33 Facts I Learned In May That Sound Fake But Are Shockingly Real
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Brian GalindoThu, June 4, 2026 at 1:16 AM UTC
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It's kind of hard to believe we're already at the halfway point of 2026. While May seemed to disappear in the blink of an eye, I did come across a bunch of random facts throughout the month that made me immediately stop scrolling and look them up. Some were surprising pop culture stories, others were strange bits of history, and a few were behind-the-scenes details that completely changed how I look at things I thought I knew. So before June gets too far underway, here are some of the most interesting facts I learned in May:1. The opening credits of Sex and the City became instantly classic for showing Carrie Bradshaw walking through New York in a pink top and white tutu before getting splashed by a passing bus. That outfit helped set the tone for the show and who Carrie was. But during production, the team wasn't fully settled on that look, so they filmed an alternate version of the sequence with a completely different wardrobe.
HBOIn that unused version, Carrie wears a knee-length blue dress instead of the tutu. The scene itself also played out differently, with Carrie tripping on the street rather than being splashed by the bus featuring her column ad. Darren Star later explained that the alternate version was meant as a nod to The Dick Van Dyke Show. However, both the show's costume designer, Patricia Field, and Sarah Jessica Parker pushed for the tutu version. Starr has since said, "It was such a brilliant choice because, in a way, Carrie's dancing through her life in New York."
HBO / Via youtube.com2. It's really hard to imagine now, but Toy Story 2 was originally planned as a low-budget direct-to-video sequel instead of a major theatrical release. After the huge success of the first Toy Story, Disney initially saw the follow-up as something similar to the cheap, straight-to-video sequels that were common in the '90s, like the studio's many animated spin-offs (see the Aladdin sequels). Pixar began developing the movie with a smaller team and a tighter production schedule, expecting it to go straight to VHS.
© Buena Vista / courtesy Everett CollectionBut as the story came together, and Disney executives saw the footage, they realized the sequel was far better and more ambitious than a typical home video release. The film was eventually upgraded to a full theatrical release, forcing Pixar to rapidly expand production and completely rework parts of the film under intense deadlines. When it finally hit theaters in November 1999, Toy Story 2 was not just a box-office success, but also became a massive critical success. It is considered one of the rare sequels that's just as good, if not better than, the original.
©Walt Disney Co./Courtesy Everett Collection3. At its peak in 2000, Blockbuster made $800 million from one thing customers absolutely HATED: late fees. If you're too young to remember, by the late '90s and early '00s, the video rental giant dominated the home entertainment industry, with thousands of stores worldwide and millions of customers renting VHS tapes and DVDs each week. But if customers forgot to return a movie on time, the penalties added up fast, and those charges became a huge part of the company's business model.
David Friedman / Getty ImagesAccording to reports, late fees accounted for about 16% of Blockbuster's revenue in 2000. Though it brought in hundreds of millions of dollars annually, the company announced in 2004 that it would eliminate late fees in an effort to compete with Netflix. However, they had to go back to charging late fees because customers would keep popular DVDs for long periods of time. By 2009, the company was only making $134 million on late fees, which was about 3% of the company's revenue — though by that time it was already in dire straits. The final corporate-owned Blockbuster closed in January 2014.
Bloomberg / Bloomberg via Getty Images4. According to Guinness World Records, the Italian comedy-drama Perfetti sconosciuti, or Perfect Strangers in English, holds the record for the most remakes at 24. This is especially surprising, given that the original movie is just 10 years old. The plot centers on a group of friends at a dinner party who decide to place all of their phones on the table and share every text, call, and notification they receive throughout the night.
Courtesy Everett Collection / Everett Collection / Everett CollectionThe simple setup made the story easy to adapt across different cultures — as a result, the film has been officially remade in countries including Spain, France, South Korea, India, Mexico, and Russia. However, there has never been an English-language version of it. Well, there is actually a good reason there isn't: the English-language rights were purchased in 2017 by The Weinstein Company, but plans for the remake were delayed indefinitely after the company collapsed following criminal charges against Harvey Weinstein.
Pantelion / courtesy Everett Collection
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5. The Manhattan Project was kept so, so secret during World War II that even Vice President Harry S. Truman had no idea it existed while serving under Franklin D. Roosevelt. Because of fears that Nazi Germany could discover the program or build its own nuclear weapon first, information was shared on an extremely strict need-to-know basis. When FDR suddenly died in April 1945, Truman unexpectedly became president and was quickly briefed on the existence of a weapon powerful enough to destroy an entire city.
