Culture & entertainment
Discover facts about culture & entertainment. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Culture & entertainment
Alien borrowed concert lasers for its eerie egg chamber.
Alien borrowed concert lasers for its eerie egg chamber. The production used equipment associated with The Who's nearby lighting work to create the blue layer…
Discover more
Joey Tribbiani's iconic, incredibly tacky white ceramic dog statue from Friends originally belonged to Jennifer Aniston, who received the hideous piece of decor as a good luck…
Joey Tribbiani's iconic, incredibly tacky white ceramic dog statue from Friends originally belonged to Jennifer Aniston, who received the hideous piece of…
Discover more
Twister sound designers heavily edited the angry moans of a camel to create the terrifying, monstrous roar of the devastating tornado that violently rips through the climax of the film.
Twister sound designers heavily edited the angry moans of a camel to create the terrifying, monstrous roar of the devastating tornado that violently rips…
Discover more
Snow White’s voice slipped into The Wizard of Oz.
Snow White’s voice slipped into The Wizard of Oz. Adriana Caselotti, who voiced Disney’s Snow White, also supplied the Juliet voice during the Tin Man’s “If I…
Discover more
The Backstreet Boys' biggest rivals had the same manager.
The Backstreet Boys' biggest rivals had the same manager. Lou Pearlman helped build both the Backstreet Boys and NSYNC, putting two apparently competing pop…
Discover more
Bratz's origin became a fight over who owned the drawings.
Bratz's origin became a fight over who owned the drawings. Designer Carter Bryant developed the doll concept around the period he worked for Mattel, then took…
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.
The Animaniacs siblings borrowed their personalities from three real children.
The Animaniacs siblings borrowed their personalities from three real children. Creator Tom Ruegger said his sons helped shape Yakko, Wakko and Dot: the…
Discover more
Sean Connery gave a Bond salary to an education charity.
Sean Connery gave a Bond salary to an education charity. He donated his pay from Diamonds Are Forever to the Scottish International Education Trust, which he…
Discover more
Napoleon Dynamite was a headache for movie recommendations.
Napoleon Dynamite was a headache for movie recommendations. During the Netflix Prize competition, the film became a notorious example of a rating that was…
Discover more
Universal Studios originally passed on producing Star Wars because they simply could not understand George Lucas's script and thought the whole concept was far too confusing to be profitable.
Universal Studios originally passed on producing Star Wars because they simply could not understand George Lucas's script and thought the whole concept was…
Discover more
Apple's free U2 album needed its own removal tool.
Apple's free U2 album needed its own removal tool. In 2014, Songs of Innocence was added to iTunes accounts as a promotional giveaway, and some devices…
Discover more
TLC's early schedule really was built around learning.
TLC's early schedule really was built around learning. A 1987 television-industry guide lists The Learning Channel's content as educational programs, how-to…
Discover more
Keanu Reeves trained for eight months for John Wick: Chapter 4.
Keanu Reeves trained for eight months for John Wick: Chapter 4. Extensive preparation let him perform demanding action in shots that showed his face and…
Discover more
Daniel Craig's exhausted Bond farewell was not his final Bond film.
Daniel Craig's exhausted Bond farewell was not his final Bond film. After Spectre, he told an interviewer he did not want to think about another installment…
Discover more
Beauty and the Beast borrowed its final dance from Sleeping Beauty.
Beauty and the Beast borrowed its final dance from Sleeping Beauty. Co-director Gary Trousdale said the team was days from delivery with that last sequence…
Discover more
Tom Hanks helped pay for Forrest Gump's running scenes.
Tom Hanks helped pay for Forrest Gump's running scenes. Hanks recalled that he and director Robert Zemeckis financed sequences the studio would not fund,…
Discover more
Iron Man's iconic post-credits scene featuring Samuel L.
Iron Man's iconic post-credits scene featuring Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury was filmed in absolute secrecy with a skeleton crew to prevent any leaks from…
Discover more
Coppola nearly lost The Godfather over the choices that made it famous.
Coppola nearly lost The Godfather over the choices that made it famous. Paramount resisted Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, a period setting, and filming in Sicily,…
Discover more
A Good Day to Die Hard left a real wrecking yard behind its action.
A Good Day to Die Hard left a real wrecking yard behind its action. Director John Moore said 132 cars were left unusable during production, with hundreds more…
Discover more
Matt Groening created the entire cast of 'The Simpsons' in a matter of minutes while desperately waiting in the lobby of producer James L.
Matt Groening created the entire cast of 'The Simpsons' in a matter of minutes while desperately waiting in the lobby of producer James L. Brooks' office,…
Discover more
Netflix promised two seasons of House of Cards without a pilot.
Netflix promised two seasons of House of Cards without a pilot. That commitment offered the creators room to develop a long story instead of first making a…
Discover more
Fight Club's marketing team struggled to decide who wanted it.
Fight Club's marketing team struggled to decide who wanted it. David Fincher recalled tension with Fox over selling the film, including doubts that its…
Discover more
Vince Gilligan originally wrote the pilot for Breaking Bad to take place in Riverside, California, but the studio essentially forced him to move the entire production to…
Vince Gilligan originally wrote the pilot for Breaking Bad to take place in Riverside, California, but the studio essentially forced him to move the entire…
Discover more
Chewbacca's original iconic costume from the first Star Wars film was constructed by meticulously weaving together a mixture of real yak fur and actual human hair.
Chewbacca's original iconic costume from the first Star Wars film was constructed by meticulously weaving together a mixture of real yak fur and actual human…
Discover more