Category: Trivia

15 Elevated Facts About “White Men Can’t Jump”

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Roger Cormier and Mental_Floss present 15 Elevated Facts About White Men Can’t Jump.  Here are three of my favorites…

2. DENZEL WASHINGTON WAS THE ORIGINAL CHOICE FOR SIDNEY.
Denzel Washington was dead set on playing Malcolm X next and turned them down. Shelton considered Cylk Cozart for the lead role, too. Ultimately, Cozart was cast in the role of Robert.

3. KEANU REEVES, CHARLIE SHEEN, AND DAVID DUCHOVNY WERE CONSIDERED FOR BILLY.

Part of the audition involved shooting hoops at a basketball court at a Culver City casting office. Reeves just didn’t cut it, and Woody Harrelson acknowledged that Reeves’ lack of talent in the sport helped change his career. “I probably would’ve just been Woody Boyd but for the fact that Keanu Reeves didn’t play great basketball,” Harrelson told the Daily Express. Sheen was offered the part after Reeves’ failed audition but passed. Duchovny said he auditioned and really wanted the role.

10. HARRELSON HUSTLED SNIPES OUT OF MONEY.
There was constant gambling on set. Cozart threatened to take all of Woody’s Cheers money and estimated he won $5000 off of him. Harrelson won money off of Snipes though when he successfully dunked. Snipes never realized that the crew lowered the rim before Harrelson’s attempt.

12 Smooth Facts About “The Hustler”

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Eric D. Snider and Mental_Floss present 12 Smooth Facts About The Hustler.   Here are three of my favorites…

2. JACKIE GLEASON DID HIS OWN TRICK SHOTS, THANK YOU VERY MUCH.
The comedian, best known for playing working-class loudmouth Ralph Kramden on The Honeymooners (which he created), had grown up in Brooklyn. Like Rossen, Gleason mixed it up with neighborhood toughs and got to be a pretty good pool hustler. He required no assistance for his trick shots in the film, and Rossen always positioned the camera so we’d be able to see that for ourselves.

4. THERE WAS A REAL MINNESOTA FATS … BUT ONLY BECAUSE A GUY STARTED CALLING HIMSELF THAT AFTER THE MOVIE.
When the movie came out, Rudolf Wanderone was up there with Willie Mosconi as one of America’s best pool players. A hefty gentleman, Wanderone had several nicknames, including Double-Smart, New York Fats, and Chicago Fats. There was no Minnesota Fats; The Hustlernovelist Walter Tevis had made the character up. But in a promotional interview for the movie, Mosconi said Wanderone had been Tevis’s inspiration (which Tevis denied for the rest of his life, adamantly and with great annoyance). Wanderone seized the opportunity, perhaps flattering himself into thinking Tevis really had had him in mind. He embraced the nickname and declared himself the real Minnesota Fats for the rest of his career.

7. THE MOVIE ISN’T VERY LONG, BUT IT WAS WIDER THAN USUAL.
The Hustler was shot in Cinemascope, the widescreen technique that had been in use since 1953. But it was mainly used for lavish epics and colorful musicals, not black-and-white dramas set in dingy pool halls. Yet as film critic Michael Wood pointed out, Rossen used Cinemascope “to create an oppressive, elongated world in which ceilings always seem terribly low; and people terribly separate from each other; in one shot Newman is even separated from his own image in a mirror by the whole width of a very wide screen. It is a world in which the pool table seems the one natural shape, while human beings seem untidy intruders.” Neat, huh?

