40 Classic Movie and TV Tidbits That Would Have Never Believed We Could One Day Watch Them in the Palm of Our Hands

Archie Bunker would think that being ‘on Tubi’ was some hippie drug thing for sure
40 Classic Movie and TV Tidbits That Would Have Never Believed We Could One Day Watch Them in the Palm of Our Hands

When these classic movies and TV shows were in production, the only “streaming” going on involved flowing water. But were sure they could have guessed that audiences could one day view them in different ways because theres no stopping technology. Heck, at one point, even TV was considered “new media.” Back then, some studio execs definitely thought that there was no way such a small screen could compete with beastly cinema screens. 

But here we are: the streaming era… Unless things have drastically changed by the time youre reading this.

Home Improvement

Home Improvement BUDDIES CRACKED.COM Dave Chappelle and Jim Breuer made a cameo on Tool Time that became an instant classic. They were rewarded with a spinoff starring Chappelle and... some other guy. Breuer was replaced after a few rehearsals, and the show was cancelled after 5 episodes.

All in the Family

The first content warning 1971 The program you are about to see is ALL IN THE FAMILY. It seeks to throw a humorous spotlight on our frailties, prejudices and concerns. CRACKED.COM All in the Family featured several of the first slurs to appear on TV, and was preempted by this warning to contextualize them-kind of like how Disney+ warns kids about their racist crows and cats.

The Nightmare Before Christmas

CRACKED COM The Nightmare Before christmas Each minute of movie took around one week to film. Since each second of film consists of 24 frames, each character had to be posed 24 times per a single second of footage. This is why this holiday classic took over three years to complete.

Clerks

CLERKS ALMOST HAD A BIZARRELY DARK ENDING. 1.50 Unsure of how else to finish his cult classic film, Kevin Smith decided to just kill Dante in a robbery gone wrong and roll credits. Не even shot the scene, but for some reason, the producers didn't think the main character getting shot would make a good ending to a comedy film and forced Smith to come up with a different one. CRACKED.COM

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON THIS WAS ZHANG ZIYI'S SECOND FILM. The 19-year-old didn't even have her first film appearance released before she was signed on for the Ang Lee classic. Lee chose her due to Zhang's innate cinematic charisma. CRACKED.COM

Clint Eastwood

The plot of The Good, The Bad and the Ugly was improvised during a meeting. The story of the film was improvised in a meeting between the Italian director and American movie executives. They asked him what film he had in mind, and in the span of a couple minutes, they quickly improvised the entire story. CRACKED.COM

It’s A Wonderful Life

It became a Christmas classic thanks to a lapsed copyright and TV. RIA - 04 Condition The film accidentally became public domain after Republic Pictures forgot to renew the copyright for it in 1974. This allowed every TV station to play the movie whenever they wanted, until 1993, when Paramount managed to secure the rights for the film. CRACKED.COM

Harold and Maude

In order to get the classic 1971 film Harold and Maude made, producer Robert Evans lied to the executives and didn't tell them that the movie's romance was between a 20-year-old boy and an 80-year-old woman. HAROLD AND MAUDE CRACKED.COM

The Sound of Music

CRACKED.COM The Sound of Music was the third film about the Von Trapp family. surprising day ven Sister Maria DU out of the cred convent Two movies were made in give her love a man- and г songs to P world Germany in the 1950s, all based M SCHOOL der. - By on the same book as the play THE TRAPP that was then turned into the FAMILY classic Julie Andrews musical. All the wonderful - D of

The Golden Girls

CRACKED.COM THE GOLDEN GIRLS was inspired by MIAMI VICE. In 1984, NBC shot a humorous skit titled Miami Nice, starring two older actresses, for a special advertising their new shows (like Miami Vice). Execs liked it, and the idea was developed into a full series about old ladies living in Miami.

The Office

CRACKED.COM THE OFFICE was heavily influenced by THE SOPRANOS. The Sopranos was actually the biggest influence on The Office, actor and producer В. J. Novak has said. The way Michael Scott will say something very serious but mispronounce a word | feel is a direct descendant of the Tony Soprano sense of humor.

007

James Bond's 007 came - from a bus. After author lan Fleming moved to Kent in the 1950s, he would often travel back to London by bus - specifically, the 007 bus. It still runs today, and is very popular with Bond fans. CRACKED.COM

A Christmas Story

CRACKED.COM The leg lamp in A CHRISTMAS STORY was inspired by soda. DRINK NEHI Author Jean Shepherd got the idea for the wonderfully tacky lamp NEW GOLD from an ad for Nehi Soda that featured female legs. (Nehi still QUALITY BEVERAGES exists today - it's called RC Cola.)

Lost

Lloyd Braun, the former chairman of ABC Entertainment, got the idea for the show Lost after he watched the movie Cast Away. 0 ST CAST AWAY CRACKED.COM

The Silence of the Lambs

ANTHONY HOPKINS BE HANNIBAL LECTOR CRACKED.COM Hopkins says that his character has a deliberately feline quality. I got to move around a lot, and I sort of modeled my walk on a cat's. I like cats, and I love the way they pad around. I wanted to get that feel when Lecter is padding very quietly and stealthily in the shadows.

The Children’s Television Act

The Children's Television Act required kids'TV to serve the educational and informational needs of children. CRACKED.COM This is why many 90s cartoons had a shoehorned educational message for kids added to the story.

Jonathan Wolff

Jonathan Wolff has written theme music for over seventy television shows, including WILL & GRACE and WHO'S THE BOSS? Music Consultants Group, Inc. His most famous work, though, is undoubtedly the SEINFELD bass jam. And yes, he does still get paid for each episode aired. CRACKED.COM

Cagney & Lacey

The first in-show mention of condoms 1987 CRACKED.COM Cagney & & Lacey was the first prime-time drama to break the latex barrier and mention contraceptives.

