Things Only You Know

[TheLuckyOne]

Hey, gang. Thought we'd give the whole trivia thing another shot, this time in a slightly different format. Instead of trying to stump each other with questions, the purpose of this thread is just to mention weird, cool things you know that many people aren't aware of. Here's the catch: the point is not to simply mention random facts, like "the human head weighs over 8 pounds." That's fine and all, but try to make it something that's both 1) kinda interesting, ideally with a bit of a story attached to it, and 2) truly obscure, such that most of us really wouldn't already know it. Pop historical facts are a good place to start, but hey, let's just experiment and see where it goes.

Here's an example: most of us are familiar with the RCA ad depicting a cute little fox terrier ("Nipper") with his head cocked, listening to a phonograph. But most people probably aren't aware of the morbid history of the ad campaign. The original painting, titled "His Master's Voice," was done by a man whose brother had owned Nipper before his untimely death. Inheriting the dog, the painter noticed Nipper's fascination with listening to recordings of his deceased master's voice on a gramophone. This led the man to eventually paint the famous scene, which was later purchased by the company that would become RCA and used to advertise their phonographs. So the next time you see that ad, remember that the dog is listening to a dead guy. Creepy.

Who's next?

-D

[StarOpal]

Okay... keeping it creepy:

Sam Kinison, John Candy, and Chris Farley all died after reading a script called Atuk. Based on the book The Incomparable Atuk, it's a comedy about an Eskimo who leaves Alaska for the first time.

Even though Tod Carroll, the script writer who as far as I know is still alive, doesn't believe it, the script is been said to be cursed.

...I also seem to remember hearing that Chris Farley showed the script to Phil Hartman, who died about five months after Farley. But not too sure on that last one.

[Lordmoon]

The letters in the distress signal S.O.S. do not actually stand for anything on their own. They were used because they were the simplest combination of letters to produce and understand in Morse code which made it ideal for a universal distress signal.

George Washington's teeth were not made out of wood, as was once commonly believed. They were made out of teeth from different kinds of animals, specifically elk, hippopotamus, and human. One set of his false teeth weighed almost four ounces and were made out of lead ;D .

[TheLuckyOne]

Good ones!

Okay, here's another: when Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in 1876, there was some debate as to what the appropriate way of answering it should be. Bell himself suggested the term "Ahoy-hoy," supposedly derived from the nautical "ahoy," which in turn arose from the Dutch greeting "hoi." However, "ahoy-hoy" was abandoned in favor of Thomas Edison's suggestion of the phrase "hello," which had just started to be commonly used at that time. "Ahoy-hoy" is probably best known nowadays as the greeting Mr. Burns uses on The Simpsons, a subtle dig about his age showing just how clever those writers can be sometimes.

-D

[Spiderdancer]

When you hold a little jumping spider in your hand, and it tilts its body as if it's looking at you, it IS looking at you. Salticids have very good eyesight. I think this is why they usually do a kamikazi leap off my hand afterwards - they've just realized they're standing on a huge pink thing that could potentially eat them. If you watch closely, you can see their little chelicerae (the brushy things on either side of their fangs) twiddle faster when they are anxious.

They have a surprising amount of personality, really.

[StarOpal]

A lot of people mistakenly think that the show Happy Days is based off of the movie American Graffiti. In fact, it is a spin-off of the show Love, American Style.

The L,AS episode called "Love and the Happy Days" was originally a pilot for a new show that never took off. It was produced in 1971, two years before the release of American Graffiti.

[Spiderdancer]

The idea that daddy longlegs (or "harvestmen") are the most poisonous spiders (they're not spiders, either, btw) on earth, but unable to bite humans due to small fangs, is false. Their fangs have been measured and are fully large enough to bite humans.

[Storm_Rider]

spiderdancer said:

The idea that daddy longlegs (or "harvestmen") are the most poisonous spiders (they're not spiders, either, btw) on earth, but unable to bite humans due to small fangs, is false. Their fangs have been measured and are fully large enough to bite humans.

Plus The MythBusters busted that one also. Adam got bit and nothing happend.

