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Tasty tidbits

40 Zesty Bits of Trivia That Will Overwhelm Your Brain’s Taste Buds

February 11, 2025

Your tongue might be able to taste sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami (whatever that is), but your brain can only taste the facts. A particularly tasty fact sends a complex signal through your brain that opens a floodgate of dopamine, and it’s a pretty singular, satisfying feeling.

We won’t waste any more time explaining it when we can just show you with the first of many tasty facts right here!

40

Mountain Dew

REFRESHING SERVING OF SODA TRIVIA... CRACKED.COM MOUNTAIN DEW WAS A NICKNAME FOR MOONSHINE. The soda was originally created as a drink mixer. — Source

39

Handshakes

HANDSHAKE A STRONG can transmit near twice as much bacteria compared to a weak one. Of the alternatives, the FIST BUMP is the least likely to get you

38

Complaining

BAD HABITS that are good for you COMPLAINING helps us bond and process emotions. As long as you don't dwell on your feelings, it's actually worse to keep them inside, so open that emotional pressure valve and make like Queen Elsa. CRACKED — fizkes/Shutterstock
The New York Times

37

Nicole Richie

Nicole Richie has a tattoo that says virgin. Viigs L She got the tattoo when she was 16 supposedly because she's a Virgo. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED COM — Source: E!

36

Chaplin

40 Zesty Bits of Trivia That Will Overwhelm Your Brain’s Taste Buds — Source: LA Times

35

Money

A 2011 study from the Netherlands showed that people who are good at holding their pee are also good at long-term money management. GRACKED.COM — Source

34

The Simpsons

The characters' yellow was designed to be eye-catching An animator showed the color to Matt Groening who approved because when you're flicking through channels with your remote control, and a flash of yellow goes by, you'll know you're watching The Simpsons. CRACKED.COM — Source: 14 Facts About The Simpsons (In Case You Run Out Of Episodes To Watch)

33

Tic Tacs

Tic Tac mints are named after the sound their container makes. REFRESHING LITTLE LIFTS tic tac fresh mint CRACKED.COM Before the rebrand, they were known only as Re- freshing Mints. In 1970, Ferrero was inspired by the tic and the tac sounds heard when you open and close the little plastic container. — Source: 15 Ice-Cold Facts To Beat The Summer Heat

32

The Lord of the Rings

The Tolkien Estate weren't the biggest fans of Peter Jackson's LOTR movies. Specifically, JRR Tolkien's son Christopher said that they eviscerated the book by making it an action movie for young people aged 15 to 25 (and just imagine what he'd say about The Hobbit). CRACKED.COM — Source: 13 Writers Who Hate Movie Adaptations Of Their Work

31

Ben Franklin

Benjamin Franklin tried to do away with the letter С. No, he didn't have a grudge against that particular letter - he wanted to introduce a more phonetic alphabet, dropping unnecessary letters like С, which could be replaced with К or S, depending on the sirkumstanses. No one was interested. CRACKED COM — Source

30

Giraffes

NATURE'S DATING TIPS CRACKED.COM DRINK THEIR PEE A male giraffe will whack the female until she pees, then taste her urine to see where she is on her cycle. If she's in heat, he'll follow her around for a few days until he can successfully mate with her. — Source

29

Rollie Fingers

Rollie Fingers Oakland Athletics CRACKED.COM Fingers had recently won a team mustache-growing contest, so in his contract extension, he stipulated that he'd be provided the finest mustache wax money could buy. — Source: 15 Suspiciously Specific Clauses In Pro Athletes' Contracts

28

NASA

Source: LA Times

27

Dr. Phil

CRACKED.COM Dr. Phil used to race moto- cross. Не can still pop a wheelie on a dirt bike. — Source

26

Ancient Greece

Agathocles died via poisoned toothpick. The Greek tyrant was assassinated when using a toothpick that had been poison-soaked in 289 В.С. Oral hygiene sometimes kills. CRACKED.COM — Source

25

Guns

Turns out, the Wild West gave us the phrase riding shotgun (but not directly). In those days, someone with a shotgun or another weapon would sit next to a carriage driver, though they didn't call it riding shotgun. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source

24

Beach Bum Banana

CRACKED BANANAS ARE CURVED BECAUSE THEY GROW TOWARDS THE SUN. They evolved to do this because they grow in the rainforest where leafy foliage can block most of the sun's rays. — Chiquita / Minnetonka Orchards

23

Donnie Darko

EASTER EGGSTRA REFERENCES AND MEANINGS DOnnie Darko Comic books inspiration Director Richard Kelly said in the commentary that much of the way they filmed the movie was inspired by comics, as was the intention beams that flowed out from characters' chests. CRACKED.COM — Source: DVD Commentary

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22

Video Games

SUPER SMASH BROS. LUIGI MARIO DK LINK SAMUS C.FALCON NESS YOSHI KIRBY FOX PIKACHU JIGGLYPUFF 1PHMT 2PHA 3PHM 4 HMN CRACKED COM Super Smash Bros. was pitched as a 4-player brawler, but Nintendo did not initially want their licensed characters to appear. After the small team of developers added Mario, Link and Samus anyway, Nintendo liked the demo so much they granted them permission to use the characters. — Source

21

Sitcoms

Forgotten sitcoms 1957-1962 BACHELOR FATHER This sitcom told the story of, erm, a bachelor father who had to take care of his niece. The man had an Asian manservant, which was progressive representation for the time, but today is, What the hell do you mean he has an Asian manservant?? CRACKED.COM — Source