10 Not-So-Scary Facts About “Monsters, Inc.”

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Tara Aquino and Mental_Floss present 10 Not-So-Scary Facts About Monsters, Inc.  Here are three of my favorites…

5. PAUL DOCTER’S ORIGINAL PITCH WAS TO HAVE A GROWN MAN BE HAUNTED BY THE MONSTERS HE DREW AS A KID.
On Jeff Goldsmith’s Creative Writing podcast, director Pete Docter recounted his original pitch: “My idea was that what it was about was a 30-year-old man who is like an accountant or something, he hates his job, and one day he gets a book with some drawings in it that he did when he was a kid from his mom. He doesn’t think anything of it and he puts it on the shelf and that night, monsters show up. And nobody else can see them. He thinks he’s starting to go crazy, they follow him to his job, and on his dates … and it turns out these monsters are fears that he never dealt with as a kid … And each one of them represents a different kind of fear. As he conquers those fears, the guys who he slowly becomes kind of friends with, they disappear … It’s this bittersweet kind of ending where they go away, and so not much of that stayed.”

6. THE FILM WAS THE FIRST TO INTRODUCE THE ONSCREEN REPRESENTATION OF FUR.
In order to animate each individual strand of hair on Sulley, which reportedly took 12 hours to fill a single frame, Pixar developed a new software program called Fizt. According to WIRED, the software was extremely advanced for its time, as it had the power to simulate each of the three million hairs that covered the lovable monster. “We made the simulator able to digest anything,” said Andy Witkin, one of the studio’s senior animation scientists.

7. JOHN GOODMAN AND BILLY CRYSTAL RECORDED THEIR LINES TOGETHER—A RARITY IN ANIMATION.
Typically, voice actors get into the booth at separate times to record their dialogue. But Billy Crystal pushed for the opportunity to work alongside his co-star, John Goodman. “I did the first two sessions alone and I didn’t like it,” Crystal told Dark Horizons. “It was lonely and it was frustrating.” Goodman was also a fan of the joint process; he told the BBC: “When Billy and I got together, the energy just went through the roof, so it was great.”

Exploring Brian Helgeland’s “Payback,” a Tale of Two Movies

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Over at Film School Rejects, Jack Giroux weighs in on which version of Payback is the best in his piece: Exploring Brian Helgeland’s Payback, a Tale of Two Movies.

Award-winning screenwriter and director Brian Helgeland was fired from the production of the Mel Gibson starrer Payback when the studio and Gibson felt Helgeland’s version was too dark.  Gibson ended up directing the re-shoots and it was his version that was released to theaters.  Years later Helgeland’s movie was released on dvd.

I’ve got both versions in my collection, so it should be clear that I dig both takes on the film.  If I had to choose one, I’d go for the theatrical release [by a hair] but thankfully, since both versions rest in my collection, that isn’t a choice I’ll ever have to make.

15 Facts About “Silence of the Lambs”

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Hollywood.com presents 15 Facts About Silence of the Lambs.  Here are three of my favorites…

3. The moth cocoons Buffalo Bill placed in his victims throats were actually made from a combination of Tootsie Rolls and gummy bears, in case they were swallowed.

9. Jonathan Demme always had characters speak directly into the camera for conversations with Clarice, yet he always filmed Jodie Foster looking slightly off camera.
The idea was to make audiences directly experience her point-of-view to more easily empathize with her character. We think anyone who has watched those gripping last few moments of the film can confirm the success of this technique.

10. Anthony Hopkins is only on screen for 24 minutes and 52 seconds. This makes his performance the second shortest to ever receive a nomination for Best Actor.

16 Cutting-Edge Facts About “All in the Family”

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Kara Kovalchik and Mental_Floss present 16 Cutting-Edge Facts About All in the Family.  Here are three of my favorites…

2. ARCHIE BUNKER WAS ORIGINALLY ARCHIE JUSTICE.
Lear thought that the BBC show’s set-up—a middle-aged, blue collar conservative man who never hesitated to express his racist viewpoints, his doting wife, and his liberal daughter and son-in-law—could be mined for humor for American audiences. Justice for All, as the show was called in his original pilot script, starred Carroll O’Connor as Archie Justice and Jean Stapleton as his wife, Edith. Kelly Jean Peters and Tim McIntire rounded out the cast as Gloria and Richard (Meathead’s original name). ABC passed on the show, however; their main complaint being Archie and Edith’s lack of chemistry with the younger actors. Lear recast the roles with Candy Azzara and Chip Oliver, changed the name of the show to Those Were the Days and shot a new pilot, but ABC was still uninterested.

