Sometimes we like to get a little highbrow here at the Bathroom Readers’ Institute. Salieri vs. Mozart Ironically, Salieri became famous because of the movie about how he wasn’t famous. For the 1984 film Amadeus, F. Murray Abraham won an Academy Award for playing the Mozart contemporary who was overshadowed by Mozart, a musical genius […]
Cell phone towers: They’re a necessary part of today’s world, keeping us all connected and able to access trivia book publishers’ blogs whenever we like. But they’re also an eyesore. Fortunately, some designers out there are doing their best to disguise cell towers as things a bit more pleasing to the eye. Cacti In the […]
We couldn’t find Uncle John’s old Fart Bazooka, but we managed to find some other famous weapons. John Wilkes Booth’s Gun The gun that Booth used to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln now resides in the basement museum of Ford’s Theatre, in Washington, D.C. The gun is a single-shot flintlock, made by Philadelphia gunsmith Henry Derringer. […]
Be kind to animals—the life they save may be…yours. Captain Kangaroo In 2003 Leonard Richards, 52, was checking his Tanjil South, Australia, emu farm for storm damage when a tree branch came crashing down on his head and knocked him out. Luckily for Richards, Lulu, his pet kangaroo who “thinks she’s a dog,” was following […]
Filmmakers are good at making films. Sometimes they aren’t so good at coming up with names for those films, so somebody in marketing has to come up with a better one. Here are some early, working titles of major movies. Annie Hall: Woody Allen tried several different titles, including A Rollercoaster Named Desire, It Had […]
A lot of rock music movies were produced in the 1970s—Led Zeppelin’s The Song Remains the Same, the Who’s Quadrophenia, and Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park, for example. But for whatever reason, many more rock movies were planned but never got made. (Perhaps 1970s rock stars were not the most reliable bunch.) After […]
Say hello to Dr. Seuss, a rhymer of rhymes both tight and loose. A BRI favorite he really is; the following story is really his. Vital Stats Born: March 2, 1904 Died: September 25, 1991, age 87 Real Name: Theodore Seuss Geisel He adopted “Seuss” as his writing name during Prohibition, while attending Dartmouth College. […]
How did the rock star born Marvin Aday get his stage moniker? It depends on the day. Aday so hates being asked the question constantly over the years that he likes to, as he says, “just continually lie.” Here are just a few of the multiple stories he’s told about how he got the name […]
Here at the BRI we love game shows and classic TV, so we were saddened to hear about the death of game show creator, producer, and host Chuck Barris. Here’s a look at some of the lesser-known creations of the unique personality behind The Gong Show, The Newlywed Game, and The Dating Game. The $1.98 […]
Our latest installment of goofs from some of Hollywood’s most popular movies. The Big Lebowski (1998) Scene: In the opening scene, a bowler attempts to convert a 7-10 split. Blooper: A close-up shows the split being picked up with a different-colored bowling ball. Cast Away (2000) Scene: Chuck Noland (Tom Hanks) cuts his hand while […]
England is a relatively small country, but it boasts a surprisingly high number of variations of the English language—accents, dialects, and, of course, slang. Here’s a look at Scouse, the uniquely colorful (and often inscrutable) jargon specific to the Beatles’ old stomping grounds of Liverpool, where “Scouse” is also the name many people call themselves. […]
Over the weekend, Chuck Berry died at the age of 90. Here are some facts you may not have known about one of the architects of rock n’ roll. Berry came up in an era in which record labels, music publishers, and concert promoters mercilessly cheated musicians—especially African-American musicians. Result: Berry always demanded to be […]
St. Patrick’s Day is widely celebrated in the U.S. and Ireland, of course. But did you know it’s a big deal in other countries? In England The two biggest St. Patrick’s Day parades are in New York City and Dublin. After that is the one in Manchester, the English city with the largest Irish population […]
Uncle John knows pretty much everything—and for what he doesn’t know, he has a massive research library. So go ahead: in the comments below, ask Uncle John anything. (And if we answer your question sometime, we’ll send you a free book!) Why do Americans call it soccer and the English call it football? The United […]
And we don’t mean “ha-ha” funny. Speed Fills (The Coffers) In 2004 the city of Coopertown, Tennessee, realized they had a law-enforcement problem: the cops were costing the city too much money. The Robertson County Times reported that the police department cost about $125,000 to run, but that they had given out only $17,000 worth […]
On a 1976 Lynyrd Skynyrd live album, singer Ronnie Van Zandt asks a restless audience, “what song is it you wanna hear?” and the crowd responds “Free Bird!” because they wanted to hear the band’s biggest hit. Now, it’s as much a concert tradition as going home with ringings ears to shout out “Play ‘Free […]
In 2016, Fox debuted a show called Pitch, a drama about the first female Major League Baseball player. It’s really not so far-fetched. Toni Stone Toni Stone landed a spot on the St. Paul Giants, a semiprofessional team, in 1936. Not only was she an African-American woman who landed a spot on a men’s team […]
It’s bizarre to think that the outcome of some of the most momentous events in Western history have hinged on one detail. But that’s the case. Here are four examples of what we mean. The American Revolution Near Miss: If, in 1776, a pro-British soldier had read a note instead of sticking it in his […]
