Category: Trivia

10 Things You Might Not Know About Columbo

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Kara Kovalchik and Mental Floss present 10 Things You Might Not Know About Columbo.  Here are three of my favorites…

9. THE SERIES DIDN’T FOLLOW A STANDARD MYSTERY FORMAT.
The premise of Columbo was the “inverted mystery,” or a “HowCatchEm” instead of a “WhoDunIt.” Every episode began with the actual crime being played out in full view of the audience, meaning viewers already knew “WhodunIt.” What they wanted to know is how Lt. Columbo would slowly zero in on the perpetrator. This sort of story was particularly challenging for the series’s writers, and they sometimes found inspiration in the most unlikely places. Like the Yellow Pages, for example. One of Peter Falk’s personal favorite episodes, “Now You See Him,” had its genesis when the writers were flipping through the telephone book looking for a possible profession for a Columbo murderer (keep in mind that all of Columbo’s victims and perps were of the Beverly Hills elite variety, not your typical Starsky and Hutch-type thug).

A page listing professional magicians caught their eye, and that led to a classic episode featuring the ever-suave Jack Cassidy playing the role of the former SS Nazi officer who worked as a nightclub magician. When the Jewish nightclub owner recognized him and threatened to expose him, well, you can guess what happened. But the challenge is to guess how Lt. Columbo ultimately caught him.

7. STEVEN SPIELBERG GOT AN EARLY BREAK ON COLUMBO.
“Murder by the Book” was the second Columbo episode filmed, but it was the first one to air after the show was picked up as a series. Filming was delayed for a month, though, when Falk refused to sign off on this “kid”—a 25-year-old named Steven Spielberg—to direct the episode. Finally he watched a few of Spielberg’s previous credits (all of them TV episodes) and was impressed by his work on the short-lived NBC series called The Psychiatrist. Once filming was underway, Falk was impressed by many of the techniques employed by the young director, such as filming a street scene with a long lens from a building across the road. “That wasn’t common 20 years ago,” Falk said. He went on to tell producers Link and Levinson that “this guy is too good for Columbo.”

6. THE CHARACTER’S TRADEMARK RAINCOAT CAME FROM FALK’S CLOSET.
The initial wardrobe proposed for Columbo struck Peter Falk as completely wrong for the character. To get closer to what he wanted for Columbo, the actor went into his closet and found a beat-up coat he had bought years earlier when caught in a rainstorm on 57th Street. And he ordered one of the blue suits chosen for him to be dyed brown. The drab outfit would become one of the trademarks of the character for decades.

10 Things That Will Shock You About King Henry VIII

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Rob Hunter and Listverse present 10 Things That Will Shock You About King Henry VIII.  Here are three of my favorites…

8.  Henry Ate A Shocking 5,000 Calories Every Day Before He Died
While we know that Henry VIII was overweight in his later years, it’s hard to imagine just how big he was. However, a quick look at his daily diet makes it easy to see just why the king was so big. Every single day, he would eat about 13 different courses, mainly made up of meats like chicken, lamb, pork, rabbit, swans, peacocks, and venison. Not only did he eat excessively, but he also drank as many as 70 pints of ale every week, together with sweetened red wine. The total amounts to about 5,000 calories per day, twice today’s recommended allowance for an active man.[3] It’s no wonder that one of his surviving suits of armor, which is displayed at the Tower of London, has a waist size of 132 centimeters (52 in)!

