Rupert Grint. Grint played Ron Weasley, Harry Potter’s best friend, in eight Harry Potter movies. One of the first things he bought when he started earning movie-star money: a 1974 Mr. Whippy van—an ice cream truck. He’d wanted to be an ice cream man, before he discovered acting. “I keep my van well stocked. It’s got a proper machine that dispenses Mr. Whippy ice cream,” he told The Daily Mail. He’d have to have a license to sell ice cream, so instead, he drives around England and hands out free ice cream bars to kids.
Scent researcher Christina Agapakis, and Sissel Tolaas, a synthetic biologist, learned that microscopic ecosystems inside the human body are often very similar to the bacteria that makes cheese possible. So, with the cooperation of Stanford University and the University of Edinburgh, they followed this information to its natural conclusion: a product called Selfmade, which is “human cheese.”
“bathroomreader.com” got its name from the Bathroom Readerbook series. Now you know!”
Bing. In development, Microsoft’s search engine was codenamed “Kumo,” But Microsoft went with Bing because focus groups said it reminded them of “the moment of discovery.” The company also liked that it was short, easy to spell, and transferable to languages other than English. (Detractors jokingly claim BING is an acronym for “but it’s not Google.”)
Yelp. The business listings and ratings site is in many ways an Internet version of the Yellow Pages. In fact the “yel” in “Yelp” comes from “yellow,” and the “p” comes from “pages.”
Many countries have their own version of Santa Claus. We recently delved into the unusual traditions surrounding Sinterklaas, the gift giver that sails into the Netherlands every year on a steam ship with bumbling helpers in blackface. Even as weird as that tradition may seem to outsiders, Iceland’s might be even stranger.
In the early 20th century, Clarence Crane ran a candy company in the Cleveland, Ohio, area. His top sellers were chocolate candies, but sales always plummeted during the summer months. Why? Chocolate melts. And in the 1910s, air conditioned stores were not the norm. Then Crane got an idea. Inspired by the hard mints popular in Europe and just beginning to be imported into the U.S., Crane created his “summer candy”—hard peppermint candies that were round and flat, to differentiate from the spherical European ones.
It’s Friday, so that means it’s time for your weekly fake-out. Here’s how it works: Two of the three following stories are true. And one of them we made up. Can you guess which one is the fake? Pick your answer at the end of the article and see if you’re right.
One of the ways that Santa Claus is able to travel all around the world on Christmas Eve is by cutting corners. For instance, he doesn’t widely visit homes in Europe’s “low countries.” Instead, a much skinnier gift-giver covers those regions. His name is Sinterklaas (or just “Sint”). He delivers presents on December 5, on a holiday also called Sinterklaas, to all the good boys and girls…who live in Belgium and the Netherlands.
Instead of a flying sleigh pulled by reindeer, Sint rides a white horse to make his toy deliveries. And instead of spending the offseason at the North Pole, Sint is said to live in Spain. And instead of arriving on a float at Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade to herald the beginning of the Christmas season, Sint departs Spain on a steamship and shows up at various celebrations in the middle of November. And no milk and cookies for Sint, please—Belgian and Dutch kids leave Sint’s horse a carrot in their shoes.
With the international reveal of the sixth generation Mustang on its 50th anniversary, we revisit this iconic car’s history. The original Ford Mustang, a sporty car for “everyman” introduced in 1964, is now a symbol of the entire decade. Here’s a bit of its history.
The Mustang was the most successful new car ever introduced by the American auto industry. But in terms of the ’60s, it was more than a car. Its popularity was an expression of the simple truth of the decade—that everyone wanted to look, feel, and act young.
Elf. Buddy the Elf says that elves “try to stick to the four main food groups: candy, candy canes, candy corns, and syrup.” While portraying Buddy, Ferrell ate so much sugar—particularly in the scenes where Buddy eats huge plates of spaghetti covered in chocolate syrup and candy chunks—that he routinely suffered migraines throughout the filming of the movie.
A few weeks ago, we wrote about the Singing Nun, who had an unlikely #1 hit in the U.S. in 1963 with “Dominique,” a song sung in French. Here are some more non-English tunes that topped the American pop chart.
• A rock version of the folk song “La Bamba” is Ritchie Valens’ best-known and signature song, but upon its release in 1959, it was only a minor hit. As the B-side of the #2-hit ballad “Donna,” “La Bamba” hit #23. But when a movie about Ritchie Valens life and untimely death (he died in the same plane crash that killed Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper) called La Bamba was released in 1987, a cover version by the band Los Lobos hit #1. It’s the first and only time a song sung entirely in Spanish has topped the charts.
• In late 1926, Abe Saperstein took over as coach of a touring African-American team in Chicago called the Savoy Big Five (they played their games at the Savoy Ballroom). Saperstein renamed them the Harlem Globetrotters because all the players were African-American (Harlem being a predominantly African-American neighborhood).
• The original lineup for the team’s first game in January 1927: “Toots” Wright, “Fat” Long, “Kid” Oliver, “Runt” Pullins, and Andy Washington.
• The team played hundreds of games a year and got so good that they played in a national championship in 1939 against another independent team, the New York Renaissance. The Globetrotters lost, but that same year they discovered that the crowd liked it when they did ball tricks and comic routines. Saperstein told them to do as much of that as possible…provided they’d already established a comfortable lead.
• Over the years, a few famous athletes have played for the Globetrotters. Wilt Chamberlain played for one year, between college and joining the NBA. Future Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Gibson played in the 1950s, before his baseball career. And NBA great Magic Johnson played in a single game.
These glitzy, glamorous, song and dance spectaculars were dominant TV format in the 1960s and ‘70s. Featuring big production numbers, colorful costumes, comic sketches, and banter between the hosts, extravaganzas Sonny and Cher, Donny and Marie, and The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour dominated ratings. By 1980 they were simply passé, as the garish ‘70s gave way to the sleek ‘80s. In 1987, ABC attempted to revive the variety show with what seemed like a sure thing. The network signed singer/actress Dolly Parton to a two-year, $44 million contract to star in Dolly. It flopped, and the network bought out Parton’s contract and cancelled the show in less than a year.
There’s nothing worse than trying to concentrate on a very important project (like, say, a blog post) while struggling to tune out loud neighbors. If you live or work in an area with heavy traffic or other types of noise pollution, you’ve likely found yourself wishing you could grab a remote control and turn down the volume on the world outside your window.
It’s Friday, and that means it’s time for your weekly fake-out. Here’s how it works: Two of the three following stories are true. One of them we made up. Can you guess which one is the fake? Pick your answer at the end of the article and see if you’re right.
Tallest: Being taller than 7’0” is routine in the NBA. In the NFL, there’s only been one man. Seven-foot-tall defensive tackle Richard Sligh was drafted by the Oakland Raiders in 1967. He wasn’t put to much use, playing in just eight games and sitting on the bench during Super Bowl II.
Shortest: In the early days of the NFL—when it was essentially a regional, semiprofessional league, a 5’0”-tall guy named Jack Shapiro played in just one game in 1929, as a back, for the now defunct Staten Island Stapletons.
Rupert Grint. Grint played Ron Weasley, Harry Potter’s best friend, in eight Harry Potter movies. One of the first things he bought when he started earning movie-star money: a 1974 Mr. Whippy van—an ice cream truck. He’d wanted to be an ice cream man, before he discovered acting. “I keep my van well stocked. It’s got a proper machine that dispenses Mr. Whippy ice cream,” he told The Daily Mail. He’d have to have a license to sell ice cream, so instead, he drives around England and hands out free ice cream bars to kids.
