Culture & entertainment
Discover facts about culture & entertainment. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Culture & entertainment
Impact of hitting the wrestling canvas
Taking a simple fall is a masterclass in aggressive spinal compression. The floor is merely a thin layer of dense foam resting over hard wooden planks and…
Discover more
Secret earpieces of event referees
The official in stripes is essentially just a highly stressed human transmitter. They aren't there to enforce actual rules; they wear a discrete earpiece to…
Discover more
Pain of bouncing off wrestling ropes
Using the boundaries of the ring for momentum is a deeply bruising experience. The ropes are frequently just massive steel elevator cables tightly wrapped in…
Discover more
Unintentional finger biting sibling fame
A massive file size is the sole reason this legendary sibling rivalry exists publicly. The upload was only meant for the boys' godfather to view privately…
Discover more
Cutting aggressive backstage promos
Screaming aggressively into a lens while sweating profusely requires elite cardiovascular endurance. Delivering a high-energy, completely unhinged monologue…
Discover more
Miyamoto wanted Bond to shake hands with enemies
Leave it to the creator of Super Mario to try and inject aggressive wholesomeness into a game about a licensed assassin. When Nintendo executives reviewed the…
Discover more
STACKY FOR IPHONEA bigger world.
One discovery
at a time.
Keep discovering with Stacky. Interesting facts in an app that is always within reach.
The Star Trek door sound came from a sheet of paper
The future of space travel sounds suspiciously like basic office supplies. In the 1960s, long before digital sound libraries existed, Foley artists had to get…
Discover more
Steve Buscemi returned to firefighting after 9/11
Before he was getting shoved into wood chippers in Fargo or running Atlantic City in Boardwalk Empire, Buscemi was an actual working FDNY firefighter in the…
Discover more
Marilyn Monroe earned less than her makeup artist
Ah, the golden age of Hollywood, where sexism wasn't just tolerated, it was mathematically quantifiable. Despite being the marquee name and the literal blonde…
Discover more
Magic 8-Balls are filled with blue alcohol
Your mystical fortune telling device is filled with industrial poison. The dark murky fluid that reveals those incredibly vague answers is actually alcohol…
Discover more
Play-Doh started as wallpaper cleaner
Nothing screams childhood joy like industrial cleaning supplies. Before it became a staple of kindergartens everywhere, this salty putty was marketed to…
Discover more
Blackjack card counting is mostly adding and subtracting
You don't need a genius brain to beat the dealer, just extreme focus. Pop culture implies you must have a photographic memory to count a deck, but the…
Discover more
Burger King's plastic mask is simply called The King
When creativity entirely flatlines, you get a guy in an oversized plastic head. The incredibly unsettling mascot that sneaks into people's bedrooms in those…
Discover more
Baccarat was restricted to arrogant French nobility
The slick game favored by wealthy spies started as an elite gatekeeping tool. In the nineteenth century, the mechanics were legally restricted exclusively to…
Discover more
Tony the Tiger beat a kangaroo for the cereal box
Tony the Tiger had to actively crush his competition to survive. When the sugary cereal launched, the company created four distinct mascots, including Katy…
Discover more
Pai Gow Poker was born in a California casino
Selling an ancient exotic tradition is just excellent marketing. Despite the oriental-sounding name, this modern card variant was drummed up in the eighties…
Discover more
When the Michelin Man drank glasses of nails
The friendly puffy tire guy used to be an absolute menace. In his early marketing appearances, he was depicted as an upper-class aristocrat casually smoking…
Discover more
Casino chips can be tracked by RFID
Stealing a handful of clay discs will get you nowhere but jail. Modern high-value gambling tokens are embedded with highly sophisticated radio frequency…
Discover more
PEZ was marketed as a cigarette alternative
Snapping a plastic character's neck for a sugar pill was supposed to be medicinal. The original candy was heavily marketed to adults as an alternative to…
Discover more
The card court member who got cut
Historical downsizing hits everybody, even royal courts. Early tarot and card decks featured four distinct court cards, including a knight mounted on…
Discover more
Universal Studios opened with rides breaking down
Nothing says summer fun like being stranded on a broken animatronic riverboat. When the Florida park debuted, practically every major attraction suffered…
Discover more
The Energizer Bunny was created to mock Duracell
The coolest mascot of the nineties was birthed entirely out of pure spite. Duracell aired an ad featuring a bunch of rigid toy bunnies drumming until their…
Discover more
Poker was once played with just 20 cards
Bluffing used to be incredibly mathematically condensed. Early variants of the bluffing game played on riverboats in the nineteenth century only utilized the…
Discover more
The Pringles mascot has a first name
Even potato crisp conglomerates demand proper identification. The disembodied head with the giant sweeping mustache and bowtie is fully recognized by…
Discover more