6.  Henry Was The Very First English Monarch To Write A Book
There is no doubt whatsoever that Henry VIII was an extremely intelligent and well-educated man. The fact that he was fluent in at least three languages is well-known, and he had an impressive knowledge that spanned everything from theology to medicine. Yet most people are completely unaware that he was the first king of England to write and publish his own book. In 1521, Henry VIII published the rather confusingly titled Defense of the Seven Sacraments, or, to give it its Latin title, Assertio Septem Sacramentorum, as a response to Martin Luther’s challenge to the pope’s authority in publishing the Ninety-five Theses. At 30,000 words long, Henry’s book became a top seller in its day, and he was actually awarded the title of “Defender of the Faith” by the pope as a reward for his efforts.[5]

1.   Henry Turned Beards Into A Status Symbol
Portraits of England’s best-known monarch usually depict him wearing an impressive set of whiskers. However, it isn’t widely known that Henry introduced a tax which was levied on the wearing of beards and which turned facial hair into a status symbol overnight.[10] There have been some seriously bizarre taxes over the years, but Henry’s beard tax has to be one of the strangest. In 1535, the king demanded that taxes be paid by any man who chose to wear a beard, and the amount charged varied depending on the social status of its wearer, meaning that every man who wanted to be viewed as high-status immediately decided to grow their facial hair.So, there you have it—ten amazing things that you never knew about England’s not-so merry monarch. The next time you see a movie or TV show featuring this Tudor king, you’ll know a little more about what made him tick!

31 Things We Learned from Michael Mann’s “Manhunter” Commentary

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Rob Hunter and Film School Rejects present 31 Things We Learned from Michael Mann’s Manhunter Commentary.  Here are three of my favorites…

9. Brian Dennehy “very much wanted to play Hannibal Lecktor,” but told Mann that despite his own interest in the role there was someone who would actually be better for it. He then directed Mann to go see a play in NYC called Rat in the Skull featuring a British actor named… Brian Cox.

5. One of the key things that drew him to Thomas Harris‘ novel Red Dragon was Graham’s path of self-destruction in the service of catching and stopping the killer. “It fascinated me so much it made this, to me, a totally unique detective story and one that had dynamics and complexities that I had never seen before.”

8. Mann says there was an impulse during production to increase Hannibal Lecktor’s (Brian Cox) screen-time, but he resisted the urge. “I wanted the audience to almost not quite get enough of him.” The first meeting between Graham and Lecktor is extended for the director’s cut.

The 25 Greatest Movie Villains of All Time

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Gem Seddon and GamesRadar.com present The 25 Greatest Movie Villains of All Time. Here are three of my favorites and some after thoughts…

17. The Terminator
As played by: Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Terminator (1984)

The villain: Sure, the T-1000 might be deadlier, but there’s no doubting the intimidation factor of Skynet’s original robot enforcer. Opting to shoot first and ask questions later, he’s a robust killing machine that won’t stop until you are dead.

Meanest moment: When he blazes a trail through the local police station, turning his weapons on anything that moves.

Nicest quality: If he’s on your side, he’s lovely! See Terminator 2 for details.

15. Hans Gruber
As played by: Alan Rickman in Die Hard (1988)

The villain: One of the first of a new breed of urbane, continental terrorists, the unflappable Gruber is the perfect counterpoint to rough and ready cop John McClane. He isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty – he’d just rather not rumple his suit unless it’s absolutely necessary.

Meanest moment: “You know my name but who are you?” sneers Gruber. “Just another American who saw too many movies as a child? Another orphan of a bankrupt culture who thinks he’s John Wayne? Rambo? Marshal Dillon?”

Nicest quality: He’s a bright boy. “And when Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer,” he quotes.

4. Anton Chigurh
As played by: Javier Bardem in No Country For Old Men (2007)

The villain: A psychotic gun-for-hire with a slavish devotion to the laws of chance. There’s nothing more terrifying than a nutcase with a code and an obsession for murdering people with a cattle bolt gun. It’s as horrible as it sounds.

Meanest moment: The way he taunts the store owner is pretty bad (you don’t know what you’re talking about) but there’s nothing to top the unyielding bloody-mindedness that leads him to kill Carla Jean.

Nicest quality: He’s good with kids. He doesn’t kill those two boys, does he?

The 25 Best Action Movies to Get Your Adrenaline Pumping.

