Category: Trivia

19 Things to Look for the Next Time You Watch “Die Hard”

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Sean Hutchinson and Mental Floss present 19 Things to Look for the Next Time You Watch Die Hard.  Here are three of my favorites…

10. THERE ARE SOME REAL FALLS.
In the scene where McClane makes an epic jump into an elevator shaft, the stunt man was supposed to grab onto the first vent—but missed completely. The resulting footage shows the actor slipping further down the shaft. McTiernan and co-editor Frank Urioste kept it in the final cut because it made the scene more harrowing.  (Craig – Check out the video of the elevator fall footage at Hutchinson’s post.)

19. HOW DID MCCLANE KNOW GRUBER WAS A BAD GUY?
In the scene where McClane unwittingly stumbles on Gruber—who identifies himself as Bill Clay and puts on a convincing American accent—it’s never made 100 percent clear how McClane realizes that Clay isn’t who he says he is. Chalk it up to a NYPD-veteran hunch, or a deleted scene.

Gruber’s watch allegedly tips McClane off before he hands the terrorist an empty gun, but nothing about the watch is introduced in the actual movie. There was supposed to be a scene where Hans Gruber and his team synchronize the exact same watch they all wear, and, according to screenwriter Steven E. De Souza, “When Bruce offers the cigarette to Alan Rickman, Bruce sees the watch. You see his eyes look at the watch. That’s how he knows that he is one of the terrorists.”

The timepiece scene was cut, but the audience never really noticed the plot hole.

12. HANS GRUBER AND HIS GOONS DON’T ACTUALLY SPEAK GERMAN.
Americans might think the German language that Gruber and his goons speak to one another sounds legit, but it’s actually gibberish. The grammar, diction, and pronunciation don’t actually match up. In the German release of the movie, Gruber’s group were described as being from “Europe” instead of Germany.

Weirdly enough Willis was actually born in West Germany to an American father and a German mother.

10 Of History’s Most Cartoonish Deaths

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We all know that at some point, we’ll pass on.  Our best hope is that the end will come peacefully, after a long, happy life.  Sadly, that is not always the case.

Micah Hirsch and Listverse present 10 Of History’s Most Cartoonish Deaths.   Here are the three that struck me as being the most avoidable had the deceased used a bit more sense before becoming deceased.

10 Demonstrating A Suicide
On June 17, 1871, Representative Clement Vallandigham of Ohio died in the name of justice—accidentally. Retiring to his law practice after a life of treason, Vallandigham was attempting to prove a client innocent of murder by arguing that the victim shot himself.Prior to the trial, Vallandigham headed to open land to determine the level of residue left by a point-blank shot and then left the field with three live rounds in his pistol. Arriving back at his hotel, he was handed a parcel with the unloaded gun used by the victim. He laid that gun beside his own pistol. Leaving his suite, he pocketed the deadlier of the two choices of weaponry.Confident in his case, he entertained a hotel visitor with a live demonstration of his argument. It’s fair to say that it was very convincing. While Vallandigham wasn’t present for the occasion, his client was ultimately cleared. And though the novelty had worn off, another man met his death in the same fashion while trying to demonstrate how Vallandigham killed himself.

Craig says: If you’re going to demonstrate (not just tell, but demonstrate) how a person committed suicide using a pistol, why not double or triple check that your pistol is not loaded?

And furthermore, if you’re going to demonstrate (not just tell, but demonstrate) how a man who was demonstrating how a person accidentally killed himself with a loaded pistol and then went on to accidentally kill himself, why not just not?

4 Exactly As Advertised
Working at Toronto’s TD Centre, Garry Hoy had a habit of bodychecking windows to demonstrate their tensile strength in front of impressionable youths. Hoy, a partner at Holden Day Wilson LLP, worked on the 24th floor of the building. He was clearly impressed by the skyscraper’s workmanship. However, his habit of slamming into windows as a testament to the structure was never approved by any known building code in the world.  On July 9, 1993, he was entertaining a group of articling students with his old tricks on the 24th floor. While the window in question held through one run of Hoy battering against it, the glass popped out of the frame on the second run, sending Hoy into free fall. He died of his injuries soon after.

