Tell us an interesting random fact you stumbled across (Part 1)

[Common_Tater]

Redd Foxx played Fred on the Sanford and Son sitcom, whose character was often clutching his chest and feigning a heart attack, it was a meme at the time, he was famous for that.

You’ll never guess what happened. Yep. When he really did have a heart attack, and collapsed, everyone initially thought he was joking around.

Both C.S. Lewis and Aldous Huxley happened to die on the same day, they were both pretty famous authors in their time. But they died on 22 November 1963, where other news overshadowed their deaths. Huxley notably instructed his wife to inject him with several hundred micrograms of L.S.D. intravenously, apparently intending to make a special trip out of it.

[RealityChuck]

@Terminus_Est

Did Stanley Kubrick curse movie musicals and the Oscars?

The 1968 movie musical Oliver! won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Stanley Kubrick’s film 2001: A Space Odyssey was released the same year but wasn’t even nominated. Stanley Kubrick was nominated for Best Director, but lost to Carol Reed who directed Oliver!. A movie musical would not win Best Picture again until Chicago, released in 2002.

Well, that was about the time Hollywood stopped making musicals because too many of them were expensive flops.

[Love_Rhombus]

In My Cousin Vinny, the title character was originally supposed to be a huge dyslexic guy. The screenwriter was thinking of Robert DiNero for the title character.

[Terminus_Est]

@RealityChuck

Well, that was about the time Hollywood stopped making musicals because too many of them were expensive flops

I dunno. If you look at the Wikipedia’s list of movie musicals by year, Hollywood was still producing a steady stream of musicals after 1968, including such well-regarded Broadway adaptations like Fiddler on the Roof, Cabaret, Man of La Mancha, and Jesus Christ Superstar. Were none of those really in contention?

[Robot_Arm]

@alovem

Wow, some story. You know, when the subject of death comes up, I often tell friends about something I’ve read about a Greek philosopher or something like that who, in his old age, drew a caricature of an ugly old woman and laughed at it so hard that he died. So, I tell my friends that that’s how I’d like to die. But that story sounds like an even better way to go.

Happened with a British TV show in the '70s.

Kung Fu Kapers

The episode is infamous for the documented example of a man laughing to death. Fifty-year-old Alex Mitchell could not stop laughing for a continuous 25-minute period—almost the entire length of the show—and suffered a fatal heart attack as a result of the strain placed on his heart. Alex’s widow later sent the Goodies a letter thanking them for making his final moments so pleasant.[2][3][4]

In May 2012, Alex’s granddaughter, Lisa Corke, suffered a heart attack at the age of 23. She was diagnosed with long QT syndrome and the doctors caring for her believe it is likely that Mitchell suffered from the same hereditary condition.[5]

[EinsteinsHund]

@Robot_Arm

Alex’s widow later sent the Goodies a letter thanking them for making his final moments so pleasant.[2][3][4]

See, that’s the different between the UK and America. An American widow surely would have sued the show instead.

[elbows]

America has more governors that have worn blackface, than actual black governors.

[Treppenwitz]

This is such a striking assertion (at least, for someone not from the US) that it deserves a cite. In fact, it’s surprisingly easy to find one.

Does America Have More Governors Who Have Worn Blackface Than Black Governors?

j

[silenus]

TIL that James Chadwick, the discoverer of the neutron was a student of Ernest Rutherford, the discoverer of the proton, who was a student of J. J. Thomson, the discoverer of the electron.

[Elmer_J.Fudd]

Chadwick’s students? What a bunch of slackers!

[JacobSwan]

J J Thomson won the Nobel prize for showing electrons were particles.
His son George Thomson won the Nobel prize for showing that electrons were waves.

Kids always rebel against their parents!

[EmilyG]

Today I learned that kangaroos have three vaginas.

Did you know kangaroos have three vaginas?

[Wallaby]

And echidnas have 4-headed penises.

[Common_Tater]

'Strya. Always weird stuff trying to kill you. And - Wombat poop is square. Cubes. Really.

[Baker]

And male pigs have a corkscrew shaped wanker. It was that article by Cecil that introduced me to the Straight Dope.

[silenus]

There is a very dirty poem about a man with such a penis. I shall refrain, but it is easily googled.

[Baker]

I did start Googling and it took less than three minutes to find four poems. there are probably a lot more.

[JaneDoe42]

Ducks are right up there with the weird penis thing. It’s a sex war sort of thing. The males rape the females who evolve kinks in their stuff so the males evolve kinks in their stuff which makes the females evolve even more kinks.

How the battle of the sexes left the duck with an awkwardly long,...

[RealityChuck]

When Frank Tashlin was hired to direct at Warner Brothers, Leon Schlesinger assigned him two assistants who didn’t get along with the other directors at the studio:

Chuck Jones and Tex Avery

[Love_Rhombus]

At least 4 people have been killed trimming palm trees. Not by falling. By being suffocated at the top.