Historical / Corbis via Getty ImagesIronically, while the American vice president had been kept completely in the dark, the Soviet Union already knew about the project thanks to spies embedded within the program, including physicist Klaus Fuchs. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin was reportedly already aware of the bomb before Truman even hinted at it during the Potsdam Conference later that year. The espionage operation helped the Soviet Union rapidly develop its own nuclear weapons program, setting off the nuclear arms race that would define much of the Cold War.
Keystone / Getty Images6. I Love Lucy still exists in such high quality today because Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz refused to move production to New York City, where most television shows were filmed in the early '50s. At the time, networks typically used kinescope recordings, which involved filming a television screen so episodes could be replayed for viewers on the West Coast after airing live on the East Coast. The problem was that kinescope recordings looked blurry and degraded more each time they were or broadcast.
CBS Photo Archive / CBS via Getty ImagesBall and Arnaz wanted to stay in LA, so they agreed to take pay cuts in exchange for owning 100% of the show's rights and filming the series on 35mm film, the same high-quality format used for Hollywood movies. That decision gave I Love Lucy a much sharper and more durable image than most television shows of its era. It also allowed the series to be rerun and eventually syndicated (a first). The move would make 35mm a quick TV industry standard.
CBS Photo Archive / Getty Images7. Steven Spielberg's involvement with Jurassic Park really happened by chance. He was originally meeting with the book's author and his decades-long friend, Michael Crichton, about a medical-drama film script Crichton had written (that eventually would become the TV series E.R.).
NBC / NBCUniversal via Getty ImagesHowever, as the two were about to begin to talk about the script, Crichton brought up what his next, not-yet-published novel would be about: dinosaurs being brought back to life using DNA. Spielberg loved the story, called Jurassic Park, and that's all they ended up talking about for the next few hours. He then had Universal buy the film rights as soon as they were available in May 1990 — six months before the book was even published.
Alfred A. Knopf/ friendssandiego / Via ebay.com8. If you watched ABC's Dinosaurs growing up, you probably remember it as a goofy family sitcom about talking dinosaurs. What you might not remember is that the final episode ended the series in shockingly bleak fashion. Even though it was a family show, the series, produced by Disney and Jim Henson Productions, often dealt with surprisingly mature themes such as sexism, consumerism, and environmental destruction.
ABC Photo Archives / Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty ImagesIn the last episode, titled "Changing Nature," the dinosaurs accidentally trigger an environmental catastrophe after corporations try to control nature for profit. Their actions create a chain reaction that blocks out the sun and causes an ice age. The episode ends with the Sinclair family sitting together in their home as snow falls outside, listening to a news report explaining that temperatures will continue dropping and that there is likely no way to stop it. The series concluded by implying that every character would die.
ABC Photo Archives / Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images / ABC9. The original London Bridge is no longer in England — it's actually in Arizona. By the 1960s, the 19th-century bridge crossing the River Thames in London had been slowly sinking because of increased traffic and age, so the city decided to replace it. Instead of demolishing it, the City of London put the bridge up for sale, and American businessman Robert P. McCulloch bought it for about $2.5 million in 1968.
Universal History Archive / Universal Images Group via Getty ImagesThe massive granite bridge was carefully dismantled, with each stone numbered, then shipped through the Panama Canal to California before being transported to Arizona. Workers rebuilt the bridge in Lake Havasu City over a modern concrete structure, using the original stones as the exterior. Today, the bridge is one of Arizona's most famous tourist attractions, though many people are still surprised to learn that it ended up there.
George Rose / Getty Images10. When Apple was developing the iPod in the early 2000s, engineer Tony Fadell pushed himself to finish the project at an intense pace even though Steve Jobs gave him no formal deadline. Fadell not only believed the company needed to move quickly to beat competitors in the growing digital music market, but also that they needed to set an internal date that would give them constraints, so he created his own aggressive timeline of nine months to keep development on track. At the time, MP3 players were often clunky and difficult to navigate, and Apple wanted something that felt simple and intuitive.
