29 TV Trivia Nuggets from Pop Culture History for Tuesday, December 2, 2025

More of your favorite TV facts after these short messages
29 TV Trivia Nuggets from Pop Culture History for Tuesday, December 2, 2025
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Don't worry, the “short messages” we referred to in our little opening line are not commercials. Because this is a list of TV facts, we thought of things related to TV, but we really just meant that you'll have to read these short messages before getting to the facts themselves. 

Well, we guess you don't have to read this. There's nothing stopping you from scrolling down to the facts at any moment. But hey, you've come this far, so why not finish the job? We went through all the trouble of writing this, and there's only one more sentence separating you from these top notch random TV facts. Hope you enjoy!

The Office

John Krasinski owns the secret santa teapot from The office. According to Krasinski, the show's prop master shipped him several of Jim's props after the show wrapped up - including the teapot that was a landmark in Jim and Pam's relationship. CRACKED COM

Ice Road Truckers

The accident seen in Ice Road Truckers' opening titles is just a model. ICE ROAD TRUCKERS 2 Nice a GRACKED.COM The opening title sequence of the first season of Ice Road Truckers depicts what looks like a massive semi truck sinking into the icy depths of a frozen lake. While there's no doubting that it's a harrowing image, the truck is actually just a small model.

American Idol

Kelly Clarkson and Justin Guarini had a fling while filming From Justin to Kelly Clarkson admitted she briefly dated her American Idol runner-up. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

Young Astronauts

A cartoon was never aired because of the Challenger disaster. In January 1986, all was set to start broadcasting Young Astronauts, a CBS cartoon/Marvel comic combo made with government involvement. Then the space shuttle Challenger blew up, and all 13 episodes of space-going children were quickly canned. CRACKED.COM

The Fall

Jamie Dornan B THE FALL CRACKED COM To get in character to play the Belfast Strangler, he admitted that he surreptitiously followed at least one young woman home from the train.

"That's What She Said!"

CRACKED THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID Without context, we'd all be asking well, what did she say? This is the punchline to a setup that changes constantly. You'd have to get the joke, then become a stenographer replaying the last line, hunting for the innuendo. THE OFFICE

The Brady Bunch

CRACKED MARCIA, MARCIA, MARCIA! Poor Jan lived in the shadow of her popular older sister Marcia, so this lament isn't her summoning Candyman or Beetlejuice, she's basically saying, I'm sick of hearing about how great Marcia is! THE BRADY BUNCH

Alf

CRACKED I KILL ME Not a caveman saying he'll kill himself, this is Alf being amused by his own joke. You know... Killing. Like a comedian on stage. We get it now, Alf. ALF

The Simpsons

HOMER SIMPSON d'oh The 1940s BBC radio comedy It's That Man Again was really popular for its catchphrases like Don't mind if I do, and D'oh!, which was used decades before Homer Simpson made it famous. CRACKED

Rick and Morty

RICK AND MORTY wubalubadubdub The nonsense phrase was inspired by the Three Stooges; it was supposed to be like that sound Curly makes that you can't quite describe. The final version ended up being so dumb, the writers hoped it wouldn't catch on. CRACKED

Grey's Anatomy

29 TV Trivia Nuggets from Pop Culture History for Tuesday, December 2, 2025

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

Breaking Bad

BREAKING BAD BECAME BIG ON NETFLIX. For most of its run, Breaking Bad was just another AMC show. It got most of its fanbase when the first four seasons were released on Netflix - and over Season 5, audience numbers climbed from just 2 million to 10 million. CRACKED.COM

Friends

CRACKED.COM Most reviews shredded Friends when it premiered. They complained the characters just aimlessly drank coffee and chatted, and that the show used pop culture references too much.

