John Candy Used to Regularly Bomb at Second City

Lily From ‘Modern Family’ Comes Out of the Closet With A Classic Quote From the Show

Despite Years to Prepare, 90 Percent of ‘SNL50’ Got Written in Final Week

Paramount Quietly Pulled Another Classic ‘South Park’ Episode From Certain Streaming Markets

28 Bits of Trivia About the World of Organized Crime

40 Pieces of Pop-Culture Trivia to Plug Up Your Ears When Someone Tries to Tell You a Boring Fact or Inconvenient Truth

You shouldn’t have to learn something you don’t want to learn

40 Pieces of Pop-Culture Trivia to Plug Up Your Ears When Someone Tries to Tell You a Boring Fact or Inconvenient Truth

May 18, 2025

No one has adequately explained why Genie from Aladdin makes so many killer ‘80s and ’90s references. Until now.

Click right here to get the best of Cracked sent to your inbox.

40

Terminator 2

TERMINATOR 2 JUDGMENT DAY He will need your clothes, your boots, your motorcycle, and your urgent fashion advice regarding swimming trunks. — More: 17 Backstage Photos That Will Immediately Improve Your Day

39

Fantasia 2000

Disney built a temporary theater just to show 'Fantasia/2000.' FANTASIA 2000 CRACKED.COM When the only IMAX theater in Central L.A. couldn't meet the demands of Disney to showcase the very first ani- mated IMAX movie, Fanta- sia/2000, Disney spent $4 million to build a theater to show it. — Source

38

The Warriors

CRACKED.COM ALTHOLACE E THE WARRIORS The extras included real gang members. For authenticity, director Walter Hill recruited actual New York City gang members to be in the movie (but also had undercover cops as extras, to make sure things remained peaceful). — Source

37

Rapa Nui

CRACKED Starvation on the set of RAPA NUI In 1994, Kevin Reynolds' passion project was filmed on Easter Island, in the Pacific. We had one flight a week from the mainland, and there were times we ran out of food to feed people, and things like that, it was...if was very bad. — Source

36

The Black Keys

THE BLACK KEYS ARE NAMED AFTER SCHIZOPHRENIC RAMBLINGS. The band name came from a series of answering machine messages that went, This is Alfred McMoore. Your black key is taking too long. McMoore was an artist who struggled with schizophrenia, and the calls (sometimes 40 in a single day) were meant for drummer Pat Carney's father. Apparently the phrase was one McMoore would repeat when he couldn't get ahold of someone. http://www.akroncf.org/ContactUs/NewsEvents/View CRACKED.COM Article/tabid/96/Articleld/47/Black-Keys-Fund.aspx — Source

35

Gabourey Sidibe

CRACKED FAN STUNTS GABOUREY SIDIBE was chased down for a picture. While shooting Empire in Chicago, a car sped up to follow her car. It looked like they were going to ram us. We kept screaming at them to drive safely, to, like, stop because it was really scary. Then at the light they got out and ran over to us to take a picture. — Source

34

Dumb and Dumber

One-Sided Fictional Rivalries Harry and Lloyd take out Mental. By killing Harry and Lloyd's parakeet, Petey, the film plays him up like a truly scary henchman, who's no doubt killed people. They kill him with poison, but he's a hired gun who could have popped them on that desolate highway where they picked him up. Dumb and Dumber CRACKED — New Line Cinema
YouTube

33

Bollywood

Sports Reinvented SSI Jio e rs . INDIA SPICES UP CRICKET The Indian Premier League turned the slow paced gentlemen's game into a thrilling sports drama featuring Bollywood stars. The 2008 season set a worldwide record with 200 million viewers. (The highest ever Super Bowl viewership was 114 million.) CRACKED — CNBC/YouTube
Blue Ocean Strategy & Shift

32

Arkham Asylum

40 Pieces of Pop-Culture Trivia to Plug Up Your Ears When Someone Tries to Tell You a Boring Fact or Inconvenient Truth — Source: 19 Hilariously Infuriating Video Game Enemies

31

Aladdin

Aladdin's Genie makes a lot of pop culture references. The Genie has been trapped in his lamp for 10,000 years. When he pops out, he makes constant jokes about the early 1990s. What if the movie takes place in the distant future? CRACKED.COM — Source: 25 Fan Theories About Popular Franchises To Break Your Brain

30

Mario

40 Pieces of Pop-Culture Trivia to Plug Up Your Ears When Someone Tries to Tell You a Boring Fact or Inconvenient Truth — The Surprising Origins Of 12 Iconic Video Game Characters

29

George Clooney

George Clooney put a f**k cops bumper sticker on Brad Pitt's car. It was shaped like a pot plant Because there's no way you're not getting arrested with that, said Clooney. CRACKED.COM — Source: Vanity Fair

28

Hugh Hefner

Hugh Hefner Within his will, Hefner stipulated that his wife and children would be financially cut off if they became dependent on illegal drugs or alcohol, as determined by trustees. — Source: Independent