Photo Courtesy of Apple Corp. via Getty ImagesOne of the key inspirations for the iPod's famous click wheel reportedly came from the Bang & Olufsen BeoCom 6000 cordless phone, which used a circular scrolling control that Fadell admired for its clean and user-friendly design. That influence helped shape the iPod's signature interface, allowing users to quickly scroll through thousands of songs with just a thumb. When the iPod launched in 2001, its sleek design and easy navigation immediately set it apart from other music players on the market. The device also became one of Apple's most important products, helping the company become more than a "computer company" and laying the groundwork for later hits like the iPhone. Oh, and it completely changed how people listened to music!!!
ProEarthTech / Via ebay.com11. "Smells Like Teen Spirit" not only defined the sound of the 1990s and brought grunge music into the mainstream, but it also became one of the most influential songs in modern music history. However, its famous title actually came from a misunderstanding. Before the song was written, Kathleen Hanna of the band Bikini Kill wrote "Kurt smells like Teen Spirit" in marker on a wall after hanging out with Kurt Cobain and his girlfriend, Tobi Vail.
UMG / Via youtube.comHanna was jokingly referring to Teen Spirit, the popular deodorant for teenage girls. Cobain, however, had never heard of the product and interpreted the phrase as some kind of rebellious or anti-establishment slogan. He thought it sounded poetic and punk-inspired, so he later used it as the title of the song. According to the Guardian, "When Cobain found out what Teen Spirit was, he was highly upset and very possibly humiliated." Though I think we can all agree that even though it's named after a deodorant, the song title does sound rebellious.
KMazur / WireImage / Getty Images, Lindsay Brice / Getty Images
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12. I think we can all agree that Mean Girls is the defining teen comedy of the '00s. However, it didn't start out as the PG-13 movie we know today. Early cuts of the film were closer to an R rating, with more explicit language and sharper, more adult-oriented jokes. Writer and star Tina Fey and director Mark Waters have both said the original version leaned more heavily into the kind of humor Fey was known for from her work on SNL.
Paramount / courtesy Everett CollectionHowever, the studio wanted the movie to reach a broader teen audience, which meant aiming for a PG-13 rating instead of R. To make that happen, several lines were rewritten or cut, especially jokes that were considered too sexual or explicit, for example, the line was originally, "Amber D'Alessio gave a blowjob to a hot dog" before it was changed to "made out with a hot dog." Some scenes were also softened to tone down the overall edge of the film. Despite those changes, the final version struck a balance between edgy and "teen movie."
©Paramount/Courtesy Everett Collection13. Before becoming known as a civil rights activist, Josephine Baker was one of the world's biggest entertainers, especially in France, where she became a superstar in the 1920s and 1930s. When World War II began, and Nazi Germany occupied France, Baker used her celebrity status to secretly work with the French Resistance. Because she was famous and frequently traveled for performances, Nazi officials and military officers were often starstruck and saw her as harmless entertainment, and did not suspect she was gathering intelligence.
Keystone-France / Gamma-Keystone via Getty ImagesBaker reportedly smuggled secret messages written in invisible ink on sheet music and hid information inside her luggage and dresses while traveling across borders. She also used her fame to attend parties and social events where she could overhear conversations from high-ranking officials and pass information along to resistance fighters. Beyond espionage, Baker sheltered refugees and supported the Free French forces during the war effort. After the war ended, France honored her bravery with major military awards, including the Croix de Guerre, cementing her legacy as not just an entertainer but also a wartime hero.
- / AFP via Getty Images, Ullstein Bild Dtl. / ullstein bild via Getty Images14. He-Man and the Masters of the Universe was partly created because Mattel missed out on producing the original Star Wars action figures, a decision that became one of the biggest missed opportunities in toy industry history. In the late '70s, Mattel reportedly passed on the Star Wars toy license because executives were unsure whether the movie would succeed and did not think children would want science-fiction action figures. Instead, the license went to Kenner, and after Star Wars became a global phenomenon, the toyline exploded in popularity, completely reshaping the action figure market.
outofthesewer / Via etsy.comWanting its own massive boys' franchise, Mattel began developing a new line of fantasy-themed muscular heroes that eventually became He-Man and the Masters of the Universe in 1982. The toy line mixed barbarian fantasy, superheroes, and science-fiction influences, helping it stand out from almost everything else on toy shelves at the time. Mattel then expanded the property with mini-comics and mountains of merchandise. However, He-Man would really take off when it was made into an animated series, the first toy line to do so, which would help make it into one of the defining toy franchises of the 1980s.
