World’s 5 Greatest Magic Tricks are Revealed!
Check out the video below where the World’s 5 Greatest Magic Tricks are Revealed!
Category: Trivia
10 Less Than Heroic Stories Of Survival From The Titanic
Mark Oliver and Listverse present 10 Less Than Heroic Stories Of Survival From The Titanic.
While it is hard to predict how we’d act in a life or death situation, if you check out the piece above you’ll learn about…
- the man who said he accidentally tripped and fell into a lifeboat…
- the man who dressed up as a woman to get into a lifeboat…
- the millionaires who bribed crew to get their own lifeboat…
- the man who told his wife the boat was sinking and to gather up the children and then left before they got topside on a lifeboat…
- the baker who got drunk and went down with the ship but survived!
13 Running Facts About “The Fugitive”
Eric D. Snider and Mental_Floss present 13 Running Facts About The Fugitive. Here are three of my favorites…
2. IT WAS ALMOST ALEC BALDWIN INSTEAD OF HARRISON FORD.
Kopelson, a fan of the TV series, had been trying off and on to get the film made since the 1970s. It was finally about to happen in the early ’90s, with Alec Baldwin in the lead role and Walter Hill (48 Hrs.) as director, but Warner Bros. didn’t think Baldwin had enough star power. “With an expensive movie, the consideration is, what star can ‘open’ it,” Kopelson said, “and the studio wasn’t certain at that time that Alec could do it.” (By the way, this was the secondtime Baldwin had lost a role to Harrison Ford, who also replaced him as Jack Ryan in The Hunt for Red October sequel Patriot Games.)
9. HARRISON FORD WASN’T FAKING HIS BEFUDDLEMENT IN THE INTERROGATION SCENE.
To lend more realism to the scene where Dr. Kimble is first questioned by police, Davis had Ford and the other actors do it with only half a script—the cops’ half. Ford, not knowing in advance what the questions would be, had to ad lib responses in character. Naturally, this came across as being defensive and flustered, which was exactly what the situation called for. Acting!
13. THE DAM SCENE COST $2 MILLION, INCLUDING ABOUT $60,000 FOR DUMMIES.
The maze of tunnels leading to the dam were fake, and built in a Chicago warehouse. The last section of the tunnel—the part that opens over the dam, where Kimble and Gerard have their dramatic confrontation—was actually transported from Chicago to the Cheoah Dam in North Carolina, where it was rigged to look like it belonged there. For the big jump, there were no stuntmen involved. Ford himself (secured by a wire) did the shot where Kimble looks over the edge and considers jumping, and dummies were used for the plunge itself. Six Harrison Ford lookalike dummies were commissioned, each costing somewhere between $7000 and $12,000. They did not survive intact, much to the dismay of their manufacturer, who’d been hoping to re-rent them.
The Terrifying Subliminal Image Hidden in “The Exorcist”
If you’ve ever seen The Exorcist, then you’ve seen the face above even if you don’t remember it.
Director William Friedkin flashed the image on the screen for 1/8 of a second. Your subconscious would recognize the frightening image even if you didn’t fully process it.
If you click over to The Terrifying Subliminal Image Hidden in The Exorcist by Jake Rossen at Mental_Floss you’ll get the full lowdown on the image and where you can find it.
15 Farm-Fresh Facts About “Green Acres”
Stacy Conradt and Mental_Floss present 15 Farm-Fresh Facts About Green Acres. Here are three of my favorites…
2. THE WHOLE RIDICULOUS PREMISE WAS BASED IN REALITY.
If it seems a bit farfetched that a city slicker would leave a lucrative career in finance to rehab a dying farm without knowing a thing about agriculture, well, at least one person has tried it. “I got the idea from my stepfather when I was a kid,” Sommers, the show’s creator, said in a 1965 interview. “He wanted a farm in the worst way and he finally got one. I remember having to hoe potatoes. I hated it. I won’t even do the gardening at our home now, I was so resentful as a child.”
