31 Bits of TV Trivia That Jumped the Shark Before They Even Learned to Walk

These facts don’t know the meaning of ‘chill’
31 Bits of TV Trivia That Jumped the Shark Before They Even Learned to Walk
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Buckle your seatbelts! 

Ooh, we’ve always wanted to start a list that way. It’s a fitting opening line since these TV facts go from zero to 60 in like 2.8 seconds. Is that fast? We have no idea, but it sure sounds fast. 

Shaky analogies aside, these facts are gonna burst out of the gate right away, so you better be ready. In TV terms, it’d be like Hank getting shot in the Breaking Bad pilot. We would’ve said “spoiler alert” there, but that episode dropped in 2013, so if you haven’t seen it by now, you deserve to have it spoiled! 

Anyways, like we said earlier — buckle your seatbelts!

Ed Sullivan

Jackie Mason ED SULLIVAN SHOW CRACKED.COM An appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show was your ticket to the big time. Unfortunately, Jackie Mason's hand signal in response to Ed's signal to wrap up his set was misinterpreted as a middle finger. So... Jackie Mason almost accidentally invented punk?

Friends

The guy who played Gunther on Friends got his job for one reason only. And that reason is simple: none of the other extras knew how to work an espresso machine, but he did, so he got promoted from extra to actor. CRACKED.COM

SNL

LAURIE METCALF TWO-TIME TONY WINNER CRACKED.COM METCALF DESCRIBES HER SNL TENURE AS A WHIRLWIND FIVE DAYS. SHE NEVER MADE IT TO AIR AND DESPITE HER SUCCESS ON STAGE, 'ROSEANNE, AND 'LADYBIRD,' SHE'S NEVER HOSTED. I WOULD HAVE NIGHTMARES ABOUT IT BEFORE AND AFTER.

Loki

LOKI T282 35 STILL MARVEL COMICS GROUP THOR THE HAS AN TEMPUS S STEPPED THOUGH OF MY - - manc EASTER EGG BAT PEATUS THE GOD-BILL BUSIN LEXTU TO A THOR COMIC BOOK When Loki looks out the window at the TVA, there's a tower bearing the number T-282. It's a reference to Thor #282 that features the first appearance of the Time Keepers. CRACKED COM

King of the Hill

King of the Hill's ratings were higher than The Simpsons' (for a year). CRACKED.COM The show hit its stride quickly, already outperforming its lead-in, The Simpsons, in its 2nd season.

Westworld

CRACKED.COM Show: Westworld Inspiration: BioShock Director Jonathan Nolan explained: I was Ken Levine, the designer of those games...and he was talking about how much craft had gone into all the conversations that the non-player characters had...all their dreams and aspirations. Isn't that sad? And the player just ignores it all. The bastards. To absolutely no one's surprise, there's a BioShock Easter Egg in Season 1, Episode 3.

Scrubs

In the first season of Scrubs, Dr. Elliot Reid has no problem saying the clinical terms for genitalia, but as the show progresses she suddenly cannot utter those words. Instead, she starts using ridiculous euphemisms and blames it on her uptight upbringing. GRACKED.COM

The Sopranos

The Sopranos Tony Soprano didn't sound like someone from New Jersey. The pilot was shot two years before the show was picked up. James Gandolfini got busy in the meantime, and got a coach to help him nail Tony's accent. CRACKED.COM

Punk’d

Donald Faison made Zach Braff think his Porsche was being ruined (which led to a child getting assaulted). t A AT&T VU AT&T VULT ULTURE TURE A AT&T For an episode of Punk'd, he had a bunch of kids stand around Braff's Porsche so that it looked like they were spray-painting it. It worked too well, because when Braff saw them, he chased down one of them (a 12-year-old) and beat him up. CRACKED.COM

Pokemon

PoKéMoN When Jessie was little, her mother disappeared and she was put into a foster home. Jessie was sometimes forced to eat snow because the foster home was lacking in money and food. CRACKED.COM

Game of Thrones

CRACKED.COM The Red wedding borrows from real history. During the Black Dinner of 1440, a plate with a beheaded black bull was presented to an Earl, believed to be a usurper, before he was arrested and beheaded. The Glencoe Massacre of 1692 had the same type of twist, but here it was the dinner guests who massacred their hosts.

Anger Management

CRACKED Selma Blair (like many) couldn't handle Charlie Sheen. She questioned his professionalism and told producers he was a menace to work with, so Sheen fired her himself via text. ANGER MANAGEMENT

Stephen Colbert

STEPHEN COLBERT CRACKED.COM Colbert logged eight years as Jon Stewart's Daily Show cohort before ascending to top dog at the Colbert Report. His adventures with Truthiness led to Letterman's late night spot on CBS. Colbert is the American Dream - and so can you!

Harley Quinn

Harley Quinn CRACKED COM Writer Paul Dini saw his old college buddy, Arleen Sorkin, playing a jester in a weird little flashback on Days of Our Lives. Не got Sorkin to help develop and voice Dr. Harleen Frances Quinzel.