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Gem Seddon and GamesRadar.com present The 25 Best Action Movies to Get Your Adrenaline Pumping.  Here are three of my favorites and some after thoughts…

8. John Wick (2014)
Action hero: John Wick
The film: Director Chad Stahelski overcomes first-time jitters in his filmmaking debut, largely due to his experiences as a martial arts stunt co-ordinator. This revenge actioner throws in some dark motivating factors for Keanu Reeves leading man. His vendetta kill mission is the most dazzling work Reeves has accomplished since his first time tackling Neo.

Most action-packed scene: Wick enters a club wherein he punches, kicks, headbutts and shoots anyone who crosses his path. Each strike hits with an eerie precision.

6. First Blood (1982)
Action hero: John Rambo
The film: The first Rambo movie is part-action, part-thriller, a far darker movie than its sequels would have you remember. Sly Stallone plays the former Green Beret back from Vietnam, who is targeted by a nasty small-town sheriff. All Rambo wants is to live a normal life, all the cops want is to take him down. Guess who wins?

Most action-packed scene: Overthrowing the local PD coppers, Rambo escapes into the nearby woods, where the lawmen scatter to try and recapture him. Their attempts fail miserably as he sets up a series of brutal traps to prevent them from finding him.

2. Die Hard (1988)
Action hero: John McClane
The film: New York cop John McClane picks the first of many wrong places and wrong times to visit his wife at work, but for star Bruce Willis and director John McTiernan, the timing couldn’t have been better. Putting an ordinary Joe in the middle of a firefight, confining a terrorist takeover to a single, claustrophobic building, and balancing quip-smart dialogue with hard and heavy action set-pieces, Die Hard set the mold and broke it at the same time.

Most action-packed scene: A rooftop bomb. A short fire hose. A plate glass window. The rest is history.

Atomic Blonde almost made my top three.  I’m surprised that Enter the Dragon didn’t make the list. C’mon, Gem!

“The Maltese Falcon” Got the Cinephilia and Beyond Treatment!

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The Maltese Falcon Got the Cinephilia and Beyond Treatment!

Click on the link and you’ll find…

  • John Huston’s original script for The Maltese Falcon
  • A rare interview with Huston
  • Huston’s approach to storytelling
  • A Screen Guild Theater radio production of The Maltese Falcon, featuring Peter Lorre, Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, and Sydney Greenstreet. Original air date: 9/20/1943.
  • Rare behind-the-scenes photos
  • and much more!

35 THINGS WE LEARNED FROM THE ‘IRON GIANT’ COMMENTARY

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Film School Rejects presents 35 THINGS WE LEARNED FROM THE IRON GIANT COMMENTARY .  Here are three of my favorites…

One of the big questions Bird and Lynch faced was in how much they should reveal of the Giant early on. They wanted to keep the Giant interesting and grab the audience’s attention without giving away too much too early. This seems to always be a concern for filmmakers creating a story that involves an otherworldly creature. Some director’s just don’t even bother with subtlety.

As Bird and Markowski mention, the first time Hogarth runs into the Iron Giant is the most robotic the Giant is in the entire film. They wanted to gradually show the Giant picking up Hogarth’s mannerisms and acting more and more human as the story progressed. As mentioned later on in the scene when Hogarth confronts and talk to the Giant for the first time, the Giant learns these humanistic skills very quickly going from “pet to friend to hero” as Markowski says.

One of the things Bird is very proud of in The Iron Giant is how real his characters feel. He mentions the audience reacting audibly when Hogarth gets hit in the face with a branch and how that’s a very difficult thing to pull from the audience when you’re dealing with animated characters. Audiences are so used to Wile Coyote falling off cliffs they’ve become accustomed to animated characters being more malleable than real people. “If you defy gravity and later on need to feel danger in the film, you have a really hard time convincing the audience how to do that,” says Bird.

39 THINGS WE LEARNED FROM ‘THE BOONDOCK SAINTS’ COMMENTARY

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Film School Rejects presents 39 THINGS WE LEARNED FROM THE BOONDOCK SAINTS COMMENTARY .  Here are three of my favorites…

To make it look legit that Reedus’ character, Murphy, was picking up and carrying Connor, the director told Flanery not to help Reedus in any way. Reedus had to jog out of the alley with dead weight of about 180 pounds on his shoulder.

