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 didn't let a minor inconvenience like being completely wrong stop him from dominating television. A flamboyant staple of late-night talk…
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How the Supreme Court broke up Hollywood
Back in the Golden Age, Hollywood studios operated like an incredibly glamorous mafia. They owned the production lots, the distribution networks, and the…
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The fake ghost broadcast that harmed viewers
The BBC decided Halloween of 1992 was the perfect time to convince the British public that poltergeists were murdering beloved children's TV presenters. Shot…
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The camera that broadcast live TV and filmed it
Nothing screams desperation like inventing a revolutionary piece of technology right before going bankrupt. The DuMont network created the Electronicam in the…
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She turned religious outrage into a business
Long before internet trolls discovered Twitter, Madalyn Murray O'Hair turned blasphemy into a lucrative media brand. As the driving force behind banning…
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The news anchor who died by suicide on air
Christine Chubbuck predicted the clickbait era in the most macabre way possible. Frustrated with her station's 'if it bleeds, it leads' policy, the local news…
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The toy maker who turned TV into an advertisement
If you grew up watching cartoons that were blatant cash grabs for action figures, blame A.C. Gilbert. The creator of the Erector Set realized he could skip…
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Victorian magazines were written by a tiny elite
Think anonymous Reddit trolls are a modern plague? The Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals exposed 19th-century Britain's worst-kept secret: all the…
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The football comeback viewers missed for Heidi
Sports fans learned a brutal lesson in television hierarchy during a 1968 Jets-Raiders match. With 65 seconds left and the Jets winning, NBC ruthlessly cut…
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The satellite pirate who interrupted HBO
In 1986, an extremely pissed-off Florida satellite dish dealer named John MacDougall decided he was done paying HBO's ridiculous scrambled subscription fees.…
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The electronic musician who made bizarre music for children
While Mr. Rogers was singing acoustic neighborhood songs, outsider electronic genius Bruce Haack was dropping acid and building synthesizers out of surplus…
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Jack Smith made a cult film with stolen props
If Hollywood was about high-budget glamour, Jack Smith was about dumpster-diving for rhinestones. The pioneer of underground trash-baroque cinema famously…
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The Mickey Mouse cartoon interrupted by World War II
The BBC literally pulled the plug on their television service mid-broadcast in 1939 because they realized a giant VHF transmitter acting as a homing beacon…
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The hit song recorded in a haunted bathroom
Imagine producing a transatlantic #1 hit while actively dodging ghosts and stepping over a toilet. British producer Joe Meek used his London flat as an…
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The voice lessons that saved a silent-film star
When sound hit Hollywood, most silent film stars were immediately fired because they sounded like squeaky toys or chain-smoking mobsters. Bessie Love,…
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Cheap paint nearly erased Yellow Submarine's colors
The Beatles' iconic acid trip of a movie was animated on a budget so tight that the original artists used cheap, volatile paints. By the time preservationists…
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Newspapers exaggerated the War of the Worlds panic
Print media saw radio stealing their ad revenue, so they weaponized Orson Welles' little space play. The "nationwide hysteria" was basically just a few…
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Entire independent film scenes ran out of a hotel room
When the mainstream 1960s film industry inevitably slammed its doors in her face for the dual crime of being avant-garde and a woman, Shirley Clarke didn't…
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The tiny recorder that changed documentaries
Before the late 1950s, shooting a documentary meant dragging a truck full of audio gear into the wild, which kind of ruined the candid vibe. Enter the Nagra…
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The skater barred from competing who coached champions
When country clubs decided Black women shouldn't be allowed to figure skate, Mabel Fairbanks didn't just walk away. Barred from official competition in the…
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She turned hand-drawn squiggles into music
Long before modern producers were clicking piano rolls in Ableton, Daphne Oram was literally drawing music by hand. Fed up with the BBC’s lack of vision, she…
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How the Star Wars Holiday Special survived its burial
Legend says George Lucas wanted to smash every copy of the 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special with a sledgehammer to erase the Wookiee-singing monstrosity from…
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The quiz shows that secretly gave contestants answers
If you think reality TV is fake today, the 1950s quiz shows would like a word. Programs like 'Twenty-One' weren't actually tests of intellect; they were…
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The actress who performed with bears and cougars
Nell Shipman didn't have time for Hollywood's restrictive studio system or pesky safety regulations. She created her own independent production company in the…
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