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Here at the expertise deli, we give healthy portions of facts!

33 Delicious Shmears of Trivia to Slather on Top of Your Brain-Lox and Mind-Bagel

December 30, 2023

We’re not like your grandmother, okay? We won’t take offense if you don’t finish every fact on your plate in one sitting. We’ll resist the urge to guilt you into a fact coma, and just go get you some Tupperware. It’s got a nice orange-y ring from the facts of yesteryear, but it’s clean, we swear. But at some point, you better finish all these facts!

33

The Democratic Republic of Congo had an imaginary minister for some time. To better his chances to be named trade minister, Honorius Kisimba Ngoy proposed himself for the position, along with a hilariously unqualified dude he made up to make himself look better. As it turned out, the prime minister disliked Kisimba so much that he picked the fake guy. CRACKED.COM — Source

32

Gladiators were unionized. Being mostly slaves, gladiators didn't have an awful lot of rights - but they did join in collegia, sort-of unions that made sure they got some basic respect. Among other things, collegia made sure that fallen gladiators had a proper burial. CRACKED.COM — Source

31

33 Delicious Shmears of Trivia to Slather on Top of Your Brain-Lox and Mind-Bagel — Source

30

A secret Soviet weapon turned out to be bee poop. When a yellow substance began raining down on Vietnam after the war, making locals sick, the U.S. accused the Soviet Union of using chemical weapons. Then a Harvard analysis discovered it was feces dropped by airborne bees. (The sickness was actually caused by all the malnutrition and other nasty stuff in the aftermath of a long war). CRACKED.COM — Source

29

Prince

Prince was (probably) one of the very first Oregon Trail players. In 1971, Prince Rogers Nelson was an 8th-grader at Bryant Junior High, in Minneapolis - meaning he was in the class of Don Rawitsch, the teacher who came up with Oregon Trail to keep his students engaged. Sadly, there's no record of how many times (if any) he died of dysentery. CRACKED.COM — Source

28

Earth-616

Earth-616 wasn't supposed to be Marvel's A main continuity. Marvel writer Dave Thorpe came up with Earth- 616 to designate the absolute worst of all parallel Earths, for a comic that was never published. Alan Moore was the first to use it for Marvel's main universe - but for years, higher- ups hated it and never used it themselves. CRACKED.COM — Source

27

Riverdale

CRACKED.COM Riverdale's showrunner was almost sued once for making Archie gay. An early work by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa was a play titled Archie's Weird Fantasy, a loving pastiche where Archie comes out of the closet and pals around with 1920s murderers Leopold and Loeb. Archie Comics sent him a cease-and- desist letter, arguing that a gay Archie would somehow dilute and tarnish the character. — Source

26

Dan Aykroyd

We could have had a Ghostbusters movie set in Hell. In a script Dan Aykroyd prepared for a Ghostbusters sequel, the ghost-hunting quartet is transported to a Hell version of Manhattan (called Manhellton), run by a Trump-like demon. Aykroyd said the idea was solid, but it'd need a couple movies' worth of build-up. PEGGIA CRACKED.COM — Source

25

CRACKED.COM A storm saved Mick Jagger from being murdered by the Hells Angels. During a 1969 concert, the Rolling Stones found out the hard way that hiring a violent biker gang as security staff wasn't a good idea, and fired them. The Angels decided to retaliate by killing Jagger - but a freak storm hit their boat before they made it to his Long Island home. — Sourcev

24

Blade Runner blew its budget on details you never see. Conceptual artist Syd Mead was hired for a few days, at $1,500 a day - but he ended up staying for weeks, filling the sets with stuff you never really notice (like fastidiously detailed, futuristic parking meters). That was one of the reasons for the movie's budget issues. CRACKED.COM — Source

23

A Home Alone sequel could (maybe) have featured a big role reversal. We don't know how serious Chris Columbus was when he discussed his rejected sequel idea, with a grown-up, criminal Kevin McCallister breaking into the reformed Wet Bandits' homes. (Even if he was being tongue- in-cheek, we would watch the hell out of that.) CRACKED COM — Source

22

CRACKED.COM George Clooney helped South Park become a thing. '90s Clooney was a big fan of the proto- South Park short film The Spirit of Christmas, reportedly making and circulating 300 VHS copies of the movie. Because of Clooney's pirating ways, Matt Parker and Trey Stone became well known in Hollywood, eventually landing their own show. — Source

21

Yes, Thomas More was martyred for his beliefs... after he martyred others for theirs. More is looked up to as a symbol of conscience and resistance - sidestepping the fact that he didn't exactly champion those values when he was Lord Chancellor. Не had heretical texts burned, and ordered imprisonment, torture, and death for those who owned them. CRACKED.COM — Source

20

Young Astronauts

A cartoon was never aired because of the Challenger disaster. In January 1986, all was set to start broadcasting Young Astronauts, a CBS cartoon/Marvel comic combo made with government involvement. Then the space shuttle Challenger blew up, and all 13 episodes of space-going children were quickly canned. CRACKED.COM — Source

19

The original Ferris wheel was built to compete with the Eiffel Tower. The 1893 Chicago World's Fair had a bit of tower envy, so they built a 264-foot-tall rotating wheel to rival Paris' iron monstrosity. It was a huge success... for the fair, at least. The thing's builder, George Washington Gale Ferris Jr., ended up bankrupt. copyr mL trat 18 AP CRACKED.COM — Source

18

Iron Maiden forced a video game to change its title. In 2019, the band sued the developer of the retro-style game lon Maiden for $2 million, claiming it was an incredible blatant infringement on their trademark. The game people caved and renamed their product lon Fury. CRACKED.COM — Source

