31 Goofy Bits of TV Trivia That Live in Our Basement and Really Cramp Our Style, But Help Us Raise Our Daughters So Who Are We to Complain

Cut it out and read these facts, would ya? Wait! Did somebody say... Wood?
31 Goofy Bits of TV Trivia That Live in Our Basement and Really Cramp Our Style, But Help Us Raise Our Daughters So Who Are We to Complain
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Have you ever gone back over some old favorite shows and gotten sad when you realized that they just don’t hold up? We definitely have. Especially now that researching TV shows is part of our job description. It’s hard because you have to wrestle with the fact that your younger, dumber self couldn’t see how bad something was. 

Well, TV facts don’t tarnish with time. They’re as true and interesting now as they were back then. We like that. 

Hmm, maybe we shouldn’t be so hard on our younger selves. They loved TV and TV facts, and that’s A-okay with us.

SNL

ED KOCH MAYOR CRACKED.COM SNL SURE LOVES NYC MAYORS. KOCH WAS THE FIRST TO LAND THE HOST GIG IN 1983, AND НЕ MADE THREE OTHER CAMEO APPEARANCES OVER THE YEARS. HIS MONOLOGUE GAVE KOCH A CHANCE TO CALL REAGAN A 'WACKO' ON NATIONAL TV.

Westworld

Westworld used a wraparound LED wall in a pretty complex way. They put the wall on a set in Los Angeles, and they used it to display a virtual image (that was put together using the Unreal engine) while shooting. CRACKED.COM

The Little Rascals

WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO... Petey THE LITTLE RASCALS CRACKED.COM Pal the Wonder Dog was paid $125 per week - - the second-highest salary in the whole cast. Bizarrely, Pal was poisoned by an unknown piece of human trash in 1930, and his son Pete took over the role.

MTV

31 Goofy Bits of TV Trivia That Live in Our Basement and Really Cramp Our Style, But Help Us Raise Our Daughters So Who Are We to Complain

Sonic the Hedgehog

Jaleel White is best known for his role as Steve Urkel. Не is also the voice of Sonic from Sonic the Hedgehog (1993-1994) CRACKED COM

The Boys

THE BOYS TRANSLUCENT WAS CREATED FOR THE SHOW. The invisible member of The Seven replaced the comic's Jack from Jupiter. Showrunner Eric Kripke reportedly removed Jack (who is an alien) in order to keep his adaptation more grounded (even though the show still has eye lasers and blood showers). CRACKED.COM

The Sopranos

Lin-Manuel Miranda had his start in The Sopranos. Miranda's first TV job was as a (non-rapping) hotel bellman who couldn't answer Tony Soprano's questions. CRACKED.COM

Ozark

JULIA GARNER, MUSOPHOBIC CRACKED.COM You wouldn't think Ruth Langmore would be afraid of anything, but she has a serious phobia of mice. The scene that has her pick up a mouse by the tail caused a borderline panic attack, and a hand double was required to finish the scene.

Chevy Chase and Bill Murray

chevy bill CHASE MURRAY CRACKED.COM SNL cast members already resented the departed Chase before he returned to host in 1978. When Chevy brought his prickly, bossy attitude with him, Murray called him out. After trading insults about unsatisfied spouses and bad skin conditions, the two grappled before Belushi pulled them apart.

Transparent

Jeffrey Tambor got kicked off of Transparent because of alleged harassment. nt m That was the decision Amazon Studios took after an investigation that looked into those harassment allegations. CRACKED.COM

Butters

In the South Park song Let's Fighting Love, the lyric mistaken for kickassu is actually kenka suru, Japanese for quarrelling or squabbling. The rest of the Japanese lyrics are either admitting to how stupid the song is or talking about the singer's genitals. (Perhaps foreshadowing for the public nudity incident later in Good Times With Weapons, .. the episode the song is from?) CRACKED.COM

Bridgerton

The Duke always wears his late mother's enamel brooch The brooch is diamond and emerald-encrusted, fit for a Duke. BEHIND THE SCENES CRACKED.COM

South Park

CRACKED.COM George Clooney helped South Park become a thing. '90s Clooney was a big fan of the proto- South Park short film The Spirit of Christmas, reportedly making and circulating 300 VHS copies of the movie. Because of Clooney's pirating ways, Matt Parker and Trey Stone became well known in Hollywood, eventually landing their own show.