Elf

Buddy's outfit was modeled after the elves' costumes in the 1964 television special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Director Jon Favreau also took inspiration from the classic movie's stop-motion animation. CRACKED.COM

Greg Berlanti

BEHIND THE SCENES Greg Berlanti is responsible for many of the LGBTQ+ characters we've seen on television. As a major television producer, he created and oversaw many of these characters, including Jack on Dawson's Creek, Carmelita on Dirty Sexy Money, and Alex Danvers in Supergirl. Now he's brought the first teen gay protagonist by a major film studio to the big screen. CRACKED.COM

Forbidden Planet

Robby the Robot from Forbidden Planet sold for over $5 million Robby made history, becoming the most expensive movie prop ever sold at auction. CRACKED.COM

Jaws

The posters for 'Jaws' and 'Jurassic Park' were modeled after exhibits at the American Museum of Natural History. CRACKED COM For the iconic 'Jaws' imag- ery of a swimmer about to be devoured, artist Roger Kastel went to the museum and took a few photos of stuffed sharks waiting to be cleaned.

Ghostbusters

STRANGER THINGS INSPIRATIONS GHOSTBUSTERS The juvenile joke (and kickass climax) about crossing the streams wasn't in the script. Harold Ramis and Dan Aykroyd came up with the method to defeat Gozer at the last minute, and then changed earlier scenes to foreshadow it. CRACKED.COM

Free Willy

Free Willy After the movie came out, pressure mounted to free Keiko (the movie's cetacean star) for real and not just in fiction. Keiko could not adapt to living in the wild. Не died the following year, always seeking the company of humans. CRACKED.COM

Teen Wolf

Movie Goofs Teen Wolf adidas A person stands up to celebrate with their fly unzipped. Then they quickly realize it and try to cover it, but поре, it's already movie history (unlike Teen Wolf). CRACKED.COM

Volcano

Anne Heche Movies Volcano Ten digital effects companies and 300 people developed the FX. A quarter-mile long, 80% full-size replica of Wilshire Boulevard, one of the largest sets ever constructed in movie history, was assembled in Torrance, California. CRACKED.COM

Gilligan’s Island

CRACKED.COM Gilligan's Island was almost rebooted in the '90s (with more cannibalism). According to James Gunn, Charlie Kaufman managed to get a Gilligan's Island reboot greenlit, with the starving castaways killing and eating each other. The project was nixed by Gilligan's creator Sherwood Schwartz.

NewsRadio

BILL MCNEAL NEWS RADIO CRACKED.COM The real-life murder of the beloved Phil Hartman hangs over the episode where the cast remembers McNeal, dead here of a heart attack. Matthew (Andy Dick) refuses to believe it, claiming Bill left to open a scuba diving school in Nepal.

Mary Tyler Moore

CHUCKLES MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW CRACKED.COM Chuckles the Clown was leading a parade dressed as Peter Peanut when he was tragically shelled to death by a rogue elephant. With a can't-stop-laughing funeral, it's the classic episode of a classic sitcom, at one point ranked #1 on TV Guide's list of the Top 100 Episodes of All Time.

Classic Sitcoms

CRACKED THANKS TO AIRBNB, YOU CAN VACATION IN TONS OF RECREATED SITCOM SETS. Airbnb features a bunch of stays that are painstakingly modeled after sets like Friends and Seinfeld.

The Simpsons

MAUDE FLANDERS THE SIMPSONS CRACKED COM Voice artist Maggie Roswell asked for more cash back in 1998, then quit the show when Fox said no dice. Simpsons producers weighed in on the negotiations when they blasted Maude off a grandstand with a t-shirt cannon.

Die Hard

ALAN RICKMAN WAS TALKED INTO DOING HIS OWN 20-FOOT DROP STUNT. Even stunt performers don't like to fall backwards. CRACKED.COM

Deliverance

While shooting 'Deliverance! Burt Reynolds insisted on doing a stunt himself instead of a dummy. During the stunt, he got injured and his clothes came off. Waking up in hospital, he asked the di- rector what it looked like, who said, It looked like a dummy falling over a waterfall. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW

Chinatown

CRACKED A CAR CRASH. Filming without permits, the epic car chase has stunt driver Bill Hickman dodging and weaving (at high speeds) in actual NYC traffic. Не accidentally smashed into the car of a man on his morning commute. THE FRENCH CONNECTION

The Addams Family

The first home computer 1965 CRACKED.COM In The Addams Family, the gigantic family computer, Whizzo, is used to cheat at gambling and help rig an election. Pretty spot-on.

Star Wars

The first to credit the full crew. 1977 CRACKED.COM George Lucas decided to list every last crew member in the Star Wars final credit crawl. Before that, only department heads would get their moment in the limelight.

The Manchurian Candidate

The first karate fight. 1962 CRACKED.COM Frank Sinatra has the honor of inciting the first-ever karate fight in American cinema in The Manchurian Candidate. It looks exactly like a man who is horny for a living pretending to get beat up.

Red Dawn

The first PG-13 rating. 1984 CRACKED.COM Even though it clocked in at 134 acts of violence per hour (Guinness counted), Red Dawn was the first film to officially find itself between PG and R.

Westworld

The first CGI. 1973 CRACKED.COM We get to see through the eyes of an evil robot in a scene in Westworld, and it's... boring. The motif was inspired by the first images of the surface of Mars.

Rebel Without A Cause

Historical Firsts in The World of Stunts The first car chase stunts 1958 Car stunts had been done (notably 1955's Rebel Without A Cause), but Cary Loftin and his team's work on Thunder Road was ground zero for the modern action movie (although driver safety became a new issue). CRACKED

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