7. IT WAS ONE OF DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER’S FAVORITE SHOWS.
During his retirement years, keeping tabs on the residents of Hooterville became one of the former president’s favorite pastimes. The Eisenhowers loved the show so much that they deemed their valet’s pet pig “Arnold” and allowed it to freely roam their house—even letting it lounge on slip-covered chairs that their grandkids weren’t allowed to sit on.
9. MR. HANEY WAS BASED ON ELVIS PRESLEY’S MANAGER.
Actor Pat Buttram, who played Mr. Haney, met Elvis Presley’s manager, Colonel Tom Parker, on the set of the movie Roustabout, where Buttram played the owner of a carnival. He got the part of Mr. Haney just a year later—and later stated that he used Parker as inspiration for the Green Acres swindler.
12 Howling Facts About “The Wolfman”
Marck Mancini and Mental_Floss present 12 Howling Facts About The Wolfman. Here are three of my favorites…
3. BELA LUGOSI WANTED TO PLAY THE MAIN CHARACTER.
Lugosi lost the role to Lon Chaney Jr, whose performance in The Wolf Man propelled him into stardom. Nevertheless, the former Count Dracula didn’t get left out. Universal cast Lugosi as a mustachioed Gypsy fortuneteller named “Bela.” This character is later revealed to be a werewolf who gets the plot rolling by biting our friend, Mr. Talbot.
4. THAT SUPPOSEDLY ANCIENT POEM WAS MADE UP BY SIODMAK.
“Even a man who is pure at heart and says his prayers by night may become a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright.” Over the course of the film, this spooky verse is recited on several occasions—usually by a character who claims that it’s some sort of ancient rhyme. But the poem was really authored by Siodmak himself. In 1989, he told journalist Tom Weaver “nowadays, film historians think it’s from German folklore. It isn’t. I made it up.” Authentic or not, the poem was repeated verbatim in 2004’s Van Helsing.
12. THE WOLF MAN WAS CHANEY’S ALL-TIME FAVORITE ROLE.
The film’s success secured Chaney’s place alongside Lugosi, Karloff, and Rains on the Mount Rushmore of horror icons. Over the next few years, he’d more or less become Universal’s go-to guy whenever a new monster role became available. Between 1941 and 1949, the rising star played a mummy, the vampiric son of Dracula, and Frankenstein’s monster. Still, the role of the Wolf Man always held a special place in his heart. Later in life, Chaney wrote “Of all the character’s I’ve been, I liked Lawrence Talbot, the Wolf Man, the best.” Like Siodmak, Chaney regarded him as a tragic figure. “He never wanted to hurt anyone,” noted the actor. “During his period of sanity, in between full moons, he begged to be confined, chained, even killed to avoid the horrible consequences of his curse. He was a classic product of misunderstanding.”
25 Things We Learned from Kathryn Bigelow’s “Near Dark” Commentary
Rob Hunter and Film School Rejects present 25 Things We Learned from Kathryn Bigelow’s Near Dark Commentary. Here are three of my favorites…
1. The realization that they were going to film a real mosquito interacting with an actor meant they had to grow it from scratch “so that there were no contaminants that he would be exposed to.” It became a six-month process.
8. Each member of the vampire family has “their own quandary, their own private hell that they’re living with.” The exception is Severen (Bill Paxton) who’s “the prototypical vampire, he’s the one without remorse, without guilt, without regret. He’s the perfect vampire.”
15. Paxton ad-libbed both the theft of the sunglasses and the line “I hate it when they ain’t been shaved!”
16 Endearing Facts About Steve Buscemi
Jeff Wells and Mental_Floss present 16 Endearing Facts About Steve Buscemi. Here are three of my favorites…
3. HE FORMED A COMEDY DUO WITH SONS OF ANARCHY’S MARK BOONE, JR.
For a brief while, Buscemi tried his hand at stand-up comedy (he bombed). In 1984, he met fellow aspiring actor Mark Boone, Jr., and the two began performing together. Part improv, part scripted comedy, the two would often carry out power struggles that pitted thin-man Buscemi against the larger Boone. The New York Times called their act “theater in the absurdist vein.”
