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25 Generic Bits of Trivia We Had to Buy From the Camp Trading Post Because Our Mom Forgot to Pack the Good Ones

At least you won’t feel like you’re missing out

25 Generic Bits of Trivia We Had to Buy From the Camp Trading Post Because Our Mom Forgot to Pack the Good Ones

August 01, 2024

Okay, so you were sent off into the world without a hearty batch of facts. It’s totally fine. We luckily live in a world with nuggets of knowledge around every corner. Look at us for example. We didn’t come into the office with any of these facts this morning. But one-by-one, they reared their brainy little heads, and we got to learn a whole lot before lunch.

And because we feel bad that you’re sitting there without any of your own, you can have some of ours.

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25

Con Air was written as an indy drama. In script form, the movie was a little character- driven piece. Then it landed on the desk of Jerry Bruckheimer, Hollywood's biggest let's just blow s#!t up producer in the '90s. The movie was tweaked accordingly, becoming an explosion-packed blockbuster starring Nicolas Cage's mullet. CRACKED.COM — Source

24

Morrissey

Morrissey won an award for how awful he is at writing sex. You know Morrissey for his music, and if you're lucky, you don't know him as a writer. His 2015 novel List of the Lost won the Literary Review's Bad Sex Award, for its hypothetically sexy run-on sentences. The book contains baffling word assortments like, the pained frenzy of his bulbous salutation extenuating his excitement. CRACKED.COM — Source

23

The Crips

The Crips began as a neighborhood watch. According to Stanley Tookie Williams, he started recruiting other boys to form a watch against the street gangs that troubled South Central Los Angeles. Eventually, Tookie's group gained strength and became the Crips, one of the largest gangs in the world themselves. Oops. CRACKED COM — Source

22

30 Rock's gay bomb was real. It isn't just some absurdist joke - it really happened. In 1994, the U.S. Air Force commissioned a laboratory to experiment with pheromones and aphrodisiacs as a weapon, to cause homosexual 2 F - I J - I I 1 I I I I I Y I . do I I , i I I ي . 1 ! 2 I I 1 E I . the I 2 & I 1 I : I 1 a I behavior among the enemy. PENTAGON REJECTS SO-CALLED GAY BOMB - - - - - - Yuman - — Source

21

Back in the 18th century, Fraternities college societies were less were born about keg, togas, and as literary hazing, and more about societies. debating topics like politics, literature, and religion. The first fraternal organization as we know them today, Phi Beta Карра Society, was established in 1776, and more soon followed. CRACKED.COM — Source

20

The NRA used to be pro-gun control (albeit for racist reasons). Only in the '70s did the NRA become the advocate for gun rights we know today. For much of their history, they held the opposite view and pushed for stricter gun regulation Except that this was in part to keep guns off the hands of black activists, like the Black Panthers in the '60s. CRACKED.COM — Source

19

The NYPD employs beekeepers. Bees can't break the law (we hope), but as many New Yorkers keep bees on their rooftops, the lil' buzzers often swarm and cause trouble. When that happens, the police will send one in of their beekeeper cops - not to shoot at the bees (again, we hope), but to help remove the swarm. CRACKED.COM — Source

18

HBO's first original programming was polka. Back when it was a regional TV provider that only broadcast movies nine hours a day, HBO first flexed their production muscles by broadcasting the Pennsylvania Polka Festival in 1973. It was a really long way to robot cowboys and dragon boobs. HBO CRACKED COM — Source

17

The test run for D-Day was as deadly as the actual D-Day. Exercise Tiger was a full-scale practice landing, performed on a British beach - and through a combination of live ammunition, bureaucratic screwups, and German boats showing up uninvited, hundreds died. The entire operation was covered up and forgotten about for a long time. CRACKED.COM — Source