Craig says: “Let me prove to you how safe our windows are.  I’m going to run into it at full force 24 stories above the ground.”  BAM!  “Impressive, huh? Let me show you agaaaaaaaaaaa”

7 Tripped By A Beard
Hans Steininger, a 16th-century town mayor, is best known in Braunau am Inn for his 1.4-meter-long (4.5 ft) beard. In his life, he was very popular with the townsfolk and served multiple terms, but his untimely end serves as the most memorable aspect of his legacy.In 1567, a large fire sent the town into panic. Steininger, who usually rolled up his beard in a pouch that he carried with him, unfortunately had his beard hanging free amid the chaos. At some point during the ruckus, his foot caught on his beard and he tumbled down a flight of stairs, ultimately breaking his neck. Today, the town features a full-body illustration of the man carved in rock that is displayed on the side of St. Stephan’s Church. His beard is engraved in its entire length as it is a celebrity in the town’s cultural memory.

Craig says:  “My long beard will make me famous throughout history,” claimed Steininger.  “Indeed it will” responded Craig.

10 Slap-Happy Facts About The Three Stooges

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Jake Rossen and Mental Floss present 10 Slap-Happy Facts About The Three Stooges.  Here are three of my favorites…

3. HITLER WANTED THEM DEAD.

Having established their comic personas on film, the Stooges proceeded to make some accidental history. Their 1940 short, You Nazty Spy!, was the first American production to openly make a mockery of Adolf Hitler’s regime. (Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator opened nine months later.) The short was perceived as a great insult by the Führer, who listed the Stooges as favored casualties on his own personal death list. (It’s not known whether he named each one individually.)

7. A REPLACEMENT STOOGE HAD A NO-VIOLENCE CONTRACT CLAUSE.
Sorting out the musical chairs of Stooges enrollment can be difficult: While Moe and Larry were largely engrained, the trio was originally rounded out with Shemp before he departed for a solo career: Curly was his replacement. Following Curly’s departure due to illness, Shemp stepped back in, but he died in 1955. After briefly considering a run as the Two Stooges, Moe and Larry recruited Joe Besser, a comic actor who already had a deal with Columbia, in 1956. But Besser wasn’t quite as game for the physical comedy as his predecessors. He insisted his contract contain language prohibiting him from being abused to excess, including anything pastry-related. “I never was the type of comic to be hit by a pie,” he said, a mentality that calls into question the decision to become part of The Three Stooges. Following Besser’s departure in 1959, the group roped in Joe DeRita for live shows and several feature films, including 1961’s Snow White and the Three Stooges.

10. THERE’S A STOOGES MUSEUM IN PENNSYLVANIA.

The Stooges’ vital contributions to pop culture have always deserved some archival recognition. They got it in 2004, when The Stoogeumopened its doors in Ambler, Pennsylvania, about 25 miles outside of Philadelphia. The museum’s founder is Gary Lassin, who married Larry Fine’s great niece in 1981. A Stooges fan, Lassin acquired over 100,000 items related to their careers and displays roughly 3500 pieces at a time. There’s a Hall of Shemp, a game area (with Whack-a-Moe), as well as countless artifacts.

11 Astonishing Facts About “Freaks”

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Matthew Jackson at Mental Floss posted 11 Astonishing Facts About Freaks.  Here are three of the most interesting…

2. MGM WANTED IT TO RIVAL DRACULA AS A HORROR FILM.

Though there were certainly monstrous characters populating various silent films (particularly those portrayed by Chaney in The Phantom of the Opera and London After Midnight), the horror film as a genre didn’t really take off until the era of talkies began. Shortly after Chaney’s death due to complications from lung cancer, Browning was off at Universal Pictures, helping to lead the horror wave with his now-classic adaptation of Dracula. When Browning returned to MGM in the wake of Dracula’s success, head of production Irving Thalberg wanted to capitalize on the horror boom. The hope was that, with the director of Dracula back at the studio, MGM could best Universal with something even more horrifying, and so Browning was finally given the go-ahead to make Freaks, which had remained a pet project of his for years.

According to Skal, it became a classic lesson for Thalberg in being careful what you wish for: The story goes that after he was presented with the screenplay for the film, Thalberg reportedly hung his head and said, “Well, I asked for something horrible, and I guess I got it.”

10. IT DERAILED BROWNING’S CAREER.

Before Freaks, Browning was one of the most successful directors in Hollywood, and his success had earned him enough clout to get the ambitious and gutsy film made after Dracula hit big at Universal. After Freaks, he never quite recovered. According to Skal, this was not just due to that film’s failure, but due to Browning’s continued discomfort with the change in the filmmaking process that came from the rise of talkies. That discomfort, coupled with an increasing inability to get more personal projects approved by the studios in the wake of Freaks, led to his decline in the 1930s.

Browning directed just four more films (two of them uncredited), with his final directing credit coming on the MGM mystery Miracles for Sale in 1939. He retired with enough savings from his directorial successes to live comfortably in a pair of homes in Beverly Hills and Malibu, and died in 1962.

