24 Random Bits of TV Trivia to Read While You’re Bounding in Slow Motion Across the Beach

TV facts to the rescue!
24 Random Bits of TV Trivia to Read While You’re Bounding in Slow Motion Across the Beach

Is that undertow pulling your boredom out to sea? Have no fear! These scantily clad TV facts are bounding (and bouncing) on over to save it! For glamour’s sake, they’ll take a few minutes longer than expected, but they’re coming, we promise. 

Ugh! You know what? Just try to keep its head above water a little longer. We need to snag a few more slo-mo close-ups.

Beast Wars

CRACKED.COM The makers of BEAST WARS: TRANSFORMERS hated Waspinator, as his buzzing, drawling speech ate up too much run time - but higher-ups mandated that the character must be used. Their solution was to turn him into a hapless buffoon that was blown to pieces early in every episode.

Westworld

CRACKED.COM Luke Hemsworth got his biceps injured a couple days before shooting a fight scene for WESTWORLD. The scene was rewritten so Stubbs gets shot in the arm and has to fight one-handed.

Midnight Mass

MIDNIGHT MASS was one of the first Netflix shows to resume production after COVID lockdown - and because of sanitary measures, no extras could be on set to play the townsfolk. So the detail of Crockett Island being mostly depopulated because of an oil spill was added. CRACKED.COM

Deep Space Nine

CRACKED.COM Nana Visitor got pregnant during the run of STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE Rather than try to hide her pregnancy, the producers decided to write it into the storyline, and Major Kira became surrogate mother to the O'Briens' baby via emergency fetus teleportation.

Goofy

CRACKED.COM GOOFY's original voice actor Pinto Colvig left Disney in the 1940s. Instead of recasting the Goof right away, Disney produced a (now classic) series of narrated cartoons, with Goofy voicelessly showing how to play sports and do other stuff.

South Park

CRACKED.COM AD SOUTH PARK lost Chef when Isaac Hayes quit over an episode lambasting Scientology - or so was reported at the time. Hayes' son revealed years later that his father was incapacitated due to health issues, and someone in his Scientology circle quit South Park for him.

Ally McBeal

CRACKED.COM In Season 4 of ALLY McBEAL Ally was going to marry her boyfriend Larry, played by Robert Downey Jr. But just before the wedding episode was shot, RDJ went and got busted for drugs. Не was swiftly shown the door, and Ally remained unmarried.

The Office

CRACKED.COM H Jaua M In Season 5 of THE OFFICE Ryan Howard spends some time in Thailand (well, Fort Lauderdale) - which happened because B. J. Novak needed time away from the show to shoot Inglourious Basterds.

Breaking Bad

CRACKED.COM Raymond Cruz had to bow out early from BREAKING BAD due to other commitments. Deprived of Tuco Salamanca, Vince Gilligan decided to replace him with an antagonist who was Tuco's complete opposite - eerily calm instead of a raging maniac. So Gus Fring was born.

Parks and Recreation

CRACKED.COM Amy Poehler getting pregnant completely altered the shooting schedule of PARKS AND RECREATION. The first six episodes of Season 3 (the Harvest Festival arc) were rushed before Poehler's pregnancy became too apparent. The arc was quickly wrapped up once the show resumed production months later.

Star Trek

There are dolphins aboard the Enterprise. According to The Next Generation Technical Manual, the crew of Captain Picard's ship includes twelve bottlenose dolphins and two orcas in a section called Cetacean Ops. These wet crewmembers were too expensive for TV, but they were mentioned in passing on a couple episodes. CRACKED.COM

Boy Meets World

Boy Meets world Three episodes are banned from Disney channel. One about getting drunk (If You Can't Be With the One You Love), one about sex (Prom-ises, Promises), and one about a lack of it (The Truth About Honesty). CRACKED.COM

Invader Zim

Movie and TV Aliens Invader Zim Zim was fully conceived in an hour (during a sleepless night). Johnen Vasquez couldn't fall sleep, so he thought up Invader Zim's characters and story beats within an hour's time. CRACKED.COM

Zoidberg

Movie and TV Aliens Futurama Zoidberg's S voice is based on George Jessel and Lou Jacobi. Billy West figured that his name and his face tentacles made someone marble-mouthed with a Jewish background-just like those two actors. CRACKED.COM

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Sunnydale BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER CRACKED.COM Creator Joss Whedon has said the location was loosely based on Monterey, California, even if from the name alone, it would seem associated with Sunnyvale, California.

Mr. Robot

The first season finale of the show Mr Robot was inspired by Fight Club. Fight Club was one of my big inspirations for the show, said creator Sam Esmail, and The Pixies' Where Is My Mind in S1E9 was a nod to that. CRACKED.COM

David Cross

CRACKED.COM Arrested Development David Cross had to fight for Tobias' mustache. The head of FOX had a no mustache rule as part of her 3 Rules of Comedy, but Cross just couldn't see the character without it. Не saw no logic with that rule, along with the other two: no baseball caps and no puffy sleeves.

Twin Peaks

CRACKED.COM DE - Twin Peaks David Lynch cast the Log Lady 13 years before the first episode aired. Catherine Coulson got her start as an actor in Lynch's Eraserhead. During the shoot, Lynch told to her, Someday, I'll do a series and you'll play a girl with a log.

Happy Days

Happy Days Ron Howard joined to avoid the Vietnam War draft. Since the government wasn't accepting college deferment for service, Howard auditioned and got the acting job to get a work deferment. CRACKED.COM

The Office

aff ewsle COMPLETED eon TH - MIP The Office Phyllis had her role made up for her. Phyllis Smith was working as a casting assistant as the show was being put together. Everyone was impressed by her performance as she read opposite other actors at the auditions, so they wrote a part for her. CRACKED.COM

Brooklyn Nine-Nine

Brooklyn Nine-Nine The cast all got police gun safety training. Andy Samberg stated that he and the rest of the cast went through gun training before shooting the series. The producers wanted the police to be portrayed as accurately as possible with firearms. THERE CENTOR CRACKED.COM

Desperate Housewives

Desperate Housewives The show was meant to be a 30-minute comedy. Marc Cherry noticed the pilot script he was writing kept getting longer and a bit more dramatic. Instead of fighting this, he decided it would be a different kind of show. CRACKED.COM

Bob’s Burgers

Bob's Burgers The show was supposed to be about a cannibal family. In Loren Bouchard's original pitch, the quirky, loving family made their burgers out of people meat. Coming from Adult Swim, he figured a dark angle was the best way to get the show noticed. CRACKED.COM

How I Met Your Mother

How I Met Your Mother A real engagement happened on the show. Timothy Russo was friends with one of the writers, and used that connection to get him and his girlfriend Jana Rugan a gig as extras. It was there that he proposed to Jana, and it stayed in the episode. CRACKED.COM

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