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Time travel that tugs on the heartstrings

35 Trivia Tidbits That Will Knock Some Nostalgia Deposits Loose From Your Brain

June 03, 2024

No, we don’t have your grandmother’s cookies on this list. This is more of a collective nostalgia list, so if you were looking for something more personal, hit up your parents for some old photo albums or something.

It’d be near-impossible to find things that each of you are personally nostalgic for, so honestly, it’s pretty rude of you to expect that from us. Today we’ve got nostalgia’s big dogs. Decades of pop culture that’ll make you oldies smile on your way to your colonoscopy.

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35

Koji Kondo composed the Legend of Zelda theme music in just one night. THE LEGEND OF ZEADA During development, the Nintendo team used Ravel's Bolero as the theme, but they discovered at the last minute that it was still protected by copyright. GRACKED.COM — Source

34

Freddie Mercury wrote Crazy Little Thing Called Love in ten minutes on a guitar despite only knowing a few chords. CRACKED COM — Source

33

Busta Rhymes shattered a windshield when he first heard Eminem PARENTAL ADVISORY EXPLICIT CONTENT Busta Rhymes was on a tour bus when he first listened the Slim Shady LP and was so moved that he smashed his head against the bus' windshield. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source

32

Spice Girls' Wannabe is the catchiest pop song A year-long study done in 2014 showed that people recognized the song in an average of 2.3 seconds, compared to 5 seconds for other hit songs. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source

31

A-ha's TAKE ON ME blended live action and animation. Director Steve Barron and animators Michael Patterson and Candace Reckinger used a technique called rotoscoping, which involves tracing over live-action footage, frame by frame. Four months and over 3,000 drawings later, they had arguably the most iconic music video of all time. CRACKED — Source

30

Michael Jackson's THRILLER is so much more than a music video. In December 1983, the 13-minute short film was solely responsible for increasing MTV's ratings tenfold. It is the only music video to be inducted into the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress for being culturally, historically or aesthetically significant. CRACKED — Source

29

Rolling Stone said that Queen's BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY invented the music video. It only took four hours and £3,500 to make, but its success in 1975 had every record company thinking about video! Director Bruce Gowers became a star, and went on to make videos for the Bee Gees, Rod Stewart, Michael Jackson, and Prince. CRACKED — Source

28

MTV had a very fitting first music video. At 12:01a.m. on August 1st, 1981, Video Killed the Radio Star by The Buggles became the very first music video on MTV. The video was released in 1979, so the band definitely saw the changing of the guard and capitalized. CRACKED — Source

27

Tie-In Foods GRACKED.COM The height of commercialism brought with it the height of pop culture or celebrity tie-in prod- ucts. You could eat your Pac-Man cereal with some Star Wars cook- ies on the side and an Ecto Cooler and never worry that someone wasn't trying to sell you some- thing every second of the day. — Source

26

McPizza LICENSEE DE M° Donald's HAMBURGERS HAMBURGE STARES ARO DRIV Have Sol Quest 25 BILLION CRACKED CON At some point in the mid '80s, McDon- ald's realized that if they could just work out the only American favorite they didn't yet serve, they could be gods. Fortunately for all of us, they never managed to get the price low enough or the cooking process fast enough for the McPizza to be sustain- able in the long term, and by the '90s, the whole thing seemed like a drunken fever dream. — Source

25

Dr Pepper Gum WRIGLIVS Pepper Hubba cherry Bubba ARTIFICIALLY FLAVORE 5 PIECES GRAGKED.COM PUBBLE GUM Even though their soda failed, Hubba Bubba remained deter- mined to get into the soda game and finally found a winner (?) in soda-flavored gum with liquid centers, answering the question, What if Gushers, but it lasts way longer than anyone wants? — Source

24

Tobacco Gum CRACKED.COM The '80s were a wild time for the chewing gum business, which also insisted on announcing Have some practice chaw, kids! with the introduction of Big League Chew in 1980. The shredded strands of stickiness looked just like that weird-smelling stuff all their favorite baseball players and least-favorite uncle were always chewing. — Source

23

The first Harry Potter book OC 1999 published 1990 199 in 996 1997. 1999 1991 1992 1993 1994 the 1998 1995 1996 1997 J.K. Rowling says she 1996 regrets having different titles in the U.S. vs. worldwide. CRACKED.COM NOW YOU KNOW: THE '90s — Source

22

On April 17, 1991, the Dow Jones closed above 1948 994 3,000 1996 1999 1997 1987 for the first time. 093 1994 1995 1997 1998 1999 1990 1991 1992 The The world guts its stock in UI 1993 1994 1995 These days the the Dow closes at well over 27,000. 1990 1991 1994 NOW YOU KNOW: THE '90s CRACKED.COM — Source

21

The Human Genome Project was 1990 1991 1998 1999 1990 launched in 1990. So was the Hubble Space Telescope. 1995 NOW YOU KNOW: THE '90s CRACKED.COM — Source

20

The '90s are 1994 1995 1% 1992 1993 1994 sometimes called the Disney SORO 1991 99 Renaissance. 1993 1995 1990 999 1997 1994 It began in late 1989 with the wildly successful The Little Mermaid, 100 reached its peak in popularity with The Lion King in 1994, and ended in 1999 with Tarzan. 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1990 CRACKED.COM NOW YOU KNOW: THE '90s — Source