11. IT FOUND A NEW AUDIENCE IN THE 1960S.

After its critical and commercial failure in the United States, Freaks faded into the background as a kind of Hollywood curiosity, and was banned in several countries (including the United Kingdom) for decades. The film was licensed by distributor Dwain Esper in the late 1940s, and played on the grindhouse circuit at various independent theaters, but it wasn’t until the 1962 Cannes Film Festival that the film’s revival really began. After screening there, it was heralded as a kind of forgotten classic. Noted film collector and archivist Raymond Rohauer picked up the baton from there, landing the rights to Freaks and showing it as a cult film. It gained prominence on the midnight movie circuit, and found particular success with members of the 1960s counterculture movement, who saw kindred spirits in its cast.

 

15 Facts About John Carpenter’s “Christine”

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Sean Hutchinson at Mental Floss posted 15 Facts About John Carpenter’s Christine.  Here are three of my favorites…

2. JOHN CARPENTER SIGNED ON SIMPLY BECAUSE HE WANTED A JOB.
Kobritz approached John Carpenter after the critical and financial failure of his 1982 adaptation of The Thing, which is now widely regarded as one of the filmmaker’s best.

The pair previously worked together on Carpenter’s 1978 TV movie Someone’s Watching Me! and Carpenter agreed to take on the project because he wanted to jump immediately into another movie after his first high-profile box office flop.

8. KEVIN BACON WAS ORIGINALLY CAST AS ARNIE.

Carpenter held auditions in California and New York, looking for the right fresh faces for the teen characters in the film, and he found the perfect newcomer for Arnie: Kevin Bacon.

The now-famous actor’s only other significant work at the time was bit parts in Animal House and Friday the 13th, and Kobritz and Carpenter thought Arnie’s transformation from dweeby hero to suave villain was a perfect fit for Bacon. But after being cast, Bacon dropped out when he was offered a starring role in Footloose.

Carpenter went back the the drawing board to cast Arnie, and eventually found actor Keith Gordon in a play in New York City. Carpenter initially took to Gordon as Arnie because of the actor’s previous appearance in Brian De Palma’s thriller Dressed to Kill.

7. CARPENTER DIDN’T WANT TO CAST MOVIE STARS.

Columbia execs wanted a star-studded cast to round out their King adaptation, and suggested that Brooke Shields—coming off the hit film The Blue Lagoon—be cast as Leigh, and Scott Baio be cast as Arnie. But Carpenter didn’t want recognizable faces in the movie as a way to stress that the titular car was the real star of the movie.

27 Things You Might Not Know About Theodore ‘Teddy’ Roosevelt

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Jake Rossen and Mental Floss present 27 Things You Might Not Know About Theodore ‘Teddy’ Roosevelt.  Here are three of my favorites and some thoughts about each…

1. HE WENT FROM WIMP TO WARRIOR.

Born on October 27, 1858, Roosevelt—often called “Teedie” or “Teddy” by friends—was a frail kid, prone to illness, asthma, and lacking physical strength. Despite his modest build, he was an avid outdoors enthusiast, and sometimes carried his fascination with wildlife indoors by practicing taxidermy. At 14, his family went on a tour of Egypt, and he traveled with his somewhat macabre tools of the trade, including arsenic. As a teen, Roosevelt put his stuffed birds aside and decided to become aggressive in his physical routine, training in gymnastics and weightlifting. Later, he would practice both boxing and judo. The intense interest he showed in combat sports made him a fitness advocate for the rest of his life.
Craig’s Thoughts:  His love of taxidermy before he was even in his teens makes me think of someone who would grow up to be a serial killer, not the President of the United States.

25. HE GAVE A SPEECH IMMEDIATELY AFTER BEING SHOT.

Roosevelt’s reputation as a “bull moose,” his term to describe anyone made of sturdy stuff, was never on better display than October 14, 1912, when the former president was giving a speech in Milwaukee and announced he had just been shot by a would-be assassin named John Schrank. A shocked crowd looked on as Roosevelt revealed a bloody shirt and a stack of prepared remarks with a bullet hole in them (above; you can see both the papers and the shirt at the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site in New York City). Roosevelt spoke for 90 minutes before allowing his aides to take him to a hospital. The bullet had lodged itself near his ribs and would remain there for the rest of his life.
Craig’s Thoughts: This probably more than anything else would have been enough to give TR the reputation as a tough guy.  But when you add it to the fact that he went west as a young man (Shades of Horace Greeley) and made his living as a cowboy; that he volunteered to serve in the army, that he distinguished himself in battle, that he was a decorated war hero, that he boxed (and continued to spar at the age of 50, losing sight in one eye in the process), that he was an avid outdoorsman, then you have to admit that Teddy Roosevelt was a legitimate tough guy.

