13 Surprising (And Intriguing) Facts To Level Up On Interestingness
![13 Surprising (And Intriguing) Facts To Level Up On Interestingness](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/9/1/785491_320x180.jpg)
Sometimes we like to think of life like a role playing game. We all have our own individual stats…health, intelligence, charisma, wisdom. There's things we can do increase our attributes and level up as human beings. It's not a flawless analogy, but it's at least a little true.
No one is saying you're dull, but what if you could level up how interesting you were? What if you didn't have to learn an obscure language, join the french foreign legion or marry the heiress to a haunted mansion? What if all you had to was read this article and learn some surprising and intriguing facts.
For example, did you know that thirteen years old, Phil Collins was an extra in Hard Days Night? He's features ad as one of the fans in the final scene.
Did you know that adding iodine to our diets literally boosted IQ scores? No?
Well, here’s the full story, plus 12 others:
![A 13-year-old Phil Collins showed up as an extra in A Hard Day's Night. He was one of the fans in the final scene but, unlike most of the fans, he's just sitting there -- listening to music, not getting worked up into a frenzy. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/0/4/785504.jpg)
Source: CheatSheet
![Christopher Mintz-Plasse's mom had to be on set for his sex scene in Superbad. He was 17, so having her there was a legal requirement. They didn't talk about it after the - and, he says, they still don't talk about it. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/0/2/785502.jpg)
Source: The Guardian
![The voice actor who played Batman for 15 years was considered a scrawny geek type. Olan Soule was typecast as the nerdy scientist or lab technician -- but starting in 1968 with The Adventures of Batman, he was the Dark Knight. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/0/3/785503.jpg)
Source: MeTV
![The guy who wrote the Shrek picture book started his writing career at age 61. After working for decades as an illustrator and cartoonist, William Steig wrote 31 children's books, and kept writing into his 90s-- he wrote Shrek in his 80s. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/0/0/785500.jpg)
Source: USAToday
![The biggest veterinary provider in the U.S. is Mars (the candy company). They've bought many animal hospital networks, and they employ over 9% of all U.S. vets. They make more from pet products than from candy for humans. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/0/1/785501.jpg)
Source: Food And Power
![There's just one preserved Viking helmet (and one full chainmail suit) on Earth. It's been found in a warrior's burial site in Norway, and the likely reason no others were found is that helmets traditionally weren't put in graves CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/9/9/785499.jpg)
Source: The National Museum of Denmark
![The beautiful product images in IKEA's catalogues are mostly computer-generated. That turned out to be much cheaper -- especially for products like kitchens, which are pretty different across different countries. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/9/8/785498.jpg)
Source: Architizer
![Australia's deadliest animals aren't snakes, spiders, wasps, sharks, or crocodiles. They're regular farmyard animals like horses and COWS - from 2008 to 2017, those animals killed 77 Australians, way more than any other type of animal. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/9/7/785497.jpg)
Source: abc.net.au
![Adding iodine to salt measurably boosted IQ scores in the United States. A decade after iodized salt went on sale, the average IQ in the U.S. went up 3.5 points. And in iodine-deficient areas, it went up by 15 points on average. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/9/6/785496.jpg)
Source: NHPR
![The Sahara desert in Africa actually used to be a relatively wet grassland. Scientists aren't sure when the whole ecosystem changed, but they think it happened quickly - over 300 years or SO about 5,500 years ago. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/9/5/785495.jpg)
Source: Space.com
![In 1993, a South Korean inventor successfully tested a self-driving car prototype. that span The car, powered by a PC 386 sitting on the passenger seat, drove the 185 miles from Seoul to Busan - on the country's busiest expressway. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/9/4/785494.jpg)
Source: TechWireAsia
![Saddam Hussein once torched his son's collection of super-luxury cars. It was punishment for Uday's erratic, violent behavior -- I was very angry with him so I burned all his cars, Saddam said. The collection had hundreds of cars. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/9/3/785493.jpg)
Source: The Drive
![Marlon Brando came up with the way Don Vito would die in The Godfather. Coppola wondered how to make Vito's play with his grandson feel right, so Brando put on orange peel fangs he really played with kids that way. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/9/2/785492.jpg)
Source: People