Glee

Behind-the-scenes Drama Glee Lea Michele is apparently as much of a diva as her character. That was said about her by many co-stars, including Samantha Ware, Heather Morris, Yvette Nicole Brown, Abigail Breslin, Melissa Benoist... and those are just the names you'd recognize. CRACKED.COM

Rugrats

Rugrats spoofed a highly sexualized psychological thriller. CRACKED.COM In Season 3, Episode 25, Cradle Attraction, a new girl stalks Chuckie in the same manner as Alex (Glenn Close) with Dan (Michael Douglas) in Fatal Attraction. They even replicate a shot from the film.

Star Trek: Voyager

GRACKED.COM Scarlett Pomers is widely known as Naomi Wildman from Star Trek: Voyager. After quitting acting, she founded Arch- Angels, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping people with eating disorders.

High

COMEDY NERD Craig Ferguson and Zach Braff made a pilot for a TV show called High. ec со COMIC That was in 1989, and the cast included a young Gwyneth Paltrow, but the pilot never gained any traction. CRACKED.COM

Breaking Bad

Hunger Games: Catching Fire was heavily influenced by Breaking Bad. Director Francis Lawrence binge-watched the show while making the movie, and its cliffhangers inspired him to end his own movie on a cliffhanger. CRACKED.COM

Golden Girls

GOLDEN GIRLS Quentin Tarantino CRACKED.COM Tarantino says the residuals from his role as an Elvis impersonator helped him make Reservoir Dogs.

The Big Bang Theory

DO YOU COUNT POPULAR SHOWS WITH GRAND TITLES LIKE THE BIG BANG THEORY, AMERICAN IDOL, AND MODERN FAMILY AS YOUR FAVORITES? YOU MIGHT JUST BE A REPUBLICAN. While Democrats may like the same shows, they don't show nearly the same devotion to them as Republicans do. Democrats are more likely to favor modestly rated shows with titles like Damages, Breaking Bad, or Dexter. CRACKED.COM

The X-Files

The National Museum of American History has props from The X-Files. The museum curator said the show cleverly used the sci-fi genre to address such contemporary issues. Other important parts of American culture include Star Trek and Teenage Mu- tant Ninja Turtles. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW

Beverly Hills, 90210

Do you realize 90210 featured FLAMING UPS BEVERLY HILLS 90210 CRACKED.COM Once something is popular, it has the potential to grow and grow and grow, says frontman Wayne Coyne. When Beverly Hills, 90210 called us, if this would have been a year earlier, we would have thought, 'No, we're too cool.' But it occurred to us that would be ridiculous and absurd and funny.

Sitcom Monkeys

CRACKED.COM Awful Sitcom Tropes Monkeys They're like humans, but hairier, dumber, and zoo keepers will stop us if we try to throw poop at them, which is just a double-standard. Sitcoms that have featured monkey business for easy jokes include Full House, Friends, 30 Rock, Family Matters, The Big Bang Theory, How I Met Your Mother, Community, Malcolm in the Middle, and Community.

Adventure Time

Adventure Time Every episode has a small snail in it. Hidden in all the episodes of the show is a snail that is waving to the audience, usually as a running gag but sometimes hidden on an Easter-egg level. CRACKED.COM

Doctor Who

In 2013, nine lost Doctor Who episodes turned up in Nigeria. MOHT.M ЕГЕСТ The BBC destroyed its own Doctor Who tapes back in the '60s and '70s, but those episodes have occasionally turned up in foreign markets, which had been sent their own copies. The Nigerian find was apparently the largest in 30 years. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air

CRACKED.COM NORTH ULF Tyra Banks' first speaking role was on The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Before she screamed her belief in us, Banks had a recurring role as Jackie, Will's friend/ex-girlfriend from West Philadelphia who got to University of California on a basketball scholarship.

Surprised she never did a Fresh Prince of Bel Air-inspired photoshoot on American's Next Top Model.

Community

Behind-the-scenes Drama Community Make Your chevy chase and Dan Harmon the kept fighting. behind That Pierce's disappearance reportedly from the show. was reason CRACKED.COM

The Cleveland Show

CRACKED DAVID LYNCH APPEARS IN ONE OUT OF FOUR EPISODES OF THE CLEVELAND SHOW. Не plays Gus, the local bartender. Не never explained why he agreed to voice the character other than a writer asked him.

Hey Arnold!

'Hey Arnold!' was not set in New York City but in a fictional city called Hillwood, Washington. 3 CRACKED COM Craig Bartlett has stated that the city the show takes place in is some- where in the Pacific North- west, and is an amalgam of three cities that he lived in: Seattle, Brooklyn, and Portland.

Third Watch

CHADWICK BOSEMAN CRACKED.COM Before he... was... T'Challa, Chadwick Boseman first appeared on screen in an episode of Third Watch in 2003. Не was a minor character, but it spawned roles on C.S.I, E.R, and a recurring role on the ABC drama Lincoln Heights.

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