Culture & entertainment
Discover facts about culture & entertainment. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Culture & entertainment
Isengard's music puts a metal workshop in the orchestra
Howard Shore's score for The Lord of the Rings uses metallic percussion, including anvils, in the music associated with Isengard. The hammering sound connects…
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The missing footage of Metropolis was found in Argentina
A print preserved in Buenos Aires contained scenes missing from most surviving versions of Fritz Lang's Metropolis. Identified in 2008, the damaged material…
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Some people married holographic anime idols
In the late 2010s, Japanese startup Gatebox created devices that let users live with AI holograms such as Hatsune Miku. The company issued thousands of…
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David Lynch funded Eraserhead with a newspaper route
When funding dried up, Lynch spent years delivering Wall Street Journal papers to save for film stock and props for Eraserhead.
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James Gandolfini put rocks in his shoes to play Tony Soprano
He also deprived himself of sleep, using physical discomfort to help sustain Tony's irritation.
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Peter Gabriel filmed Sledgehammer under a sheet of glass
To create the stop-motion look, Gabriel lay motionless beneath glass while animators moved dead fish, raw meat and clay around his face frame by frame. He…
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Controlled heat can bring an old arcade board back
Repeated heating and cooling can leave cracks in solder joints. Professional rework heats the affected connections in a controlled way so the solder can form…
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Undertale’s soundtrack makes familiar melodies change sides
Toby Fox reuses musical themes in different tracks, changing their speed, instruments, and setting. A tune you associate with one character can return in a…
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How Dexter made breakfast look like a murder
The credits turn ordinary acts—flossing, squeezing a blood orange, and chopping ham—into something gruesome with extreme close-ups and squelching sound. The…
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Mara Wilson became the Faceless Old Woman in Welcome to Night Vale
The podcast casts her as a character whose ordinary-sounding place in the town hides a deeply unsettling premise: she secretly lives in your home. Wil Wheaton…
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How soap operas bring dead characters back with new faces
When an actor leaves, the character may be presumed dead after an accident, then return months later with a new actor and a story about reconstructive surgery.
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Why horror sounds like something from the salad aisle
Foley artists can snap celery or crush vegetables beside a microphone to create convincing crunches for fictional injuries. Close recording makes a small,…
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Virtual Insanity moved the room, not the floor
The floor was stationary; the camera sat inside a three-sided room on wheels, which stagehands pushed back and forth to make the room appear to move around him.
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The unsolved TV hijacking by a Max Headroom mask
In 1987, someone in a Max Headroom mask hijacked two Chicago TV broadcasts, and the culprit was never caught. The intruder reportedly overpowered the…
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Fallout 3 puts your actions on the radio
The DJ Three Dog's broadcasts could change according to players' actions under the game's Karma system, interrupting the music to report on towns destroyed or…
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The skull on The Silence of the Lambs poster hides seven women
The skull is a 1951 photograph called In Voluptas Mors, conceived by Salvador Dalí and shot by Philippe Halsman. Seven naked women posed together to form the…
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Why Pac-Man once had human legs
When Midway adapted the game for North America in 1980, artists misread the yellow character and gave him long, muscular legs and red boots on the arcade…
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Marvel published a book to fix its Spider-Man timeline
In Spider-Man: Homecoming, a title card said the film was set eight years after the first Avengers movie, clashing with the established timeline. Marvel…
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Rocky Horror became a hit when the audience joined in
Midnight screenings at New York's Waverly Theater began in 1976. Returning viewers developed shouted responses, costumes, and rituals that turned the film…
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Silent films once came with live sound effects
Theaters accompanied silent films with live music and effects: Mighty Wurlitzer organs could produce klaxon horns, castanets mimicking horse hooves, and bells…
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Farscape made one small alien a puppeteering team effort
Rygel's head, facial features, and limbs needed coordinated operation to make his reactions feel like one personality. The audience sees an irritable little…
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Evangelion's iconic opening was made at the last minute
The network wanted something catchier than the classical piece director Hideaki Anno had in mind, so a lyricist who hadn't seen the show wrote the song in a…
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A cartoon death-metal band reached No. 21 on Billboard
Dethklok began as the fictional band in Adult Swim's Metalocalypse, but its 2007 debut album entered the Billboard 200 at No. 21. Brendon Small's music…
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The Office eventually put its documentary crew on screen
For years, characters glanced at the lens and spoke to unseen interviewers while the people filming mostly stayed outside the story. The final season brought…
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