Culture & entertainment
Discover facts about culture & entertainment. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Culture & entertainment
Chuck E. Cheese has a surprisingly formal full name
The giant animatronic rat has a birth certificate, and it is humiliating. Executives at the arcade chain officially declared his full title to be Charles…
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Wendy's collar hides a tiny message
Subliminal messaging is alive and well in the fast food industry. If you look closely at the blue and white ruffled collar of the redheaded girl on the…
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The Quaker Oats man isn't William Penn
Historical accuracy holds zero weight in the oatmeal aisle. Everyone assumes the smiling guy on the cardboard tube is the famous founder of Pennsylvania, but…
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Colonel Sanders called KFC gravy wallpaper paste
Selling your name to a massive conglomerate usually ends in regret. After stepping down, the real Harland Sanders frequently visited franchises just to…
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Operation's patient has a name: Cavity Sam
Medical malpractice has never been so wildly profitable. The perpetually glowing and vibrating man you mercilessly stab with tweezers actually has a canonical…
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How Kool-Aid Man got his wall-smashing origin
The jug that aggressively destroys brick walls has incredibly humble origins. An ad executive was sitting at a completely frozen desk watching his son draw…
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Why carousel horses on the outside are bigger
Your sense of scale is entirely manipulated by simple physics. The animals mounted on the exterior rim of traditional carousels are carved noticeably larger…
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Craps began as a medieval dice game
Screaming at tiny cubes has a remarkably bloody lineage. English knights passing the time during massive military sieges played a highly complex dice variant…
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When Cabbage Patch Kids came with adoption papers
Purchasing a stuffed doll was absurdly legally binding. You didn't just walk to the register; you had to sign an oath of adoption, complete with official…
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Matterhorn bobsleds hide a secret basketball hoop
Mountaineering meets casual pickup games in Anaheim. Inside the hollow upper third of the massive artificial mountain, employees set up a small basketball…
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Ronald McDonald's original costume was pure nightmare fuel
The original clown was pure, unfiltered nightmare fuel. Before the sleek red wig and yellow jumpsuit, the first incarnation of the mascot wore a hat literally…
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Why roller-coaster loops aren't perfect circles
A perfect circle would literally snap your neck. Early engineers realized that if a coaster hits a perfectly circular loop at high speeds, the immense…
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How Cinderella Castle tricks you into seeing it as taller
The magical towering icon is a complete optical cheat. The bricks and windows on the upper levels of the structure are actually significantly smaller than the…
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Mr. Potato Head once needed a real potato
Imagine buying a toy that actively attracts fruit flies. When Hasbro first released this iconic figure, they only provided the sharp plastic facial features.…
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Cap’n Crunch has a surprisingly grand real name
He commands a ship made of cardboard and answers to an incredibly pretentious name. The guy slicing the roof of your mouth with tiny yellow squares is…
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Mr. Clean was modeled directly after a muscular sailor
Your bathroom disinfectant is promoted by a naval veteran. The bald, aggressively buff man with the gold earring wasn't a random drawing; he was based…
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Why lions lounge on fake rocks
Lions don't care about your expensive safari ticket unless they are cozy. To ensure tourists actually see the apex predators instead of empty grass, engineers…
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Oprah was born with a different name
Even the most powerful media mogul in history is a victim of society's inability to read. Winfrey was named 'Orpah' after the biblical figure from the Book of…
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Star Wars was almost called The Adventures of Luke Starkiller
It's a miracle this franchise survived its own creator's terrible naming instincts. During early drafts, George Lucas had burdened his masterpiece with the…
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Bill Murray hired an assistant he couldn’t communicate with
Bill Murray operates on a plane of existence the rest of us cannot comprehend. While filming Groundhog Day, he was famously feuding with the studio and…
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Gene Roddenberry's ashes traveled into space
If you're going to invent the most famous sci-fi television universe in history, you might as well take the ultimate nerd exit. After Gene Roddenberry passed…
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Lex Luthor was originally a redhead
The most famous bald villain in comic book history didn't start out that way. Lex Luthor debuted with a full head of flowing ginger hair. A different artist…
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The actress who slept in a coffin for her roles
Method acting is nothing new; 19th-century French stage actress Sarah Bernhardt essentially invented being profoundly extra. To understand the tragic depth of…
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The time Stan Lee called Hulk Bob Banner
Stan Lee was famous for giving his characters alliterative names (Peter Parker, Reed Richards) precisely because he had a terrible memory. Despite this trick,…
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