Culture & entertainment
Discover facts about culture & entertainment. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Culture & entertainment
Disney animator Ward Kimball also led a jazz band
Ward Kimball was one of Walt Disney's core 'Nine Old Men', responsible for animating iconic cultural touchstones like Jiminy Cricket and the Mad Hatter. But…
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Folger and Frykowski deaths ruined celebrity trust
Hollywood in the 1960s was essentially an open-door bohemian playground until August 1969. The brutal Manson family murders of Abigail Folger, Wojciech…
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Existential monkey puppet mocks ventriloquism art
Ventriloquism is usually the depressing domain of creepy dolls and bad cruise ship comedy, but Nina Conti weaponized it into brilliant meta-comedy. Instead of…
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The artist who pulled a scroll from her vagina
In the mid-20th century, the avant-garde film scene was an elitist boys' club focused on rigid, intellectual formalism. Carolee Schneemann completely…
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The opera singer who climbed out of a flaming coffin
Before Alice Cooper or Marilyn Manson even learned how to apply eyeliner, Screamin' Jay Hawkins was terrifying 1950s audiences by erupting out of a flaming…
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The artist who turned video into group therapy
While network executives were busy figuring out how to sell soap, Shirley Clarke was using early portable video equipment as a psychological weapon. In the…
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The trading cards that put famous women in kids’ pockets
In 1978, a sister duo got sick of watching kids trade cards of sweaty baseball players while completely ignoring women's achievements. Their cynical,…
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The band that fired blanks at music executives
Most bands accept industry awards with a tearful speech, but The KLF decided to violently detonate their own career instead. At the 1992 BRIT Awards, the acid…
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Hollywood once banned kisses longer than three seconds
For decades, Hollywood was held hostage by a man who weaponized a stopwatch against onscreen intimacy. As the brutal enforcer of the Production Code, Joseph…
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The choreographer who made dancers look animated
Long before digital motion capture, choreographer Jack Cole treated human beings like living animation frames. His obsessive staging techniques for cinematic…
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The filmmaker who blasted audiences with light and smells
Decades before modern 4D cinema, eccentric Spanish filmmaker Val del Omar believed audiences were too passive and needed to be physically jolted. He invented…
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The color films that made audiences nauseous
Before Technicolor, Charles Urban peddled Kinemacolor, a chaotic system that forced projectionists to crank black-and-white film through wildly spinning red…
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Before MTV, the mob backed music-video jukeboxes
If you thought MTV invented the music video, you severely underestimate mid-century mobsters. The Scopitone was a massive 16mm film jukebox built from…
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The giant organs built to drown out roller-coaster screams
Forget Spotify playlists; if you wanted background music at a turn-of-the-century amusement park, you needed a Wurlitzer Style 105 Band Organ. These…
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The animator who used layered glass before Disney
While Walt Disney gets the credit for inventing the multiplane camera, Lotte Reiniger was already stacking glass panes to create depth in her 1926…
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Gossip columnists practically governed Hollywood
If you think modern cancel culture is ruthless, meet Hedda Hopper, the hat-obsessed tyrant who ruled Golden Age Hollywood with a typewriter. She didn't just…
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The woman who directed Charlie Chaplin
While Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton get all the historical glory, Mabel Normand was the actual chaotic mastermind behind the Keystone comedy era. Not only…
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The five-year-old movie star working eight-hour days
Before child labor laws decided toddlers probably shouldn't have full-time jobs, Diana Serra Cary (aka 'Baby Peggy') was carrying the entire Century Film…
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When the FCC froze new TV stations for four years
Post-war America was starving for television content, but the FCC managed to completely stall the cultural revolution by freezing all new station licenses…
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Early filmmakers strapped themselves to speeding trains
Victorian fairground audiences craved the illusion of speed, and guys like A. J. Pilgrim literally risked their lives to provide it. To create immersive…
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Why early TV actors wore black-and-white makeup
Performing for John Logie Baird's mechanical television in 1930 was an exercise in pure humiliation. For the BBC's first live TV play, 'The Man with the…
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Fellini turned a Poe film into a celebrity roast
Anthology films are usually a disjointed mess, but Federico Fellini turned this 1968 Edgar Allan Poe tribute into his personal firing squad. While Roger Vadim…
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The lawsuit that got 30 minutes cut from Freaks
If you think modern test audiences are fragile, try 1932. MGM proudly screened Tod Browning's Freaks, only for a horrified woman to threaten a lawsuit…
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The movie theater effect that shook plaster loose
In the 1970s, Universal Studios decided the best way to immerse audiences in the disaster film Earthquake was to physically assault them. They installed…
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