FamedRetro / Via etsy.com15. Whoopi Goldberg's audition for The Color Purple was actually pretty unusual. After reading the novel the movie is based on, Goldberg became obsessed with being part of the adaptation and even wrote a letter directly to its author, Alice Walker, saying she would "play dirt on the floor" if it meant being involved. To her surprise, Walker knew who she was because she had seen her one-woman show; in fact, Walker recommended her for the role of Celie to the movie's director, Steven Spielberg. Goldberg was invited to audition for an undisclosed role and movie at his studio, but in an unconventional way: she was told she could perform parts of her act.
Warner Bros. / Getty ImagesBefore her audition, her management warned her not to do the BL.E.T. material (jokes about E.T. being Black and landing in Oakland). When a nervous Goldberg showed up, she found herself doing her routine in front of not just Spielberg but also Quincy Jones, Michael Jackson, and Ashford & Simpson. She completely had them falling over with laughter, and when they asked for more, she went into her BL.E.T. set, which had Spielberg laughing. He then offered her the role of Celie, but she was hesitant, saying she didn't know how to make a movie, to which Spielberg replied that he knew a lot about making movies and "I can help you." She, of course, accepted the part and was later nominated for Best Actress.
©Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection16. If you're on the younger side, this might be hard to believe, but when CBS first picked up Survivor in 2000, the network viewed it as a major gamble. Reality TV, aside from MTV's The Real World and Road Rules, wasn't a thing in the US, and many executives were unsure whether audiences would actually watch ordinary people stranded on an island competing for money. Because of that uncertainty, CBS initially treated Survivor as a summer experiment and only ordered a limited run of 13 episodes rather than committing to it as a series.
CBS Photo Archive / Getty ImagesThe show's producer, Mark Burnett, who based it on the Swedish series Expedition Robinson, reportedly spent about a year trying to convince an American network to take a chance on the format. Once Survivor premiered in the summer of 2000, however, it became an instant cultural phenomenon, with millions of viewers tuning in each week to watch alliances, betrayals, and tribal council eliminations. There had just not ever been anything like it on American TV before. The first season finale drew more than 50 million viewers, making it one of the most-watched television events of the decade. The show's popularity helped launch the entire modern reality TV boom that has dominated from the 2000s until today.
CBS Photo Archive / CBS via Getty Images17. In the mid-'90s, John F. Kennedy Jr. and Princess Diana were two of the most photographed people in the world, with her being UK royalty and him often referred to as American royalty. Around that time, Kennedy had just launched George, a magazine that blended politics, celebrity, and pop culture in a way that was very new for the era. Kennedy secretly met with Diana at New York's Carlyle Hotel in 1995 to personally ask her to appear on the magazine's cover. He reportedly pitched the idea of Diana posing as an iconic American historical figure, which fit George's famous stylized cover concepts.
Steve Allen / Getty Images, Tim Graham / Tim Graham Photo Library via Getty ImagesThe meeting had to be carefully planned to avoid paparazzi because both of them attracted massive media attention wherever they went. However, Diana politely declined the cover offer because the magazine was still new, but said she would consider a milestone commemorative cover down the road. The two stayed in touch afterward, and, reportedly, in 1997, Diana wrote Kennedy a note saying, "I hope the media are leaving both you and Carolyn alone. I know how difficult it is, but believe it or not, the worst paparazzi are here in Europe!" with "hope" underlined.
Tim Graham / Tim Graham Photo Library via Getty Images, New York Daily News Archive / NY Daily News via Getty Images
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18. Even though palm trees are among the most recognizable symbols of LA, most aren't native to Southern California at all. Many of the city's famous palm trees were imported from places like Mexico, the Canary Islands, and the Middle East during the late 1800s and early 1900s, at a time when LA tried to market itself as a glamorous tropical paradise. While tens of thousands were also planted before the 1932 Summer Olympics to give the city a more dramatic, cinematic look that would later be tied to old Hollywood imagery.
Ryan Herron / Getty ImagesBut despite how iconic they seem, most palm species in LA live only about 75–100 years and are now reaching the end of their natural lifespan. Many are also being wiped out by drought, climate stress, and fungi. Because palm trees provide relatively little shade, require expensive maintenance, and pose a fire hazard, they will be phased out and not replaced. So large areas of LA's famous palm-lined streets will gradually disappear over the next few decades.
