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We can totally picture George W. Bush running a weird chocolate factory.

30 Bizarre Influences Behind Beloved Pop Culture Staples

November 01, 2021

When Johnny Depp got the role of Willy Wonka, he decided to base his performance on what he imagined George W. Bush acted like while high on drugs. More on that and 29 other bizarre inspirations behind famous movies and shows:

30

Dunkirk

The guy walking off into the sea in Dunkirk -well, that really happened. The man who did it in real life just dropped his equipment, told people he'd walk to England, and simply walked off into the waves. CRACKED.COM — Slate

29

CRACKED.COM How the Grinch Stole Christmas The Grinch is Dr. Seuss at his grumpiest. Dr. Seuss wrote the book to vent his own frustration with the commercialization of Christmas. I was brushing my teeth... when I noted a very Grinchish countenance in the mirror. It was Seuss! — Biography

28

Clark Kent draws on silent film star Harold Lloyd's signature bespectacled look. Horn-rimmed glasses were big with young people in the 1920s, and Lloyd wore them in movies to look like a young everyman (which is basically Clark Kent's goal, too). CRACKED.COM — Characters Based On Celebs, Really

27

Harry Potter

JOHN NETTLESHIP described himself as a short-tempered chemistry teacher with long hair... gloomy, malodorous laboratory who enjoyed picking on bright students. Не made such an impression on one of his students-Miss Rowling- that she based one of her most iconic characters on him. Oddly, he didn't recognize himself as Severus Snape until directly asked by a reporter. CRACKED.COM — 5 Villains That Were Thinly-Veiled Versions of Real People

26

CRACKED.COM The DUKES OF HAZZARD are based on JERRY RUSHING. Во Duke is a fictional version of Jerry Elijah Rushing, who ran illegal moonshine from his car, Traveller (named after General Lee's horse). — Outsider

25

Scooby-Doo

The Scooby Gang was based on the characters in a 1960s TV show. It was called The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, and it was a teen sitcom that the creators of Scooby-Doo basically just lifted the main characters from. CRACKED.COM — Snopes

24

THE WRETCHED was inspired by a tree. The directing brothers Drew and Brett Pierce had a gnarly old tree in their backyard when they were kids. This tree inspired the witch's woodland lair. Lightning had struck and kind of half-killed the tree. It had a big old hole in it and we used to dare each other to reach inside. CRACKED.COM — NME

23

Hot Fuzz

For Hot Fuzz, Edgar Wright was inspired by Tony Scott's editing style in Domino (2005). Не used that (pretty dramatic) style for the scenes where Nick does paperwork, because the cops he'd interviewed while making the film said they'd never seen a movie dramatize the paperwork involved in policing. CRACKED.COM — Film School Rejects

22

The Reservoir Dogs characters started speaking to Quentin Tarantino when he was writing the Pulp Fiction script. He'd holed himself up in his mother's house for three and a half weeks to finish that script. But a group of weird criminal characters popped into his head, and he put Pulp Fiction on the back burner to write about those guys screwing up a diamond heist. CRACKED.COM — Vanity Fair

21

For his role as Willy Wonka, Johnny Depp imagined what George W. Bush would be like incredibly stoned. Besides thinking about the 43rd U.S. President being all high, Depp also took inspiration from children's show hosts from when he was a kid. How odd it was the way that they spoke....That bizarre, musical cadence to their speech pattern. CRACKED.COM — 15 Iconic Characters' Inspirations

20

Mayberry

Mayberry THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW DIE 10 lb bag 29 POTATOES GRACKED COM Andy Griffith grew up in Mount Airy, North Carolina, which served as the inspiration behind the idyllic small town. — FOX 8

19

Mass Effect took its look from a janky old CGI movie. - Mass Effect Final Fantasy The game's art direction was heavily based on Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, a 2001 movie (that had totally tanked) - including everything from characters and spaceship to details like wrist-mounted holograms. The art director had a folder of images from the movie, and he'd literally tell the artists Change it like that! CRACKED.COM — 5 Famous Games Inspired By The Most Absolutely Random Things

18

The colors in Spike Jonze's Her were basically taken from Jamba Juice. jamba juice ha juice Even before I sat down to write the script, I had these notes, and one of the notes said 'Jamba Juice, said Jonze -- he wanted a look as colorful and clean as Jamba Juice's. CRACKED.COM — Vulture

17

Alien - Early draft. H. R. Giger based the chestburster on Francis Bacon's Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion. CRACKED.COM — CineFix - IGN Movies and TV/YouTube

16

Star Wars

THE CANTINA IS BASICALLY RICK'S CAFE FROM CASABLANCA. Illustrator Ralph McQuarrie came up with the idea to take Rick's Café and put it on a faraway planet. Everything from the bar's design to its patrons was inspired by Casablanca. CRACKED.COM — 12 Bizarre Inspirations Behind Star Wars Movie Characters

15

Delicious!