The initial premise for The Boondock Saints came when Duffy and his brother, Taylor, were living in a run-down apartment complex. Duffy notes the drugs and guns that constantly came through the building and how he and his brother always fantasized about doing something about it. “Not that we’ve ever killed anybody, because we certainly have not…to the best of your knowledge.” Oh, that Troy Duffy cracks me up with his crazy antics about back in the day when he was a vigilante.

1:23:40 – Duffy gets angry. The comparisons made by critics and other commentators of Duffy and other directors like Quentin Tarantino and Guy Ritchie comes up. Duffy notes that The Boondock Saints was finished before Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels hit theaters. “Tarantino’s another story,” Duffy says. He feels Tarantino “reinvented cool,” but also mentions certain elements of Pulp Fiction may have subconsciously influenced The Boondock Saints. He also notes the films Tarantino had been influenced by for his films. “So what? We’re creators. We go and do these things to the best of our ability. There are similarities, and there are differences. Everybody’s going to have their own opinion about it, but I guess it could be worse, you know?”

10 Fun Facts About “Better Call Saul”

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Scott Beggs and Mental Floss present 10 Fun Facts About Better Call Saul.  Here are three of my favorites…

3. THE TITLES HAVE HIDDEN MEANINGS.
You can take nothing for granted in the Better Call Saul universe, including the episode titles. In the first season, every episode (from “Uno” to “Marco”) ended in the letter O, except “Alpine Shepherd Boy,” which was supposed to be called “Jell-O” before the producers waved it off to avoid being sued by the gelatin makers. Even crazier, the first letters of season two’s episodes (S-C-A-G-R-B-I-F-N-K) unscramble to spell “Fring’s Back”—a clear message for Breaking Bad fans.

6. CHUCK WASN’T INTENDED TO BE A BAD GUY.
Everyone who watches the show hates Chuck McGill, Jimmy’s brother played by Michael McKean, but it wasn’t until writing the seventh episode that Gilligan and the writers realized Chuck was a villain. “Believe it or not, the idea of Chuck being the ‘bad guy’ was a late addition to Season 1,” Gilligan explained during a 2015 Reddit AMA. “This points out one of the things I love most about writing for TV. There are enough episodes and enough lead time (if you’re lucky) for writers to change the direction of a story midstream.”

8. YOU SHOULD PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT COLOR PEOPLE ARE WEARING.
Gilligan’s fanatical dedication to detail includes the colors that get associated with each character. It was a major element in Breaking Bad. It’s also a big part of Better Call Saul in the form of the “Fire and Ice Theory,” partially confirmed by writer Peter Gould, who confessed that hotter colors like red were associated with criminals. That tacitly means cooler colors are meant for the innocent, so it’s curious that Jimmy’s car is yellow with one red door …

10 Strange Facts About The Mysterious Death Of Rasputin

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After over 100 years most folks still know the story of the murder of Rasputin, the Mad Monk!  That he was fed enough poison to kill an elephant and showed no signs of sickness.  That he was shot through the heart and still struggled with his assassins.  That he was shot several more times, tied up and tossed in a river… and when his body was found his hands were free!

History books tell us that  Prince Felix Yusupov and four co-conspirators planned and executed Rasputin.  Yisupov took credit from the start…

… But Yusupov’s confession didn’t fit a single one of the facts. Every single detail in his story contradicted the autopsy and the evidence…

Mark Oliver and Listverse present 10 Strange Facts About The Mysterious Death Of Rasputin.  Here are three of my favorites…