9. HE WAS A MASSIVE ENVIRONMENTALIST.

A lover of the outdoors, Roosevelt made protecting the natural wonder of American territory a priority. Over his tenure in the White House, he reserved 200 million acres of land for national forests and wildlife refuges; previous presidents combined had only done a fifth of that. “We have become great because of the lavish use of our resources and we have just reason to be proud of our growth,” he said in 1908. “But the time has come to inquire seriously what will happen when our forests are gone, when the coal, the iron, the oil and the gas are exhausted, when the soils have been still further impoverished and washed into the streams, polluting the rivers, denuding the fields, and obstructing navigation.

“These questions do not relate only to the next century or to the next generation. It is time for us now as a nation to exercise the same reasonable foresight in dealing with our great natural resources that would be shown by any prudent man in conserving and widely using the property which contains the assurance of well-being for himself and his children.”
Craig’s Thoughts:  I love that TR had the foresight and love of nature enough to work to preserve our natural resources for future generations.

31 Things We Learned from Tony Scott’s “Revenge” Commentary

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Yesterday we looked at the films of Tony Scott.  That brought to mind one of my favorite Tony Scott movies, Revenge.   Today we take a look at Rob Hunter and Film School Rejects’ 31 Things We Learned from Tony Scott’s Revenge Commentary.  Here are three of my favorites and my thoughts…

1. John Huston apparently worked for ten years attempting to bring this adaptation to the screen, and when that was no longer a possibility Scott, who had kept a close eye on the project, came aboard. Huston’s big roadblock was his producer, Ray Stark, who felt squeamish as to the story’s harsher elements. Scott says the theatrical cut of this film is Stark’s while this director’s cut is his preferred version. “He should never have made Revenge,” says Scott, “because it was something that was very contrary to his taste.”
Craig’s Thoughts:  I could definitely have seen Revenge as a John Huston film.  Revenge feels like a modern throw-back to The Postman Always Rings Twice or Double Indemnity.  And did you notice Scott said the director’s version is his preferred version of Revenge?  I didn’t even know there was a director’s version.  There is and I’m ordering a copy today.

19. Rocky the dog’s death scene strikes me as something that probably wouldn’t fly these days. They attached “an explosive pack” aka a squib to the dog’s chest and a snatch wire to his back, and when the dog barked Scott instructed the effects guys to trigger the exploding pack and yank the cable so the dog would fly into the wall. Scott tried to get a second take, but Rocky refused to bark again. “But he’s still around, he’s sixteen,” he promises. He also notes that test audiences gave them grief for what they did to the dog without mentioning that Costner gets beat to near death and Stowe has her face slashed in the same scene.
Craig’s Thoughts:  Yeah, the dog death scene would never fly today.  I’m surprised it did then, but that’s what makes this film seem realistic.  What Costner goes through to rescue Stowe and what she endures until rescued… whew!

30. The final face-off between Cochran and Tibey was shot in Mexico, but Stark and the studio requested Scott shoot additional footage with more dialogue to help explain both men’s motivations. Scott hated it and cut all of the new footage from the film.
Craig’s Thoughts:  I am so stoked to see this film again, especially since it will be the director’s cut a version totally new to me.

Revenge Unrated Director’s Edition Blu-Ray

 

11 Screenwriters Who Hated Their Own Movies

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Rudie Obias and Mental Floss present 11 Screenwriters Who Hated Their Own Movies.  Here are three of the eleven that I enjoyed despite the person(s) who wrote them didn’t.

1. QUENTIN TARANTINO // NATURAL BORN KILLERS (1994) During the early 1990s, Quentin Tarantino sold his screenplay for Natural Born Killers to Oliver Stone and used the money to fund his debut film, Reservoir Dogs, which was released in 1992. Two years later, Stone released the film with Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis in starring roles.

While it was a box office hit, Tarantino despised the production because of the changes and alterations to much of his original content. “I hate that f*cking movie,” Tarantino told The Telegraph in 2013. “If you like my stuff, don’t watch that movie.”

Years after its release, the producers of Natural Born Killers sued Tarantino when he tried to publish the original screenplay as a book, as he had done with his original script for True Romance. The producers believed that Tarantino forfeited his rights when he sold it to them, but a judge ruled in Tarantino’s favor.
(Craig’s thoughts: Oliver Stone, like Tarantino has an over-powering style of movie-making.  Tarantino was probably most upset because the movie felt more like a Stone film than a Tarantino movie.  I liked Natural Born Killers.)

