45 Choice Trivia Tidbits We Acquired From A Dude Who Needed Money

Yes, there were female gladiators and yes, they fought topless
45 Choice Trivia Tidbits We Acquired From A Dude Who Needed Money

We’re usually not the type to buy facts. But every once a while you run into somebody in the back of a horse trailer parked out behind a frozen pizza supplier who has a few to move. We looked'em over and couldn't say no. Sealed the deal with a frozen pizza, dude cooked it right there - had a pizza oven right in the thing. We of course burnt the roof of our mouth but he slapped us on the back and we went on our way. So fire up a Totinos and enjoy. Your mouth will heal.

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Yeah, man, money's just money

The expression 'Money is the root of all evil, is actually For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. So, it's not the money that made you bad, it's your lust for it you greedy bastard.

Shoes make the irrational moneybags

The most expensive shoes in the world are Dorothy's red slippers from The Wizard of Oz. Valued at $6 million, they are the world's most valuable piece of pop culture memorabilia.

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"You owe me forty three thousand Mickeys"

The nation of Niue puts pop culture icons on their money. Niue, an island nation in the Pacific, is so tiny that it doesn't have much of an economy. A sizable portion of its revenue comes from the pop culture coins they mint. While the coins are certainly legal tender, their true value comes from selling them as collector items.

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The American Pie reboot will happen - heard it here first

Male virgins are ridiculed throughout pop culture. The mad rush to lose it frames sex as a personal goal, and women's bodies as a means to an end.

Hey, its not The Noid's fault

Would it kill you to avoid THE NOID? Are we that desperate for nostalgia that we're paying good Funko Pop money for third-tier, last-century pizza mascots? We don't need to memorialize every bit of pop culture ephemera - that's what Family Guy is for.

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Especially bad if you're ticklish

In most pop culture depictions of medieval writing, people are shown using decorous feathery quills. Now imagine writing with this fluffy thing. Would the stroke of feather against your hand be a hindrance, or at least an annoyance? The people in the Middle Ages thought so too, and that's why the actual quill used was more like this.

This scans

Rosie O'Donnell collects McDonald's Happy Meal toys. T O'Donnell owns over 2, .500 of the little pop culture figurines and toys. Her fans also regularly send her new items to add to her collection.

This very much sounds like something Tarantino did on purpose

Quentin Tarantino's 1997 crime film, Jackie Brown, was cast by a woman named Jaki Brown.

Now that's a show

Myth: In most depections in pop culture, gladiators are male. Reality: There were female gladiators too. Some of them appear to have been wealthy upper-class women voluntarily bound to the arena in search of thrills and notoriety. Eventually Roman society became less tolerant of noble women fighting and banned their recruitment and participation. And yes, they fought topless.

Definitely the back side of the Mike Myers bell curve

Instead of being mischievous, Mike Myers plays The Cat in the Hat as someone who is annoying and unpleasant. Universal Studios Spewing pop culture references and the occasional dirty joke works for Austin Powers and Wayne Campbell, not this timeless Dr. Seuss character.

Somebody get Peter Weller some pants

Robocop's suit was so big and unwieldy that he would not fit into a police car. So whenever you see him- he's not wearing pants.

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"Et Tu Gravity Falls"

Gravity Falls' Latin gibberish contains scathing pop culture criticism. The fake Latin incantation Dipper uses to enter Stan's mind includes the phrase 'Inceptus Nolunus overatus, or, Nolan's Inception is overrated.

You sometimes have to be mildly uncomfortable for your pirate movie

In Pirates of the Caribbean, Mackenzie Crook had to wear two contact lenses in the same eye. It's uncomfortable, but not painful, he says.

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You don't need friends like those, Biz

Biz Markie never planned to sing the chorus on Just A Friend. He'd invited singers to the studio, but none of them showed up.

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"Somebody go to Walgreens and get this kid some new readers."

Daniel Radcliffe was allergic to the first glasses they gave him for the Harry Potter movies. The skin around his eyes broke out in whiteheads and spots, and it took everyone a week to figure out the nickel silver in the rims was causing that. They quickly made him new ones out of rolled gold.

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Another day at the office parked offshore

An oil tanker with five crew members has been stuck offshore for almost four years. The company that owns the tanker started having money troubles at that point and stopped paying their salaries, so they've survived only thanks to donations. They're still negotiating with the company to pay them, and they can't leave the ship as that's the only leverage they have.

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"Hey dude - that's upside-down."

The MoMA hung a painting upside down for 47 days before someone realized. A visitor was one who caught the wrong orientation of Matisse's Le Bateau.

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Didn't catch this - not gonna lie

Zoe Saldana's involvement with the Star Trek franchise in 2009 was foretold in The Terminal (2005). In the 2005 film, Zoe plays Dolores, an immigration officer/Trekkie who can be seen doing a Vulcan salute.

Can we please not drop a bag of Cheetos in there?

A cave in Romania is possibly the most isolated ecosystem on Earth. Movile cave has been isolated from the rest of the world for 5.5 million years, and it contains 33 species found nowhere else.

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So THIS is why guys color their hair

The color of a lion's mane indicates his testosterone level. The darker the mane, the higher the lion's testosterone - and the better his health is likely to be, and the more attractive he is to female lions.

