Staged Train Crashes: Our Dumb, Dangerous Old-Timey Pastime

Starting in 1896, staged train crashes were some of the most popular events in the United States.

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9 Bonkers Anti-Marijuana Ads From Just A Few Years Ago

By the 2000s, we'd dropped the old kind of scaremongering and switched to NEW dumbness.

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Comic's Darkest Villain Wasn't A Character, It Was Artist Len Lawson

How one artist went from competing with Superman to rotting in jail forever.

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Superheroes Have Some Weirdo Food Obsessions

Hulk may smash, but Hulk definitely also rip with what he’s eating.

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The Missouri Town That Had A 50 Gator Invasion

In the early 2010s, a Missouri town fell victim to an alligator salesman from Florida. More than 50 baby alligators were purchased.

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15 Beloved TV Shows That Almost Had Some Unlovable Names

By:: Timon DJ Spajic

February 07, 2021

15 Beloved TV Shows That Almost Had Some Unlovable Names

We get it, coming up with a good title ain’t easy (it took us years to come up with the title for this article alone) but some of the original title ideas creators had for their TV shows are so lame, that they just can’t get a pass. Like:

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TRUEDETECTIVE was almost The Murder Ballads. Producer Cary Fukunaga thought True Detective was too pulpy and wanted to call the show The Murder Ballads. He dropped the idea after recognizing that a more all-inclusive title was needed for an anthology series. — Vanity Fair

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IT'S ALWA SUNNY FIPHIA IN was almost It's Always Sunny on TV. The show was originally supposed to be about struggling actors in LOS Angeles. This eventually evolved into a show about friends running a bar in Philadelphia and the TV' was replaced with Philadelphia. — Cheat Sheet

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30 ROCK was originally Peacock. NBC executives rejected Tina Fey's first idea for the title because they didn't think it would ever pass the censors. They would go on to use the terrible name for their own streaming service 15 years later. CRACKED.COM — The New York Times

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LAW & ORDER: SVU MAN TTAN SPEC TIMS UNIT was almost Law & Order: Sex Crimes. Executives at NBC didn't want the word sex in the title, so it was changed to Special Victims Unit. CRACKED.COM — TV Guide

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GREY'S ANATOMY was almost Complications. ABC hated the show's title so much that they tried changing it several times. At first they wanted to either call it Doctors or Surgeons. Just two weeks before its premiere, they tried to rename it Complications. — BuzzFeed & Variety

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EMPIRE was almost The Lyon's Roar. That was creator Danny Strong's original idea for the title, however, Fox quickly stepped in and decided to change it. Strong says he appreciated their interference because he's terible at coming up with titles. CRACKED.COM — Entertainment Weekly

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UNBREAKABLE KIMMY SCHMIDT was originally Tooken. Tina Fey got the idea for Tooken from her kid, who said the word after something was taken from her. NBC, the network where the show was originally going to air on, wholeheartedly refused to use a made-up baby word as a title. — BuzzFeed News

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THEL WORD was almost Earthlings. llene Chaiken originally wanted to call her show Earthlings- which is a slang term lesbians use when asking if another girl is gay. The title proved to be too confusing, as most people aren't familiar with lesbian slang, so they decided to go with The — OutSmart & Entertainment Weekly

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THAT '70S SHOW was originally Teenage Wasteland. However, Fox was unable to secure the iconic lyric from the Who's Baba O'Riley and the creators had to come up with a new title. CRACKED.COM — The Hollywood Reporter

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RUGRATS was almost Onesomething. Before coming up with Rugrats, creator Arlene Klasky wanted to call the show Onesomething- a reference to the late '80s show Thirtysomething. — The Guardian

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STRANGER THINGS was almost Montauk. The show was originally supposed to be set in Montauk, New York, and the title was a reflection of that. The now-iconic title only came to be after the Duffer brothers decided to change the setting to the fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana. CRACKED.COM — Cheat Sheet & POPSUGAR

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HANNAH MONTANA -HAMAM DisnEY ANNAH MONTANA ONTANA was almost Alexis Texas. Miley Cyrus's breakout character and the show itself were initially going to be called Alexis Texas. This quickly changed after the creators discovered that Alexis Texas was the name of a popular porn actress. — Cheat Sheet

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The Guardian

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BIG MOUTH was originally Bar Mitzvah Boys. Andrew Goldberg originally planned on making Bar Mitzvah Boys an animated show about a group of Jewish schoolboys. This changed after Mark Levin and Jennifer Flackett came on board and suggested the show be about puberty in general. CRACKED.COM — Inverse

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THESOPRANOS was almost The Family Man. HBO wanted to change the name to The Family Man because they were afraid The Sopranos would make people think the show was about opera singers. Thankfully, creator David Chase pushed back against their demands. — Entertainment Weekly

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ONE CRACKED FACT

The British Family You Could Pay To Learn What Time It Was

You could pay Ruth to look at her watch.

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4 Fictional Characters That Are Secretly Dark As Hell

It might take a few rewatches to notice that some of the most beloved or at least seemingly harmless characters are also scary as hell.

15 Beloved TV Shows That Almost Had Some Unlovable Names

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