27

Madonna

MADONNA Madonna assured a Tonight Show audience that her awkward set indeed was funny. She's in a constant struggle to wrangle the audience's perception... LRD getting distracted by the confused response to her jokes about being an extremely wealthy person who dates men in their twenties. — Daily Edge

26

Jurassic Park

Nedry's wardrobe in Jurassic Park is taken from Goonies. His Hawaiian shirt is a lot like Chunk's, his windbreaker is identical to Mouth's, and in the scene where the dilophosaur kills him, he's dressed just like Mikey. CRACKED.COM

25

Andy Griffith

The Andy Griffith Show CRACKED.COM The world was introduced to Andy Griffith in an episode of The Danny Thomas Show. Thomas takes time off from being a good comedian and terrible father to get arrested in the small town of Mayberry. — Source

24

The Simpsons

It takes 6-8 months to make one episode From pitch to production, one episode of The Simpsons takes a little less time than making a baby. CRACKED.COM — Source

23

The Net

Online pizza delivery was inspired by the 1995 Sandra Bullock movie The Net. The inspiration for the very first online delivery service, CyberSlice, came from the scene were Bullock's character orders a pizza online. CRACKED.COM — Source

24 of the Most Intense Experiences People Have Been Through

25 Notable Failures to Compare Your Own Follies To

27 Famous Quotes That Are Constantly Misused

27 Shows That Actually Stuck the Landing

37 Grotesque Bits of Pop-Culture Trivia We Discovered When Digging a Shallow Hole in Our Flower Garden

33 Bits of Classic TV Trivia That Are Movin’ on Up to the East Side

22

Famiy Ties

The dad from Family Ties does train stuff. You know him as Michael J. Fox's dad and Burt Gummer in Tremors, but Michael Gross is much better known among railfans. He's been a spokesman for the World's Greatest Hobby campaign and narrates carloads of train-related documentaries. Не also owns part of Santa Fe Southern Railway. CRACKED.COM — Source

21

Freddie Mercury

Before his death in 1991, legendary Queen frontman Freddie Mercury, was shown a video of the famous Wayne's World Bohemian Rhapsody headbanging scene. CRACKED.COM The film had not yet been released, but Queen gui- tarist Brian May was giv- en a VHS tape by actor Mike Myers. May showed it to Mercury who had a good laugh. — Source

20

The Fugitive

CRACKED A GHOST IN THE FUGITIVE. When Harrison Ford climbs from a fiery wreckage, a man's face is seen staring into the camera. The editor found it 8 years later and was asked to remove it. The scene was filmed on the site of the 1882 Cowee Tunnel disaster. THE FUGITIVE — Source

19

Biopics

18

Pennywise

Pennywise the clown keeps popping up. STEPHEN KING THE TOMMY- KNOCKERS HIS LATEST DESTSELLER CRACKED.COM All of Stephen King's books are connected in some way, featuring evil forces from the Macroverse that terrorize an, admittedly, geographically small portion of our realm. The creature from IT, Pennywise, is described in Tommyknockers as a clown with shiny silver dollars for eyes. His name also appears in Dreamcatcher, as someone has spray painted Pennywise Lives on a standpipe. — Source

17

Armie Hammer

Fallen Celebrities Then vs. Now ARMIE HAMMER rocks in Call Me by Your Name. THINGS FELL APART WHEN ALLEGATIONS OF HARASSMENT (AND LATER ABUSE) emerged around 2021. What makes them different, however, was the explicit, insisting, and systematic fantasies of sexual torture and even cannibalism. CRACKED.COM — Source

16

Dane Cook

CRACKED REMEMBER WHEN DANE COOK WAS THE BIGGEST COMEDIAN ON THE PLANET? His 2005 album Retaliation went double platinum and hit top 5 on the Billboard. Не was a must for every comedy movie, but joke-theft accusations had everyone question his act's substance. His bro-y attitude was mainly for bro-y college kids who then grew up. — Source

15

Brie Larson

Brie Larson had a short-lived singing career. 17 BRE Longon Edally CRACKED.COM Her album Finally out of P.E. released in 2005 focused on the ups and downs of being a teenager, and only sold 4,000 copies in the US. — Source

14

Bone Tomahawk

CRACKED.COM Movies that switch genres mid-story 2015 Bone Tomahawk Kurt Russell leads a group of men searching a woman kidnapped by a group of feral people. It's a whole slow-burn Western, with all the classic tropes and even pulpy tone-but then we're thrown in a straight-up Italian gore movie. And it's awesome. — RLJ Entertainment
Trailer on YouTube

13

Kristen Bell

CELEBRITIES' FAVORITE SCARY MOVIES KRISTEN BELL watches THE PURGE for her Halloween binge. She is a big fan of scary movies in general.. CRACKED.COM — Source: Yahoo News
Image Credit: Universal Pictures, Tinseltown/Shutterstock

