25 Trivia Nuggets from Pop Culture History for Sunday, December 7, 2025

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34 Unspeakable Bits of Trivia That the Old Gods Have Decreed May Only Be Communicated via Stone-Engraved Listicle

Facts shouted from the mountaintops

34 Unspeakable Bits of Trivia That the Old Gods Have Decreed May Only Be Communicated via Stone-Engraved Listicle

January 01, 2024 Add Cracked to Google

If we pass these sacred facts along to you, will you promise to not only soak in their immortal wisdom, but to hand down their greatness to other worthy fact-keepers? We hope so. Since they’re just right here for you to read, and there’s no way to monitor what you actually do with them, all we can do is hope. But like, please?

34

GRACKED ТОМ FOGERTY: GONE TOO SOON, THANKS TO MEDICAL MALPRACTICE. Arr A by - Tom Fogerty passed away in 1990 due to tuberculosis, which was a result of AIDS he got from a blood transfusion he had during a back operation in the 80s. It only happened because they didn't screen the blood for HIV. — Source

33

GRACKED TAXPAYERS: 720 MILLION DOLLARS DOWN THE DRAIN... ... LITERALLY. From 2007 to 2011, the U.S. Mint has made more than 2.4 billion dollar coins, which has cost taxpayers around $720 million. It's not a terribly cost-efficient operation. — Source

32

GRACKED GIANLUIGI BUFFON'S JERSEY CHOICE SPARKED CONTROVERSY. An Italian goalkeeper caused an outcry when he put the Nazi-associated number 88 on his shirt. Не said he had no idea what it meant - but his first, denied choice was 01, picked because he admired General Lee from Dukes of Hazzard. — Source

31

GRACKED THE SS PULLED A FAST ONE IN '39, DRESSING UP PRISONERS. Granica Pou SepelensLieg gmine Sepolno Kr In August 1939, the SS tricked people with a false flag operation. They dressed up six prisoners in Polish uniforms and staged a fake attack on the Gleiwitz Radio Station, which was used as part of the pretext for invading Poland. — Source

30

GRACKED WHITE IS THE NEW BLACK FOR BEEKEEPERS. Bees don't like dark colors, as they've evolved to be repelled by animals with dark hides. That's why beekeepers usually wear white when they're taking care of their hives. — Source

29

CRACKED.COM Lara Croft's creator fought against Lara's oversexualization. Even after giving Lara huge boobs (by accident, allegedly), designer Toby Gard was unwilling to turn her into a sex object. Не has gone on record saying that he and the other devs refused a request by higher-ups to get Lara nude. — Source

28

Betamax failed because Sony said no to porn. While not the only reason, Sony's refusal to allow their Betamax tapes to be used for adult movies was a big reason why they lost out to VHS. By the time the 1980s - - when - - - rolled around, erotic films accounted for more than half of video tape sales. 009.70 THIS SIDE FACES FORMARD JOSAV ЭНӀ HONOL 10N 00 200 du opinin CRACKED.COM VIDEOCASSETTE L-500 — Source

27

Many Victorians were against saying Merry Christmas. To Victorians, the word merry entailed all manner of drunken debauchery. So the pious (and the stuffy) decided that wishing others a Happy Christmas was more Christ-like. The two greetings co-existed until the 1840s. CRACKED.COM — Source

26

Calvin and Hobbes

Bill Watterson turned down Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. Watterson is so dead-set against a movie or TV adaptation of Calvin and Hobbes, that he said no to Lucas and Spielberg in the '80s. Не has nothing against animation, and in fact he loves it - he just sees no benefit in giving that treatment to his strip. CRACKED.COM — Source

25

John Belushi

BELUSHI! NO! THAT SAMURAI'S FOR REAL! Spider-Man fought a samurai along with John Belushi. The entire SNL cast showed up in a Marvel Team-Up comic in the 1970s - not as a cameo, but to actually team up with Spider-Man. The story leads to Belushi and Spidey battling a samurai together. CRACKED.COM — Source

24

CRACKED.COM The director of Blade: Trinity hired a biker gang to protect him from Wesley Snipes. Snipes was really difficult to work with - even attempting to strangle director David S. Goyer once (at least according to Patton Oswalt). That night, Goyer approached a biker gang in a strip club and offered to pay for their drinks if they showed up on set the next day. — Source

23

Katy Perry

CRACKED.COM Katy Perry used to pretend she was Zooey Deschanel. Newly arrived in Los Angeles in 2002, a teen- aged Perry really enjoyed the club scene - and would often pass herself off as Deschanel to be admitted into clubs. I had no money, and I had no clout, I had nothing, and sometimes I would pose as to get into the club, Perry admitted in 2020. — Source

22

McDonalds' stopped serving Heinz ketchup suddenly after 40 years. HEINZ -1869 TOMATO KETCHUP AUX TOMATES 375 mL The reasoning was pretty simple - a Burger King exec became the head of Heinz, which ended Heinz' 40-year relationship with McDonalds'. CRACKED.COM — Source

21

According to science, people definitely walk around in circles when lost. The proposed explanation is that that's the result of the brain trying to create a meandering path, but making lots of small errors that happen to favor one particular direction - which turns the path into a circle. CRACKED.COM — Source

20

Baggers who work in grocery stores on US military installations don't get paid. Their only income is from tips - they don't get an hourly wage at all. CRACKED.COM — Source