7.  The Autopsy That Contradicts Everything Yusupov Said
Yusupov’s story certainly is exciting—but it doesn’t fit the facts. The autopsy report on Rasputin’s body, conducted by Professor Dmitry Kosorotov, contradicts every single word.In his memoirs, Yusupov claims that he shot Rasputin in the heart and even says that he had Dr. Lazovert check the body and confirm that was where the bullet had hit its mark. Kosorotov’s autopsy, though, found only three bullet wounds, and not a single one had even come close to the heart. Instead, the bullets went through his stomach, liver, kidney, and skull, with wounds that no physician could possibly mistake for a gunshot to the heart.[4]Likewise, Yusupov claimed that Rasputin was taken down by a long-range shot from Purishkevich that took him in the back of the head. The bullet in Rasputin’s skull, however, had entered from the front at point-blank range, while Rasputin was lying on the ground.It’s hard to reconcile Yusupov’s story with the facts. Some have suggested that he blew the murder up to make Rasputin more of a threat—but his account is nowhere near the truth. It’s almost as though Yusupov had no idea how Rasputin died.

3. The British Spy Who Might Have Killed Him
Every bullet in Rasputin’s body, according to the autopsy, came out of a different caliber gun. At least three people—or at least three guns—had to have been involved in his death.The bullet holes in his stomach and kidney could have been made by Yusupov and Purishkevich’s guns, but the one in his skull didn’t fit. It was made with a revolver, specifically, according to the most popular theory, a .455 Webley—a gun none of the conspirators carried.A British friend of Yusupov’s named Oswald Rayner, though, carried a .455 Webley on him at almost all times. And though Yusupov denies that he was ever there, a lot of people think that Rayner fired the shot that finished Rasputin off, all under the orders of British Intelligence.The British had a vested interest in seeing Rasputin dead. He was trying to broker peace between Russia and Germany, and his treaty would have turned the tide of World War I against the Allies. In Rasputin hadn’t died, it’s possible that the Germans would have won the war. And there’s a letter that seems to completely give it away. A man named Stephen Alley, stationed in Petrograd, sent a missive to England on January 7, 1917, that read: Our objective has clearly been achieved. Reaction to the demise of ‘Dark Forces’ has been well received by all, although a few awkward questions have already been asked about wider involvement. Rayner is attending to loose ends and will no doubt brief you on your return.

1.  The Burning Body That Sat Up
The most popular explanation for Yusupov’s outrageous story is that he was trying to erase a guilty conscience. He’d killed a defenseless man in cold blood, but he still wanted the people to believe that he was a hero. And so he changed the truth, making himself look better by selling Rasputin as a demonic monster who couldn’t be killed.But one strange moment in March 1917 almost makes it tempting to believe that Yusupov was telling the truth: that Rasputin really a supernatural being.A group of soldiers exhumed Rasputin’s body, threw it onto a pile of logs, doused it in gasoline, and set it on fire. They destroyed his body, afraid his tomb would become a monument to the Tsarist regime.A whole crowd of villagers came out to watch Rasputin’s body burn—and almost every one of them insists that they saw his decomposing corpse rise up in the fire.[10]There are scientific explanations, of course. It’s been speculated that Rasputin’s tendons shrank in the fire, causing his body to bend at the waist. Or else the whole thing has been written off as a great mass delusion.But Rasputin, they say, predicted every bit of it. In a letter that Rasputin (supposedly) wrote to Tsarina Alexandra shortly before his death, he said: “I feel that I shall leave life before January 1. ”Even dead, the sorcerer predicted, he would not be left in peace. His body would be burned, his ashes scattered into the winds.

The 50 Best Movie Fights You’ll Want to Watch Again and Again

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GamesRadar posted The 50 Best Movie Fights You’ll Want to Watch Again and Again.  There are a lot of great choices in this list.  Using just their picks here are five of my favorites…

41. Enter the Dragon (1973)
The fight: Bruce Lee faces his last great opponent, Han, in a showdown finale featuring trick mirrors and deadly traps. Because, when Bruce was at the top of his game, the best way his opponent could hope to defeat him was through cunning.

Killer move: After much skulking around mirrored corridors, Lee finally catches Han out and delivers a final blow, high kicking him into his own spear.

