So we’re now six months into the new year. (Can we even still call it a new year? It’s halfway through its lifespan.)
Anyway, I hope 2023 is going pretty much the way you want it to go, no matter which direction that may be. For me, it’s had its ups and downs, as all years do.
One thing that perseveres is this silly trivia column, and I hope you’ve already availed yourself of the book spawned from same. Did You Know…? Yet Another Collection of Useless Trivia is still available on amazon.com, and I’m still toying with the idea of a second volume.
You’ve been warned.
Did you know…
…the Grinch was not originally green? Created by Dr. Seuss (born Theodor Seuss Geisel, 1904-1991) in How the Grinch Stole Christmas, the character of the Grinch was originally black and white, with pink eyes, when he first appeared in 1956. It wasn’t until 1966 that he became green – and that happened when the book was being adapted as a television cartoon special. Cartoonist Chuck Jones (1912-2002) made the Grinch green, with Dr. Seuss’ approval, after he had an experience driving an ugly green rental car. (Can’t imagine anything other than a green Grinch now, can we?)
…you can answer the questions “Where?” “What?” and “When?” by changing one letter? Change the “W” in each word to a “T.” You get “There,” “That,” and “Then” – each word answering the question being asked. (Just get someone else to answer, or you’ll end up talking to yourself.)
…the Theory of Evolution was based entirely on speculation when it was written? When Charles Darwin (1809-1882) wrote The Descent of Man in 1871, not a single fossil that was known to be pre-human had ever been found. Darwin’s theory, at the time of its first publication, could not be backed up by any physical evidence. Since that time, fossil discoveries have shown his theory to be true. (Pretty good guessing there, I’d say.)
…the average American watches 239 minutes of television per day? (I’m way below average here… I don’t watch the silly thing at all.)
… seahorses can move their eyes independently? A seahorse is able to use one of its eyes to look forward and the other to look backward. (Not that there’s all that much to see down there, but it’s a pretty neat trick anyway.)
… an animal character in a popular movie was thought to be fictional, until one was actually discovered? One of the most popular and amusing characters in the 2002 film Ice Age and its sequels is Scrat, the sabre-toothed squirrel which spends the entire movie trying to collect and eat acorns. The animators of the film thought they’d created Scrat – and all sabre-toothed squirrels – out of thin air. In 2011, however, scientists discovered fossil remains of, you guessed it, a sabre-toothed squirrel. Discovered in what is now Argentina, the animal – called Cronopio dentiacutus – was an ancient ancestor of several different kinds of rodents, the species to which squirrels belong. However, unlike Scrat, Cronopio didn’t try to amass huge collections of acorns, because when it lived 94 million years ago, acorns had not yet evolved into existence. (I always wanted Scrat to be able to open one of those acorns!)
…flirting has rules? There exists a complex set of unwritten guidelines which determine when, how, where and with whom we may flirt. We only become aware of these rules when we break one of them. (And as you know, ignorance of the law is no excuse. It does, however, explain my total lack of success in the area of flirting.)
…TV’s longest-running Western actually had a spin-off series? From 1955 to 1975, Gunsmoke was one of the most popular shows on television, having been initially a radio series from 1952 to 1961. But few remember that it spawned a spin-off series in 1974. During the 1971 season, guest star Jeanette Nolan (1911-1998) appeared as a cantankerous old woman named Sally, with Dack Rambo (1941-1994) as her companion. The character proved to be a hit, and Nolan and Rambo were given a spin-off series called Dirty Sally three years later. However, success on Gunsmoke didn’t turn into success as a spin-off series, and Dirty Sally was cancelled after fourteen episodes. Additional trivia note: Dirty Sally was the last 30-minute Western series to air on American television. (Maybe she should’ve taken a bath…)
…most of the Earth’s gold cannot be mined? That is because 99% of it exists near or at the core of the planet. If you could, somehow, get all of the gold that exists near the center of the Earth, you could cover the surface of the planet 11⁄2 feet deep in gold. (But if you did that, it wouldn’t be worth much, since there’d be so much of it, so why bother?)
…a term exists for “mis-heard” lyrics in songs? You know the feeling – you are listening to a song and you think you hear something, but the singers are really singing something else? That is called a mondegreen. The term comes from a 1950s folk song, in which the lyrics state, “They slew the Earl of Morray and laid him on the green,” but people thought they heard, “They slew the Earl of Morray and Lady Mondegreen.” (Come on, ‘fess up – we’ve all done that.)
…it was once legal to mail a building? Until 1916, the Post Office had no policy against delivering buildings, but that ended after one man mailed a 40,000-ton brick home across Utah in an effort to avoid high freight taxes. (Can you imagine the embarrassment if your building got lost in the mail?)
…sleeping on the job is acceptable in Japan? Employers view it as exhaustion from working hard. In some cases, people fake sleeping to look more committed to their job. (It’s pretty acceptable around here, too… it must be.)
Now… you know!
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