The second season of Picard was inspired by Star Trek: The Voyage Home. Akiva Goldsman said that his co-showrunner Terry Matalas suggested Hey, let's do The Voyage Home.' And we kind of dug it. CRACKED.COM — Source

14

Onward is based on how director Dan Scanlon dealt with the loss of his father. Не died when Scanlon was one, so Scanlon and his brother tried to create a sense of him as a person from photos, stories, and home videos. CRACKED.COM — Vanity Fair

13

2019's Joker was partly inspired by 1936's Modern Times. Director Todd Phillips said, I think you'd have to watch 'Modern Times' because we believe there is some Chaplin in Arthur that I think is really important. CRACKED.COM — FilmSchoolRejects

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12

Marriage Story was kind of inspired by the creator's own divorce. But Noah Baumbach's divorce from Jennifer Jason Leigh was only part of it - he also mined his friends' and family members' experiences for material. CRACKED.COM — Source

11

Gravity Falls' Dipper got his name from creator Alex Hirsch's middle school classmate. TERY GS The kid had an ever-shifting pattern of acne on his forehead and, one day, it settled into an exact image of the Big Dipper. CRACKED.COM — 22 Eyebrow-Arching Ways Creators' Lives Influenced Their Work

10

H.R. Giger

CRACKED.COM H. R. GIGER suffered from night terrors - not just regular nightmares, but a debilitating sleep disorder. Не began sketching his terrifying visions as a form of art therapy for the condition. — Matthias Belz (via Wikimedia Commons) & The Guardian

9

Batman and Chewbacca interact in The LEGO Movie because of a kid's play. Co-creator Chris Miller saw his son put LEGO Batman and Chewbacca in the same spaceship, so he thought he could do that in the movie. CRACKED.COM — CBR

8

'The Wall'from Game ofThrones is real! George R. R. Martin got his inspiration for The Wall in А Song Of Ice And Fire from Hadrian's Wall which protected the northern border of Roman Britannia. Though this wall is made of stone, not ice, and was built to defend Romans from Scots, not zombies. CRACKED.COM — 22 Real-Life Inspirations For Your Favorite Movie & TV Moments

7

CRACKED COM Movie: The Dark Knight Inspiration: The art of Francis Bacon Christopher Nolan based the Joker's makeup on Bacon's work: I wound up taking a book of Bacon paintings and showing them a lot of the different distortions and the way the paint would run together and the colors would mix. That debunks the whole some kid did it theory. — 12 Bizarre Influences Behind Famous Movies And Shows

6

The Office

CRACKED.COM THE OFFICE was heavily influenced by THE SOPRANOS. The Sopranos was actually the biggest influence on The Office, actor and producer B. J. Novak has said. The way Michael Scott will say something very serious but mispronounce a word I feel is a direct descendant of the Tony Soprano sense of humor. — Yahoo

5

Dr. Evil

When Dr. Evil goes nuts about not getting sharks with frickin' laser beams, that's based on SNL boss Lorne Michaels. An SNL alum said they'd seen that conversation play out between Michaels and the SNL set designer before the show started 500 times. And, like Dr. Evil, Michaels puts his pinkie to his mouth and chews the fingernail once he's done speaking. CRACKED.COM — 7 Insane Ways Actors Got The Ideas For Famous Performances

4

Robert Pattinson based a character on a guy who lived in a hole in Queens. The hole was next to a family house, and the guy would sneak into the daughter's bedroom. R-Patz modeled his Good Time character on him. CRACKED.COM — Vulture

3

Bee Movie

Bee Movie was inspired by a random joke Jerry Seinfeld once told at dinner. At a dinner with Spielberg, to fill the silence, Seinfeld said that a movie about bees called B-movie would be funny - that got Spielberg really excited. CRACKED.COM — The Globe And Mail

2

Titanic's couple that dies as their room fills with water is based on real life. Isidor Straus (who owned Macy's) and his wife Ida wanted to stay together, and refused special treatment, so they went to their room and remained there. CRACKED.COM — Cinemablend

1

Star Trek: The Next Generation Wesley Crusher is Gene Roddenberry S alter ego. When the space wunderkind was promoted to full ensign, Roddenberry gave Wil Wheaton his own second lieutenant bars from the Army Air Corps. Also, Roddenberry's middle name curiously happened to be Wesley. CRACKED.COM — Star Trek (Official Site)

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