8. HIS CHARACTER IN CON AIR WAS WRITTEN SPECIFICALLY FOR HIM.
In Con Air, the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced action movie filled with muscled-up prisoners, Buscemi played the most dangerous con of them all. His Garland Greene—a serial killer whose exploits “make the Manson family look like the Partridge family,” according to one character—enters the film strapped to a chair, Hannibal Lecter mask affixed to his face. Screenwriter Scott Rosenberg, a friend of Buscemi’s, wrote the part with him in mind, and was tickled when Buscemi accepted the role. To this day, fans will still serenade the actor with “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.”
9. HIS CHARACTER IN DESPERADO IS NAMED AFTER HIM.
Although he inevitably dies (courtesy of Danny Trejo’s throwing knives), Buscemi commands the opening of Desperado, Robert Rodriguez’s stylish revenge movie, regaling bar patrons with the story of the title gunslinger, played by Antonio Banderas. Because his character’s name is never mentioned, Rodriguez decided to have some fun and name him “Buscemi” in the credits.
7 Real-Life Horror Stories Behind “American Horror Story”
Kristin Hunt and Mental_Floss present 7 Real-Life Horror Stories Behind American Horror Story. Here are three of my favorites…
2. THE BLACK DAHLIA
Also during season one, American Horror Story revealed that one of the past guests at the “Murder House” was Elizabeth Short, better known as The Black Dahlia. While AHS suggested a creepy dentist raped the aspiring actress and then let a ghost mutilate her, Short’s real-life killer remains a mystery. A mother and her child stumbled upon her body, which was sliced in half and drained of blood, on the morning of January 15, 1947. Her death became a media sensation, and newspapers quickly dubbed her “The Black Dahlia.” This was supposedly both a play on the 1946 film noir The Blue Dahlia and a reference to Short’s love of sheer black dresses.
Because the cuts on her body pointed to a murderer with surgical skills, the police began searching for doctors. They never identified the culprit, but people are still naming suspects to this day. In 2014, retired homicide detective Steve Hodel produced evidence that his own father was the killer.
5. THE AXEMAN OF NEW ORLEANS
Another NOLA murderer appeared in American Horror Story’s witchy third season. That would be the so-called Axeman of New Orleans. The anonymous killer terrorized the city between 1918 and 1919 by breaking into houses and slaying residents with an axe. In March of 1919, he reportedly wrote to The Times-Picayune, threatening a fresh attack but promising to spare any home that was playing jazz, his favorite music.
Jazz was blared across the city that night, so no one was killed. But sporadic attacks continued until October, when a grocer got the final blow. Although some speculated that the deaths were spurred by Mafia feuds, the Axeman’s motive and identity were never determined. He remains famous for his peculiar letter to the editor, which was recreated on American Horror Story.
6. JOHN WAYNE GACY, KILLER CLOWN
John Wayne Gacy’s crimes filled out two separate seasons of American Horror Story. In AHS: Freak Show, his spirit is channeled through Twisty the Clown, a disfigured children’s entertainer who kidnaps and kills. Later, in AHS: Hotel, the same actor who played Twisty (John Carroll Lynch) returned to play Gacy for “Devil’s Night,” a special Halloween episode featuring other notorious serial killers, including Aileen Wuornos and Jeffrey Dahmer.
It’s easy to see why AHS used Gacy twice, given his backstory. From 1972 through 1978, Gacy sexually assaulted and murdered at least 33 teenage boys. When he wasn’t luring those young men into his suburban home, he was dressing up as Pogo the Clown for kids’ birthday parties. After the police uncovered mass graves in his crawlspace and throughout his property, Gacy was put on trial and sentenced to die by lethal injection. He spent 14 years on death row before he was executed in 1994.