Marchello74 / Getty Images/iStockphoto19. The origins of Maybelline trace back to a surprisingly homemade beauty trick from the early 1910s. Founder Thomas Lyle Williams, who was a pharmacist, got the idea for mascara after seeing his sister Mabel darken her eyelashes using a mixture of Vaseline and coal dust or ash to make her eyes stand out more in order to catch the attention of a guy she had a crush on. At the time, modern eye makeup barely existed, so many women improvised with homemade products to create dramatic looks inspired by silent film stars and early Hollywood glamour.
Wikipedia / Via en.wikipedia.orgWilliams realized there could be a market for a safer, easier-to-use commercial version and began experimenting with formulas in Chicago. In 1915, he launched what became one of the world's first mass-market mascaras and named the company "Maybelline" by combining "Mabel" with "Vaseline," the key ingredient in the original mixture. The product really took off in 1917, when he created cake mascara, which Hollywood actresses began using both on and off screen.
The Omnium Gatherum Store / Via ebay.com20. Barbie's original design was inspired by a German adult novelty doll called Bild Lilli, that were typically sold at cigarette stores and given as gag gifts at bachelor parties. Unlike typical baby dolls of the time, Lilli had adult features and a fashionable wardrobe, which Handler thought would appeal to young girls who wanted to imagine playing grown-up roles
Frederic Neema / Sygma via Getty ImagesShe brought the idea back to the US and modified it to make it more child-friendly and suitable for play. This included softening the doll's features and creating a variety of outfits and accessories. Mattel would acquire the rights to the Bild Lilli doll (seen below) in 1964 and stop production of them.
arondolls / Via ebay.com21. There's a long-running misconception that the Verve sampled the Rolling Stones' music in "Bitter Sweet Symphony" without permission, but the real story is more complicated. Before releasing the iconic song in 1997, the Verve actually secured permission to sample an orchestral version of 1965's "The Last Time" that had been recorded by producer and the Stones' manager, Andrew Loog Oldham, for a pretty obscure orchestral album of the band's music. So it was not even an original Rolling Stones recording itself. The issue came after the song became a massive global hit, when it was argued that the Verve had used more of the orchestral recording than what had been agreed to in the licensing deal.
UMG / Via youtube.comBecause of that, the Stones' former manager, Allen Klein, who managed the band in the late '60s and controlled the band's music copyrights through 1970, sued the Verve. After a legal dispute, the Verve settled and gave songwriting credits and royalties for "Bitter Sweet Symphony" over to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, even though Richard Ashcroft wrote the song's lyrics and much of its composition. Decades later, in 2019, Jagger and Richards finally signed over the songwriting credits back to Ashcroft, bringing a long chapter in music industry history to a close.
Paul Natkin / Getty Images22. When Disney made 1992's Aladdin, Robin Williams improvised so much dialogue as the Genie that the studio ended up with hours of unused recordings. According to former Disney executives, Williams was delivering "30 jokes a minute" during recording sessions, leaving behind enough unused material that Disney could theoretically make another entire Aladdin movie from the outtakes alone.
©Buena Vista Pictures/Courtesy Everett CollectionHowever, after Williams' death in 2014, it was revealed that his will specifically prohibited the use of his "name, taped performances or voice recordings" for 25 years after his death. Meaning Disney cannot legally build a new Genie-centered project from that material until 2039. The restriction was reportedly designed to protect his family from financial penalties tied to posthumous earnings. Because of those restrictions, most unused Genie recordings remain locked away in Disney's vaults, despite fans' longstanding curiosity about them.
Handout / Getty Images23. Feeling nostalgic for a previous decade isn't a new thing. People have always looked back and idealized earlier times, especially when society was undergoing rapid change. For example, while many people today feel nostalgic for the 1990s, people in the 1920s were doing something very similar with the 1890s. That earlier era was remembered as a simpler, more carefree time compared to the fast modernization of the early 20th century. In fact, the phrase "The Gay Nineties" was popularized in the 1920s to romanticize the 1890s.
Bettmann / Bettmann Archive / Getty ImagesThe label actually helped turn the decade into a kind of cultural memory, shaped more by nostalgia than by historical accuracy, which in turn made it an extremely popular decade. In fact, 1890s nostalgia would continue throughout much of the 20th century, as seen in films like 1944's Meet Me in St. Louis and the 1964 musical (later movie) Hello, Dolly! Even TGI Fridays, which opened in 1965, used Gay Nineties decor to evoke nostalgia and create a fun atmosphere.