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Think on it and get back to us

Aladdin's Genie makes a lot of pop culture references. The Genie has been trapped in his lamp for 10,000 years. When he pops out, he makes constant jokes about the early 1990s. What if the movie takes place in the distant future?

But do they have night shades?

Bats aren't blind. Although many also use echolocation, they have sight that is well-adjusted for the dark.

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Never let Lorne Michaels pick the music

The Bohemian Rhapsody opening sequence of Wayne's World was an instant pop culture hit and managed to revive the classic Queen single... ...but the song was almost cut in favor of Guns N' Roses. Producer Lorne Michaels wanted to use a Guns N' Roses tune because they had a #1 single at the time, but Mike Myers would have none of it, threatening to quit if they didn't use the 'inherently comedic' Queen song. (For which he had dozens of jokes, naturally.)

Green meant 'let's party'

If a pirate ship had a red flag flying, it meant no life would be spared. A black flag signaled quarter would be offered.

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Cicada's are not Fantastic Four fans, like at all

Prime numbers show up in the movement patterns of some cicada species. They leave their underground habitats every 7, 13, or 17 years - - all three of those are prime numbers. Apparently, that's the best way they can avoid predators.

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That's one small step for a stoner ...

Pizza Hut delivered a pizza to space.The company paid $1 million for the promotional gesture of sending pizza to the International Space Station. The pizza had salami instead of pepperoni due to the meat's shelf-life.

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Still genius today

Jimi Hendrix's Purple Haze is about alien planets, not drugs. The song's title comes from the purplish haze of sunspots mentioned in Philip José Farmer's Night of Light. Inspired by this science-fiction novel, Hendrix wrote a long poem about the history of Neptune, which he then pared down into his legendary song.

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Sorry to break your Skittles reality

All Skittles actually taste the same. All the differently-colored candy pills are made of the same thing - sugar. The differences you experience come from fragrances and colors (yes, even colors can trick the tasting part of your brain). So you're smelling (and seeing) the rainbow, rather than actually tasting it.

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Just takin' a little off the top is all

Data security firms just pay hackers off. You can't pay off hackers who encrypt your data with ransomware - that'd only encourage them. That's why some companies hire recovery services, even if it's more expensive. Plot twist: Often these services just pay the ransom and pocket the difference.

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Bitcoin should have been a Papa John's currency and that's it

The first thing ever bought with Bitcoin was Papa John's pizza. Every May 22, cryptophiles celebrate Bitcoin Pizza Day, the anniversary of the first ever crypto transaction. On that date in 2010, programmer Laszlo Hanyecz plunked down 10,000 Bitcoin for two pizzas from Papa John's. Не could get a lot more pizza with that today, but Hanyecz has no regrets.

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Shoot, potatoes are just not the same

The Martian cut a reference to cannibalism. In Andy Weir's novel, astronaut Beth Johanssen (Kate Mara in the movie) explains that if the ship fails to get supplies for the trip back to Mars, the rest of the crew will commit suicide - and she will eat them. The supplies wouldn't be the only source of food, she posits.

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Tough break for Big Furry

The last mammoths are more recent than the Egyptian pyramids. Wooly mammoths died out about 4,000 years ago. By then, the furry mega-phants could only be found on Wrangel Island, in the Arctic Ocean. It wasn't a dignified ending for the giants - their population got so small that it was extreme inbreeding that finally did them in.

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Forget that genealogy stuff - CORPS!

Taking an at-home DNA test can destroy your military career. If you're a member of the armed forces, a 23andMe test can cause worse than awkward family conversations. The tests can find genetic markers for medical conditions that'd get you booted out of the military, where you are not protected by the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act.

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This was a spectacularly stupid idea

THE WHITE GOD OF KILIMANJARO! Kyluuujity DC's response to Black Panther was... yet another white superhero. After Marvel launched Black Panther, DC followed suit with their own Africa-based hero: B'wana Beast, the Jungle Master - a white dude who saved black villagers with his animal powers. The comic was soon cancelled, as no artist wanted to touch this racist crap with a 10-foot pencil.

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British Airways is Blofeld to Virgin's Bond

ROYAL British Airways deleted their competition from Casino Royale. When negotiations with British Airways to show their planes fell through, Casino Royale went with their competition, Virgin Atlantic. BA responded in a very mature way, by removing the Virgin logo (and a Richard Branson cameo) from their in-flight version of the movie.

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Pa Kent wins the lifetime achievement award for old guy advice

Superman used Spider- Man's catchphrase long before Spider-Man. Because of these great powers ... you have a great responsibility. Uncle Ben? Nope - Pa Kent to Clark in Superman Comes to Earth, the first-ever live-action version of the hero. The serial came out in 1948, a full 14 years before the webslinger was created.

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Everybody should have an imaginary minister

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.

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Pay your dues - or else

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.

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Gonzo'd be a great coffee spokesmuppet

The early Muppets were violent coffee peddlers. Jim Henson first flaunted his proto-Muppets in a series of ads for Wilkins Coffee, which were essentially short skits about a Kermit-ish dude murdering another puppet. The campaign was a huge success, helping Henson launch hismemorable (and more kid-friendly) shows.

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Sorry, no it was just the war

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).

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Prince probably killed it at Oregon Trail

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.

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