The fun facts thread.

[Furioso]

n every episode of Seinfeld there is a Superman somewhere.

Even the one where they spend the entire time in the Parking Garage? Or the Chinese Restaurant?

 

[Qitz]

n every episode of Seinfeld there is a Superman somewhere.

Even the one where they spend the entire time in the Parking Garage? Or the Chinese Restaurant?

I'm sure it's hidden there somewhere.

Also heard that the most common of bodily fetishes is towards Feet, while the rarest is towards Hands.

Hand one would make shaking hands rather.....interesting.

 

[GrimTuesday]

The Janitor in Scrubs was origenally going to be just a figment of JD's imagination, but he was so popular that they decided to scrap that and just make him a normal person... well, kind of normal anyway. His actual name is Glenn Matthews.

Actually it is not Glenn Matthews because not 30 seconds after telling JD that is his name, another person walks past and says "hey Tommy" meaning the Janitor is giving out false names and so we never know his real name

Nope, the creator of the show confirmed the Janitor's name is Glenn Matthews.

The Simpsons were created after Matt Groening was called in to pitch a cartoon series after his success with the Life-In-Hell cartoon strip. Originally he intended to use the rabbit from the strip, but was concerned with losing the rights to the character so he came up with the Simpsons pretty much on the fly.

The Simpsons are named after the members of his family with Bart being an anagram for Brat. Interestingly, when it came time to name Grandpa, Matt Groening wanted no part in it and actually left the room during the discussion. The other staff members came up with Abraham... the name of Matt Groening's actual Grandfather.

Many of the characters in the Simpsons are named after famous Portland landmarks. For example, Sideshow Bob's full name is Bob Terwilliger, which is a road in Portland, as is Flanders (NE Flanders Rd. has been vandalized many times to read NEd Flanders Rd.)

1.) Milhouse's middle name comes from Richard Nixon (Milhouse Nixon Vanhouton (I am terribly mispelling that).

2.) During the first season it was going to be revealed that Marge was hiding rabbit ears under all that hair.

3.) Originally, Krusty the Klown were going to be revealed as an alter-ego of Homer Simpson. Basically it would mean Bart unknowningly worships his father, despite thinking very little of him in real life.

4.) In order to make Bart and Lisa look younger, the number of Spikes in their hair would decrease.

5.) The Simpsons was nearly cancelled before it began. The first episode in the series, Some Enchanted Evening, came back with horrible animation (you can see it on the Season 1 Boxset extras) and for a while it looked like the show wouldn't work. However, when the next episode (I can't remember which one it was) came back they saw the animation for that one was alright and the show was fixable. Some Enchanted Evening was pushed to the end of the season, and Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire was made the first episode as the show was now airing around Christmas due to the delays. Because that is the episode Santa's Little Helper first appears, and it was originally intended to be the 6th or 7th episode, SLH doesn't appear for most of the first season.

6.) The Simpson's staff do not care about the lack of continuity in the show

You ser, know far too much about The Simpsons.

The Janitor in Scrubs was origenally going to be just a figment of JD's imagination, but he was so popular that they decided to scrap that and just make him a normal person... well, kind of normal anyway. His actual name is Glenn Matthews.

Lol I've watched the audio commentaries far too many times... I'll move onto something else now.

1.) The character of Fraiser was never meant to be that big, but people loved him so much in Cheers that he eventually got his own spin-off show.

2.) The character of Niles (Fraiser's brother) was only created because David Hyde Pierce looked so much like a younger Fraiser (I believe he was originally hired to play Fraiser in flashbacks, but was upgraded to a main character.

3.) The character of Roz was originally meant to be played by Lisa Kudrow - Phoebe from Friends.

4.) Maris was originally intended to be played by an actual actress, but the staff soon realized no actress could accurately portay the image they had conveyed of Maris throughout the show.

5.) Kelsey Grammar voices Sideshow Bob in the Simpsons, while David Hyde Pierce voices Bob's brother Cecil and John Mahoney voices their father. In Cecil's first appearence, there was originally going to be a character by the name of Maris, but was ultimately removed when NBC insisted that "you NEVER see Maris".

The skyline isn't actually a real view, it was a picture taken from a cliff so that the Space Needle would be more visable.

Only one episode of Frasier was ever actually filmed in Seattle, that was the 1000th episode. Most of it was actually filmed on the same set as Cheers.

The callers that call into Frasier's show are actual celebrities who called in their lines over the phone.

 

[MrRetroSpectacles]

In Alaska, U.S.A, it is legal to hunt and kill bears, however it is illegal to wake a sleeping bear and take it's photograph. It is also illegal to push a moose out of a moving plane.

There is a restaurant in Stockholm that only offers all-garlic products. They even have a garlic cheesecake.

Charlie Chaplin genuinely lost a Charlie Chaplin look a like contest, much to his and later the contest judges and organisers bafflement.

"Jenga" is the second most successful selling game in the World, and is Swahili for "build".

 

[RobCoxxy]

In Shrewsbury, England, it is still legal to shoot a welshman who is crossing the Welsh Bridge into town. But only with a Crossbow.

Not sure about this one as it also appears to be legal to shoot a welshman in Chester with a longbow after midnight.

OT: Traffic lights, steam rollers and public phone boxes were all invented in Liverpool. Also ants don't sleep.

It is. I live there. I don't have any Welsh friends any more.

 

[teisjm]

Fun fact:
When you say the word "poop" your mouth makes the same motions as your ass does, while pooping.
Bonus fact:
The same is true, for "explosive diareha"

 

[RuralGamer]

The song "Black Betty", made internationally famous by Ram Jam and the like, may have its origins in an 18th century marching song.