MGM/ Mark Kauffman / Getty Images24. "Good Vibrations" by the Beach Boys is without a doubt an absolute classic, but it's also one of the most expensive songs ever recorded. It was created in 1966 by Brian Wilson, who treated the studio almost like an instrument and pieced the song together in sections instead of recording it all at once. The process stretched across months and involved multiple studios, dozens of musicians, and over 90 hours of recorded tape. By the time it was finished, estimates suggest it cost between $50,000 and $75,000, which is somewhere between $400k and $700k today.
UMG / Via shop.udiscovermusic.comThat was an enormous amount for a single pop song at the time. Most singles in the '60s were recorded quickly and cheaply, often in a single session. The cost of "Good Vibrations" was even higher than the entire production cost of the Beach Boys' landmark 1966 album, Pet Sounds, which cost around $70,000, and that itself was considered extremely expensive for an album at the time. Despite the cost, the song became a massive success, reaching No. 1 and changing expectations for what music could sound like.
Michael Ochs Archives / Getty Images25. Siri was an app that was available on Apple's own App Store until the company decided to buy it in 2010. The company, which was also called Siri, was a small startup that had developed a voice assistant app for the iPhone. Like today, it could answer questions or perform tasks using natural language.
NurPhoto / NurPhoto via Getty ImagesApple saw the potential to integrate this technology directly into its ecosystem, making the iPhone more personal and hands-free. The acquisition reportedly cost around $200 million. When Siri was introduced as a built-in feature with the iPhone 4S in 2011, it became one of the phone's main selling points. This was the beginning of a new era where talking to your devices became normal.
Oli Scarff / Getty Images26. The VHS release of Top Gun in 1987 marked an important shift in how Hollywood approached the home video market. Before this period, most VHS tapes were priced very high (usually around a $100) and aimed mainly at video rental stores rather than individual buyers. Paramount chose to release Top Gun at a much lower price point of about $26.95, which was unusual for a new blockbuster at the time. This pricing strategy was made possible through a promotional partnership with Pepsi, which helped offset distribution costs. A Diet Pepsi commercial was even included on the VHS itself, which was a first for a major studio release.
Kelly's Willow Tree/ Paramount / Via ebay.com
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The new strategy proved highly successful, with strong advance orders and rapid sales that helped make the tape one of the bestselling VHS releases of the '80s. The success showed studios that there was a large consumer market for owning films at home, not just renting them. It also helped push the industry toward lower-priced "sell-through" VHS releases aimed at everyday buyers instead of just rental outlets. By the '90s, selling directly to consumers became the standard, which also made the studios more money.
Paramount/ Everett Collection27. Madonna, in her own words, was essentially "begging" ABBA for permission to use their music in "Hung Up." The 2005 song famously samples ABBA's "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)," but the group almost never allows their work to be sampled; in fact, they almost always refuse sampling requests, which made the request a long shot.
WMG / Via youtube.comTo try to win them over, Madonna wrote a personal, handwritten letter to ABBA's Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus explaining how much she admired their music and describing the track as a tribute. She even sent someone to Stockholm to deliver the letter and a demo in person. That personal approach ultimately worked. Andersson and Ulvaeus granted permission, something they had done only a handful of times, partly because they respected Madonna and liked how the song used their music.
WMG / Via youtube.com28. Red Lobster's famous Cheddar Bay Biscuits didn't exist when the restaurant first opened. They were introduced in 1992 as a simple snack to serve hungry guests while they waited for a table. Also, originally, they weren't even called Cheddar Bay Biscuits; they were simply referred to as "freshly baked, hot cheese garlic bread." The recipe was created by Kurtis Hankins, then-head of Red Lobster's culinary development team, who wanted to develop something to replace the restaurant's standard offering of hush puppies (which were not very popular).
Bloomberg / Bloomberg via Getty ImagesInspired by Texas toast and French bread, he decided to create a biscuit that substituted sugar with garlic and cheese to make them savory. The biscuits quickly became a hit, winning over customers so completely that they were moved from the waiting area to the dining room. However, it wasn't until 1996 that the company gave them their now-iconic name, "Cheddar Bay Biscuits." The made-up "Cheddar Bay" was invented to sound like a cozy seaside location and to better fit Red Lobster's nautical theme and seafood offerings.