Arrested Development

ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT WAS CONSTANTLY ONE STEP AWAY FROM CANCELLATION. ERO Every episode ... was like a gift, because nobody was watching it, Michael Cera has been quoted as saying. Seasons kept getting shorter and shorter, until the show was cancelled after Season 3. Only then did it become really popular on DVD. CRACKED.COM

The Office

THE OFFICE WAS ALMOST CANCELED. The first season got a lukewarm reception, with viewers thinking WORLD'S it was just an inferior rehash of the British original. A second BEST season was greenlit only because the head of NBC really BOSS believed in the show - and because Steve Carell became a big name in comedy around that time. 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

The Simpsons

CRACKED.COM The Simpsons nearly got cancelled before it aired. MILK After the first viewing of the pilot episode, One Enchanted Evening, both the writers and the network executives were displeased. The writing wasn't great, but it was the animation that really turned them off. Luckily, the next episode, Bart the Genius, was better and saved the series from an early death.

Monty Python

GRAGKED.COM MONTY PYTHON'S FLYING CIRCUS WAS KIND OF AN ACQUIRED TASTE. The show had dismal ratings when it first aired in 1969 - it trailed behind literally every other light entertainment show on the BBC. Management wanted it gone, not just because of the low audience numbers, but because they found it in bad taste. Eventually, however, Monty Python's brand of humor grew on the British public.

Reality Shows

There was a fake Dutch reality show where patients competed for a dying woman's kidney. It was created with the intention of raising awareness about the lack of organ donors. Six weeks after the show aired 12,000 new donors had signed up. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW

Game of Thrones

Rheumatoid Arthritis: Jane Lvnch Talks About 90% of Game of Cory Mo Retorn To Rehab Thrones 's viewers did it illegally. h M GAME HRONES According to MUSO, a piracy monitoring Healing Weird e firm, le the opener for 10 Remedies the seventh for season 6 Facts was ab watched illegally by 182 million ©MedTV people far surpassing the 16 million legal e S viewers. RS In total, the season was viewed al filming through illegal means a whopping 1.03 action at McKinley billion ti times. Hein But ures Stare - What Happened But that requires GaSCRACKED.COM adidas

Roseanne

CRACKED ROSEANNE The finale of Roseanne got bad reviews from fans because it said the whole show was a dream and Dan had died. John Goodman, who played Dan, didn't like it either, calling it irrelevant and silly.

Santa Clarita Diet

CRACKED SANTA CLARITA DIET Santa Clarita Diet followed Drew Barrymore and Timothy Olyphant's characters, Sheila and Joel Hammond, as Sheila became a zombie. But it was canceled after 3 seasons, leaving fans with a wild cliffhanger as Sheila tried to turn Joel into a zombie.

Spider-Man

CRACKED.COM spider Man Animated Green Goblin It was the third cartoon where Neil Ross voiced Norman Osborn - and yet, it was his first time playing the Green Goblin, who had a different voice actor in the previous shows.

Bob's Burgers

A fan artist scored a staff job. HAD SOMETHING FOR THIS BURGER CRACKED COM Artist Simon Chong tweeted a 4-minute Bob's Burgers / Archer mashup that he illustrated by hand. The cast and producers loved it so much, they gave him a job as a retake editor and storyboard artist.

Futurama

BENDER STAYS ALIVE AND IN HIS PRIME. STUDIO 123 Rebirth Bender dances in a place called Studio 122133-the prime factorization of Studio 54. 122133 = 1 x 2 x 27 = 54 CRACKED.COM

King of the Hill

The theme song was some band's sound check. CRACKED.COM The Refreshments, out of Arizona, were asked to submit a demo to Mike Judge. They recorded a live set, and encouraged the crowd to really hoot and holler during their sound check jam, which they named Yahoos and Triangles.

Powerpuff Girls

The 'Powerpuff Girls' were the creator's sophomore project at CalArts, and were originally 'Whoopass Stew! Craig McCracken was al- ready making shorts of But- tercup, Bubbles, and Blos- som in school, but at that time they were known as the 'Whoopass' Girls who were made with a can of Whoo- pass instead of Chemical-X. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW

Nickelodeon

Nickelodeon was a term used for early movie theaters. 2000 I An odeon was any building used for live entertainment in an- cient Greece and Rome. A nickelode- on was a theater that cost a nickel to enter. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW

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