31 Random Bits of TV Trivia We Had Our Fingers Crossed Behind Our Backs While We Were Writing

We just hope you love these ever so much
31 Random Bits of TV Trivia We Had Our Fingers Crossed Behind Our Backs While We Were Writing
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Whist frolicking in the meadow, we found the perfect daisy, started plucking the petals, and repeating, “They’ll love these TV facts. They’ll love these TV facts not.” 

Sadly, we ended on the dreaded, “They’ll love these facts not,” so we had to just hope that crossing our fingers would reverse the daisy’s curse and get you loving these. 

Let us know if it worked!

Stranger Things

Actorvs Character STRANGER THINGS Millie Bobby Brown as Eleven She was only 12 when she debuted as Eleven, and at 19, she admitted she was over it. I'm definitely ready to wrap up. I feel like there's a lot of the story that's been told now. I'm very ready to say goodbye to this chapter of my life, and open new ones up. CRACKED

Hannah Montana

Actorvs Character HANNAH MONTANA Miley Cyrus as Hannah Montana She wanted so badly to be on a Disney show, but later said, I was made to look like someone that I wasn't, which probably caused body dysmorphia. I had been made pretty every day for so long, and then when I wasn't on that show, it was like, 'Who the f- am I? CRACKED

Parks and Rec

Eagleton, Indiana Mini PARKS & REC stary Surp Eagi Powner Gave Spea 20 Governmen QIA DE Gover oming visit of Fire and CRACKED GOM Michael Schur said the city was based on his hometown's neighboring rival Simsbury, Connecticut. (Though most Hoosiers would say this is clearly Carmel, Indiana.)

Riverdale

RIVERDALE LO The hysteria about Gryphons & & Gargoyles in Riverdale was based on something that actually happened. In the '80s, during the Satanic Panic, D&D was accused of being a gateway to devil worship. One Evangelical called D&D an occult tool that opens up young people to influence or possession by demons. CRACKED.COM

Bones

TEMPERANCE BONES BRENNAN is author KATHY REICHS. While Reichs has written books with a protagonist named Temperance Brennan, Emily Deschanel's character in Bones is based on Reichs herself, who is also a forensic anthropologist. CRACKED.COM

The Americans

The Americans wasn't inspired by Cold War-era spies or anything like that. It was based on the 2010 arrest of ten Russian spies that had operated in the U.S., pretending to be actual Americans. But people didn't seem to care about the incident at the time, so the series was set during the Cold War to make it more interesting. CRACKED.COM

HBO

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. HB CRACKED COM

Succession

COMEDY NERD CRACKED.COM McKay helped shape Succession. SUCCESSION McKay is Succession's executive producer. Не also directed the pilot, which meant he was involved in the casting of it, creating the style, the look, the music. I really, really enjoy doing that.

Jordan Peele

CRACKED.COM Jordan Peele He's a busy producer. Besides his own movies and shows, he has produced The Last O.G., Weird City, Hunters, Lovecraft Country, a 2019 docuseries on Lorena Bobbitt, the most recent version of The Twilight Zone, and 2021's reboot/sequel of Candyman.

The Rings of Power

June on prime video September 2 The Rings of Power It could have been a Netflix show, but Amazon outbid them for the book rights in 2017. CRACKED.COM

Shake It Up

SHAKE IT UP SELENA GOMEZ CRACKED.COM While Gomez sang the theme song for Zendaya's show, it wasn't the first time the two worked together. That would have been 2009, when both kid actors appeared in a Sears commercial. Welcome to the softer side of the Disney Channel.

Kenan & Kel

KENAN & KEL COOLIO CRACKED.COM Aaaaaah, here it goes. In the opinion of one TV Guide critic, Coolio's open is the best TV theme song of the past 20 years. Unless your intro features pulling up in a convertible with Kenan and Kel dancing in the back, just don't even try.

Orange Is the New Black

ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK REGINA SPEKTOR CRACKED.COM Spektor wrote You've Got Time especially for OITNB. Producer Kohan sort of gave me like, 'If it works, it works, says Spektor. And if it doesn't, don't worry, because I know ... you're not a machine. So just do it if you can.