40. Atomic Blonde (2017)
The fight: Charlize Theron’s spy has already been through a lot when she’s faced down by two attackers in a stairwell in Berlin during the Cold War, but that doesn’t stop her from kicking ass. This fight scene is so impressive due mainly to the fact that it goes on for a long time (the baddies seem to fight through many a mortal wound before finally going down) and the realistic brutality of the moves.

Killer move: Towards the end of the fight, one of the men pulls his own dagger out of his chest only for Theron to slammed it back into his throat multiple times and throw him down the stairs.

34. Rocky (1976)
The fight: THE sporting underdog story: the little-known Italian Stallion’s climactic bout with arrogant heavyweight champion Apollo Creed.

Killer move: Rocky’s sheer stamina. Having already taken a severe beating, Creed knocks him to the floor and throws his hands up in celebration. But his incredulous look is priceless as Rocky struggles back up to his feet…

16. John Wick (2014)
The fight: After declaring war on the Russian mob (who are indirectly responsible for killing his dog), Wick seeks out Alfie Allen’s Iosef Tarasov in the fancy sauna room of a nightclub. He cuts through Tarasov’s security with ease, practically punching them with bullets from his gun.

Killer move: This actually happens at the start of the scene, when Wick finds and kills Tarasov’s buddy, Victor in the changing room of the club.

10. Way of the Dragon (1972)
The fight: Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris put each other through their paces in this legendary battle from Way of the Dragon. Watch out for Chucks shoulder hair its worryingly prominent.

Killer move: The series of kicks that puts Norris on his backside. For a minute there, he almost looks worried.

And here are three that didn’t make the list that should have…

  • Nada [Roddy Piper] vs. Frank [David Keith] in They Live
  • Chaney [Charles Bronson] vs. Jim Henry [Robert Tessier] in Hard Times
  • A Number 1[Lee Marvin] vs. Shack [Ernest Borgnine] in Emperor of the North

Others?

37 Things to Look for the Next Time You Watch “Back to the Future”

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Sean Hutchinson and Mental Floss present 37 Things to Look for the Next Time You Watch Back to the Future.  Here are three of my favorites…

6. MAYOR RED THOMAS FELL ON HARD TIMES.
When Marty sees the tramp on the bench in 1985 he shouts out the name “Red,” which could indicate this character is Red Thomas, the mayor of Hill Valley in 1955.  The photo of Thomas on his 1955 reelection campaign is actually Back to the Future’s set decorator, Hal Gausman.

7. THE GUY WHO THINKS MARTY IS “TOO DARN LOUD” PROBABLY LOOKS FAMILIAR.
The school administrator with the megaphone who chides Marty’s band, The Pinheads, for being too loud is singer Huey Lewis in his first acting role. The scene had an added irony as Lewis made The Pinheads stop playing his own song, “Power of Love,” which appeared on the Back to the Future soundtrack.
Marty also has a poster for the Huey Lewis & the News album “Sports” in his bedroom, and when Marty wakes up after getting back to the future in the improved 1985, Lewis’s soundtrack song “Back in Time” plays on his alarm clock radio.

10. UNCLE ‘JAILBIRD’ JOEY IS USED TO BEING BEHIND BARS.
Lorraine serves the family a cake for Marty’s unseen uncle Joey in 1985, which was supposed to celebrate his freedom from prison before he didn’t make parole.

Joey’s penchant for the slammer is brought up again when Marty sees baby Joey in 1955 when his mother says, “Joey just loves being in his playpen. He cries whenever we take him out so we just leave him in there all the time.”

25 Things We Learned from John Woo’s “Mission Impossible 2” Commentary

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Rob Hunter and Film School Rejects present 25 Things We Learned from John Woo’s Mission Impossible 2 Commentary.  Here are three of my favorites…

2. He was concerned about competing with Brian De Palma’s style, but Cruise was very adamant that he wanted Woo’s style for the second film. “He loved Face/Off, he loved all of my Hong Kong films.” Cruise said his goal was to have each film — each “episode” — be a different style from a different director. “That made me feel relaxed.”