19

In 1995, Toy Story became the first feature-length 1992 film to be completely 1990 199 997 1998 1999 computer-animated. 995 1996 1997 MILL Its release 1990 ushered 1941 1999 in 002 a 1094 new 1995 993 era in visuals, for Hollywood. 1994 1995 1996 1993 1998 CRACKED.COM NOW YOU KNOW: THE '90s — Source

18

Some absolutely huge websites were 199 launched in the '90s. 1999 1948 1995 1994 1997 MAM 14.26 Sep 14:08 Tablet Alliage Beerbater Verlauf Fecabe - Associate the - m Schweler - Internal - منا Google Disney Google Deutschland Google home IMDb (1993), EBay (1995), Amazon (1994), GeoCities (1994), Netscape (1994), Yahoo! (1995), AltaVista (1995), ICQ (1996), Hotmail (1996), Google (1998), and Napster (1999). CRACKED.COM NOW YOU KNOW: THE '90s — Source

17

1991 was a big year for Nickelodeon cartoons. 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 993 1994 1995 1996 1999 It was the debut of their first animated series: Doug, 1995 1993 Rugrats, 1993 and Ren & Stimpy. 1992 1904 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 NOW YOU KNOW: THE '90s CRACKED.COM — Source

16

Pogs were a rip-off of the Japanese game Menko. Menko's been popular since the 1600s, travelling to Hawaii when Japanese people imigrated in the early 20th century. CRACKED.COM — Source

15

James Cameron didn't want My Heart Will Go On for Titanic, and Celine Dion didn't want to sing it Dion was convinced by her creepy husband-manager, and Cameron was convinced by her demo. Smart business move for both of them. CRACKED.COM — Source

14

STRANGER THINGS INSPIRATIONS E.T. THE EXTRA- TERRESTRIAL Steven Spielberg considered titles like Upon A Star and The Landing. Melissa Mathison's original script was titled E.T. and Me, which is suspiciously similar of the awful E.T. knockoff Mac and Me. CRACKED.COM — Source

13

STRANGER THINGS INSPIRATIONS FIRESTARTER This was going to be a John Carpenter movie, but Universal went with Mark L. Lester instead after The Thing's commercial failure. Now, no disrespect to Lester (he has done classics like Commando), but he's no John Carpenter. CRACKED.COM — Source

12

STRANGER THINGS INSPIRATIONS GHOSTBUSTERS The juvenile joke (and kickass climax) about crossing the streams wasn't in the script. Harold Ramis and Dan Aykroyd came up with the method to defeat Gozer at the last minute, and then changed earlier scenes to foreshadow it. CRACKED.COM — Source

11

STRANGER THINGS INSPIRATIONS THE GOONIES Sloth wears a Superman shirt as a reference to Superman, also directed by Richard Donner. And his Oakland Raiders shirt is a shout out to Sloth's own actor, John Matuszak, an actual NFL defensive lineman who played for the Raiders. CRACKED.COM — Source

10

STRANGER THINGS INSPIRATIONS IT The miniseries was going to be directed by George Romero, who had prepared thousands of pages' worth of scripts and notes. In the end, he didn't do it due to scheduling conflicts and the heavily shortened runtime. CRACKED.COM — Source

9

STRANGER THINGS INSPIRATIONS Treamy GREATEST HITS A NIGHTMARE ONELM STREET Did you know that Freddy Krueger has a greatest hits album? Is this a bigger insult to the character than that Fat Boys song? If you found this 1987 nightmare for just $1, would you buy it ironically? Because we totally would. CRACKED.COM — Source

8

STRANGER THINGS INSPIRATIONS POLTERGEIST JoBeth Williams did the mud scene like a pro - only to later find out those were actual human skeletons, not props. The FX artists got medical skeletons and dressed them up to look gross. CRACKED.COM — Source

7

STRANGER THINGS INSPIRATIONS HE THE Stanley STATING Kubrick and legendary Hollywood graphic designer Saul Bass went through 300 ideas for the movie's poster. Apparently, Bass wasn't fond of the final poster's color, and proposed to make it red instead of yellow too and for mools emphasis as mare CRACKED.COM — Source

6

STRANGER THINGS INSPIRATIONS THE IN THE THING The iconic title card is a direct copy of the one in 1951 original. It was shot by attaching the title to a fish tank full of smoke, and then attaching a black trash bag to that t - which was set on fire. THE ING FROM ANOTHER WORLdRACKED.COM — Source

5

STRANGER THINGS INSPIRATIONS STAND BY ME Director Rob Reiner kept making the young actors cry for real. For a scene, he told River Phoenix to think of a time an adult let him down, and Phoenix became unconsolable. On another occasion, he exasperatedly yelled at all of them. Cue the waterworks. CRACKED.COM — Source

4

CRACKED.COM ri of n SAMSUNG Official - - - Opening our slide phone before each use and sliding it closed when done used to be the coolest thing ever. It's definitely much betterthan a mere tap of a button. PLUS — Source

3

GRACKED.COM Skittles The Rainbow Tasted Better When The Green One's Were Lime! — Source

2

- Karen ready f @hotmail It sure was great giving people a mighty nudge Thomas S Are we when they weren't replying Karen say to your messages. I'm dow Thomas says: So I'll see you later then Karen says: Tonight? of course! Send Search A Last message received at 5:27 PM on 2/23/2006. Play the new MSN Messenger Games GRACKED.COM — Source

1

In the early 90's, McDonald's began offering baked pies, essentially phasing out KOONON M® FRIED APPLE PIES, the vastly superior, crispy, oozy, blister your tongue for life version. CRACKED.COM — Source

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