12 Ill-Gotten Bits of Trivia We Need You to Hold Onto for Us Real Quick, Don’t Make a Big Deal About It
Quick quick quick, just… here. And don’t be weird about it. They probably won’t, but if they do come looking for these trivia tidbits, we can’t afford to be seen with them, know what we mean? We already have two strikes. You don’t. We’d do the same for you, you know that bro!
You can even read them if you want to. Yeah, we don’t care! We’re family, bro. This is the good stuff, too. We’ve got trivia about the gay A.I. that saved The Sims, the time Hoobastank made a burrito for Denny’s, Botox for camels… We’re telling you, bro, you can’t find better bits of trivia than these!
Anyway, we need these back tomorrow. And don’t be a snitch. Thanks bro.
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The Shark From ‘Jaws’ Sucked So Much, Spielberg Named It After His Lawyer
The mechanical sharks used in the filming of Jaws were a notoriously huge pain in the ass. Spielberg cheekily named the machines “Bruce,” after his lawyer (and, sure, friend) Bruce Ramer. Ramer has said, “They never paid me a royalty, that's all I know.” (Source)
The Gay A.I. That Saved ‘The Sims’
Developers agonized over whether to allow for non-heterosexual romantic relationships in the original Sims game, but ultimately decided to keep it to straight smooching only. A new developer got some old instructions, however, and unknowingly left the door open for anyone to kiss anyone else — as it should be! During a demonstration at the 1999 E3 expo, two female Sims spontaneously made out. That became the big story out of E3, garnering tons of press and making the game exponentially more popular than EA ever expected. (Source)
The United States Averages Two Felony Charges Per President
Donald Trump has been charged with 91 felonies to date. That sharply skews the average, which was 0 prior to 2023. (Source)
Denny’s Invented the Perfect Fourth Meal: The Hooburrito
In 2009, Denny’s introduced the opposite of an early-bird special: a late-night value meal aimed at the youth. Part of that was the Rockstar Menu, featuring the “Plain White Shake” from the Plain White T’s (lame), “Taking Back Bacon Burger Fries” from Taking Back Sunday (getting there) and the god-tier “Hooburrito,” a burrito designed by Hoobastank, with crispy chicken strips, pepper jack cheese and barbecue sauce. (Source)
Four of the Six OG Power Rangers Have Led Deeply Unlucky Lives
Thuy Trang, the Yellow Ranger, died in a tragic car crash at 27. Jason David Frank, the Green Ranger, was once nearly assassinated at a Comic-Con by a guy with throwing stars who claimed he was the actual Punisher — and sadly died by suicide in 2022. Austin St. John, the Red Ranger, was allegedly a low-level grunt in a scheme to fraudulently collect $3.5 million in PPP loans (to be fair, he did that to himself). David Yost, the Blue Ranger, was written off the show after raising concerns about the absolutely brutal bullying he was enduring on set day after day. He, understandably, stepped away from the franchise for a while, but is set to appear as a series regular in the upcoming Power Rangers Cosmic Fury. (Source)
Vincent van Gogh Was a Grindset Guy
He was known to work astoundingly quickly — which is great! — but he has a couple of the most self-important takes on his own productivity I’ve ever heard:
- “I’ve sometimes worked excessively fast; is that a fault? I can’t help it.”
- “When anyone says that such and such is done too quickly, you can reply that they have looked at it too fast.”
Just dripping with smarm. Act like you’ve been there before, man. (Source)
Netflix Really Thinks You’re Giving Back Those DVDs
Netflix is officially sunsetting their DVD rental operations this year. They even announced a neat li’l promotion where they’ll include 10 additional, random DVDs in your next delivery — just for funsies! They’ll mail ‘em to ya by September 29th, but you’d better send them back by October 27th. Why? What are they even going to do with that inventory, craft them into dreamcatchers and sell them on Etsy? (Source)
How to Gargle Andy Serkis’ Gollum Juice
When Serkis first started doing the Gollum voice, it absolutely wrecked his throat: “I think my vocal chords are so thrashed that I don't really feel anything anymore there.” He’d make people on set “whip up a few bowls of Gollum juice,” a combination of lemon, honey and ginger. (Source)
The Color ‘Orange’ Didn’t Always Exist
The color is named after the fruit — English speakers began referring to the fruit in the 12th century, but it took around 300 years for people to associate it with that particular swath of color. Before we gave it a name, something we’d now consider “orange” was regarded as “red,” both semantically and intellectually. Here’s an example: do red foxes or redheads generally have blood-red hair? Nope, but at the time that designation was made, everyone was like, “Yup, that’s all the same color.” (Source)
Samsung Was a Noodle Company
The company started out in 1938 as kind of a grocer, selling dried fish and its own proprietary noodles. It spent the next couple of decades dabbling in any industry it could get its foot in the door of, from electronics to insurance. It finally acquired a telecom company in 1980, and was off to the races. (Source)
43 Camels Were Disqualified from a Beauty Contest
In 2021, Saudi Arabia’s King Abdulaziz Camel Festival expelled over 40 contestants who were found to have beefed up their camels’ humps with Botox, dyed their hair or… something with rubber bands that apparently makes camels hotter (CNN didn’t really explain). It was a pretty big deal, too — there were $66 million in prizes on the line. (Source)
Computer Engineers Do Not Deserve to Be Taken Seriously
I had a lot of respect for that particular wing of the dignified, historied field of engineering — until I found out that the unit of measurement for the movement of a computer mouse is a “Mickey.” Folks. Please. We must keep puns out of science. (Source)