11 Collectible Facts About Hot Wheels
Marck Mancini and Mental_Floss present 11 Collectible Facts About Hot Wheels. Here are three of my favorites…
5. 16 MILLION HOT WHEELS CARS WERE SOLD IN 1968 ALONE.
Demand for these toys hasn’t waned: Mattel estimates that over 4 billion cars have been produced and claims that eight of them are bought every single second.
6. IF YOU’VE GOT ONE WITH RED CIRCLES ON THE WHEELS, IT MIGHT BE WORTH SOME MONEY.
From 1968 to 1977, thin red lines were typically painted around the sidewalls of Hot Wheels tires. But in an effort to cut costs, Mattel went with all-black wheels partway through 1977. Collectors prize the old “redline” Hot Wheels—in fact, certain mint-condition models sell for thousands of dollars.
11. IN 2011, THE HOT WHEELS BRAND WAS INDUCTED INTO THE NATIONAL TOY HALL OF FAME.
Located in Rochester, New York, the National Toy Hall of Fame honors the world’s most influential playthings, from the cardboard box to Raggedy Ann. Mattel’s Hot Wheels line was formally inducted in 2011, along with the dollhouse and the blanket.
13 Mummified Facts about Ötzi the Iceman
Kristina Killgrove and Mental_Floss present 13 Mummified Facts about Ötzi the Iceman. Here are three of my favorites…
5. HE HOLDS THE RECORD FOR OLDEST TATTOOS IN THE WORLD.
The mummy boasts 61 different tattoos, and they are the oldest physical evidence of tattooing in the world. While the Iceman does not have “MOM” on his biceps or a butterfly on his lower back, his tattoos are still quite interesting. They were made by scratching his skin and rubbing charcoal in the fresh wound, resulting in groups of lines or crosses. It has also been suggested that their placement over joints may have been an attempt to treat pain. As the oldest tattooed person ever found, Ötzi holds a Guinness World Record.
7. HE WAS AN EARLY ADOPTER OF TECHNOLOGY.
Ötzi’s field kit held a surprising number of different tools. There was a copper-bladed axe, which marks him as high status; a flint dagger and its tree-fiber sheath; and a bow made out of a yew tree. His quiver, fashioned out of deer hide with hazel wood supports, contained two finished arrows and a dozen unfinished shafts. He had a net for catching rabbits and birds, as well as a marble disc with a hole in the middle for hanging or carrying dead fowls. He also carried cylindrical containers made of birch bark—a kind of Copper Age Tupperware that kept charcoal embers hot for hours so he could quickly make a fire. His teeth were worn particularly on the left side, meaning he may have used his mouth to help work leather. The Iceman’s hair also revealed high levels of arsenic, suggesting he was a pro at smelting ores to make copper.
8. HE WAS A CHALCOLITHIC RAMBO.
Ötzi was short and stocky, around 5’2” tall and 135 lbs, with strong legs. In 2003, an early study of DNA from Ötzi and his belongings claimed to find blood from four different individuals—there was some on his dagger, on his goatskin coat, and on one of the arrows. This finding was never published, though, and has not been replicated since. But other evidence for combat exists in the form of two injuries. Several right-sided rib fractures had healed before death. Shortly before his death, Ötzi was struck in the head. A protein analysis of his brain reveals some healing, particularly in the form of blood clots—but those could have caused a stroke or embolism. The Iceman also suffered a long, deep stab wound to his right hand. Based on the stage of healing evident from the wound tissue, it occurred between 3 to 8 days before his death. And of course, the arrow lodged in his left shoulder was likely the ultimate cause of death. In short, Ötzi was a hunter and a fighter.
