, lived in an Ikea store while his apartment was being fumigated, and lived on an AirTran jet for a month, setting a Guinness World Record in the process; but for all those impressive, weird accomplishments, he still wasn’t able to say he’s played Hungry Hungry Hippos with John Kreese or slept with Camryn Manheim’s Emmy… until now. Malkoff’s latest video for My Damn Channel sees him invading the homes—or rather, cajoling begrudging permission to enter the homes—of an odd assortment of celebrities and spending the night in an effort to save money on hotels during a visit to L.A. It’s funny, awkward, and maintains a loose definition of “celebrity”—iJustine? Kato Kaelin?—but most importantly, it reveals that Justine Bateman has a pretty sweet tree house.