The Good Place

EASTER EGGSTRA MEANINGS AND REFERENCES Welcome! Everything is fine. Lost Michael Schur took a lot of inspiration from Lost to create The Good Place, and even consulted with Lost and The Leftovers creator Damon Lindelof about the existential themes in his work. The influence can be seen throughout the show, most notably in the season two finale that draws on The Constant episode of Lostwhere two people connect with each other through space and time. The Good Place CRACKED.COM

How I Met Your Mother

How I Met Your Mother A real engagement happened on the show. Timothy Russo was friends with one of the writers, and used that connection to get him and his girlfriend Jana Rugan a gig as extras. It was there that he proposed to Jana, and it stayed in the episode. CRACKED.COM

Bob’s Burgers

Bob's Burgers The show was supposed to be about a cannibal family. In Loren Bouchard's original pitch, the quirky, loving family made their burgers out of people meat. Coming from Adult Swim, he figured a dark angle was the best way to get the show noticed. CRACKED.COM

Brooklyn Nine-Nine

Brooklyn Nine-Nine The cast all got police gun safety training. Andy Samberg stated that he and the rest of the cast went through gun training before shooting the series. The producers wanted the police to be portrayed as accurately as possible with firearms. CRACKED.COM

The Queen’s Gambit

The pretty big homage to a French artist in THe Queen's GAMBIT When Harmon is adopted and walks into her new home for the first time, Alma (her adopted mother) shows her some Rosa Bonheur prints on the walls. A lot of the French artist's life and struggles show up in the series. Bonheur's mother, for instance, had to raise her alone thanks to an absent dad. Her mother gave piano lessons to make money, and died when Bonheur was still young. CRACKED.COM

Star Trek

Star Trek came up with transporters to make the TV show filmable. Initially, the Enterprise crew was supposed to use shuttles to land on planets. But that would have a) been too expensive, and b) ruined the show's pacing (imagine having to watch Kirk, Spock, and Bones sitting around and waiting for backup). The solution? Fancy, hi-tech, instantaneous teleportation. CRACKED.COM

Yogi Bear

Yogi Bear wears a collar and tie to make him easy to animate. In the 1950s, TV animation was taking off and producers were figuring out how to stay in the black. For Yogi Bear, they decided they needed to be able to reuse the same image of Yogi's torso, while animating his head. The solution? Separate his head and body with a collar and tie. CRACKED.COM

Monty Python

Spam got its name from a Monty Python sketch. Sure, it ultimately comes from canned pork. But mass unsolicited email got named spam after the Monty Python joke where the items on a cafeteria menu just keep getting replaced by spam, and eventually the full dialogue becomes just spam spam spam spam spam. CRACKED.COM

Game of Thrones

Some early reviews called HBO's Game of Thrones kids' fare, with things for grown-ups put in. GAME THRONES It was boy fiction with a heart of geek that never lets the rest of us in, full of favorites of the infantile. CRACKED.COM

Breaking Bad

Some critics quickly dismissed Breaking Bad as being Malcolm in the Meth Lab. 35 Br eaking 56 Bad The New York Times even called the first few episodes a hard slog, that lacked the originality and sparkle of AMC's first hit show, Mad Men. CRACKED.COM

Scrubs

In Scrubs, J.D.'s childhood living room is a carbon copy of the 8 Simple Rules living room. It was shown in a flashback in which John Ritter played J.D.'s dad; Ritter also played the dad in 8 Simple Rules. CRACKED.COM

Mr. Rogers

Mr. Rogers was inducted into the TV'Hall of Fame by a man who appeared on his show as a boy. CRACKED.COM In 1981, Jeffrey Erlanger appeared on Mr. Rogers' TV series where he described to the audience what it was like to be handicapped and in a wheelchair. 18 years later, Jeff surprised Mr. Rogers with an appearance during his induction into the Television Academy Hall of Fame.

The Office

The Office saved someone's life. CRACKED.COM A 21-year-old man from Arizona saved a woman's life using CPR he learned watching an episode of The Office.

Breaking Bad

Laura Fraser claimed to speak fluent German. BREAKING BAD CRACKED.COM Fraser said Ja! to the first German question she was asked, which happened to be: Do you speak German?

Bagdad Cafe

WHOOPI called it quits BAGDAD CAFE CRACKED.COM Goldberg dumped her own sitcom after just nine episodes of Season 2, citing a dispute with producers. Months earlier, the show canned its Season 1 producers when Whoopi couldn't get along with them either. Low ratings had doomed the show either way.

Blue’s Clues

John Cena auditioned for Blue's Clues. After Steve's replacement on Blue's Clues, Donovan Patton, left, the show went off the air for 13 years until it was rebooted in 2019. One of the thousands of replacements considered for Patton was John Cena. CRACKED.COM

Stephen Colbert

The International Space Station has a treadmill named C.O.L.B.E.R.T. after Stephen Colbert. CRACKED.COM Stephen Colbert used his show The Colbert Report to encourage his viewers to write in votes to use Colbert during a naming contest that NASA held.

Will Smith and Uncle Phil

Will Smith is now older than James Avery (Uncle Phil) was at the beginning of The Fresh Prince of Bel l Air. CRACKED.COM

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