12

George Wendt and Francis Ford Coppola

GEORGE WENDT & FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA THE ODD COUPLE CRACKED.COM MAYBE SNL SHOULD TRY MORE WEIRD SH*T LIKE THIS. WENDT WAS THE GUEST HOST AND COPPOLA WAS GUEST DIRECTOR-A RUNNING GAG THAT WENT THE WHOLE 90 MINUTES. THE SHOW FEATURED CINEMATIC TOUCHES LIKE MOVIE-STYLE CREDITS AND A SCORE BY PHILIP GLASS. — Source: 13 Eyebrow-Arching 'SNL' Hosts

11

Mulan

Easter Eggs for Polyglots Mulan Eye candy The fake name Mulan gives, Fa Ping, translates flower vase -a term roughly equivalent to eye candy, which is exactly what she's meant to be at the beginning. CRACKED.COM — Source: 15 Easter Eggs You Missed (If You're Monolingual)

10

Strangers in the Night

CRACKED.COM Frank Sinatra Не hated some of his most iconic songs. Sinatra liked neither My Way nor Strangers in the Night. Не particularly loathed the latter, once calling it the worst f**king song I've ever heard. — Source: Frank Sinatra Dedicated Blog

9

Margot Robbie

HARLEY QUINN MARGOT ROBBIE TRAINED IN GYMNASTICS AND MARTIAL ARTS FOR SIX MONTHS. While she had a stunt double on set for Suicide Squad, Robbie did most of the stunts herself. This includes the elevator fight. SLOVATORI AOIN 8 CRACKED.COM — Source: WhatCulture/YouTube

8

The Minnesota Vikings

The Minnesota Vikings are the only NFL team to have an actual human as their mascot. yania - - 69 71 5 McKINNON 65 - 89 19 14 21 CRACKED.COM His name is Ragnar. The actor, Hub Meeds, asked to become the mascot after being ac- cidentally let onto the field by security during Super Bowl IV. — Sports Mascots

7

Mike Tyson

Mike Tyson obsessively loves racing pigeons. And he's like a pigeon encyclopedia. In an Animal Planet documentary, Tyson gives a detailed lecture on the role of pigeons throughout history. His hobby may have actually sparked his fighting career-Tyson's very first fight was with a boy who broke the neck of one of his birds. CRACKED.COM http://ew.com/article/2011/03/04/mike-tyson-pigeon-racing-reality-show/ — Source: 12 Celebrities Who Are Fans Of The Last Thing You'd Expect

6

To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before

COMEDY NERD CRACKED.COM THE COSTUMES IN TO ALL THE BOYS I'VE LOVED BEFORE KIND OF GO AGAINST THE GRAIN. For example, the popular girl wears chokers and the jock wears a bomber jacket, not a letterman jacket - that's so everybody can find themselves in the movie, says costume designer Rafaella Rabinovich. — Source

5

The Weeknd

1.6 billion -amount of streams for the top-streaming song of 2020, The Weeknd's Blinding Light. It's also one of the biggest streams of the 2010s. CRACKED.COM — Comparitech

4

Inside Out

A Saturday Night Live performance ended up shaping an Inside Out character. They took inspiration from Debbie Downer from SNL for Sadness (and also Wednesday Addams). And their first idea for her? A teardrop. CRACKED.COM — Source: The Hollywood Reporter

3

Keira Maguire

Keira Maguire CRACKED.COM Maguire, who was on The Bachelor (Australia) in 2016, says her own father founded The Seaside Sect, a polygamous cult in Victoria. Her mother, one of 9 sister wives, got them the hell out of there when Keira was 5. — Source: Now To Love

2

Ansel Elgort

ANSEL ELGORT HARNESSED HIS FANS' THIRST, FOR CHARITY. He posted a nude on Instagram (you couldn't see more than a hint of pubes, though, thanks to str

1

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles started out as a joke. One day in 1983, Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird doodled a parody of hot comic book trends back

Tags:

Visual

Scroll down for the next article

Must Read

Movies & TV

Lorne Michaels Already Has ‘SNL’ Successor in Mind, Says Seth Meyers

Movies & TV

14 Celebrity Entrepreneurs Who Need to Stick to Being Handsome or Famous

Movies & TV

Steve Martin Claims That Florida Banning His Book Has Been Good for Business

Science & History

23 Secret Experiments People Think the Government Is Doing Right Now

Movies & TV

21 Actors Who Only Play Themselves

Movies & TV

Frank Reynolds in ‘The Lord of the Rings’ Is Anything But A Botch Job

VIRAL ON CRACKED

1

Frank Reynolds in ‘The Lord of the Rings’ Is Anything But A Botch Job

2

35 of the Funniest Tweets from Monday, June 16, 2025

3

‘King of the Hill’ Fans Revolt Against the Show’s Instagram Tribute to Jonathan Joss

4

14 Actors Who Played the Same Character for 40 Years or More

5

The Story Of The Rogue Burger King In Pittsburgh

I agree to the Terms of Service

Add me to the weekly newsletter

Add me to the daily newsletter

I am AWESOME