October 05, 2005

Dolphin taught to sing the 'Batman' theme - beat that, chimps.

The Dolphins probably have no idea that the sounds they are producing can be roughly considered 'music' by some humans, which makes their artistic development roughly on par with the White Stripes.

  • Okay, am I the only one who hears merely a squeak? A one-second squeak?
  • They said the same about Stravinsky.
  • Sure, laugh now, soon they will learn the Bananaphone or the Macarena, and along with their darts, they'll begin attacking all unsuspecting swimmers, all over the seven seas. /starts assembling tinfoil swimming trunks ouch ouch OUCH!
  • The nobility of the almost-human porpoise
  • No no no, the dignity of the almost-porpoise human.
  • The first clip was just a squeak. The second clip was silent. I must be missing something here. Is this a joke?
  • No, dolphins have got better time resolution in their hearing than humans. I loaded the clip into an audio editor and halved the speed three times, and it is a decent attempt at the batman theme.
  • What's the porpoise? /got nuthin'. But seriously, this is mankind's greatest achievement ever.
  • Second greatest achievement ever. First: the kazoo.
  • So long, and thanks for all the fish...
  • that is EXACTLY what I was thinking buck09
  • Don't you mean it's dolphin-kind's greatest acheivement ever? Or was that tricking us into giving them toxic darts?
  • It's not the batman theme. It's just the "Bat-maaan" part. And not in particularly accurate rhythm, either, just a short and a long. I remember reading more exciting things about dolphins in high school.
  • (Story's just been greenlighted on Fark, with all the ensuing inanity. Someone even made a joke about 'Leader', which, to be honest, crossed my mind until I realized it wasn't a joke but just a Pavlovian response. And fractalid, quit raining on the fact that this is Mankind's Greatest Achievement Ever. FACT.)
  • beat that, chimps Ha, easy! My Goldfish is adept at performing John Cage's 20th Century Contemporary Music masterpiece, 4' 33".And that's freakin' CLASSICAL MUSIC, dudes! Not some lowbrow TV theme. That's not all: he can perform it continously approximately 314.6 times a day! Stupid dolphins, your pathetic antics make me laugh!
  • Poor Stately Wayne Manor.
  • Could dolphins be arsonists? Seems unlikely, but maybe they are just trying to trick us.
  • ...and here I thought we'd reached the pinnacle of animal learning when I saw they had a singing, dancing kitty in that classic Meow Mix commercial in the 80s...
  • yea, the singing, dancing cats--and remember the little dog pulling the chuckwagon?
  • No, no - that doggie in that multi-part ad, that is left behind by its clumsy family on some vacation spot, remember? He ends up having all kinds of adventures on his journey back. Ah, that was a great doggie actor.
  • Aha, not so fast, Joker! It appears that earlier reportage of the Batmansion's demise was not correct. It was the house used in Being There and Rocky V that was engulfed in flames. This verifies that these were in fact different mansions.
  • Holy false alarm, Batman! Not that it was 'Being There' instead makes it any better...
  • /snarfles .gif