The Fun Facts thread

bub said:

 I didn't realize even realize Hansard was in both movies but note that that the director of Once also directed Sing Street, which we recently streamed. In the same ball park as Once and The Commitments.  Takes place in early 80s Dublin.  The main character is a teen who, because of his families financial problems, has to transfer to a shabby rough Catholic school but that leads to his formation of a new wave band.  Lots of music.  Not too heavy but it's earthy and funny.

 Fun Fact:  Hansard and Marketa Irglova won an Oscar for best song for "Falling Slowly" from Once.  It was not without some controversy though.  From IMDB:

"Falling Slowly" won the Academy Award for Best Original Song on 24 February 2008, beating out the choral gospel song "Raise It Up" from August Rush and three songs from the modern Disney musical Enchanted. The win marked the fourth year in a row that the Oscar-winning song had not been nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song. Earlier the song's eligibility for an Oscar was in dispute because it had been performed and recorded prior to the release of Once.[4] The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences ruled, however, that because the song had been written and composed for the movie, and because the prior public exposure during the long period that the movie took to produce had been minimal, it remained eligible. The Academy had ruled likewise on a similar controversy involving 2004 Best Original Song nominee "In the Deep." According to the Academy rules, that song was disqualified because there was some dispute over whether or not it was written originally for the film. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0907657/trivia

Debutante balls are the original dating app. 

“The debutantes we think of today, bowing deeply in frosty dresses, originated and evolved in England and America quite simply because they were needed to solve a problem. The Protestant Reformation in 16th century England and northern Europe ended the extremely convenient practice of cloistering unmarriageable girls in convents.” 

". . . The Reformation left wealthy or titled Englishmen with a glut of daughters, whose marriages had to be considered most delicately since, by law, they could not inherit their fathers’ estates." [Time]


No two farts are exactly alike.


John and Paul took a bus across Liverpool to visit a man who could teach them the B7 chord:


Fun fact: actor Armie Hammer is named for his great-grandfather, business magnate Armand Hammer. No, he didn't invent the detergent, but he was named for the socialist workers' symbol of an arm holding a hammer. His dad was a socialist and Armand was a communist sympathizer.


mrincredible said:

Fun fact: a single Grinch can lift approximately 8,333 kg. Science here: https://scienceblogs.com/principles/2011/12/13/christmas-physics-how-strong-i

 What about a married Grinch?


drummerboy said:

 What about a married Grinch?

 What's with the heteronormative bias?


mrincredible said:

drummerboy said:

 What about a married Grinch?

 What's with the heteronormative bias?

 Actually I know several same sex married couples - not heteronormative at all...


Scully said:

mrincredible said:

drummerboy said:

 What about a married Grinch?

 What's with the heteronormative bias?

 Actually I know several same sex married couples - not heteronormative at all...

 same sex married Grinches? 


Fun fact: on this day in 1972, Atari released the first successful video game. It was called "Pong" and the first prototype was installed in a bar in Sunnyvale CA called Andy Capp's Tavern.


Fact: On this day in 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man.


Fun fact: on this day in 1933 the 21st Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, and Prohibition was ended.


Fun fact: 55 years ago today (oops yesterday but I'm plunging forward with this), the world was introduced to Yukon Cornelius and Hermey the Elf in Rankin-Bass' "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer."


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