5. MICKEY ROONEY TURNED DOWN THE ROLE OF ARCHIE.
When Norman Lear pitched the series to Rooney, he only got as far as describing Archie as “a bigot who uses words like ‘spade’” before Mickey interrupted him. “Norm,” said the actor with a penchant for shortening names, “they’re going to kill you, shoot you dead in the streets.” Carroll O’Connor read for the role after Rooney’s refusal and had landed the part by the time he got to page three of the pilot script. But even he was dubious about the show and told Lear that CBS would cancel it after six weeks tops.

15. SAMMY DAVIS JR. CAUSED THE LONGEST LAUGH RECORDED ON THE SERIES.
O’Connor and Sammy Davis Jr. were good friends in real life, and All in the Family was Davis’ favorite TV show. So at his request, a guest spot was arranged for him in season two’s “Sammy’s Visit.” The kiss at the end was O’Connor’s idea, and the audience reaction was the loudest and longest laugh in the history of the series.

12 Stately Facts About “The American President”

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Matthew Jackson and Mental_Floss present 12 Stately Facts About The American President.  Here are three of my favorites…

1. IT BEGAN AS A ROBERT REDFORD VEHICLE.
Though the film ultimately starred Michael Douglas, it started as a vehicle for another of Hollywood’s great leading men: Robert Redford. So, what happened? Well, Redford was reportedly more interested in the film’s love story, while director Rob Reiner was leaning more toward the political subplots. So the two parted ways, and the part of President Shepherd ultimately landed with Douglas.

2. ANNETTE BENING WAS NOT THE FIRST CHOICE FOR THE LOVE INTEREST.
Just as the film began as a project that would star Robert Redford, so too did it originally feature other leading ladies. Redford himself had hoped to land Emma Thompson for the role of lobbyist-turned-President’s girlfriend Sydney Ellen Wade. Susan Sarandon and Michelle Pfeiffer were also considered for the meaty role, and by the time Douglas came onboard Jessica Lange was also up for the part. Ultimately, Bening won it.

11. MANY CAST MEMBERS ULTIMATELY ENDED UP ON THE WEST WING.
The American President wasn’t just a template for The West Wing in terms of theme; it also featured a number of actors who would ultimately play key roles in the series. Martin Sheen,The American President’s A.J. MacInerney, went on to play the President himself, Josiah Bartlet, on The West Wing. Anna Deavere Smith eventually played The West Wing’s National Security Advisor Nancy McNally while Joshua Malina went on to play Communications Director-turned-Congressman Will Bailey. The list goes on.

36 Things We Learned from the “Top Gun” Commentary

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Rob Hunter and Film School Rejects present 36 Things We Learned from the Top Gun Commentary.  Here are three of my favorites…

15. The advisors agree that a person can’t give themselves a call sign. Pettigrew recalls one poor fellow who did just that with the call sign “‘Shark,’ so of course he was known as ‘Minnow’ for the rest of his Navy career.”

19. The earlier shot of Maverick and Goose flying upside down just a few feet above a MiG is obviously unrealistic, but McCabe does share that American pilots were known to “communicate” back and forth with their Soviet counterparts. They weren’t flipping each other the bird though. “It was always very positive,” and included holding up vodka and Playboy magazines. “They’re doing their job, we’re doing our job, we don’t set the policy, we just execute it.”

27. The elevator scene between Charlie and Maverick was shot five months after production wrapped when they decided the characters’ relationship needed to be strengthened. McGillis is wearing a hat because her hair was different due to filming on a different movie, and even Cruise’s hair is noticeably longer. “Kelly had lost like 60 pounds and Tom was actually shooting Color of Money,” says Scott, so they had to shoot the scene in Chicago. They did some pick-ups for the love scene then as well.

