Paul Middlewick stared at the London Underground map for so long, he started to see animals. Then, he realized that he wasn’t crazy, the tube lines, stations and junctions of the subway really did form into the shape of an elephant. Since that fateful discovery some 17 years ago, many more members of the animal kingdom have been discovered, all of which are documented at AnimalsOfTheUnderground.com, a collection of 27 animals. No drugs required.
Making hand washing a fun activity so that kids do it more by allowing them to wash away the soap until a skeleton appears from inside: Cool. Using animals that don’t have skeletons so that kids are confused about science: Not Cool. Skeleton Soap encourages kids to wash their hands by slowly revealing a skeleton inside of the soap body. Sadly, crabs (Colin the Crab) have exoskeletons (which would make for some pretty useless Skeleton Soap) and octopi (Olivia the Octopus) don’t have skeletons at all, which sort of defeats the purpose of the soap all together. If you’re going to get this for a child in your life, just make sure you go with Freddie the Fish, as cleanliness is important, but biology lasts a lifetime.
These animal mugs are an interesting blend of two and three dimensions. Using some part of the animal that sticks out of the mug and forms the handle, the rest of the mug is very realistically painted, resulting in an animal that comes right out of the piece. Very cool concept indeed.