The Rocky Horror Coffin Clock

It is quite surprising yo discover that some of the props used in tv/movies/theatre are actual real objects that just "fit", but it makes sense if one thinks about it.

I think I heard the story of a "lost" Hungarian picture rediscovered through becoming a movie prop on HN some time ago, and while not as interesting as the clock coffin, it's still quite good[0].

[0] https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2014/...

I'm reminded of the funhouse dummy that turned out to be a real corpse. [1][2]

Discovered while they were filming the Six Million Dollar Man.

[1] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/dead-man-gawking/

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmer_McCurdy

And I was worried I wouldn't have anything to leave my grandkids. A Grandfather Clock is a perfect idea!

It’s interesting to realize that only a few scant centuries, and even with the skeleton, you might be completely unknown.

Perhaps I should develop a way to tattoo bones in life so that in death you can be known.

If by any chance you haven't seen the movie — please, do. There's a reason it became a cult classic and a lot of people watch and re-watch it many, many times.

Interesting fact I learned recently - the actor who plays Riff Raff in the movie (Richard O'Brien) is actually the writer of the original stageshow.

In a typically bad episode of the simpsons, they had a coffin cam, which always struck me as something that you definitely don't want to do, but probably someone has.

How can I sign up to be used as a cinema prop after I die? Would be cool.

i was involved in the assset-categorisation of my family's ~130yr old UK funeral directing business prior to it's sale to a "funeral conglomerate" in the mid-90s. deep in the basement (of a basement!) in the family "brownstone", we found a fake coffin. seems it was made by the family firm (we used to actually make the coffins back in the day) for a local vaudevillian/magician in the very early 1900s, who never actually came back/paid for it -- which is why i assume we still had it? it was full and structurally complete when we discovered it, worked just fine after being emptied of a few rolls of wool (we assumed for death pillows). i was a teenager then, wish i had had the wherewithal to take some photos! after we dragged it out, we had a good couple of days of fun playing around with it, seeing how it worked, trying it out, and even sleeping in it! TL;dr it had a smoothly-weighted raised sliding false "third bottom" that slid in between two layers that made up the upper two thirds bottom. it was a much darker wood than the usual coffins, which always surprised me. perhaps coffins were much darker a century earlier?