Culture & entertainment
Discover facts about culture & entertainment. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Culture & entertainment
Wheel of Fortune has a fake board off-camera
Television magic is mostly just masking tape and illusions. The iconic puzzle board requires a literal blank dummy board placed off-camera so the host knows…
Discover more
Why trivia hosts mispronounce names on purpose
Nothing unites a bar full of strangers quite like shared linguistic rage. Trivia hosts frequently butcher the pronunciation of obscure cities or ancient…
Discover more
Why the Haunted Mansion changes lands
Apparently, ghosts refuse to stick to a single geographic zoning ordinance. Depending on which global park you visit, the iconic Haunted Mansion is placed in…
Discover more
Timpani drums feature foot pedals to change tuning instantly
Imagine trying to tune a giant copper kettle while simultaneously hitting it with fuzzy mallets. The foot pedal mechanically alters the tension of the…
Discover more
Satellite latency creates awkward broadcasting pauses
That painful silence during remote interviews isn't just terrible chemistry. Sending a signal to a satellite in orbit and bouncing it back down creates a…
Discover more
Bill Murray mistook Garfield's writer for a Coen brother
Imagine losing months of your life to a cynical cartoon cat because you didn't know how to read a first name. Bill Murray eagerly signed onto the live-action…
Discover more
STACKY FOR IPHONEA bigger world.
One discovery
at a time.
Keep discovering with Stacky. Interesting facts in an app that is always within reach.
How a drum became a blizzard
Nature's fury used to be entirely man-made. Early broadcasters created the terrifying sound of a lonely, howling blizzard by simply draping heavy canvas over…
Discover more
Window staring remains the peak of philosophical thought
Deep thinking simply cannot be achieved while sitting on a couch. True philosophical breakthroughs demand that a character stands rigidly by a rain-streaked…
Discover more
E.E. Cummings let his typewriter shape his poems
Breaking the rigid rules of grammar requires forming an intimate emotional bond with a machine. E.E. Cummings didn't just type his weirdly formatted poems; he…
Discover more
Homer Simpson's voice began as a Walter Matthau impression
The defining sound of American animated incompetence started as a blatant celebrity impersonation. Over thirty seasons, the voice gradually mutated from a…
Discover more
Gongs feature a raised central boss to alter vibrations
A flat disc of bronze will just crash aggressively like a cymbal. By hammering a protruding dome, or 'boss,' directly into the center of the gong, the…
Discover more
Electronic readers utilize special ink to mimic real paper
We spent decades perfecting brightly backlit screens, only to invent technology that pretends to be a matte piece of tree pulp. These displays use physical…
Discover moreSigur Rós sometimes sings without real words
Icelandic post-rockers Sigur Rós decided that conveying a specific message was entirely too restrictive. Instead, they frequently sing in 'Vonlenska,' a…
Discover moreBillie Eilish recorded her debut in her brother's bedroom
The massive, Grammy-sweeping debut album from Billie Eilish wasn't tracked in a lavish Los Angeles compound. It was recorded entirely in her brother Finneas's…
Discover more
Dracula was almost named Count Wampyr
Before terrorizing audiences for a century, the most famous vampire in literary existence was almost stuck with a hilariously generic name. Bram Stoker's…
Discover more
Hogwarts' motto is a warning about sleeping dragons
While real academic institutions have inspiring mottos like 'Truth and Light' or 'Knowledge is Power', the greatest wizarding school on earth decided to go…
Discover more
The Hobbit's high frame rate made audiences nauseous
Director Peter Jackson thought shooting at 48 frames per second would make his fantasy epic look wonderfully hyper-realistic. Instead, the crystal-clear,…
Discover more
Weather reporters gesture blindly at empty green screens
Meteorologists possess an incredibly specific superpower: pointing accurately at nothing. The monitors showing the storm fronts are entirely off-camera. The…
Discover more
Why movie grapes get sprayed with deodorant
Achieving that freshly-plucked-from-the-vine aesthetic requires a quick trip to the hygiene aisle. Plump grapes lose their natural frosty film the moment they…
Discover more
Platform recap graphics package personal data for sharing
Privacy is dead, but at least the infographics are highly aesthetic. Apps now brightly bundle your entire year of digital surveillance into colorful slide…
Discover more
Monkey Island duels are won with insults, not swords
Combat in this classic pirate adventure requires absolutely zero physical reflexes. Instead, duels are entirely won by memorizing a large arsenal of…
Discover more
Daytime actors read from hidden teleprompters
Nobody has a perfect memory when filming five episodes a week. Scripts are taped to coffee mugs, hidden inside flower pots, and projected behind the cameras,…
Discover more
Pennywise began as Stephen King's sewer-dwelling troll
The horrifying cosmic entity that terrorized a generation of readers wasn't conjured from the profound depths of the cosmos. Stephen King was simply walking…
Discover more
Dubstep birthed in tiny underground London basements
Before it was hijacked to sell energy drinks in aggressive sports commercials, the heavy bass genre was deeply underground. It originated as a dark, minimal,…
Discover more