The reason a lot of bullpup weapons cannot be safely used by left-handed people is because the ejection port is positioned is such a way the shell casings would be spat in their face. Ouch...

The AK-47 is one of the most influential objects of the 20th century; it has found its way onto the coat of arms of Zimbabwe and East Timor and the flags of Mozambique and the Hezbollah, as well as being the logo for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. It apparently has also given rise to the name boy's name Kalash in parts of the world. It has its own museum in Izhevsk, Russia.

Ah, pointless military facts...

 

[FamoFunk]

The 57 on Heinz ketchup bottles represents the number of varieties of pickles the company once had.

The most common name in the world is Mohammed.

UK - It is illegal to be drunk on Licensed Premises (in a pub or bar).

Facebook was originally named TheFaceBook

The earliest record of hat-wearing comes from a cave at Lussac-les-Châteaux in central France. The rock drawings there are 15,000 years old and we?ve been putting things on our heads ever since.

 

[Segadroid]

Facebook was originally named TheFaceBook

On a slightly related note, an Arab father named his daughter 'Facebook' "as a memorial to social network bringing down corrupted systems".

 

[nickyv917]

All polar bears are left-handed

 

[Azaradel]

Many insects have ocelli ("simple eyes"), in addition to their compound eyes. These tend to be larger in flying insects such as bees, wasps and dragonflies and usually occur in triplets.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f5/Vespa_mandarinia.jpg/250px-Vespa_mandarinia.jpg

Asian Giant Hornet.
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lk9iwxURtf1qibfxpo1_500.jpg
Just thought you'd like to know...
Vespids and dragonflies are both filed under my list of things that are fucking beautiful, but I wouldn't touch to save my life.

What? I thought it was interesting!

Don't ask me why I've got nothing better to do than amass useless facts about insects, though...

There is a restaurant in Stockholm that only offers all-garlic products. They even have a garlic cheesecake.

I must make sure that my sister never finds out about that place.

Especially seeing how close to Stockholm we actually live.

 

[HerbertTheHamster]

The only words in the English language which rhyme with orange are grammatically incorrect or pronounced wrong.

also a not-fun fact as a bonus, Nazi Germany saved Europe from Stalin.

 

[GrimTuesday]

All of George C. Scott's lines in Dr. Strangelove were filmed without his knowledge. Scott wanted to play the character completely straight, but Kubrick wanted him to do it in a very over the top way, so what he did was tell Scott that the over the top takes were just practice takes and wouldn't be filmed, and then he secretly taped them Scott never spoke to Kubrick again.

The entire plot of Dr. Strangelove all boils down to males waving their dicks in each others faces, in fact, the big table in the War Room was actually a giant poker table.

General Ripper's full name is Jack D. Ripper.

The First day that Slim Pickens showed up to set, one of the crew remarked that he showed up in costume (cowboy hat, fringed vest, ect.), someone had to inform him that Pickens dressed like that all the time. Pickens was told to just play the role like himself, he wasn't even informed that the movie was a comedy.

 

[Jake0fTrades]

Defenestration: The act of throwing someone or something out of a window.

Americans invented Toilet Paper. YOU'RE WELCOME.

 

[GrimTuesday]

Brian Eno's fully name is Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno.

 

[Treblaine]

All the dandies needed something to sip over their conversation about their rather unjust revolution *(if you really think about it, the Colonies didn't have that much of a reason for rebellion)

*[Yes I, as an American do think that the grounds for independence were more than a little shaky]

I'm a Brit and I think that's dumb.

We didn't deserve any of those colonies as most of the Americans wanted to leave, then that is the end of the matter. Canadians wanted to stay so they stayed. Shame we had to have a bloody war to sort it out and it's a DAMN GOOD THING that we didn't have that with India. India also did not have many "good reasons" to leave except for the most important one: they WANTED independence.

It is not a matter of cold legalistic reason, it's a matter of the peoples' choice. That's Self-Determination. That's The Chicago Way Democracy.

Northern Ireland voted on staying part of the UK and (by quite a close margin) voted in favour though the various republican movements fought long and hard for a republican majority.

One thing the Argentinian Junta didn't get was though they had good "reasons" to invade The Falklands they lacked the most important one: the will of the actual people who lived there. Who did NOT want to become subjects of a South American military dictatorship, weirdly enough they wanted to be part of Thatcher's Britain but that was their choice.

Self-Determination has been the guiding principal of the dismantling of the British Empire after the Second World War, after destroying Hitler's attempts at empire building it would have been hypocritical in the extreme to continue ruling from afar places that did not wish to be ruled by Britain. Many chose to stay, but many others peacefully ceded to varying success.

Now the American Civil War, that's a case where arguably the will of the people were ignored, but America at that time was one united country, the will of the people is as a whole. One bay overrun by pirates cannot cede simply because that's where all the pirates are. The South was not some overseas territory ruled from afar, Washington DC was literally only a day's walk away from the Confederate Capital of Richmond VA.

Although the war didn't start over slavery, could that really continue to be tolerated by the North? How can you have self-determination of the people when people are being enslaved by the millions?

 

[Drops a Sweet Katana]

Female crabs are called 'hens' and males 'cocks'. Because you would definitely think that bottom-feeding crustacean were in anyway akin to poultry.

 

[Treblaine]

I have a whole playlist full of these "scientific facts"

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLE69B2921C18CAB52&feature=viewall

 

[mafia690]

Honey is the only food that doesn't spoil.