50 Incredibly Useless Facts of Life You Didn't Know

1

The Addams Family predicted how we'd use personal computers.

Source: 19 Television Firsts (That We Never Really Recovered From)

2

The average person’s shoe size in America has increased by two sizes in 40 years.

It’s tied pretty directly to obesity: children’s malleable bones are flattening and widening under their increased weight, and adults’ are just plain plumper than they used to be.

Source: 3 Crazy Ways The Human Body's Changing In Our Own Lifetimes

3

The original Mr. Burns only lasted 3 episodes.

Source: 15 Actors Who Probably Regret Quitting Iconic Roles: First Episode Vs. Last Episode

4

Fans of Breaking Bad kept throwing pizza onto the roof of Walter White’s house.

At the height of the show’s popularity, the owners of the house had to erect a pizza blocking fence (perhaps the saddest words in the English language).

Source: 6 Movies And Shows That Explained Plot Holes (In 6 Bonkers Ways)

5

"I Shot The Sheriff" isn't about a sheriff… but it was about shooting.

Source: 27 Eyebrow-Arching Facts About Your Favorite Songs

6

Carl’s Jr. once made a promotional musical that lasted an agonizing 30 minutes.

2018’s Written In The Stars revolves around a giant Carl's Jr. logo named Happy Star trying to make it as an actor in New York. Spoiler: Happy Star ultimately quits to follow his love of making hamburgers.

7

Sandra Bullock once collected an Oscar and a Razzie in the same weekend

Source: 19 Highlights And Lowlights In Celeb Careers

8

Wisconsin is the only state that allows human corpses to be made into fertilizer.

“Recomposition” is forbidden in every other state due to, as the New York Times puts it, the “yuck factor.”

Source: “Recomposition” is forbidden in every other state due to, as the New York Times puts it, the “yuck factor.”

9

Star Trek: The Next Generation features a bunch of gibberish they thought no one would ever read.

Lead graphic designer Michael Okuda never expected technology to become advanced enough to make any of the fine print legible, so he included placeholders like the Gilligan’s Island theme song.

10

EA holds the world record for most downvoted Reddit comment.

Fans were pretty pissed about a 2017 Star Wars game that forced them to unlock the most popular characters. One Reddit comment from an EA representative scolded that the community should be grateful to the company. After all, EA only dangled gamers' favorite characters out of reach so they could be filled "with a sense of pride and accomplishment" when they finally managed to steal their mom's credit card to pay up.

Source: Behold, The World Record For Most Downvoted Reddit Comment

11

Pam Anderson owes her career to a Jumbotron.

Source: 21 Actors Who Landed Huge Roles (In Bizarre Ways)

12

The English language was fundamentally inspired by sloppy handwriting.

Highly stylized writing in medieval times, combined with smudgy ink, made some sequences appear identical; "in," "ni," "m," "iii," "ui," and "iu" for example. The solution was to just quit using “U” and throw a new letter, “O,” into the mix. Same deal with “C” and “K.”

13

This just in: ticks are sneaky little jerks.

Source: 29 Animals That Are (Secretly) Evil Geniuses

14

Every Slinky on the planet, stretched end-to-end, could circle the Earth 150 times.

Over 300 million of the famous confounding coils have been sold to stair-havers since the 1940’s.

Source: 20 Insane Facts About Your Spending Habits

15

James Gunn had no idea he spoke pervy Icelandic.

Source: 11 Movies That Made Changes (For Ridiculous Reasons)

16

A plastic surgeon visited a twin festival to get boob pics… for science!

Dr. Hooman Soltanian visited the Twins Day Festival in Twinsburg, Ohio, and asked twins for permission to photograph their breasts. (Ask any Nazi scientist and he'll tell you, a cloudy sense of right and wrong plus a pair of twins are the main ingredients for scientific dynamite.) So what did Soltanian discover? Moisturizing, breastfeeding, and hormone replacement therapy make your boobs more attractive.

17

Faye Emerson beat Janet Jackson by 54 years.

Source: 19 Television Firsts (That We Never Really Recovered From)

18

Scientists discovered how much saliva per word humans spray when speaking.

A Hong Kong University study counted spit droplets one by one, concluding that we spray 2.5 drops of saliva per word.

Source: Offbeat Data From Scientific Studies

19

"Total Eclipse of the Heart" is a vampire love ballad.

Source: 27 Eyebrow-Arching Facts About Your Favorite Songs

20

Every planet in the solar system can fit end-to-end between the Earth and the Moon.

The width of all the planets combined is less than the distance between Earth and its Moon. As it turns out, planets ain’t all that big, and the Moon is far as heck!

21

Vin Diesel’s character in xXx has his D&D character’s name tattooed on his stomach.

“Melkor” is the name of the witch hunter he plays as.

Source: 7 Secret Jokes You Never Noticed In The Background Of Movies

22

“You can’t eat just one” is actually a pretty sinister mantra.

