Culture & entertainment
Discover facts about culture & entertainment. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Culture & entertainment
Universal Jurassic Park relies on massive industrial pumps
The 85-foot drop displaces so much water that industrial pumps move tens of thousands of gallons per minute to keep the ride’s river full.
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Bar patrons confidently order the most generic drinks
TV characters often order a generic “beer” instead of naming a real brand, sidestepping trademark concerns.
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Fall Guys slime features highly exaggerated bounce physics
The slime boosts your character’s bounce, so even a small collision can send you flying off the map.
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Ariel's hair was inspired by an astronaut
To make Ariel's hair float convincingly underwater, animators studied footage of astronaut Sally Ride moving in zero gravity.
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Animators who drew by scratching film
Instead of filming drawings with a camera, animators scratched shapes directly into the film’s emulsion, creating moving images on the celluloid itself.
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Why cartoon characters have four fingers
With one fewer digit, cartoon hands are simpler to draw and less likely to blur together in motion.
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Love Island severely restricts internal contestant phones
The phones have no internet access and can receive messages only from producers, though contestants can use them to take photos.
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Splatoon's squid heroes can't survive a swim
Inklings move freely through their team's ink, but falling into water splats them. That contrast is part of the game's movement rules: what looks like a…
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Forum signatures append large graphical banners to posts
These customized graphics appeared below users’ posts, sometimes turning even a brief reply into a page topped with glittering text.
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Pearl Jam was once named after a basketball player
They named themselves Mookie Blaylock after the professional basketball player, then called their debut album Ten for his jersey number.
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America's two famous advice columnists were twin sisters
The women behind Dear Abby and Ann Landers were Pauline Phillips and Eppie Lederer, born seventeen minutes apart. They built separate public identities around…
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Will call ticket booths legally mandate government ID
Because tickets have monetary value, a will-call pickup may require government-issued ID; having a name that matches the list may not be enough.
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George R.R. Martin wrote fantasy on a computer kept offline
In a 2014 interview, Martin described using a DOS computer with WordStar 4.0 for his novels, separate from the machine he used for email. He preferred its…
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Paternity tests becoming a television genre
Paternity-test reveals became a daytime-TV subgenre, with results announced before live audiences.
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The hit jazz song you can’t easily dance to
Its unusual five-beat rhythm makes casual dancing awkward, yet the jazz single became a global hit.
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The BBC formed a committee to settle how words sounded
In 1926, the BBC recruited experts including playwright George Bernard Shaw to advise announcers on disputed pronunciations. Its published recommendations…
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Big Brother made household comforts part of the competition
The British show's 2002 rich-and-poor divide gave housemates unequal living conditions, including different access to hot water. Those practical differences…
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A towel's hidden machinery is the space between its fibers
Water is drawn into narrow gaps by capillary action: it sticks to the fibers and pulls more water along with it. A mass of tiny passages can soak up a spill…
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Why anime characters stare away during monologues
Having a character face away during a long monologue saves animation work: the studio can avoid drawing the character's moving mouth.
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When churches held services at drive-in theaters
In the mid-20th century, some ministers rented drive-in theaters for Sunday services, letting congregants listen to sermons from their cars through the…
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Primary colors aggressively hypnotize totally innocent kids
Programs for very young children often use bright, saturated reds, blues, and yellows to grab their attention.
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Boy band vocal harmonies are often heavily synthetic overlays
Producers built polished harmonies by layering the lead singer’s voice over itself, sometimes dozens of times, rather than relying on every band member to…
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Why walnuts sound like movie skull crushes
Sound designers use walnuts to create the crack of a skull being crushed underfoot.
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Mind reading illusions officially fall under mentalism
Performers use observation, suggestion and memory to make a trick seem psychic, rather than relying on physical sleight of hand.
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