19

Kurt Cobain, really really was not a fan of Smells Like Teen Spirit. Не said, I can barely, especially on a bad night, get through 'Teen Spirit.' I literally want to throw my guitar down and walk away. CRACKED.COM — Source

18

Elvis

The oldest known Elvis autograph is in an old book, from 1948. Elvis, then 13, signed his name on a library card in that book in 1948 (it's English Fairy Tales). CRACKED.COM — Source

17

Jonah Hill only got paid $60,000 to star in The Wolf of Wall Street. He'd really wanted to work with Martin Scorsese, so he accepted the ridiculously low pay. On the other hand, Leonardo DiCaprio, who was also a producer, was paid about $10 million. CRACKED.COM — Source

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16

Back in the day, Pamela Anderson got Hepatitis С by sharing tattoo needles. EX She shared them with Tommy Lee, her husband at the time, and they told her she had 10 years to live - which ended up being completely wrong, and she announced in 2015 that she was officially cured. CRACKED.COM — Source

15

Terminator

Terminator used time travel to make 08 MIRI the movie cheaper. Setting an entire movie in the future costs a lot of money-money which no one would give to James Cameron at that point in his career. So he came up with the time travel angle, to be able to afford the movie about a killer cyborg he wanted to direct. CRACKED.COM — Source

14

Delivery Cats

GRACKED.COM Belgium attempted to use cats to deliver mail. In 1879, in the city of Liège, the Belgian Society for the Elevation of the Domestic Cat had the idea of using cats in the same way as carrier pigeons, giving them small waterproof postbags. The results were disappointing, and the experiment was cancelled. — Source

13

CRACKED.COM M Nintendo owns a Mario porn parody. Super Hornio Brothers was released in 1993, to cash in on the (not much better) Super Mario Bros. live action movie. Nintendo bought the movie to prevent it from being released. Years later, though, the film leaked online and went viral. — Source

12

The Food Pyramid exists to prop up agriculture. The Food Pyramid created by the USDA includes stuff that isn't exactly good for you-because it is heavily influenced by the agricultural lobby. No one needs to have that much bread and pasta, but refined grains have to be sold, so there it is. CRACKED.COM — Source

11

Organ Donations in Movies

Movies scare people out of donating their organs. Organ donation in the U.S. is highly regulated-which doesn't stop movies and TV shows from portraying it as a shady business, when not straight horror. These bullcrap clichés have scared a lot of people from becoming organ donors. GRAGKED.COM — Source

10

Angela Lansbury moved overseas to get away from Charles Manson. In the late 60s, Lansbury's children weren't in the safest environments: Her son Anthony had drug problems, and her daughter Deirdre rolled with the Manson family. So she up and moved the family to Ireland, saving Deirdre from being involved in any murders. CRACKED.COM — Source

9

Screamers

Professional screamers work in movies. Very often, the screams you hear in movies don't come from the stars, but from specialized actors. These pros have a full range of screams, which sound editors combine and finesse to get the perfect shriek for every occasion. CRACKED.COM — Source

8

Bruce Willis

Bruce Willis (allegedly) tried to ruin a Game of Thrones scene. For the showdown between the Mountain and the Viper, producers made a deal with yacht owners to have a clean shot of the sea - except that one person (said to be Bruce Willis) had to be an a-hole about it, and started zooming back and forth, trying to get his boat on camera. CRACKED.COM — Source

7

Friends was almost destroyed by Coca-Cola. For Friends second season, Соса-Соӏа spent $30 million to promote Diet Coke with the help of the hip twenty-somethings. The campaign was huge - so huge, in fact, that people got sick of seeing the characters everywhere, and rankings plummeted. (They got better, though.) et CRACKED.COM — Source

6

Jazz was considered a health hazard. In the 1920s and '30s, many communities banned jazz on the grounds that it was allegedly a threat to public health. Rulings were enacted blaming the music for all kinds of calamities, ranging from mental breakdowns to spontaneous miscarriages. CRACKED.COM — Source

5

Rainforests aren't the Earth's lungs. There are many good reasons to protect rainforests, but oxygen just isn't one of them. When you tally up the entire ecosystem (animals included), forests actually consume more oxygen than they produce. Most of the oxygen you breathe comes from algae in the ocean, not trees. CRACKED.COM — Source

4

Star Wars rips off French comics. If you're familiar with Moebius, or with Pierre Christin and Jean-Claude Mézières' Valérian and Laureline, you might have noticed that Star Wars borrows heavily from them. Mézières in particular claimed to be dazzled, jealous and angry about the whole thing. CRACKED.COM — Source

3

CRACKED.COM Keanu Reeves was in an awful movie because someone forged his signature. Keanu never signed up to play a serial killer in 2000's The Watcher - but some friend signed up for him. Keanu couldn't prove that wasn't his signature on the contract, so he was forced to make a movie he wanted nothing to do with. — Source

2

Power Rangers

CRACKED.COM Spider-Man basically invented the Power Rangers. As you probably know, Spider-Man has a giant robot in the Japanese series from the 1970s. As it turns out, giant transforming robots were a new thing back then, and Spider-Man's success convinced Japan to try it in other shows - eventually leading to Power Rangers. — Source

1

Half of all sloths die while pooping. Sloths are permanently constipated - they only poop once a week, losing up to one-third of their body weight in each bowel movement. And for some reason they always do it on the ground, where predators can get to them. Up to half of all sloths are eaten while going to the bathroom. CRACKED.COM — Source

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