20 Fun Facts About “I Love Lucy”

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Kara Kovalchik and Mental_Floss present 20 Fun Facts About I Love Lucy.  Here are three of my favorites…

1. CBS DIDN’T THINK AMERICANS WOULD BUY THAT LUCY WAS MARRIED TO A “FOREIGN” MAN.
When CBS approached Lucille Ball with the offer of turning her popular radio show My Favorite Husband into a television show, she was agreeable with one condition: that her real-life husband, Desi Arnaz, would be cast in the role of her spouse (played on the radio by Richard Denning). The network balked—there was no way that American viewers would accept average housewife Liz Cooper (her character’s name on the radio series) being married to a “foreign” man with an indecipherable accent. Never mind the fact that Lucy and Desi had been married more than a decade; such a “mixed” marriage was unbelievable.

3. THE SHOW BROKE GROUND IN SEVERAL WAYS, SIMPLY BECAUSE THE ARNAZES WOULDN’T MOVE TO NEW YORK.
Lucille and Desi wanted to work in Los Angeles, near their home and their new baby daughter Lucie. But in 1951 the majority of television shows were broadcast from New York, and that’s where sponsor Philip Morris wanted their show to originate as well. In those days the U.S. wasn’t wired for television from coast-to-coast; shows broadcast live could only be transmitted so far. As a result, such shows were preserved on kinescopes (a movie camera aimed at a TV monitor that recorded the show in negligible quality) and shipped to distant stations.

Philip Morris objected to I Love Lucy being performed in California and the kinescopes sent to New York; their biggest cigarette market was up and down the east coast and they wanted the best TV picture quality for that area. Desi Arnaz suggested that the show be filmed with three cameras, like a stage play, which would provide the same quality picture for every market. But multi-cameras had never been used on a situation comedy before, and there were many obstacles involved, not the least of which was accommodating a live studio audience (Desi knew that Lucille worked best when she got immediate audience feedback).

Desi hired legendary cinematographer Karl Freund to help solve the dilemma, and along with writer-producer Jess Oppenheimer and director Marc Daniels, they built a set, and the necessary filming equipment was strategically placed. CBS balked at the additional expense involved in this undertaking, so Arnaz struck a deal: he and Lucille would take a large cut in their salaries and their company, Desilu Productions, would retain ownership of the films in exchange. The enduring high quality of the 35 millimeter film was part of the reason that I Love Lucy became so popular in rerun syndication, and Desilu’s 100 percent ownership of the series made Lucille and Desi the first millionaire TV stars.

9. DESI ARNAZ HAD LIFTS IN HIS SHOES (AND HIS LOVESEAT).
Arnaz listed his height as 5’11” in most official biographies, but those who worked with him knew that in reality he was 5’9” and wore four-inch lifts in his shoes. Lucille Ball stood 5’7” in her stocking feet, and when she wore heels she seemed to tower over her husband. Desi Arnaz Jr. would later explain to an interviewer that his father “was a Cuban with a Latin male’s pride,” which is why it was important to him to be taller than his wife. A dual-purpose, subtle additional cushion (undetectable by the viewing audience) was added to the Ricardo’s loveseat so that Ricky would be taller than Lucy while seated, and would also give him the extra boost needed to gracefully rise from a sitting position up onto his elevator shoes.

16 Thrilling Facts About the Bourne Movies

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Roger Cormier and Mental_Floss present 16 Thrilling Facts About the Bourne Movies.  Here are three of my favorites…

3. BRAD PITT, SYLVESTER STALLONE, AND RUSSELL CROWE COULD HAVE BEEN BOURNE.
Pitt was offered the part, ultimately turning it down to work on Spy Game. Liman met with Crowe and Stallone, too. Matt Damon was the actor Liman thought best understood what he wanted to do with the material.

