50 Weird Facts To Cram Into Your Noggin When Your Boss Isn't Looking | Cracked

1

The OG morning news crew was ½ monkey.

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

2

The Eiffel Tower is actually an awesome science lab.

Gustave Eiffel was an engineer and a scientist, so he included a private apartment at the top of the tower where he could conduct his experiments in peace.

Source: 6 Landmarks That Are Secretly Awesome Transformers

3

Australia once voluntarily imported one of its biggest national pests.

Source: 18 Plans That Went To Pieces While Everyone Watched

4

Color can actually affect how your taste buds report information.

Thanks to our odd tendency to unconsciously associate fiery colors with heat, one study found that drinkers perceived drinks served in yellow and red containers as being hotter than those (same) drinks served within blue and green containers.

Source: The 5 Weirdest Things That Influence How Your Food Tastes

5

She'd just as soon kiss a Wookie.

Source: 21 Roles Famous Actors Wish They Could Delete From History

6

Spider-Man was the first film to ever make over $100 million in its opening weekend.

Everyone thought the superhero movie was dead after Batman & Robin made less than its budget.

7

You've made a powerful enemy.

Source: 29 Animals That Are (Secretly) Evil Geniuses

8

There’s a real-life David Dunn.

Much like the movie Unbreakable, an unnamed patient went to the hospital after a car accident, where X-rays revealed the highest bone density ever recorded that prevented the patient from what should have been certain broken bones.

Source: 12 Real-Life People Who Convince Us Superpowers Are Real

9

What ever happened to the kid from A Christmas Story?

Source: 19 Highlights And Lowlights In Celeb Careers

10

Stan Lee is the highest-grossing actor of all time.

He also holds Guinness World Records for Largest Graphic Novel Published and Most Prolific Creator of Comic Book Characters.

11

Your tomato sauce is lying to you.

Source: 17 Sneaky Industry Tricks To Make Food More Appealing

12

Neil Armstrong was almost killed years before he went to the moon.

During the 1966 NASA mission Gemini 8, Neil’s ship went into a literal death roll that he expertly corrected before the thing disintegrated.

Source: 5 Famous Space Missions That Almost Ended In Disaster

13

Cary Elwes got zonked out for real.

Source: 21 Times Someone Royally Beefed It (And Accidentally Created Movie Magic)

14

Los Angeles’ Cecil Hotel has housed multiple serial killers.

The Cecil Hotel was, among other things, the inspiration for the Lady Gag season of American Horror Story, and for good reason. The cursed building was once home to Richard Ramirez and Jack Unterweger in the span of less than a decade.

15

That's his story, and he's sticking to it.

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

16

The International Space Station has a treadmill named after Stephen Colbert.

NASA asked people to name a new ISS node, and Colbert got his viewers to vote for his name. NASA didn't want to do that, so they named a new ISS treadmill Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill (C.O.L.B.E.R.T.)

Source: 13 Out-Of-This-World Facts About The ISS

17

YABBA DABBA Damn, I'm sorry pal. I'm here if you want to talk about it.

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

18

D-Day was actually the worst-kept secret of World War II.

It's a miracle D-Day succeeded at all. A soldier inexplicably sent top-secret documents to his sister, and the war plans were read by several postal employees. It was once leaked by one of Eisenhower's college buddies at a cocktail party, and even popped up in nationally-distributed crossword puzzles in the U.K.

19

A design studio invented a Harry Potter character that became canon.

Source: 15 Movies And Shows With Subtle Sight Gags

20

Christopher Eccleston left Doctor Who because he wasn’t funny enough.

There was a lot of tension for Eccleston’s one season on set, which he attributes to the fact that “they employed someone who was not a natural light comedian. Some of my anger about the situation came from my own insecurity.”

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

21

This dude looks like sh*t.

Source: 29 Animals That Are (Secretly) Evil Geniuses

22

Luca Brasi's actor was an actual nervous mafioso in The Godfather.

Lenny Montana was a mafia arsonist who was cast because he was huge. He actually couldn't get his line out, which Coppola used to his advantage.

23

It's generally a bad idea to blackmail Deadpool.

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

24

A guy on the electrical crew snuck a ton of jokes into Friends.

Crew member Paul Swaim was the czar of the show’s MagnaDoodle. He would usually draw the doodles himself, but sometimes let other crew and cast members leave their mark.

Source: 15 Movies And Shows With Subtle Sight Gags

25

Great, now your chicken is lying to you!

