15 Fictional Things That Made the Jump to Reality
![15 Fictional Things That Made the Jump to Reality](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/1/8/1/785181_320x180.jpg)
What if the things we read about in books became a reality? What would the world be like then? It's a question that has crossed the minds of many over the years, and it's one that we are curious about too. It's a scary thought, but sometimes it seems like fiction is jumping off of the page and into our reality. With all of the craziness going on in the world, it's hard not to wonder what might be next.
How many shows and movies can you name where fictional characters and things cross over to the real world? Last Action Hero? Enchanted? Tucker Carlson Tonight? Guess what -- that actually happens. It doesn’t require magic, just very determined people. Or huge misunderstandings. Or, you know, just outright coincidences. This article discusses fictional things that we think would jump to reality if they existed. Keep in mind that this is just an opinion. Whatever the reason, here are a few cases for you.
![Someone actually built the rifle from Aliens. A gun company named Lage Manufacturing created a submachine gun/ shotgun combination, resembling the M-41A Pulse Rifle used by the Colonial Marines. Too bad (or maybe good) that it was never mass-produced or put on sale.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/1/7/6/785176.jpg)
Sources: Lage Manufacturing (via archive.org), Lage Manufacturing on YouTube
![The from transparent aluminum Star Trek IV is real now. Aluminum oxynitride (AION) was under development around the time Scotty was awkwardly trying to use a 1980s computer. While not a metal (it's a ceramic material), it is much tougher than glass.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/1/7/5/785175.jpg)
Source: Hackaday
![Kevin McCallister's Talkboy sold out the following Christmas. The tape recorder that Macaulay Culkin uses to commit credit card fraud in Home Alone 2 was created for the movie, but a real version was made and sold in stores. Come Christmas 1993, the manufacturer couldn't keep up with demand.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/1/6/3/785163.jpg)
Source: The Seattle Times
![Mexico never held a Day of the Dead parade before Spectre came out. The Day of the Dead is traditionally observed in a private, guarded manner but after Watching the 2015 Bond movie, tourism officials said, Hey, throwing a parade is a great idea. (Not everyone liked it, though.)](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/1/6/6/785166.jpg)
Source: The Guardian
![The company that created Skynet is real in Japan. An outfit named Cyberdyne operates over there, but we're sure the name is just a coincidence. What they manufacture is... hum... a wearable cyborg for disabled people. They call it Hybrid Assistive Limb. Or HAL, for short Yup.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/1/7/2/785172.jpg)
Source: Cyberdyne
![Spring Break comes from a 1960 book (and movie). Glendon Swarthout's Where the Boys Are was so popular that a movie was rushed out in the same year. Afterwards, college boys and girls all across the U.S. made Florida their Easter party destination, like it happens in the story.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/1/6/4/785164.jpg)
Source: Groovy History
![California was a fictional land. Spanish conquistadores didn't know they had reached a peninsula- they thought they were in mythical California, the island populated by griffin- riding Amazons in the 16th- century book The Adventures of Esplandian. No Amazons or griffins were found, but the name stuck.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/1/6/7/785167.jpg)
Source: San José Public Library
![The Mighty Ducks became a legit hockey team. The Mighty Ducks of Anaheim were created as a marketing ploy just as the movie was leaving theaters. Many scoffed at the idea of a Disney- branded team, but the Ducks are still at it and have won a Stanley Cup. (They no longer belong to Disney, though).](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/1/7/3/785173.jpg)
![SimCity comes from a science fiction story. Creator Will Wright was inspired in part by Stanislaw Lem's The Seventh Sally, Where a deposed tyrant is given a miniaturized kingdom for him to rule and oppress via control knobs.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/1/6/8/785168.jpg)
Sources: The New York Times (via archive.org), “The Seventh Sally” by Stanislaw Lem (via University of San Diego)
![The awards in All About Eve became a reality. In 1952, two years after Joseph Mankiewicz' film came out, a real Sarah Siddons Society was created to present a theater award just like the one in the movie (to the dismay of Mankiewicz, who intended to put down pompous award ceremonies).](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/1/7/4/785174.jpg)
Sources: Sarah Siddons Society, Bonhams
![The KKK burn crosses because they saw it in a movie. The hate group didn't use this intimidation tactic before the infamous The Birth of a Nation. The first reported cross burning happened in Georgia in 1915 months after the movie came out.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/1/7/1/785171.jpg)
Source: Slate
![The Monkees were a fake band that became real. The four members were cast for a TV show about a rock band (and not all of them even played their instruments at first). While the show only lasted two seasons and their movie flopped, the Monkees are still around, their latest album released in 2020.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/1/6/9/785169.jpg)
Sources: Goldmine Magazine, Discogs
![Swingline didn't make red staplers before Office Space. Milton's beloved Swingline stapler was painted red to make it pop on the screen. As the movie grew a following, the company got more and more requests for red staplers- -SO they started turning those out. It's still one of their top sellers.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/1/6/5/785165.jpg)
Source: Quartz
![Tasers first existed in a novel. Jack Cover, inventor of the taser, loved the 1911 book Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle, Where a kid named Tom Swift has... well, you can figure it out yourself. The very word taser is an acronym for Thomas A. Swift's Electric Rifle.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/1/6/2/785162.jpg)
Source: Forbes
![Omni Consumer Products is a real company now. Unlike the megacorp in RoboCop, the real OCP doesn't manufacture cyborgs and corruption- it specializes 1963 (fittingly) in licensing fictional products and making them real.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/1/7/0/785170.jpg)