8. LIMAN INSTRUCTED DAMON TO WALK LIKE A BOXER.
Damon said it really helped in finding his character. He spent six months learning boxing for the first movie, in addition to six months of martial arts training, and hundreds of hours of gun training.

9. THE MARTIAL ARTS STYLE USED IS CALLED KALI.
In Kali, one uses the energy of his or her opponent against them. Liman figured that’s what Bourne would use.

11 Magical Facts About “I Dream of Jeannie”

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Sarene Leeds and Mental_Floss present 11 Magical Facts About I Dream of Jeannie.  Here are three of my favorites…

1. BARBARA EDEN DIDN’T LIKE THAT JEANNIE AND TONY NELSON GOT MARRIED.
The palpable sexual tension between Hagman’s astronaut character and the mischievous genie who lived under the same roof for the first four seasons of the series was what kept the series exciting—the objectification of Eden’s character notwithstanding. Here was a midriff-baring beauty, willing and able to fulfill her master’s every wish and command, and he still managed to keep her out of his bedroom for most of Jeannie’s run. By 1969, the sexual revolution was well under way, and it was time for Tony and Jeannie to get together. Except, as we all know, that kind of creative decision usually sounds the death knell for a TV show, and I Dream of Jeannie was no different. The characters tied the knot during the 1969-1970 season, which ended up being the series’ last.

In an interview with the Today show’s Willie Geist earlier this year (video above), Eden made no bones about her feelings regarding the Nelson marriage: “It ruined the show,” she said. “Because [Jeannie] wasn’t human … She thought she was, and [Tony] knew she wasn’t … I think it broke credibility.”

2. THE FAMILIAR-SOUNDING JEANNIE THEME SONG DIDN’T EXIST UNTIL THE SECOND SEASON.
You know the tune: Matthew Broderick did an unforgettable 12-second dance to it in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. But the bouncy riff that will always be synonymous with I Dream of Jeannie didn’t first appear until the series’ second season, when a new, in-color animated opening sequence was introduced. The first season, which was filmed in black and white, tried a couple of different openers: First there was the expository one that brought the audience up to speed on how Jeannie and Tony met; eventually, the exposition was dropped for this jazzy, albeit abbreviated, animated sequence.

8. I DREAM OF JEANNIE HAD A FUN LITTLE CONNECTION WITH FELLOW NBC SITCOM THE MONKEES.
While The Monkees only lasted two seasons, it had a sweet brother-sister-type relationship with I Dream of Jeannie while it was on the air, as they were both on NBC and shared the same music supervisor, Don Kirshner. About midway through the fall 1966, in The Monkees episode “The Spy Who Came in From the Cool,” Davy Jones rubs a small table lamp (see above video, 14:10). In true Jeannie fashion, a beautiful harem-costumed genie (not Barbara Eden) emerges from a puff of smoke and assures her “master” that she will help him. A bemused Jones remarks, “Imagine that—wrong show!”

The following year, in the Jeannie episode “Jeannie, the Hip Hippie” (see above), Jeannie puts together a rock band featuring Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, who penned some of The Monkees’ most famous songs. At one point, an instrumental version of one of the duo’s biggest hits for the band, “Last Train to Clarksville,” can be heard. Plus, Hart is holding a copy of The Monkees’ first album in one scene.

10 Vigilant Facts About “The Boondock Saints”

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Emily Becker and Mental_Floss present 10 Vigilant Facts About The Boondock Saints.  Here are three of my favorites…

1. THE SCRIPT WAS INSPIRED BY SEVERAL REAL-LIFE EVENTS.
Writer-director Troy Duffy based the story for The Boondock Saints on things he saw when he was working as a bartender in Los Angeles, including watching a drug dealer steal money from a dead body. The film also opens with the story of Kitty Genovese, a young woman who was murdered in Queens in 1964 and whose story has become a bit of an urban legend after it was widely (but inaccurately) reported that, despite her cries for help and dozens of witnesses, no one came to her rescue.