Full House

John Stamos kept the couch from Full House. The blue plaid couch at the center of the Tanner family's living room is property of Uncle Jesse himself. In 2020, Stamos shared a snap on Instagram of his toddler standing next to the iconic sitcom prop. CRACKED.COM

Scrooge McDuck

Scrooge McDuck's first cartoon was capitalist propaganda. In the original comics, Scrooge was pretty much, well, a scrooge - but in his 1967 animated debut in Scrooge McDuck and Money, his villainish side disappears as he becomes a wise advisor, giving Huey, Dewey, and Louie valuable lessons about how capitalism works. CRACKED.COM

The Walking Dead

There was absolutely no narrative reason for The Walking Dead to spend a season on a farm. THE IMPROVISATION: The network axed the Season 2 budget before even airing the pilot. So, to save money, the show was stuck with using Hershel's farm as much as possible. THE RESULT: A critically acclaimed season with a finale that was the network's most-watched episode ever at the time. CRACKED.COM

The Incredible Hulk

The Incredible Hulk TV show was too cheap to spend money on shooting planes and trucks. Footage from Steven Spielberg's Duel, used in S1E9 of The Incredible Hulk THE IMPROVISATION: They just picked up that footage from other movies. These were well-known films from just a few years before. The network owned the rights, and they didn't care that it was obvious. THE RESULT: An action-packed first season that made the show a hit from the start. CRACKED.COM

BoJack Horseman

Raphael Bob-Waksberg based BoJack Horseman on how he felt after moving to Hollywood. Не felt isolated and alienated because he didn't go out too much, and that dichotomy of being simultaneously on top of the world, and also never more alone, was really the beginning of thinking about this character of BoJack. CRACKED.COM

The Good Place

The Good Place is heavily based on a 1944 existentialist play by Sartre. His No Exit is about three people who can't stand each other trapped in the afterlife together, with nothing to do but to talk to each other forever. CRACKED.COM

Kenny

South Park's Kenny was based on a Kenny from Trey Parker's childhood, who also wore an orange coat and always mumbled. Не went missing all the time, and other kids would be like, What happened to Kenny? Is he dead? CRACKED.COM

Parks & Rec

CRACKED.COM Amy Poehler getting pregnant completely altered the shooting schedule of PARKS AND RECREATION. The first six episodes of Season 3 (the Harvest Festival arc) were rushed before Poehler's pregnancy became too apparent. The arc was quickly wrapped up once the show resumed production months later.

Breaking Bad

CRACKED.COM Raymond Cruz had to bow out early from BREAKING BAD due to other commitments. Deprived of Tuco Salamanca, Vince Gilligan decided to replace him with an antagonist who was Tuco's complete opposite - eerily calm instead of a raging maniac. So Gus Fring was born.

B.J. Novak

CRACKED.COM H M Jaua In Season 5 of THE OFFICE Ryan Howard spends some time in Thailand (well, Fort Lauderdale) - which happened because B. J. Novak needed time away from the show to shoot Inglourious Basterds.

Ally McBeal

CRACKED.COM In Season 4 of ALLY McBEAL Ally was going to marry her boyfriend Larry, played by Robert Downey Jr. But just before the wedding episode was shot, RDJ went and got busted for drugs. Не was swiftly shown the door, and Ally remained unmarried.

Isaac Hayes

CRACKED.COM AD SOUTH PARK lost Chef when Isaac Hayes quit over an episode lambasting Scientology - or so was reported at the time. Hayes' son revealed years later that his father was incapacitated due to health issues, and someone in his Scientology circle quit South Park for him.

The Office

The Office made a calculated decision to lean into internet culture. I always credit YouTube for changing the way we look at things, says director Paul Feig. YouTube was real life captured and you have The Office, where the humor is all behavioral. It's about how people are reacting to each other. CRACKED.COM

Star Trek

Star Trek: The Next Generation was only made because Paramount couldn't afford the original stars. The sky-high salaries of William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy by the fifth Star Trek movie served as the trigger for Paramount to greenlight a brand new 'Star Trek' TV series featuring a fresh crop of far more affordable actors. CRACKED.COM

Friends

Matthew Perry got Julia Roberts to guest-star in Friends by writing a paper on quantum physics. Perry asked her to come on the show, and she said she'd do it only if he wrote her a paper on quantum physics. Apparently, a day later, he wrote one and faxed it to her. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

The Mandalorian

The Mandalorian literally couldn't have been made without fans. The crew ran out of Stormtrooper costumes for a Season 1 scene, so they got in touch with the local members of the 501st legion, a group of fans who wear and make super-accurate Stormtrooper costumes. The legionnaires showed up, in their own suits, and played the remaining Stormtroopers. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

The X-Files

PAMELA ANDERSON COULD HAVE BEEN AGENT SCULLY. CRACKED.COM FBI Gillian Anderson revealed in an interview that Pamela Anderson (no relation) was the producers' initial choice for the skeptical Dana Scully. Apparently the producers were banking on Pamela's experience and Baywatch popularity. Can aliens run in slow motion? We'll never know.

Danny DeVito

In 2018, Danny DeVito gave a fan a unique shout-out. OY'S High school senior and big fan of It's Sunny in Philadelphia Alison Closs brought a cardboard cutout of Danny DeVito to her prom and posted about it on social media. A month later, DeVito posed with a cardboard cutout of her in Paddy's Pub in the show. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

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