 

3. KURT SUTTER // PUNISHER: WAR ZONE (2008)  Before Marvel’s The Punisher made a comeback as a TV series on Netflix in 2017, Sons of Anarchy creator Kurt Sutter was hired to write a sequel to The Punisher starring Thomas Jane and John Travolta. In 2007, Sutter started writing a new script and wanted to ground the antihero in a grittier reality and move the character from Florida to New York City.

However, after Jane dropped out of the project, Marvel Studios wanted to start over with a new sequel that felt more like the comic book version of Frank Castle instead of the more realistic idea that Sutter envisioned. The end result was so far removed from what Sutter had written that he asked for his name to be removed from what would turn into Punisher: War Zone.

“I threw away the first draft written by Nick Santora and did a page one rewrite,” Sutter wrote of the project in 2008. “I changed the locations, the characters, the story. I dropped Frank in a real New York City with real villains, real cops, real relationships. To me, the Punisher deserved more than the usual comic book redress. It shouldn’t just follow the feature superhero formula. Apparently, I was the only one who shared that vision.”

(Craig’s thoughts: I’ve only seen Punisher War Zone once, but I liked it a lot better than The Punisher starring Jane and Travolta.  I agree with Sutter that The Punisher needed to be grounded in a grittier reality and thought War Zone did a fine job.  Perhaps another viewing is in order.)

 

4. AND 5. LANA AND LILLY WACHOWSKI // ASSASSINS (1995)  During the mid-1990s, Lana and Lilly Wachowski sold the screenplays for Assassins and The Matrix to producer Joel Silver for $1 million per film. Assassins was the first to go into production, and Richard Donner signed on to direct with Sylvester Stallone and Antonio Banderas attached to co-star.

Although Assassins was one of the hottest unproduced screenplays at the time (you can read the Wachowskis’ original version here), Donner didn’t like the darker tone and artsy symbolism, so he hired screenwriter Brian Helgeland to do a page-one rewrite to make it into a standard action thriller instead. The Wachowskis were not happy with the decision to tone down their screenplay, so the siblings wanted their names to be taken off the project, but the Writers Guild of America denied their request.

“The film was not really based on the screenplay,” Lana said in a 2003 interview. “The one thing that sort of bothered us is that people would blame us for the screenplay and it’s like Richard Donner is one of the few directors in Hollywood that can make whatever movie he wants exactly the way he wants it. No one will stop him and that’s essentially what happened. He brought in Brian Helgeland and they totally rewrote the script. We tried to take our names off of it but the WGA doesn’t let you. So our names are forever there.”

If there’s a silver lining to this story it’s that the experience with Assassins led the Wachowskis to want more control over their work—so they decided to become directors; they made their directorial debut with Bound in 1996.

(Craig’s thoughts: I was excited when it was announced Richard Donner was directing Sly in Assassins.  Although not as great as I hoped it would be, Assassins was still a lot of fun.  I’ve never read the Wachowskis’ original script so I have no idea if that might have been the way to go.  Still, the money that they received from selling Assassins led to The Matrix (the original) and THAT is a classic.)

13 Altogether Ooky Facts about “The Addams Family”

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MeTV presents 13 Altogether Ooky Facts about The Addams Family.  Here are three of my favorites…

1. Until the TV show, the characters did not have names.
Charles Addams, pictured here in his home office, did not name the creepy, charming characters in his one-panel cartoons. When the show was green-lit, Addams and producers came up with names for the clan. Did you know Wednesday’s middle name is Friday?

 

4. Ted Cassidy played two roles.
While best known for playing Lurch, Ted Cassidy also lent a hand — literally — by also playing Thing.

 

7. The Addams were the first TV family to have a home computer.
A couple years later, Bruce Wayne would utilize his Batcomputer in the Batcave, but the first family “P.C.” seen on TV was the UNIVAC on The Addams Family.

10 Big Facts About “Last Action Hero”

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Scott Beggs and Mental Floss present 10 Big Facts About Last Action Hero.  Here are three of my favorites (and for the record, I liked Last Action Hero!)…

1. THE PRODUCTION ITSELF GOT META EARLY ON.

Original screenwriters Zak Penn and Adam Leff wrote what would become Last Action Hero as a film that would work both as an adrenaline-fueled action ride and as a goof on adrenaline-fueled action, but the sources they drew inspiration from soon invaded the project. Action icon Jack Slater’s name was originally Arno Slater as a nod to Arnold Schwarzenegger, who then took the role of Arno Slater. Penn and Leff studied all of Shane Black’s scripts (the Lethal Weapon movies and The Last Boy Scout) to get the satirical rhythm right, but then Black was hired to rewrite their script. They also used Die Hard and other John McTiernan-directed movies as a baseline for the movie’s style, and then McTiernan was hired to direct their movie. Their comedic love letter was taken over by titans of the very genre they were mocking, who were then put in charge of mocking themselves.

