The World's Greatest Book of Useless Information (3 page)

LONG LIVE THE KING

Elvis Presley had a twin brother named Garon, who died at birth. Elvis’s middle name was spelled Aron in honor of his brother.

Elvis loved to eat meatloaf. He weighed 230 pounds at the time of his death.

Elvis failed his music class in school.

Elvis never gave an encore.

Elvis was once appointed Special Agent of the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. According to Elvis’s autopsy, he had ten different drugs in his body at the time of his death.

Frank Sinatra was once quoted as saying that rock ’n’ roll was only played by “cretinous goons.”

Jim Morrison of The Doors was the first rock star to be arrested onstage.

Mr. Mojo Risin is an anagram for Jim Morrison.

Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison were all twenty-?seven years old when they died.

Karen Carpenter’s doorbell chimed the first six notes of “We’ve Only Just Begun.”

Madonna once did a commercial for Pepsi.

Mick Jagger attended the London School of Economics for two years.

Paul McCartney’s mother was a midwife.

Shannon Hoon, the late lead singer of the group Blind Melon, was a backup singer for Guns N’ Roses on their Use Your Illusion I album.

Sheryl Crow’s two front teeth are fake. She knocked them out when she tripped onstage earlier in her career.

Michael Jackson is black.

ALSO KNOWN AS INTERMISSION

Breath, by Samuel Beckett, was first performed in April 1970. The play lasts thirty seconds and has no actors or dialogue.

DO NOT PASS GO

Since its introduction in February 1935, more than 150 million Monopoly board games have been sold worldwide.

Parker Brothers prints about $50 billion worth of Monopoly money in a year.

Every day, more money is printed for Monopoly than by the U.S. Treasury. The most money you can lose in one trip around the board (normal game rules, going to jail only once) is $26,040. The most money you can lose in one turn is $5,070.

Values on the Monopoly game board are the same today as they were in 1935.

The longest Monopoly game in a bathtub was ninety-?nine hours long.

PLAY TO WIN

English gambling dens used to have employees whose job was to swallow the dice if the police arrived.

The word checkmate in chess comes from the Persian phrase Shah-?Mat, which means “The king is dead.”

According to Pope Innocent III, it was not a crime to kill someone after a game of chess.

Australia is considered the easiest continent to defend in the game Risk.

The Ouija board is named after the French and German words for “yes”—oui and ja.

Trivial Pursuit was invented by Canadians Scott Abbott and Chris Haney. They didn’t want to pay the price for Scrabble, so they made up their own game.

Mario, of Super Mario Bros. fame, first appeared in the 1981 arcade game Donkey Kong. His original name was Jumpman, but that was changed to Mario to honor Nintendo of America, Inc.’s landlord, Mario Segali.

Westwood Studios’ computer game Command and Conquer is the most successful war game series of all time, according to Guinness World Records.

MUPPET MOMENTS

Kermit the Frog was named after Kermit Scott, a childhood friend of Jim Henson’s, who became a professor of philosophy at Purdue University. Kermit has eleven points on the collar around his neck and is left-?handed.

Miss Piggy’s measurements are 27-20-36.

TV GUIDE

One in every four Americans has appeared on television.

Sitcom characters rarely say good-?bye when they hang up the phone.

Daytime dramas are called soap operas because they were originally used to advertise soap powder. In America in the early days of television, advertisers would write stories around the use of their soap powder.

For many years, the globe on the NBC Nightly News spun in the wrong direction. On January 2, 1984, NBC finally set the world spinning in the proper direction.

When Patty Hearst was kidnapped, she was watching the TV show The Magician, starring Bill Bixby.

Of the six men who made up The Three Stooges over the years, only three of them were real brothers.

The first ever televised murder case aired December 5 through 9, 1955.

The Love Boat’s titular ship was named the Pacific Princess.

M*A*S*H MATTERS

M*A*S*H stood for Mobile Army Surgical Hospital.

Jamie Farr was the only member of the cast who actually served as a soldier in the Korean War.

Hawkeye’s real name was Benjamin Franklin Pierce. He was played by Alan Alda.

Sixty point two percent of the U.S. TV audience watched the final episode of M*A*S*H in 1983.

There are as many as seventy-?eight scenes in a single X-?Files episode.

