Culture & entertainment
Discover facts about culture & entertainment. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Culture & entertainment
Jack Nicholson destroyed the fake door in The Shining
Stanley Kubrick was famous for his obsessive perfectionism, but even he underestimated a former volunteer fire marshal. Kubrick originally built a fake,…
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Disney once threatened daycares over Mickey murals
Nothing screams 'family magic' like sending corporate lawyers to crush toddlers. In 1989, The Walt Disney Company famously threatened legal action against…
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Mark Wahlberg has a third nipple
Sometimes the biggest secret an action star is hiding is minor cosmetic biology. Mark Wahlberg was born with a supernumerary nipple just below his left chest.…
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Elvis Presley never wrote a song he recorded
The undisputed King of Rock and Roll was fundamentally just an incredibly charismatic cover artist. Despite having his name credited as a co-writer on several…
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Liam Neeson thought Taken would flop
The man with a very particular set of skills had exactly zero faith in his own movie. When shooting the 2008 action thriller that revitalized his entire…
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The hitmakers who never reached number one
The undisputed kings of swamp rock were consistently forced to be bridesmaids. Despite writing some of the most culturally defining anthems of the 1960s, CCR…
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Blizzard Entertainment actually provided dedicated, private servers to the creators of South Park just so they could accurately film the in-game footage for their legendary World of Warcraft episode.
Blizzard Entertainment actually provided dedicated, private servers to the creators of South Park just so they could accurately film the in-game footage for…
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Sean Bean was so profoundly terrified of flying in helicopters that he chose to hike up a freezing New Zealand mountain every single day in his full Boromir costume to film his scenes for the Fellowship of the Ring.
Sean Bean was so profoundly terrified of flying in helicopters that he chose to hike up a freezing New Zealand mountain every single day in his full Boromir…
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Cast members on the hit sitcom The Office were provided with fully functional computers with actual internet access to make their background acting look more authentic.
Cast members on the hit sitcom The Office were provided with fully functional computers with actual internet access to make their background acting look more…
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Harry Potter was rejected by twelve publishers
Twelve different groups of highly paid literary "experts" looked at a book about an orphaned boy wizard and collectively decided, "Nah, there's absolutely no…
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The camping fight that inspired Fight Club
Chuck Palahniuk got the idea for his iconic novel after getting brutally beaten up by strangers on a camping trip. When he returned to work with a visibly…
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Video Killed the Radio Star by The Buggles was the very first music video broadcast on MTV when the network launched on August 1, 1981, but the network immediately followed it up…
Video Killed the Radio Star by The Buggles was the very first music video broadcast on MTV when the network launched on August 1, 1981, but the network…
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CBS executives originally designed the hit reality show Survivor to be a serious sociological experiment about group dynamics before realizing that watching desperate people…
CBS executives originally designed the hit reality show Survivor to be a serious sociological experiment about group dynamics before realizing that watching…
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David Fincher deliberately placed a visible Starbucks coffee cup in practically every single frame of the 1999 cult classic film Fight Club as a visual critique of corporate mass…
David Fincher deliberately placed a visible Starbucks coffee cup in practically every single frame of the 1999 cult classic film Fight Club as a visual…
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Sean Connery was offered the role of Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings trilogy along with a massive 15% stake in the box office profits, but he turned it down simply because he didn't understand the script.
Sean Connery was offered the role of Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings trilogy along with a massive 15% stake in the box office profits, but he turned it down…
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Marketing executives for the 1999 indie horror film The Blair Witch Project ran such a convincing promotional campaign using fake police reports and missing persons posters that…
Marketing executives for the 1999 indie horror film The Blair Witch Project ran such a convincing promotional campaign using fake police reports and missing…
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Cast members of the hit sitcom Friends banded together in 1997 to collectively negotiate their salaries, threatening to strike until they were all paid equally, which eventually…
Cast members of the hit sitcom Friends banded together in 1997 to collectively negotiate their salaries, threatening to strike until they were all paid…
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Disney animators famously based the physical appearance, theatrical mannerisms, and dramatic facial expressions of the sea witch Ursula from the 1989 animated classic The Little…
Disney animators famously based the physical appearance, theatrical mannerisms, and dramatic facial expressions of the sea witch Ursula from the 1989 animated…
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Robert Downey Jr and director Jon Favreau had to heavily improvise the dialogue for the first Iron Man movie in 2008 because they began filming without a completed script.
Robert Downey Jr and director Jon Favreau had to heavily improvise the dialogue for the first Iron Man movie in 2008 because they began filming without a…
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James Cameron actually drew the famous charcoal sketch of Kate Winslet's character Rose wearing nothing but the Heart of the Ocean necklace in his 1997 blockbuster Titanic.
James Cameron actually drew the famous charcoal sketch of Kate Winslet's character Rose wearing nothing but the Heart of the Ocean necklace in his 1997…
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Ryan Reynolds paid Deadpool's writers himself
Fox Studios was so terrified of an R-rated superhero movie that they nickel-and-dimed the production into oblivion. They refused to pay the film's writers,…
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Daniel Craig was the first Bond born after the films began
It only took half a century for the world's most famous spy franchise to hire someone who didn't remember its premiere. Craig was born in 1968, six years…
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Why nobody says “Ewok” in Star Wars
The universe's most polarizing space teddy bears managed to ruin an entire Empire without anyone ever learning their species name. Throughout the entire…
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Fast & Furious sometimes filmed stunts before writing the story
Who needs a coherent narrative when you have nitrous oxide and the concept of 'family'? Because the release dates for these blockbuster behemoths are locked…
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