7. THERE WAS AN OVERWHELMING NUMBER OF CAMEOS IN IT.

Schwarzenegger also called in a lot of favors from co-stars and connections he’d made while ascending to the very top of global Hollywood stardom. Sharon Stone shows up as her Basic Instinct character alongside Robert Patrick as a Terminator 2 T-1000 in a background shot. Schwarzenegger’s then-wife Maria Shriver appears as herself, Danny DeVito voices the police cat, and Joan Plowright plays a teacher showing a class her real-life late husband Laurence Olivier’s version of Hamlet (“You might remember him as Zeus in Clash of the Titans”). Plus, Leeza Gibbons played herself doing celebrity interviews, Tina Turner plays the mayor of Los Angeles, and Jean-Claude Van Damme, Jim Belushi, and Chevy Chase are in the audience for the premiere of Jack Slater IV. Tony Danza, MC Hammer, Little Richard, and James Cameron also pop up. There are even more, but the best is Ian McKellen playing Death, emerging from the screen from Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal.

8. THERE IS ALSO AN OVERWHELMING NUMBER OF REFERENCES TO OTHER MOVIES.

References are to be expected with any spoof, but Last Action Herosmothers you with them. IMDB lists 68 references, which means there’s a reference to another movie every two minutes. They range from King Kongto The Wizard of Oz to Serpico to E.T., but of course the bulk of the callbacks evoke movies from Schwarzenegger, Black, and McTiernan. There are nods to Commando, The Running Man, Die Hard, Total Recall, Raw Deal, and an advertisement for Terminator 2 (with Sylvester Stallone starring instead of Schwarzenegger). But the sharpest homage comes after Frank’s (Art Carney) house blows up when a black cop says with resignation, “Two days to retirement,” referencing Danny Glover in Lethal Weapon.

8 Things You Might Not Know About The Wizard of Id

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Jake Rossen and Mental Floss present 8 Things You Might Not Know About The Wizard of Id.  Here are three of my favorites…

1. THE IDEA FOR THE STRIP CAME FROM A DECK OF PLAYING CARDS.

Johnny Hart was already a successful syndicated cartoonist (the Stone Age comedy B.C.) before he and former Disney animator Brant Parker decided to collaborate on a different project. Hart was flipping through a deck of playing cards in 1964 when he came across a peculiar illustration used for the king. Drawing on it to create his own diminutive despot, Hart wrote most of the jokes for Id while Parker illustrated it.

5. JIM HENSON WAS GOING TO PUT IT ON TELEVISION.

An avowed fan of comic strips and of The Wizard of Id in particular, Muppets creator Jim Henson met with Hart in 1968 to discuss a possible collaboration. Henson wanted to create an Id television show that would use puppets against an animated backdrop. Hart agreed, and in 1969, Henson was able to shoot test footage featuring himself as the voice of the Wizard. But executives at Publishers-Hall, which had taken over syndication of the strip, were having trouble enticing networks into producing a series. By the time ABC showed interest, Henson had moved on to Sesame Street and other projects. Wizard of Id got translated into animation in 1970 as part of a Chuck Jones variety series titled Curiosity Shop.

8. BLONDIE AND BEETLE BAILEY CELEBRATED THE STRIP’S 50TH ANNIVERSARY.

When The Wizard of Id passed the half-century milestone in 2014, the entire comics page came out to celebrate. Hi and Lois featured a portrait of the Wizard in a panel, while Blondie and Family Circus made subtle references to the anniversary. (As modern-day strips, it would be difficult to regard a medieval strip with more overt acknowledgment.) In Beetle Bailey, the perennial screw-up shared a cell with the eternally suffering Spookingdorf.

10 Things You Might Not Know About Beetle Bailey

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Jake Rossen and Mental Floss present 10 Things You Might Not Know About Beetle Bailey.