The Washington Post / The Washington Post via Getty Images29. Gunther, the Central Perk manager on Friends, became instantly recognizable for his signature bright, bleached blond hair, but...that look wasn't planned at all. James Michael Tyler, who was a real-life barista when he got the part, originally joined the show as a background extra, meant to make the coffee shop feel more realistic. The night before his first day of filming, he let a friend who was training to be a hairstylist practice bleaching his hair. The result turned his hair almost white, and he showed up to set that way without expecting it to matter since he was just going to be in the background.
NBC / NBCUniversal via Getty ImagesProducers ended up liking the look and decided to keep it as part of the character. They also decided to make Gunther a recurring character, which meant that Tyler then had to maintain the look by bleaching his hair weekly throughout the show's 10-season run. According to him, the first thing he did the day after taping the last episode was dye his hair dark.
NBC / NBCUniversal via Getty Images30. "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" was almost cut from The Wizard of Oz. I know it's hard to believe that anyone would think of cutting one of the most iconic movie songs of all time, but MGM executives considered removing the scene because they thought it dragged down the film's momentum. They worried that the quiet moment would slow the story just as the plot was picking up speed.
Warner Bros. / Via youtube.comSome also felt the setting — a simple barnyard — didn't match the movie's big, colorful spectacle. On top of that, the song itself struck them as sad, and they feared audiences wouldn't respond well to something so melancholy, and that they wanted excitement and sparkle. Luckily, for all of us, the executives made the right choice in the end.
Courtesy Everett Collection31. Family Guy is now one of the longest-running animated shows in television history, but it was actually canceled by Fox not once, but TWICE in its early years. The series debuted in 1999 after the Super Bowl with huge ratings (22 million viewers) and quickly gained attention for its edgy humor, cutaway gags, and pop culture references, but its ratings were inconsistent because Fox kept moving it around the schedule. It was first canceled in 2000, after Season 2, but they decided to bring it back for a third season. However, by 2002, the network officially canceled the show after just three seasons.
©20thCentFox/Courtesy Everett CollectionHowever, Family Guy found a massive second life when reruns began airing on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim block, where it became one of the channel's highest-rated programs. Around the same time, the show's DVD box sets sold incredibly well, proving there was a much larger audience for the series than Fox originally realized. The combination of strong syndication ratings and huge DVD sales convinced Fox to revive the show in 2005, something that almost never happens the TV industry.
20th Century Fox / Via amazon.com32. When Warner Bros. cast Jack Nicholson as the Joker in 1989's Batman, he was, of course, already one of Hollywood's biggest stars and had serious leverage in contract negotiations. Instead of taking a standard high upfront salary, Nicholson agreed to lower his pay to around $6 million in exchange for a share of the film's profits. The key detail was that his deal didn't stop at box-office earnings, as it also included a percentage of merchandising tied to his version of the Joker. At the time, this was unusual, since most actors were not given rights connected to toy sales and licensing.
Sunset Boulevard / Corbis via Getty ImagesThe bet paid off massively because Batman became a big worldwide hit and generated huge revenue from toys, costumes, T-shirts, and other branded products. His backend deal is widely reported to have earned him tens of millions more than a flat salary would have, with some estimates placing his total earnings as high as $90 million.
Bernard Weil / Toronto Star via Getty Images33. And lastly, the idea that the Illuminati secretly controls the world is so widespread today that many people assume it has existed for centuries in its modern form, but much of the conspiracy's popularity actually exploded rather recently because of a prank. The original Bavarian Illuminati was a real secret society founded in 1776 by Adam Weishaupt, though the group was outlawed and faded away within a few years. The modern version of the conspiracy theory took shape in the 1960s through a chaotic counterculture movement called Discordianism that the BBC described as "a collective that wished to cause civil disobedience, practical jokes and hoaxes."
Douglas Rissing / Getty ImagesWriters in the movement, including Robert Anton Wilson and Kerry Thornley, intentionally spread fake and contradictory stories about the Illuminati, as part of what they called "Operation Mindfuck," which was designed to make people question authority, media, and what they believed to be true. Wilson later helped turn the idea into a book with The Illuminatus! Trilogy, a satirical series that mixed real history, conspiracy theories, assassinations, and absurd fiction together so convincingly that many readers blurred the line between joke and reality. Over time, elements from the novels and earlier conspiracy theories merged into the modern pop-culture version of the Illuminati, where celebrities, politicians, and major events are supposedly connected to a hidden global network.
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