25 Facts About “Lethal Weapon”
Roger Cormier, Garin Pirnia and Mental_Floss present 25 Facts About Lethal Weapon. Here are three of my favorites…
2. SHANE BLACK SET OUT TO WRITE AN “URBAN WESTERN,” MIXED WITH FRANKENSTEIN.
“What I was looking to do at that time was write a urban western,” Black said. For Riggs, Black used one of his favorite films, Dirty Harry, as a template. “That’s what I was thinking about for that character, sort of the Frankenstein who everybody reviles … for what he did, for what he’s capable of, for the things he still believes in. Because we think that we’re all placid and tame, but in fact violence intrudes in a horrible way and then they have to knock on Frankenstein’s cage and say, ‘Well we kind of need what you do even though we hate and revile you. Please come out and kill these people for us,’ and it’s the old gun slinger.“
3. LEONARD NIMOY WAS OFFERED THE DIRECTOR’S CHAIR.
Richard Donner ended up directing all four of the Lethal Weapon films, but that only happened after Leonard Nimoy—who had just shown his directing chops behind the camera on Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984), Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986), and 3 Men and a Baby (1987)—turned down directing Lethal Weapon to concentrate on The Good Mother (1988).
7. THE ACTORS WERE TRAINED IN THREE DIFFERENT FORMS OF MARTIAL ARTS.
To prepare for their roles, the actors learned a trio of martial arts techniques, including Capoeira, Jailhouse Rock (a fighting technique that originated in United States prisons), and Jiu-Jitsu. Gary Busey recalled also learning Taekwondo as well. Busey’s interest in martial arts began when he was taught these forms for Lethal Weapon.
14 Reanimated Facts About “The Bride of Frankenstein”
Mark Mancini and Mental_Floss present 14 Reanimated Facts About The Bride of Frankenstein. Here are three of my favorites…
4. LOOK CLOSELY AND YOU’LL NOTICE THAT THE MONSTER’S WOUNDS APPEAR TO HEAL.
In the original Frankenstein’s thrilling climax, the monster seems to meet its demise inside of a windmill that’s caught fire. So when we first see the creature in Bride, the big brute is riddled with obvious burns. Also, a lot of his hair has obviously been singed off. For subsequent scenes, however, makeup artist Jack Pierce incrementally toned down the burns and replaced some of the hair. This created the illusion that the monster was slowly recovering from its injuries over the course of the film.
6. BORIS KARLOFF OBJECTED TO GIVING THE MONSTER ANY DIALOGUE.
Although the creature had been a mute in the first movie, Whale decided that the reanimated corpse ought to pick up some basic language skills during the sequel. Both Karloff and the studio disagreed quite strongly, but in the end, Whale got his way. Sara Karloff—the actor’s daughter—explained her father’s reservations in the DVD documentary She’s Alive! Creating the Bride of Frankenstein. “He felt it would take away from [his performance in the original film] and I think he was wrong,” she said. “History, cinema history, has proven him wrong.”
14. IT’S NEIL GAIMAN’S FAVORITE HORROR MOVIE.
“It’s a lot of people’s favorite horror film,” said bestselling author Neil Gaiman of The Bride of Frankenstein. “Dammit, it’s my favorite horror film.” In the above clip, Gaiman recalls staying up late as a boy to catch both Frankenstein and its 1935 sequel in a televised double-feature. What did he think? “Frankenstein was a huge disappointment to me,” Gaiman admitted, but he fell in love with the atmospheric Bride and remains a fan to this day. He is especially fond of the climax, which he cites as his favorite “two to three minutes of film, ever.” Another celebrity admirer is Guillermo del Toro, who, in a 2008 conversation with Rotten Tomatoes, ranked The Bride of Frankenstein as one of his top five films.
Did Zeck & Beatty Use the Force (of Will) to Make Cap to Fix His Shield
CBR.com has a regular feature that answers fans’ questions about comic books. Recently a Captain America story drawn by my buddies, Mike Zeck and John Beatty was the subject of the question: Did Captain America Once Fix His Shield Through Force of Will?