1. IT STARTED AS A COLLEGE CAMPUS COMEDY.

Walker’s initial idea for a strip didn’t feature any fatigues or military equipment. While drawing cartoons for The Saturday Evening Post, he decided to try creating a story around a university student named Spider who kept his hat pulled over his eyes and tried to navigate college life by doing as little as possible. Changing his name to Beetle Bailey—the surname was a nod to a supportive editor at the Post—Walker had him wander into an Army recruiting station. Inspired, he retrofitted the strip so that barracks would take the place of a dorm. (Walker himself had been drafted, serving four years during World War II.) Debuting in 1950, Beetle Bailey set a record for the longest continuous work by a comic strip artist: Walker worked on it for 68 years.

2. IT WAS BANNED BY THE U.S. MILITARY.

In the 1950s, Beetle Bailey took its place as a steady but otherwise unremarkable addition to the comics pages. Then Walker got an unexpected promotional boost. The U.S. military’s Stars and Stripes newspaper, which had been running the strip, banned it from its Tokyo editions over fears it might incite disrespect toward commanding officers. (Beetle was lazy and typically disinterested in following orders.) The prohibition lasted for a decade and was subjected to so much ridicule that Beetle became a recurring presence in newspaper headlines. The strip was eventually syndicated to more than 1800 papers.

10. THE STRIP WAS RECOGNIZED BY THE PENTAGON.

After 50 years of “service,” Beetle Bailey finally got a little acknowledgment from his higher-ups. The (real) Pentagon invited Walker and three of his costumed characters to a ceremony in May 2000 that honored the cartoonist for his work in supporting the military. Walker was presented with the Secretary of the Army’s Decoration for Distinguished Civilian Service, the Army’s highest civilian honor. “I think finally the brass has learned how to laugh at themselves a little bit,” Walker said. “They’re not kicking me out of Stars and Stripes anymore like they did a couple of times.”

Bruce Lee Facts You May Not Know

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In 2018, Jacob Oiler and SYFYWire presented From Bruce Lee’s Big Break to His Tragic Death: 8 Gems Gleaned from a New Biography.  Although the article is no longer available, here are three of my favorites from it…

Lee likely died from heat stroke.

While there were many, many versions of Lee’s controversial death (in the bed of his mistress, Betty Ting Pei, no less), the typical assumption that an allergic reaction to a painkiller was the cause of his “death by misadventure” ignores the recent strides medicine has made in diagnosing heat stroke. A month before his death, Lee collapsed under similar circumstances, feeling dizzy and having seizures under hot and sweaty conditions. These symptoms, along with highly elevated body temperature (which past diagnosis had erroneously categorized as feverishness) and the fact that Lee had sweat glands surgically removed from his armpits weeks before his first collapse, point to one of the leading causes of death for young athletic men. That Lee was known to overwork, lose weight, and lose sleep when making films only bolsters the case that his death on July 20, 1973 (the hottest day during that Hong Kong summer), was likely caused by heat stroke.

Roman Polanski once suspected Lee of killing Sharon Tate.

Lee was a fight choreographer for some of Hollywood’s biggest names in the ‘70s and a regular in their party scene. He hobnobbed with Steve McQueen, Roman Polanski, Sharon Tate, and James Coburn. So when Charles Manson’s followers horrifically killed Tate, Sebring, and three others at a house Polanski was renting, the tragedy struck especially close to home for Lee. Tate and Polanski were clients, while Sebring was one of Lee’s closest friends in town. But when Lee mentioned to Polanski that he lost his glasses — the director knew that an unidentified pair of horn-rims were found at the house — Polanski grew suspicious and took the actor to buy a new pair. But when Lee’s prescription didn’t match that of the evidence at the scene, Polanski thankfully relented.

Batman and a hairdresser were responsible for Lee’s early Hollywood career.

Jay Sebring, Hollywood hairdresser and karate enthusiast, had seen Lee perform a controversial demonstration and speech at the 1964 Long Beach International Karate Championship. He also cut the hair of William Dozier, a TV producer looking to cast Charlie Chan’s son for a prospective James Bond-esque show titled Number One Son. Dozier loved Lee for the role and was producing the longshot Batman show at the time. The success of the campy superhero adaptation would determine whether the studio accepted his next project… and Lee. Batman was a hit and, though Number One Son was nixed, the success of Adam West’s detective meant that superheroes were hot — and The Green Hornet wasn’t far behind. That meant Lee could be Kato, who crossed over onto Batman for a few episodes. Lee and Burt Ward (Robin) even lived in the same apartment complex.

30 “Alien” Franchise Movie Facts That Will Blow Your Mind

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Gem Seddon and GamesRadar present 30 Alien Facts That Will Blow Your Mind.  Here are three of my favorites…

11. Blow its bloody head off!

In Aliens, the Marines scatter when the xenomorphs peel away from the walls, retreating to the safety of the APC. One pesky creature manages to get its sharp talons wedged into the doors; and then gets its head blown off by Hicks.