7. Director and star clashed over some of the stunts as Woo wanted stunt doubles and Cruise was adamant about doing them himself. He told Woo he didn’t like “cheating” and that it’s too easy to spot when the actor is being doubled because of body movement, timing, etc. It didn’t help that Woo is himself afraid of heights. “I admire his courage.”

22. Cruise shared with Woo his love of Bruce Lee, so the director used that as inspiration for designing the end fight between Hunt and Ambrose.

14 Facts About Daniel Boone

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Daniel Boone holds a special place in American History and the childhood memories of many my age.  Fess Parker portrayed Daniel Boone as a decent, fearless, fair man who’s exciting adventures were the basis of legend.

Lucas Reilly and Mental Floss present 14 Facts About Daniel Boone.  I hope the legend and the truth aren’t too far apart.  Here are three of my favorites…

6. HE ESSENTIALLY LIVED THE PLOT OF TAKEN.
In July 1776, Boone’s daughter Jemima, along with two other teenagers, were abducted by Cherokee and Shawnee Indians while they were out canoeing. With help from the girls—who were breaking twigs and leaving markings whenever they could—Boone managed to find them in just three days (just like Liam Neeson, he had a very particular set of skills). At least two of their captors were killed. The incident later inspired a scene in James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans.

7. HE WAS A SHAWNEE CHIEF’S ADOPTED SON.
In February 1778, Boone and a party of men were captured by Shawnee Indians. Boone made an impassioned case to Chief Blackfish, asking the natives to spare their lives. In exchange, come spring he would ensure that Boonesborough would surrender peacefully. Boone’s plea worked. Not only did Chief Blackfish adopt Boone into the tribe, he made the frontiersman his son. “During our travels, the Indians entertained me well; and their affection for me was so great, that they utterly refused to leave me there with the others,” Boone said. He was given the name Big Turtle.

13. FAME ANNOYED HIM.
John Filson’s 1784 book The Discovery, Settlement and Present State of Kentucke made Boone famous. Soon, stories about Boone’s life were detaching from reality. He hated it: “Nothing embitters my old age [more than] the circulation of absurd stories … many heroic actions and chivalrous adventures are related of me which exist only in the regions of fancy. With me the world has taken great liberties, and yet I have been but a common man.”

10 Colorful Facts About “The Munsters”

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Me-TV presents 10 Colorful Facts About The Munsters.  Here are three of my favorites…

1. The idea dates back to 1943.
The idea for a family of comedic Universal monsters dates back to the heyday of Universal monster pictures. In the early 1940s, the studio was still flying high off its monster franchises. It had recently launched The Wolf Man and The Phantom of the Opera. Lon Cheney Jr. was shambling along in The Ghost of Frankenstein. In 1943, Bob Clampett, an animator who worked on Looney Tunes cartoons, pitched the idea of a funny Monster family to Universal. After a couple years developing the concept, nothing came of it for two decades. Even in the 1960s, as interest picked back up, some at the studio believed it should be a cartoon.

8. The original Marilyn quit acting after 13 episodes — and a third Marilyn was used in the movie.
No Munster family member changed like Marilyn, Lily’s niece. Initially, Beverley Owen (pictured here) filled the role. Midway through season one, Owen quit the business entirely, to get married and focus on her family. She would later earn a masters degree in Early American History. Pat Priest popularized the role of Marilyn thereafter on the show. However, Universal recast the character for Munster, Go Home! The studio inserted Debbie Watson — 12 years younger — into the role, in hope of building the contracted starlet’s career.

9. The Drag-U-La was made with an illegally purchased coffin.
Reportedly, according to legend, a real coffin was used to make the awesome DRAG-U-LA hot rod seen in Munster, Go Home! The only catch that it was supposedly illegal to purchase a coffin without a death certificate in the state of California at the time. Richard “Korky” Korkes, the man who built the dragster, claimed he passed money under the table to a funeral home in North Hollywood, who left a coffin for him outside the back door.