Gunsmoke was the top-?rated series from 1957 to 1961.

The Brady Brunch kids went to elementary school at Dixie Canyon Elementary.

The characters of Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street were named after Bert the cop and Ernie the taxi driver in Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life.

The first crime mentioned in the first episode of Hill Street Blues was armed robbery.

Every episode of Seinfeld contains a Superman reference somewhere.

Mr. Munster’s first name is Herman.

On Roseanne, DJ stood for David Jacob.

On Gilligan’s Island, the professor’s real name was Roy Hinkley, Mary Ann’s last name was Summers, and Mrs. Howell’s maiden name was Wentworth.

LIVE LONG AND PROSPER

Mr. Spock was second in command of the Starship Enterprise. His blood type was T-?negative.

As well as appearing on Star Trek, William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, James Doohan, and George Takei have all appeared at one time or another on The Twilight Zone.

The mask used by Michael Myers in the original Halloween movie was actually a Captain Kirk mask painted white.

Captain Jean-?Luc Picard’s fish was named Livingston.

ANIMATION NATION

Yasser Arafat was addicted to watching television cartoons.

Boris Karloff is the narrator of the seasonal television special How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

Before Mickey Mouse, Felix the Cat was the most popular cartoon character. He was the first cartoon character to ever have been made into a balloon for a parade.

Bill Cosby created the cartoon characters Fat Albert and Weird Harold.

Cheryl Ladd (of Charlie’s Angels fame) played the voice, both talking and singing, of Josie in the 1970s Saturday morning cartoon Josie and the Pussycats.

Dagwood Bumstead’s dog is named Daisy.

Dennis the Menace’s dog is named Gnasher.

Beetle from the comic strip Beetle Bailey and Lois from the comic strip Hi and Lois are brother and sister.

Marmaduke the cartoon dog is a Great Dane.

Of the four Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, all named after painters and/or sculptors, only Donatello does not come from the same time period as Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Raphael.

MEET THE FLINTSTONES

Wilma Flintstone’s maiden name was Wilma Slaghoopal, and Betty Rubble’s was Betty Jean McBricker.

The movie playing at the drive-?in at the beginning of The Flintstones is called The Monster.

On The Jetsons, Jane is thirty-?three years old, and her daughter Judy is eighteen.

Pokémon stands for “pocket monster.”

Rocky Raccoon lives in the Black Hills of South Dakota.

The most common set of initials for Superman’s friends and enemies is L.L.

RETURN TO SENDER

The Simpsons live at 742 Evergreen Terrace, Springfield. The Munsters live at 1313 Mockingbird Lane, Mockingbird Heights. The Flintstones live at 39 Stone Canyon Way, Bedrock.

Tony the Tiger was voiced by Thurl Ravenscroft.

Scooby-?Doo’s real first name is Scoobert. Shaggy’s real name is Norville. Casey Kasem was the voice of Shaggy.

D’OH!

The Simpsons is the longest-?running animated series on TV.

Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons, incorporated his initials into the drawing of Homer. M is his hair, and G is his ear.

Patty and Selma smoke Laramie brand cigarettes.

GOING ’NUTS

Peanuts is the world’s most read comic strip.

Charlie Brown’s father is a barber.

Lucy and Linus have another little brother named Rerun. He sometimes plays left field on Charlie Brown’s baseball team—when he can find it!

EAT MORE SPINACH

Elzie Crisler Segar created the comic strip character Popeye in 1919.

After the Popeye comic strip started in 1931, spinach consumption went up by 33 percent in the United States.

Popeye is five feet, six inches tall. He has an anchor tattooed on his arm.

Popeye’s adopted son is named Swee’ pea.

LOONEY TUNES

Mel Blanc, who voiced Bugs Bunny, was allergic to carrots.

Bugs Bunny first said “What’s up, doc?” in the 1940 cartoon A Wild Hare.

The Looney Tunes theme song is actually called “The Merry-?Go-?Round Is Broken Down.”

Tweety used to be a baby bird without feathers until the censors decided he looked naked.

WHEN YOU WISH UPON A STAR

Walt Disney named Mickey Mouse after Mickey Rooney, whose mother he dated for some time. Walt Disney originally supplied the voice for Mickey Mouse.

