Culture & entertainment
Discover facts about culture & entertainment. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Culture & entertainment
The Oscars turned their red carpet into a sunset scene
For the 2023 ceremony, organizers replaced the familiar red with champagne, breaking a carpet tradition dating to 1961. Designer Lisa Love explained the…
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A spoiler once robbed people of more than a movie ending
The word originally described a plunderer. Later uses included competitors who wrecked another person's chance of winning, and eventually information that…
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Why anime often looks deliberately choppy
Holding one drawing for three consecutive frames reduces the number of images needed, creating the deliberately choppy rhythm associated with many traditional…
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The soap-opera actor who invented the teleprompter
A motorized paper scroll tucked into half a suitcase let performers read their lines while facing the camera.
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Fifty-two stolen Oscars turned up behind a supermarket
In March 2000, thieves took 55 statuettes from a shipping facility. Ten days later, Willie Fulgear reported finding 52 behind a Los Angeles supermarket and…
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A film crew has someone tracking the cigarette between takes
The script supervisor watches continuity: how much a cigarette has burned, the level in a glass, where an actor held a prop. Shots filmed at different times…
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Why Frankenstein’s monster became green
Green makeup registered as a corpse-like gray on black-and-white film, while promotional art helped cement the monster’s green look.
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A stained-glass knight helped bring digital characters into live-action film
For 1985's Young Sherlock Holmes, a figure steps out of a church window and attacks. Lucasfilm created the knight digitally and placed it into filmed…
Discover moreLosing Oswald pushed Disney toward a mouse he could control
Walt Disney lost control of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit after a contract dispute. Mickey Mouse emerged from the new work that followed, with Ub Iwerks central to…
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National Lampoon printed a spoiler warning in 1971
A 1971 article titled “Spoilers” deliberately revealed famous plot twists and endings. The joke depended on doing exactly what readers now try to avoid…
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First reality shows were heavily manipulated
Producers shaped the story of An American Family with leading questions and deceptive editing, setting an early template for unscripted TV drama.
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Color film was capturing moving images in 1901
Test footage from 1901, discovered in a museum vault, shows a pet bird shifting its colored feathers.
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Doctor Who Was Once Meant to Teach History
When Doctor Who launched in 1963, BBC executives intended it as an educational program to teach children about historical events.
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Hello Kitty's fictional hometown is near London
Sanrio's biography gives its Japanese character a childhood in London's suburbs, with parents and a twin sister named Mimmy. The two can be distinguished by…
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Silent-film actors did not have to stay silent on set
Without synchronized dialogue recording, directors could call instructions during a take, and performers could speak while acting. What mattered to the…
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The MGM lion that survived a plane crash
One of the lions used in early MGM studio introductions survived a plane crash while being flown across the country in a small promotional aircraft.
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Ben Turpin insured his crossed eyes
He insured his distinctive crossed eyes against the possibility that they would straighten, since they were central to his slapstick act.
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An anti-piracy soundtrack led to a music-rights dispute
Composer Melchior Rietveldt said music commissioned for limited use in an anti-piracy film later appeared on commercial DVDs without the payments he was owed.…
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Comic Sans’s creator barely used his own font
He designed it for a software tutorial featuring a cartoon dog, but avoided using it in his own professional writing.
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John Malkovich starred in a film sealed until 2115
100 Years, made with John Malkovich and director Robert Rodriguez for Louis XIII cognac, was sealed in 2015 for a planned 2115 release. The century-long wait…
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Tom and Jerry were once Jasper and Jinx
The cat and mouse first appeared as Jasper and Jinx. An internal studio contest produced their new names, and the winning suggestion earned its creator $50.
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The strange chord that changed modern music
Wagner used the tense, unresolved Tristan chord in his 1865 opera Tristan und Isolde, creating musical tension instead of the expected resolution.
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Westworld brought early computer graphics to the big screen
Westworld's pixelated scenes showed the gunslinger's point of view, with footage processed to mimic a robot's vision.
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The shark jump that gave TV its favorite insult
The phrase came from an episode of Happy Days in which a character water-skied over a shark.
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