3. TROY DUFFY WAS HIS OWN BIGGEST OBSTACLE IN GETTING THE FILM MADE.
Like most artists, Duffy had a very clear vision for the film. This led to some contentious meetings with potential collaborators, including getting into an argument with Ewan McGregorover the death penalty during their first meeting. Duffy’s volatile personality ended up costing him his deal with Miramax, leading him to have to shop the film around to other distributors. Eventually, the film was picked up by Franchise Pictures, despite the negative chatter now surrounding both Duffy and his movie.

9. A THIRD FILM IS PRETTY MUCH CONFIRMED.
When asked whether a third film might be coming during a Reddit AMA last December, Norman Reedus, who played Murphy MacManus (and, more famously, is The Walking Dead’s Daryl Dixon), responded, “Yeah it’s on. In the works, happening.” Though no official announcement of it has been made, that hasn’t stopped some outlets from reporting on what it might look like.

17 Super Facts About “The Incredibles”

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Roger Cormier and Mental_Floss present 17 Super Facts About The Incredibles.  Here are three of my favorites…

9. IT WAS THE FIRST PIXAR MOVIE COMPRISED ONLY OF CG HUMAN BEINGS.
Copies of the medical school text Gray’s Anatomy were given to the digital sculptors to help them figure out how the human body moves. Live action footage of Pixar animators walking was also used.

14. THE “A113” EASTER EGG DEFINITELY MADE IT IN.
“A113′ is a classroom number at the California Institute of the Arts, where Bird and several others in the animation industry learned about graphic design and character animation. Bird was the first person to purposely drop in an “A113” reference, when he did so on the 1987 TV show Amazing Stories. It has since been in every episode of The Simpsons Bird worked on (Bird was a creative consultant and director on the series from 1989 to 1998 and directed the “Do the Bartman” music video), as well as every Pixar film. In The Incredibles, Mr. Incredible has a meeting in Conference Room A113, and he’s later held on Level A1, Cell Block 13 on the island.

11. BIRD DIDN’T REALIZE THAT HE RESEMBLED THE VILLAIN UNTIL IT WAS TOO LATE.
The writer-director admitted if he had noticed the resemblance earlier in the process, he would have asked to change Syndrome’s look.

17 Bankable Facts About “The Color of Money”

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Roger Cormier and Mental_Floss present 17 Bankable Facts About The Color of Money.  Here are three of my favorites…

5. JACKIE GLEASON PASSED ON MAKING A CAMEO.
Gleason famously played Minnesota Fats in The Hustler, and his character played a big part in the book version of The Color of Money. “We desperately wanted the character to return,”Newman told The New York Times, ”but every time we put him in, it seemed like we were trying to glue an arm on a man and make it stick.” Added Scorsese: ”We finally presented a script to Gleason with Fats in. But he felt it was an afterthought.” As such, Gleason passed.

14. SCORSESE GOT THE IDEA FOR GOODFELLAS WHILE SHOOTING  THE COLOR OF MONEY.
In a rare moment of downtime, “I read a review of [Nicholas Pileggi’s] Wiseguy when I was directing The Color of Money, and it said something about this character Henry Hill having access to many different levels of organized crime because he was somewhat of an outsider,”Scorsese told Rolling Stone. “He looked a little nicer. He was able to be a better frontman and speak a little better. I thought that was interesting, because you could get a cross section of the layers of organized crime—from his point of view, of course. So I got the book, started reading it and was fascinated by the narrative ability of it.”

15. DAVID GEFFEN WAS UPSET OVER THE SOUNDTRACK.
Robbie Robertson put the soundtrack together, which is best known for featuring Eric Clapton and Robertson’s “It’s in the Way That You Use It” and Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London.” Geffen would not allow Robertson permission to use his own voice at any point on the album, because he felt that the singer’s first solo record was being delayed on account of his work on the soundtrack. The Band performer still managed to get music from the likes of Clapton, Don Henley, B.B. King, Robert Palmer, and Willie Dixon.