Whats the best trivia you’ve heard that isn’t true but it should be.
Some of my favorites:
-Mr. Rogers was a sniper in Vietnam and his arms were covered in tattoos which is why he always wore long sleeves.
-Saved By The Bell star Dustin Diamond (who played Screach) is the younger brother of Michael Diamond, or Mike D from the Beastie Boys.
-Josh Saviano, the actor who played Paul Pfeiffer on The Wonder Years later became Maryiln Manson.
Not that they should be true, but
–The Great Wall is the only man-made structure visible from space/the moon
–The Quack of a Duck doesn’t Echo
–Ronald Reagan almost starred in Casablanca.
The name of this board (The Straight Dope) originated from some Heterosexual male who was fed up with being called a “dope” by all his online friends and decided to start his own board in order to find new online friends who were also Heterosexual.
Frank Zappa was the son of Mr. Green Jeans and he ate a turd onstage.
Also “Ring Around the Rosies” is about the black death.
Red cars receive more speeding tickets than cars of any other color.
The seal of the POTUS changes direction in times of war.
Ahem. That was Alice Cooper who didn’t eat a turd onstage.
The universe, earth, and life were all created in six days.
Did you know the word “gullible” is not in the dictionary? Go ahead. Look it up.
Oh I love this one. Many people think it’s an actual word until they check it out for themselves, but this thread is about favorite false trivia.
Oh, come on. Yes it is too in there. I’ll look it up right now just to prove it.
looks
Wow. I did not know that.
C.W. McCall, the singer of the 1970s novelty hit “Convoy”, was actually Chip Davis, founder of the group Mannheim Steamroller. (Note: there is some basis for this one; Davis apparently wrote “Convoy”, and other music for “McCall”, which was a pseudonym for an advertising writer named William Fries.)
This isn`t really a trivia, just a falsehood, but I love the extension of this that therefore your insurance premiums will be higher if you drive a red car. I’ve insured… seven different cars and at no point has anyone ever asked what color the car is, so how could the insurer know to increase the premium? Whenever someone tells me red cars pay higher insurance premiums I have to wonder if they’ve ever insured a car.
No it wasn’t. People distinctly told me that Captain Kangaroo was Ozzy Ozbourne’s father and he ate a bat and a bunch of other stuff on stage. God damn, you would think that a place like the Straight Dope would be able to keep its word of mouth urban legends consistent but I guess not. It looks like people in my high school were the ones tuned into stuff that should have happened but didn’t.
Actually, Frank Zappa got his picture taken on the crapper, so maybe that’s where you got confused…
The weird thing about that one, is that it has become so widely believed that there have been *campaigns *to actuallty get the word included in Merriam Webster. M-W has refused on the grounds that it would be letting the under-educated win out against the intellectuals. In an interview with William Safire, a Merriam Webster representative said, and I quote:
“Once you allow the masses to dictate the rules of English language and grammar, you buckle to the lowest denominator. We don’t intend to buckle, Mr. Saffire”.
Snopes has declared the idea that ‘gullible’ is a legitimate word in the English language to be the “most difficult urban legend to debunk that we have ever come across”.
…it’s not? Then what is the song about?
I like the duck quack one the most.
A couple from my childhood:
… McDonalds puts worms in their burgers.
… KFC fries up rats and serves them as legs.
Chuck Barris was a CIA assassin!
Nope. From The Real Frank Zappa Book:
Ah Rupert, hoisted by my own petard…I am so alone.