10 Random Pop Culture Factual Facts For A Really Random Thursday

By Jodi Smith | Lists | October 27, 2016 |

By Jodi Smith | Lists | October 27, 2016 |

I don’t need to explain my art to you, Warrens. Just enjoy these random facts about pop culture and then eat a Reese’s Cup filled with Reese’s Pieces.

1. Oculus and the recently released Ouija: Origin of Evil have the same director in Mike Flanagan, so this Easter Egg isn’t too surprising.

A few people have asked… the answer is yes, that IS the Lasser Glass in the basement in Ouija: Origin of Evil.

— Mike Flanagan (@flanaganfilm) October 26, 2016

2. Anyone who has seen The VVitch is probably enamored with Black Phillip. Perhaps you thought he was CGI, but Black Phillip was played by a real goat named Charlie. The 210-pound badass unfortunately injured co-star Ralph Ineson.

“He was horrible. Really, really horrible. From the moment we set eyes on each other it was just kind of hate at first sight. He had two modes: chilling out and doing nothing, or attacking me.”

On the fourth day of filming, Charlie rammed his serrated horns into Ineson’s ribs, dislodging a tendon. “Everything hurt,” Inerson recalls. “I spent the rest of the five-week shoot on painkillers.” - via The Hollywood Reporter

3. In 1994, R.E.M. went from quirky, indie-rock band to quirky, indie-rock back with a renewed interest in electric guitars and loud rock. One of the best songs from the resulting album Monster is “What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?”. The lyrics are odd and gleefully insane (“What’s the frequency, Kenneth?” is your Benzedrine, uh-huh / I was brain-dead, locked out, numb, not up to speed / I thought I’d pegged you an idiot’s dream…), but the story behind the hit song is crazier.

In 1986, respected newsman Dan Rather was walking down Park Avenue on his way home, when two well-dressed men randomly attacked him, repeatedly demanding to know the answer to the question: “What is the frequency, Kenneth?” The men fled into the night as a doorman came to Rather’s aid. Once assailant William Tager was arrested and identified by Rather, the disturbed man admitted that he mistook the news anchor for the vice president of the future—I have made that same mistake—a politician apparently named Kenneth Burroughs. Michael Stipe was perplexed by this odd event, calling it the “premier unsolved American surrealist act of the 20th century,” leading him to write “What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?” - via mental_floss

4. According to Wikipedia, Steven Spielberg is the highest-grossing director of all time with a total worldwide box office of $9.246 billion. Number two on the list is Peter Jackson with $6.518 billion total worldwide box office. That’s quite the divide.

5. An American Family is credited with being the first reality show. It aired in 1973 on PBS and followed the Louds family as they eventually endured a divorce. The series would eventually inspire Mary-Ellis Bunim and Jonathan Murray to create MTV’s The Real World in 1992.

6. Three Men and a Baby was directed by Spock himself - Leonard Nimoy. I’ve seen that movie a million times and didn’t ever realize.

7. HBO’s first original series was Fraggle Rock, so think about that the next time Game of Thrones crushes your soul like so many Martell heads.

8. Alanis Morissette, Ashton Kutcher, and Scarlett Johansson all have twin brothers.

9. According to director Mary Herron, Christian Bale chose a famous actor as inspiration for his role in American Psycho.

We talked about how Martian-like Patrick Bateman was, how he was looking at the world like somebody from another planet, watching what people did and trying to work out the right way to behave. And then one day he called me and he had been watching Tom Cruise on David Letterman, and he just had this very intense friendliness with nothing behind the eyes, and he was really taken with this energy. -

10. Al Roker and Lenny Kravitz are second cousins.