Source: 17 Sneaky Industry Tricks To Make Food More Appealing

26

Sting deeply regrets 1984’s Dune.

He once said “I had great doubts about Dune from the first time I read the script, but I thought that if anyone could pull it off, Lynch was the one. I should trust my instincts.”

27

Bad news: spiders can paraglide.

Source: 29 Animals That Are (Secretly) Evil Geniuses

28

Grocery store fruits are often artificially ripened.

This is generally done by exposing them to ethylene gas in cold storage rooms, to sell them more quickly.

Source: 17 Sneaky Industry Tricks To Make Food More Appealing

29

Sylvester Stallone thinks his work is powerful enough to force a false confession.

Source: 21 Roles Famous Actors Wish They Could Delete From History

30

Moths can control bats like sex puppets.

Some moths emit a siren-like noise to jam bats' echolocation. They can use this power to mimic bats, which 'freeze' nearby females with fear. The males then swoop in and mate with them.

31

It's called a Prattfall, look it up.

Source: 21 Times Someone Royally Beefed It (And Accidentally Created Movie Magic)

32

John Wayne started in the prop department.

Whenever they needed extras for movies back then, they just grabbed whoever was standing around. Because Wayne had the build of a football player, he got early roles like "football player in background" and "football player on sideline."

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

33

Take that, George!

Source: 15 Movies And Shows With Subtle Sight Gags

34

A drunken extra hucked a beer can at Malkovich's bean.

On the set of Being John Malkovich, some extras got ripped and decided to do a drive-by while the scene was live. Malkovich's reaction (pissed off) is genuine.

35

Squirrels will try to fake you out.

Source: 29 Animals That Are (Secretly) Evil Geniuses

36

A broken mic cable created the lightsaber sound.

Sound designer Ben Burtt walked past his TV holding a mic with an exposed wire. That wire picked up the tube's hum, and the iconic KZSSH!! was born. 

Source: 21 Times Someone Royally Beefed It (And Accidentally Created Movie Magic)

37

Television has always been terrifying.

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

38

The pyrotechnics malfunctioned on the set of The Wizard of Oz.  

You can see the red smoke appear before the Wicked Witch actually leaves. When they tried a re-take, everything went wrong and the actress got 2nd degree burns on her face. 

39

Hunting is a team sport (when you're a whale).

Source: 29 Animals That Are (Secretly) Evil Geniuses

40

Daniel Craig bellyflopped onto a sandbar in Casino Royale.  

Craig was supposed to dive in and swim away, but immediately bumped into a sandbar. This is him emerging, defeated by the sea, to wade back to shore. 

Source: 21 Times Someone Royally Beefed It (And Accidentally Created Movie Magic)

41

Han Solo is, technically, in Firefly.

Source: 15 Movies And Shows With Subtle Sight Gags

42

Male topi antelopes will gaslight their mates to get more action.

They often trick their mates into having more sex with them by snorting at non-existent predators. That way, the females are tricked into staying longer in the males' territory. They don't warn their romantic rivals, though, even when there is an actual predator behind them.

43

A novice director changed the ending of The Graduate.

Source: 21 Times Someone Royally Beefed It (And Accidentally Created Movie Magic)

44

Your brain thinks heavier wine is better wine.

Our brain associates quality with weight, and for that reason wine bottlers often use thicker-than-necessary glass and deeper punts to give even mediocre wines the illusion of quality. 

Source: 17 Sneaky Industry Tricks To Make Food More Appealing

45

Some turtles have a false worm-tongue.

Source: 29 Animals That Are (Secretly) Evil Geniuses

46

ldris Elba gave Chris Pine a black eye.

Elba Was exhausted while filming a fight scene for Star Trek Beyond, and accidentally landed a punch, hard. 

47

Much like Jesus in patriotic American imagery, Harrison Ford went from a carpenter from a gun-toting badass.

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

48

Male peacocks pretend they’re having more sex than they really are.

By making fake sex noises and convincing females they are more sexually active, the male seems like a more attractive mate.

Source: 29 Animals That Are (Secretly) Evil Geniuses

49

George Clooney keeps a framed picture of himself as Batman in his office.

Source: 21 Roles Famous Actors Wish They Could Delete From History

50

Male cuttlefish will go in half-drag to outsmart rivals.

First, they’ll get between another male/female couple. Then they’ll disguise half their body as a male (to attract the female) and the other half as a female (to make the unsuspecting husband think that it's a girls' night).

Source: 29 Animals That Are (Secretly) Evil Geniuses