20

I Know What You Did Last Summer

Anne Heche Movies I Know What You Did Last Summer Anne Heche shot her scenes in two days. Director Jim Gillespie wanted an actress with a strong presence, as the character is essential to some plot points. The role took two days of work that required her to be scary (and she absolutely nailed it). CRACKED.COM — Wikipedia

19

Magnetic Tapes

Magnetic tapes were first invented in 1928 and became a common way to store media in the 1950's. GRACKED.COM Many people have opted for newer storage mediums such as hard disk drives or DVDS which has made magnetic tapes become forgotten about, however they still have many benefits that makes them a viable option compared to digital storage solutions. — On Track

18

Star Wars

George Lucas used The Empire Strikes Back as leverage against Fox. Once A New Hope became a megahit, Fox really didn't want another studio to get the sequel. So Lucas offered them distribution and home video rights for Empire, for seven years, if they gave him all Star Wars merchandising rights. They agreed, and he made bank. CRACKED.COM — Source

17

Dance Lesson Relief

WEIRD WORLD An Australian community got dance lessons as a form of crisis help. The community was affected by Australia's deadly brushfires and asked for water storage ... but all they were given instead was dance lessons. CRACKED.COM — Source

16

Freaks and Geeks

COMEDY NERD Lizzy Caplan auditioned for both Lindsay and Kim on Freaks and Geeks. But she wasn't right for Lindsay and wasn't tough enough for Kim, said creator Paul Feig-but they kept her on as Sara. CRACKED.COM — Source

15

J.K. Simmons

Oscar winner J.K. Simmons seems like a tough guy. m He's actually sweet. And chocolatey. Simmons, who played neo-Nazi prison leader Vern Schillinger i

14

Divorce

GRACKED.COM 60% of marriages at the age of 18 end up in a divorce. Only 30% marriages above the age of 2 3 fail. — Source

13

Superbad

BEHIND-THE-SCENESFACTS SUPERBAD Cowriters Rogen and Goldberg met in BAR MITZVAH CLASS GRACKED.COM They began writing Superbad while they were 13 years old -- mainly 'scenes of things that happened to us.' The characters started out 13 as well, aging as the writers got older. The script only took about ten years. — The Offcamera Show

12

Babies

40 Zesty Bits of Trivia That Will Overwhelm Your Brain’s Taste Buds — Source: The Aesthetics of Joy

11

Overfished to Oblivion

98% GONE IN 50 YEARS-THANKS, FISHING. CRACKED The oceanic whitetip shark used to be really common in the open ocean, but since 1970, the population has dropped by... almost all of it. That's because of indiscriminate fishing. — Smithsonian Magazine

10

The Plague

Londoners in the 1600s used fart jars to combat the plague. CRACKED.COM Londoners were advised to keep jars consisting of trapped fart odors, the idea was that the potent smell would somehow purify the air. — Source

9

Lawyers

LAWYERS ARE TWICE AS LIKELY TO STRUGGLE WITH DRINKING PROBLEMS THAN THE REST OF THE POPULATION. ACCORDING TO THE AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION, ONE IN FIVE ATTORNEYS SUFFERS FROM ALCOHOLISM. GRACKED.COM — Source

8

The U.S. Military

Between 1942 and 1964, the U.S. Military built an artificial island in the Pacific. Johnson Atoll, 860 mi southwest of Hawaii It was abandoned in 2004. We don't know how much it cost, but a comparable project in scope and scale would be the Japanese Kansai Airport. That was another artificial island built to support a landing strip, and it cost around $20 billion. CRACKED.COM www.urbanghostsmedia.com/2010/04/isolated-and-abandoned-military-airbase-johnston-atoll — Source

7

Einstein

Albert Einstein hated wearing socks He stopped wearing socks when he young, frustrated by how his big toe always made a hole. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source: BBC

6

Cemeteries

In the 1800s, before public parks were common, cemeteries were popular picnic spots for many GRACKED.COM While critics found the outings uncouth, oth- ers enjoyed gathering with family and friends and picnicking near their late loved ones' headstones. — Source

5

Hooters

Hooters used to operate an airline. SOUTH MYF Hooters Air got started in 2003, and every flight had two Hooters girls (who would come in from local restaurants). It folded after three years, and lost Hooters $40 million. CRACKED.COM — Source

4

Steven Spielberg’s Dad

Arnold Spielberg, Steven's dad, was an early, influential electronics engineer. He had a hand in designing 1950s GE mainframes, and won the Computer Pioneer Award from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. CRACKED.COM — Source: Variety

3

Pitch Perfect

When Adam Devine auditioned for Pitch Perfect, he thought it was about baseball. He was like Wow, there's a lot of singing in this baseball movie, and didn't have a song for his audition at all, so he had to improvise. CRACKED.COM — Source: Popsugar

2

Pop-Up Restaurant

CRACKED.COM saved by the Bell The show has a pop-up restaurant. Saved by The Max, in West Hollywood, is based on the Max in the show. It costs $40 a person, and you're encouraged to wear your best '90s gear. ICERS — Source: The Hollywood Reporter

1

McBain

Easter Eggs The Simpsons There's an entire McBain film (think Rambo meets Beverly Hills Cop) playing in the background of The Simpsons episodes through the years. CRACKED.COM — Source

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