Mickey Mouse is known as “Topolino” in Italy. He was the first nonhuman to win an Oscar. His birthday is November 18.

Mickey Mouse’s ears are always turned to the front, no matter which direction his head is pointing.

The Black Cauldron is the only PG-?rated Disney animated feature.

Goofy has a wife, Mrs. Goofy, and one son, Goofy Jr.

Goofy actually started life as “Dippy Dawg,” a combination of both Goofy and Pluto.

Donald Duck comics were banned in Finland because he doesn’t wear pants.

Donald Duck’s middle name is Fauntleroy. His sister is named Dumbella.

Peter Pan and 101 Dalmatians are the only two classic Disney cartoon features in which both parents are present and don’t die throughout the movie.

The Lion King is the top-?grossing Disney movie of all time, with a domestic gross intake of $312 million.

In Fantasia, the sorcerer’s name is Yensid—Disney spelled backward.

Walt Disney died of lung cancer.

Walt Disney’s autograph bears no resemblance to the famous Disney logo.

CINEMA FIRSTS

The first real motion picture theater was called a nickelodeon—admission was a nickel—and opened in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, on June 19, 1905. The first motion picture shown there was The Great Train Robbery.

The first female monster to appear on the big screen was the Bride of Frankenstein.

The first James Bond movie was Dr. No.

The first word spoken by an ape in the movie Planet of the Apes is “Smile.”

C3PO is the first character to speak in Star Wars.

Love Me Tender was Elvis Presley’s first film.

Mrs. Claus’s first name is Jessica in the movie Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.

The first time the “f-?word” was spoken in a movie was by Marianne Faithfull in the 1968 film I’ll Never Forget Whatshisname. In Brian De Palma’s 1984 movie Scarface, the word is spoken 206 times—an average of once every 29 seconds.

WE ALL MAKE MISTAKES

During the chariot scene in Ben-?Hur, a small red car can be seen in the distance.

In the film Star Trek: First Contact, when Picard shows Lilly she is orbiting Earth, Australia and Papua New Guinea are clearly visible…but New Zealand is missing.

In the movie Now and Then, when the girls are talking to the hippie and they get up to leave, Teeny puts out her cigarette twice.

If you pause Saturday Night Fever at the “How Deep Is Your Love” rehearsal scene, you will see the camera crew reflected in the dance hall mirror.

In 1976, Rodrigo’s song “Guitar Concierto de Aranjuez” was number one in the United Kingdom for only three hours because of a computer error.

HOLLYWOOD INSIDER

When a film is in production, the last shot of the day is called the “martini shot”; the next-?to-?last one is called the “Abby Singer” after a famous assistant director.

Smithee is a pseudonym filmmakers use when they don’t want their names to appear in the credits.

A “walla-?walla” scene is one in which extras pretend to be talking in the background—when they say “walla-?walla,” it looks like they are actually having a conversation.

The Academy Award statue is named after a librarian’s uncle. One day Margaret Herrick, librarian for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, made the remark that the statue looked like her uncle Oscar, and the name stuck.

In the early days of silent films, there was blatant thievery. Unscrupulous film companies would steal the film, re-?shoot a scene or two, and release it as a new production. To combat this, the Biograph Company put the company’s trademark initials, AB, somewhere in every scene—on a door, a wall, or a window.

Ronald Reagan did a narration at the 1947 Academy Awards ceremony.

The second unit films movie shots that do not require the presence of actors.

Alfred Hitchcock never won an Academy Award for directing.

Because metal was scarce, the Academy Awards given out during World War II were made of wood.

A GALAXY FAR, FAR AWAY…

The actor who played Wedge in the original Star Wars trilogy has a famous nephew: actor Ewan McGregor, who plays young Obi-?Wan in the new Star Wars trilogy.

Darth Vader is the only officer in the Imperial Forces who doesn’t have a rank.

In the Return of the Jedi special edition, during the new Coruscant footage at the end of the film, a storm trooper can be seen being carried over the crowds.

Four people played Darth Vader: David Prowse was his body, James Earl Jones did the voice, Sebastian Shaw was his face, and a fourth person did his breathing.

Luke Skywalker’s last name was changed at the last minute from Starkiller to make it less violent.

The name of Jabba the Hutt’s pet spider monkey is Salacious Crumb.