16

25 Generic Bits of Trivia We Had to Buy From the Camp Trading Post Because Our Mom Forgot to Pack the Good Ones — Source

15

For a hot second, the Flash was called Flush Man in Argentina. N In the '90s, Argentinian publisher Perfil scored the rights to print DC's comics - except that, as there was a magazine titled Flash, they called the hero Flush Man, accidentally making him poop-related. Everyone hated the stupid name change, and the comic bombed. GRACKED.COM — Source

14

x Being a hardcore fan can be bad for your self-esteem. There's nothing wrong about being a fan of something, and it can be for you - in moderation. If fandom becomes too large a part of your identity, your sense of self-worth will take a hit when your heroes release a bad album, make a sucky movie, or lose a big game. CRACKED.COM — Source

13

The Ninja Turtles caused Hitler's death. Archie Comics' Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures was supposed to be closer to the cartoon than to the bloody source material. And yet, it featured plotlines like the turtles going back in time, kicking Hitler's ass, and spooking him into shooting himself. CHOK 12 CRACKED.COM — Source

12

SNL put Leia in a gold bikini years before George Lucas did. In 1978, Fisher hosted SNL dressed as Princess Leia. During a beach skit, Leia beams down (yeah, let's ignore that part) and takes off her robes, revealing her bathing suit t-a gold bikini. This was five years before Return of the Jedi. CRACKED.COM — Source

11

Tom Holland learned on social media that he was Spider-Man. After a grueling seven months of auditioning, Holland finally learned that he landed the part - not through a call from his agent, but while scrolling on Marvel's Instagram account, just like any random person. Only later did the studio reach out to him. our ENGLISH Instagram 2 Continue CRACKED.COM — Source

10

CRACKED.COM Guillermo del Toro was very disappointed with a UFO. Del Toro claims he and a friend saw a UFO once - which he describes not as majestic or breathtaking, but as crappy. It was a flying saucer, he said, so clichéd, with lights . It's so sad. You heard the man, aliens - you need to up your design game! — Source

9

Scorpions are able to exist on a diet that would make most Instagram detoxes seem gluttonous. When there's not much prey to be found, they're able to live on a single insect a year. And look great doing it! CRACKED.COM — Source

8

Peter Falk wasn't the first to play Columbo. Bert Freed played the lieutenant (sans raincoat) in an episode of the 1960 series The Chevy Mystery Show. But it was just a one-off thing, and the character still didn't have any of the shabby charm Falk brought to the part years later. CRACKED.COM — Source

7

The element that holds the distinction of the world's highest boiling point is Rhenium. Boiling at roughly 10,100 degrees Fahrenheit, it's also one of the world's worst things to try to cook ramen in. CRACKED.COM — Source

6

Where's Waldo was censored over a microscopic nipple. Never mind Waldo himself - would you be able to find a nipple in a Where's Waldo beach scene? Yeah, we know you would - and so were several American mothers in the early 90s, who managed to get the books removed from library shelves over the tiny ink dot. CRACKED.COM — Source

5

CRACKED.COM Your hamster comes from an incestuous couple. The Syrian hamster is by far the most common domesticated hamster - and every single one you can find in pet stores is descended from two siblings, the only survivors of a litter caught in the wild in 1930. — Source

4

Allow us to make moray eels even less cuddly by telling you that they have two separate sets of teeth. One set is in their mouth, you know... where they're supposed to be. The other is in their throat, and we hate it. CRACKED.COM — Source

3

CRACKED.COM Stevie Nicks' Stand Back was inspired by Prince. When Prince's Little Red Corvette came on her car's radio, Nicks stopped her honeymoon to write the similarly synth-driven Stand Back. Then she contacted Prince to split the royalties, and was amazed when he showed up at the studio and did the synth part himself. — Source

2

Did you know that Maine has an official state cat? It is, as the name suggests, the Maine Coon. Maine also has an official state cat lady. Her name is Tabitha and her house smells TERRIBLE. CRACKED.COM — Source

1

CRACKED.COM George McFly was going to be a boxer. George becoming a science fiction writer was thematically appropriate, but that wasn't the original plan. Initially, the left hook he gives Biff was going to set him on the path to becoming a boxer. — Source

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