In a lot of ways, junk food is as addictive as drugs. Potato chips are designed to make your brain’s pleasure centers light up like a Christmas tree, give you a spike of glucose, which immediately dips, causing you to crave another.

Source: 3 Sinister Reasons You're Addicted To Junk Food

23

Humpback whales confuse their prey by blowing bubbles.

Source: 29 Animals That Are (Secretly) Evil Geniuses

24

Queen Elizabeth II fell in love with Prince Philip when she was 13 years old.

He also happens to be her third cousin AND second cousin once removed, because royalty is like a soap opera with lazy writers.

Source: How The British Royal Family Has More Drama Than Any CW Show

25

Kurt Cobain didn't even know what teen spirit smelled like.

Source: 27 Eyebrow-Arching Facts About Your Favorite Songs

26

Cats have 32 muscles in each ear (humans only have 2).

Pushing their ears back (and baring their fangs, and squinting) makes them resemble an even more universally feared predator: a snake.

Source: 6 Adorable Cat Behaviors With Shockingly Evil Explanations

27

Iron Man 3 gave the villain a dongle so more kids would buy his action figure.

28

One in four Americans eat at a fast food joint every day.

Americans eat enough burger patties to circumnavigate the Earth over 30 times, every year.

Source: 4 Ways A Normal American Day Is Absolutely Bonkers To Others

29

Hollywood is an integral part of the military-industrial complex.

Source: 11 Movies That Made Changes (For Ridiculous Reasons)

30

Venus is the only planet that rotates clockwise.

It also rotates incredibly slowly -- one Venutian day lasts almost 225 Earth days.

Source: 6 Things About Space You're Picturing Almost Exactly Wrong

31

Boxer crabs have mastered biological warfare.

32

The absence of light causes humans to see a unique shade of grey, called Eigengrau, instead of black.

The night sky actually appears darker than an absolute absence of light, due to the contrast provided by stars.

Source: 5 Facts About Colors That Will Change How You See the World

33

Gunther was just an extra with extreme barista vibes.

Source: 21 Actors Who Landed Huge Roles (In Bizarre Ways)

34

The Eastern Pacific black ghostshark is the only shark that has sex organs on its head.

Males have a spiked appendage on their foreheads that are used to stimulate or pull close to a female.

Source: 7 Unbelievable Shark Facts You Simply Must Believe

35

It was the summer of sexual exploration.

36

The guy who wrote Star Wars Episode V also wrote one of the worst Stephen King movies.  

Lawrence Kasdan wrote one of the most beloved Star Wars films in the whole franchise, and a Stephen King crapfest about aliens that come out of people’s butts.

Source: 19 Highlights And Lowlights In Celeb Careers

37

The Village People demand to be taken seriously.

Source: 27 Eyebrow-Arching Facts About Your Favorite Songs

38

The Ancient One was whitewashed for the weirdest reason.

Source: 11 Movies That Made Changes (For Ridiculous Reasons)

39

The Bangles "Manic Monday" was written by Prince.

The band's first hit was credited to one "Christopher"- which was a pseudonym for none other than Prince himself.

40

Orcas apparently have an innate knowledge of shark biology.

Source: 29 Animals That Are (Secretly) Evil Geniuses

41

The Grateful Dead's "Casey Jones" is about… pretty much the opposite of what you think it is.

"It's clearly an anti-coke song,” Jerry Garcia said in an interview. "The words aren't light, good-time words."

Source: 27 Eyebrow-Arching Facts About Your Favorite Songs

42

The first-ever sci-fi series had a $25 prop budget.

Source: 19 Television Firsts (That We Never Really Recovered From)

43

The Assassin Bug A crafty insect that preys on spiders.

They use such dastardly methods as plucking on a spider's web so it thinks a small insect is caught and then striking when the spider comes close enough.

44

There’s a subtle boob joke in 1978’s Superman.

Lex Luthor’s map of the new West Coast has a town named Teschmacher Peaks. His girlfriend’s name is Eve Teschmacher.

Source: 7 Secret Jokes You Never Noticed In The Background Of Movies

45

Hall & Oates were talking about a dude.

Source: 27 Eyebrow-Arching Facts About Your Favorite Songs

46

Cuckoos lay their eggs in other birds' nests.

They then leave them to do the hard work of bringing up their offspring. Cuckoo chicks have also been documented pushing the original eggs out of the nest.

Source: 29 Animals That Are (Secretly) Evil Geniuses

47

"This Land Is Your Land" is somewhat less patriotic than everyone thinks.

48

Mel Gibson got his start very accidentally.

Source: 21 Actors Who Landed Huge Roles (In Bizarre Ways)

49

Gwen Stefani's "Hollaback Girl" is a clapback to Courtney Love.

Love had dismissed Stefani as a "cheerleader" in an interview. Stefani replied, “You want me to be a cheerleader? Well, I'll be one then.”

Source: 27 Eyebrow-Arching Facts About Your Favorite Songs

50

This is what an elephant looks like “tiptoeing.”

Source: 29 Animals That Are (Secretly) Evil Geniuses