17

Humphrey Bogart wasn't really a tough guy. According to James Cagney, Bogart was about as tough as Shirley Temple. In a time when studios pretty much owned the actors, everything about Bogie's public image was a fiction carefully constructed by Warner Bros. They even went so far as to rewrite Bogart's life history to make him fit his niche. CRACKED.COM — Source

16

Joe Pesci

CRACKED.COM Joe Pesci sued Gotti for cutting him out. You'd think any actor would be happy not to be in a critically panned box-office bomb. Except Pesci was cut from his part after gaining 30 pounds for it, and offered to play a different character instead (with a pay cut). Не ended up receiving a settlement. — Source

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15

The Last of Us

CRACKED.COM The Last of Us was initially pitched to George Romero. Neil Bruckmann came up with the basic concept while he was in college, and had a chance to pitch it to Zombiemeister George Romero himself - who passed on it. After that, Bruckmann tried to turn his idea into a comic book, before it became a game. — Source

14

Myanmar banned the Simpsons movie because of its colors (allegedly). An often cited (though unverified) reason for the ban is the movie's prominent use of yellow and red. Some sources talk about superstitions regarding the colors, while others report the hues are forbidden due to their association with a rebel group. CRACKED.COM — Source

13

Hitler

CRACKED.COM The U.S. planned to feminize Hitler with estrogen. Stanley Lovell, research head of the OSS (CIA's precursor), hatched a plan to lace Hitler's food with estrogen and make him more feminine, which (somehow) would lead to Germany losing the war. This was even dumber than Lovell's regular dumb ideas, and was never carried out. — Source

12

Blood spatter analysis is full of crap. According to the National Academy of Sciences, the uncertainties associated with bloodstain pattern analysis are enormous, and the thing is more subjective than scientific. Hardly the almost magical forensic tool Dexter and other TV shows make it out to be. NY Fabric 2903 CRACKED.COM DEPARTMEN — Source

11

CRACKED.COM ат Mikhail Gorbachev did a Pizza Hut ad. In 1998, the former USSR leader appeared in an ad for everyone's third-favorite pizza chain. It's a bizarre, minute-long piece, in which Gorbachev randomly drops by a Pizza Hut (with a child, for some reason), and everyone ends up hailing him for bringing the franchise to Russia. — Source

10

Velma

GRAGKED.COM Studio execs said no to a lesbian Velma in the Scooby-Doo movies. According to James Gunn, Velma was written as explicitly lesbian in his initial script - but then the studio intervened, making her sexuality ambiguous (and finally giving her a boyfriend in the sequel). — Source

9

Tucker Carlson

TUCKE Tucker Carlson used to be for truth in reporting (and was booed for it). Carlson was never progressive, but there was a time when he cared about facts. The New York Times is a liberal paper ... but it's a paper that cares about accuracy, he said at CPAC 2009. Conservatives need to ... mirror those institutions. The audience booed him. CRACKED.COM — Source

8

SPIDE Marisa Tomei was almost in Parks and Recreation. According to showrunner/co-creator Michael Schur, there were plans for a plotline about Aziz Ansari's Tom Haverford dating an older woman, who would have been played by Tomei. Schur laments that the timing didn't work out. CRACKED.COM — Source

7

CRACKED.COM Michael Keaton worked with Mr. Rogers. Before he tried comedy, Keaton worked at a TV station in his native Pittsburgh, and was occasionally a part of the behind-the-camera crew on Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. According to Keaton, Fred Rogers was one of the nicest, authentically good people you've ever met. — Source

6

CRACKED.COM George Washington was a huge whisky producer (for a short time). After retiring from politics in 1797, Washington set up a whisky distillery in his land. During its first year, the distillery sold nearly 11,000 gallons of booze, and was one of the biggest in the U.S. But Washington soon died, and his nephew couldn't successfully continue the operation. — Source

5

Steven Wright

CRACKED.COM steven wright won an Oscar. The Appointment of Dennis Jennings is a al 30-minute-long, dark comedy written by Jennings, and starring Jennings himself along with Rowan Atkinson. You never heard of it? That's weird, considering it R T took home the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film in 1989. — Source

4

Slavery

White slaves helped end slavery. The American North wasn't much less racist than the South, and many weren't sold on the whole emancipation thing. To win them over, abolitionists started highlighting white slaves on popular magazines (who were enslaved because they had some black ancestor). Suddenly, owning people seemed inhumane. CRACKED.COM — Source

3

CRACKED COM cain's Jawbone is a puzzle that only four people have been able to solve. In 1934, puzzle writer Edward Mathers (a.k.a. Torquemada) published Cain's Jawbone, a novella of 100 cryptic, out-of- order pages. The challenge was to rearrange the pages in the correct sequence and solve the murders. The task proved so hard that only four people have ever completed it. — Source

2

CRACKED.COM Dying is becoming worse and worse. When you're kept for a long time hooked to machines just to delay death until the last possible second, you start to wonder whether living is actually your best option. Dying is becoming more painful and depressing (and expensive) every decade, and most doctors have a standing do not resuscitate order. — Source

1

Deep-sea shrimp use nanotechnology to become invisible. Hyperiid amphipods are covered in microscopic spheres that dampen the light from bioluminescent predators, allowing these shrimp- like crustaceans to remain unseen (and uneaten). These nanospheres might or might not be bacteria - we don't actually know a lot about these critters' invisibility cloak. CRACKED.COM — Source

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