[TheLuckyOne]

In keeping with the season, here's another one: most of the elements we commonly associate with werewolves were the invention of one man: Curt Siodmak, who was given a couple of weeks to write an entire screenplay for The Wolf Man. From scratch, Siodmak created the idea of a werewolf changing under the full moon, being vulnerable to silver, and the classic chant "Even a man who is pure in heart/And says his prayers by night/May become a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms/And the autumn moon is bright." Nearly every portrayal of werewolves in the years since has made use of the full moon and silver elements, and most people would say they surely derive from ancient folklore... but next time you see a werewolf in a movie change at the full moon, remember that we owe it all to a guy sitting at a typewriter in 1940.

-D

[Spiderdancer]

Is he also responsible for the "stupid-looking makeup" version of werewolves instead of the "just turn into an actual large wolf" version?

Beats me why the silver thing got transferred to vampires. Probably as another attempt to give them a weakness without religious implications.

[TheLuckyOne]

spiderdancer said:

Is he also responsible for the "stupid-looking makeup" version of werewolves instead of the "just turn into an actual large wolf" version?

No... there were a few werewolf movies prior to The Wolf Man that used that type of makeup, notably Werewolf of London from 1935. I don't mind it as much from older movies because, after all, there's only so much they could do with special effects back then, and it was impressive for the time; but yeah, that would never fly today.

(Fun fact: the Wolf Man hair was actually yak's hair; when World War II made it impossible to import anymore, future monster films began leaving the Wolf Man's hands bare and minimizing scenes he appeared in.)

spiderdancer said:

Beats me why the silver thing got transferred to vampires. Probably as another attempt to give them a weakness without religious implications.

Ironically, the silver thing actually DOES derive from folklore as something vampires hate... it's more a case of werewolves stealing it from them, rather than vice versa. Kinda like iron, which is harmful to demons and goblins.

While fact-checking myself on this one, I also learned they're remaking The Wolf Man for 2008 release, starring Benicio Del Toro. Wild.

-D

[sarahbot]

spiderdancer said:

Beats me why the silver thing got transferred to vampires. Probably as another attempt to give them a weakness without religious implications.

Actually, the story I heard (I have no claims to accuracy here) says it is a religious implication. Judas was supposedly the first vampire. He sold Jesus out for silver, hence the connection. Also explains the fear of crosses.

[varana]

Where as a book on my shelf "Vampires unmasked, the origin of popular myths" claim that Kain was the first vampire. Then again, there is the idea that Lilith (Adam's first wife) was the mother of all vampires. Seems like all biblical baddies claim the title of first vampire, huh?

[StarOpal]

Prana-Film's only movie, Nosferatu, very nearly became a "lost film" and it's only illegally that we still have it today. Florence Stoker, the late Bram Stoker's wife, was living off the royalties of her husband's books. At this point Dracula was the only one still in print.

So she was upset when it was brought to her attention that a German film adaption had been made without permission. By the time she came into the picture, Prana-Film was already going under financially. While she used The Society of Authors to take legal action in what would be a messy and three years long battle, the movie was still being distributed across Europe.

Seeing that she would never get money, she instead sought to have the film completely destroyed. On July 20, 1925 word came that all prints and negatives were ordered destroyed. This was hardly the end.

In October Mrs. Stoker received a list of movies to be shown privately for a new group called The Film Society, which was dedicated to the preservation of and showing of films as art. "Dracula by F. W. Murnau" was on that list. Ivor Montagu, the Society's organizer, claimed that because it would be shown privately they had a right to do so. Later yielding on this point, Montagu would still not tell where he had got the copy.

After an investigation, they found the probable source, but too late. Copies would continue to leak into England and America. It would also continue to be a thorn in copyright holders' sides.

I got this from a book called Hollywood Gothic by David J. Skal. I highly recommend it!



And for the record, The Mad Monster has the worst werewolf make up ever.

And the Judas as vampire story was used in Dracula 2000.

[TheLuckyOne]

Many people know the popular "rock and roll" symbol of drawing in your thumb, middle finger, and ring finger while extending your pointer and pinky upward; most people refer to it as "devil horns" and believe it to be vaguely satanic. In actuality, it was probably popularized by Gene Simmons of KISS and has nothing to do with Satan; Gene's story has changed over the years, but he sometimes claims he started doing it as a way to wave to fans while holding onto his guitar pick, and sometimes that he got it from Dr. Strange (who would cast spells with his fingers held like that) and Spider-Man (who uses his webshooters that way). However, KISS-hating conservatives misinterpreted is as a satanic gesture, and the rest is history.

Interestingly, the gesture means different things in different cultures and does have some connection to demons- in some cultures it's the symbol used to ward off the evil eye.

-D