After endless takes where actor Michael Biehn struggled to get the barrel into the alien’s jaws, the crew came up with a way. They simply started with the gun in its mouth, pulled it out, and reversed the shot. Proof that sometimes the coolest tricks don’t require CGI.

5. Terminator connection

Preliminary Aliens drafts had Bishop mention that he was created by Cyberdyne Systems – the technology corporation responsible for creating Skynet in the Terminator saga. It was later switched to Hyperdyne.

One element that does remain happens aboard the drop ship. In the special edition, Hudson’s “ultimate badass” rant about the Marines’ arsenal of weapons, makes reference to a “phased plasma pulse rifle.” The weapons the Marines use are in fact, M41A pulse rifles. This line is a cheeky connect between James Cameron’s previous film, in which the T-800 asks a gun store clerk for a “phased plasma rifle.”

Bill Paxton, who plays Hudson, also appeared in The Terminator as one of the street punks at the observatory.

1. Kane’s last supper

Ridley Scott deliberately kept the actors off the Alien set while production designers and the effects crew dressed the scene for Kane’s last meal. Despite having read the script, none of the principal leads knew what was going to happen. So when the chestburster emerges from John Hurt and a stream of fake blood blasts a stunned Veronica Cartwright, her shocked reaction and scream? Completely authentic.

“Everyone was wearing raincoats,” Weaver later recalled. “We should have been a little suspicious.”

The article contains so many more interesting facts.  It’s definitely worth a read!

30 Movies That Stopped Filming and Started Over

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Max Evry and ComingSoon.net took a look at 30 Movies That Stopped Filming and Started Over.   This is an interesting article.  It’s amazing how quickly directors can fall behind schedule and over budget to the tune of millions and millions of dollars.  Then there’s always the possibility of “creative differences” causing stars to clash with each other or the director.  Most of these films that started over still failed at the box office… but not always.  Here are three of my favorites from Evry’s list…

Back to the Future (1985)

Without question, the most famous case of a movie stopping and starting over again (as well as the most successful) was when director Robert Zemeckis and producer Steven Spielberg made the unthinkable decision to fire Eric Stoltz as lead character Marty McFly well into the shoot at a cost of $3 million dollars. Apparently Stoltz’s performance was deemed too dramatic and not light enough for the comedic film, as well as his being uncomfortable on a skateboard. Five weeks into the shoot, they let Stoltz go and hired Michael J. Fox, who was the original choice, and the rest was history. The film became a SMASH success and is now considered a classic, spawning two beloved sequels. Film stills and a small amount of footage has been released of Stoltz in the part, and while the actor went on to have a fine career afterwards, his version of those scenes is one of the most sought-after holy grails of geekdom.

Tombstone (1993)

The late screenwriter Kevin Jarre (Glory) was the original director on this story of Wyatt Earp, but he reportedly was in over his head on set, demanding a level of authenticity and length that proved unwieldy, falling behind on the shooting schedule. A month into filming, producer Andrew Vajna replaced Jarre with George P. Cosmatos, for whom he had ironically written the script for Rambo II. All of Jarre’s footage was scrapped with the exception of all scenes with Charlton Heston, who was unavailable to return. The script was parred down to make the shoot more manageable, and Kurt Russell acted as a kind of ghost director on set. The film was a surprise box office success, bringing in $56 million and besting Kevin Costner’s more expensive rival Wyatt Earp film.

Rambo III (1988)

Russell Mulcahy of Highlander fame was originally hired to helm this third installment of the Rambo franchise, with Sylvester Stallone at his physical (and egotistical) peak. Unfortunately, Mulcahy and Stallone clashed and after three weeks the director and much of his crew were sacked. One reason given was an incident where the director was supposed to hire vicious Russian troops but according to the actor hired “pretty boys.” Another reason was three weeks into production they were already two weeks behind schedule. Stallone promoted veteran second unit director Peter MacDonald, who had worked on Rambo II as well, to capable first-time director. The sequel became the most expensive movie ever made up to that time, but was unfortunately released after the Russians had already left Afghanistan and suffered at the box office.

I was surprised to learn that Spartacus and Phantom of the Opera started over.  Usually, when this happens it is pretty big news.

I always wanted to see footage from Rambo III directed by Russell Mulcahy.  I am a huge fan of the original Highlander and was interested in what he’d bring to Rambo… although “pretty boy” Russian troops wasn’t in the thought process.