Culture & entertainment
Discover facts about culture & entertainment. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Culture & entertainment
Fake psychic scammed television viewers with flair
The Amazing Criswell became a late-night fixture in the 1950s and ’60s by delivering wild predictions with confidence, including claims that invisible space…
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How the Supreme Court broke up Hollywood
The 1948 antitrust ruling forced Hollywood studios to sell their theater chains, breaking up a system in which they controlled production, distribution, and…
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A fake live ghost hunt frightened viewers who thought it was real
The BBC’s 1992 Ghostwatch used familiar presenters and the style of a live investigation rather than an obvious horror drama. Viewers who missed its fictional…
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The camera that broadcast live TV and filmed it
The DuMont network created the Electronicam in the 1950s to broadcast live TV while recording it on 35mm film. It let The Honeymooners be syndicated, but…
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She turned religious outrage into a business
She used talk radio and television to court controversy, embracing the title “The Most Hated Woman in America.” Donations and media appearances turned the…
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The news anchor who died by suicide on air
Florida reporter Christine Chubbuck died by suicide during a live television broadcast in 1974. Her death became an especially painful example of the ethical…
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The toy maker who turned TV into an advertisement
A.C. Gilbert sponsored early TV programs built around his toys, turning the shows themselves into ads aimed directly at children.
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Scholars spent decades putting names back on Victorian articles
Much nineteenth-century magazine writing appeared anonymously or under assumed names. The Wellesley Index reconstructed authorship so readers could connect…
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The football comeback viewers missed for Heidi
With 65 seconds left, NBC cut away from the Jets-Raiders game to air Heidi; the Raiders scored two touchdowns in the unseen comeback. The uproar overloaded…
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The satellite pirate who interrupted HBO
In 1986, Florida satellite-dish dealer John MacDougall interrupted HBO's broadcast of The Falcon and the Snowman with a message signed "Captain Midnight,"…
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The electronic musician who made bizarre music for children
Bruce Haack built homemade synthesizers from surplus military equipment and used them to make strange, vocoder-heavy children’s albums in the 1960s. He…
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A 43-minute film became a censorship battle
Jack Smith's Flaming Creatures placed extravagant costumes, bodies and experimental images on a tiny underground-cinema budget. Released in 1963, it drew…
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BBC television returned with the same Mickey Mouse cartoon
BBC television closed at the outbreak of war in September 1939 after showing Mickey’s Gala Premiere. When broadcasts resumed in June 1946, the same cartoon…
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The hit song recorded in a haunted bathroom
British producer Joe Meek recorded vocals in his London flat’s bathroom for its reverb and stomped on the stairs for percussion. He used the flat as a studio…
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A silent-film star earned an Oscar nomination when movies learned to talk
Bessie Love moved into sound with The Broadway Melody in 1929 and received a Best Actress nomination. The musical demanded a new kind of screen performance:…
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Yellow Submarine was restored one frame at a time
The 2012 restoration cleaned the animation by hand rather than letting automated software decide what belonged in each image. That mattered for a film packed…
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Newspapers exaggerated the War of the Worlds panic
Newspapers worried radio was taking their ad revenue, and some exaggerated the broadcast's effects, portraying a few confused callers as nationwide hysteria,…
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Entire independent film scenes ran out of a hotel room
After the mainstream film industry shut her out, Shirley Clarke turned a penthouse at New York’s Hotel Chelsea into a production hub for the underground…
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The tiny recorder that changed documentaries
The portable Nagra III became a key location-sound recorder, with synchronization versions helping audio stay aligned with separately recorded film. Crews…
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The skater barred from competing who coached champions
Barred from official competition because she was Black, Mabel Fairbanks bought secondhand skates and coached future minority champions instead.
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Daphne Oram helped turn the BBC into an electronic-music lab
She co-founded the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, where sound could be cut, looped, transformed, and assembled rather than simply recorded from an instrument. She…
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The Star Wars Holiday Special introduced Boba Fett in animation
The 1978 broadcast included an animated adventure featuring the bounty hunter before his appearance in The Empire Strikes Back. That segment gave him his…
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A quiz-show genius had already been given the answers
On the 1950s show Twenty One, Charles Van Doren's apparent mastery was helped by advance coaching and supplied answers. Viewers were watching a contest whose…
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The actress who performed with bears and cougars
Nell Shipman founded an independent production company in the wilderness and acted alongside bears and cougars. The cost of feeding the animals eventually…
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