Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about TV and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the TV urban legends featured so far.
TV URBAN LEGEND: The Simpsons famous opening sequence was created to save on animation time.
With The Simpsons renewed for their 27th and 28th seasons, it is becoming difficult to think back to a time where the show not only did not exist but there were doubts whether it would ever exist. Back in 1989, as Matt Groening and his crew tried to make the transition from animated shorts on The Tracey Ullman Show to their own half hour series, pretty much everything was up for grabs. I have written in a previous TV Legends Revealed about how Groening planned at one point early on for Krusty the Clown to be Homer Simpson in disguise! That is how up in the air things were in those early days. But the biggest area of contention in those days was not the plot details of the show, but the production of the show, specifically the animation. The studio that did the original The Tracey Ullman Show shorts could not do the full series, so they had to farm out much of the work to a Korean animation studio. When the first episode was screened for Groening and his fellow producer, James L. Brooks, they were outraged at how bad the show looked. The first episode animated, “Some Enchanted Evening,” ended up being almost completely reworked and went from being the premiere of the series to the season finale of Season 1 of the show. The Simpsons staff asked for a series of changes for the next episode set to be animated, “Bart the Genius,” and if improvements were not made, they were prepared to cease production on the series entirely.
Luckily, there were improvements, so the staff of the Simpsons made a deal with Fox to delay the debut of the series until December of 1989, with a Christmas special, before launching the rest of the series in 1990 (“Some Enchanted Evening,” back when it was going to be the premiere of the series, was originally set for September 1989). It was this state of unease with the animation that led to the amusing origins of the famous Simpsons opening sequence. Read the rest of this entry »
Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about movies and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the Movie urban legends featured so far.
MOVIE URBAN LEGEND: An ad campaign involving Bambi led to the creation of Smokey Bear.
There is little doubt that famous comic and cartoon character are highly effective when used as advertising spokespeople. In fact, in many cases, the characters become practically synonymous with the products that they are promoting. I sometimes wonder if more kids are familiar with the Flintstones through Flintstones chewable vitamins (and that awesome “We are Flintstones kids!” jingle) than they are with the actual Flintstones animated series (at least children’s vitamins are a huge step up from when the Flintstones used to advertise for WInston cigarettes). This kind of advertising also works outside of the private sector, as cartoon and comic characters have proven time and time again to be helpful in promoting government projects and charitable works (like Dennis the Menace and Mafalda’s promotion around the world of UNICEF). Often, the government will try to create their own characters to promote their work. One of the most famous of these characters is Smokey Bear, with his classic phrase “Only YOU can prevent forest fires.”
However, Smokey Bear was not the first choice to help let kids know of the danger of forest fires. Read on to learn how the classic Walt Disney character Bambi ultimately led to the creation of Smokey Bear! Read the rest of this entry »
Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about toys and whether they are true or false. Click here for an archive of all toy urban legends featured so far!
TOY URBAN LEGEND: Barbie was once sold with a diet book that simply read “don’t eat”?
Something that anyone telling jokes has to keep in mind is that context is often king. Something that is clearly meant as a joke in one context could be read as something else entirely in another context. I believe that this is at the heart of the infamous story of the weight loss advice book that came with Slumber Party Barbie. Read the rest of this entry »
Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about TV and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the TV urban legends featured so far.
TV URBAN LEGEND: All in the Family was re-named Archie Bunker’s Place once Jean Stapleton left the show.
Probably the most famous episode of Archie Bunker’s Place was the episode where Archie deals with the passing of his wife, Edith.
The scenes of Archie (who has been solemn the whole episode) discovering Edith’s slipper at the end of the episode…
causing him to break down…
were so powerful that it was no surprise that actor Carrol O’Connor won a Peabody Award for his performance.
However, the sheer fame of that episode is likely the “culprit” behind a misconception around Archie Bunker’s Place – that the show got its name (changed from All in the Family) because Edith was no longer a character on the show due to her death.
Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about movies and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the Movie urban legends featured so far.
MOVIE URBAN LEGEND: Judy Garland was paid less for The Wizard of Oz than the dog who played Toto in the film.
One of the most dispiriting pieces of news that came out as a result of the hack that Sony suffered last year is that there was noticeable wage disparity at Sony between male and female workers, from the female Co-President of Columbia Pictures, Hannah Minghella, making almost a million dollars less than her male Co-President, Michael De Luca to the two female leads of American Hustle (Amy Adams and Jennifer Lawrence) each getting paid less than the three male leads of the film (Christian Bale, Jeremy Renner, Bradley Cooper) and director David O’Russell. If this was the case nowadays, you can only imagine what kind of out of whack scale there was for actors back in the old days, when actors signed long term contracts with studios, locking in their pay rate early in their careers. So actors, especially actors just starting out, were paid some surprisingly low wages on famous films. This had led to a few legends over the years, perhaps none more notable than the story that Judy Garland, star of the 1939 classic film, The Wizard of Oz, made less money during the film than Terry, the dog that played Toto in the film.
The exact figures that often make the rounds of the internet is “For the movie the Wizard of Oz, Judy Garland was paid $35 a week while Toto received $125 a week.”
Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about TV and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the TV urban legends featured so far.
TV URBAN LEGEND: Barry Coe was hired and fired from Bonanza all in the time in took to film one episode.
Initially, Bonanza starred four actors, Lorne Greene (as Ben Cartwright) and Pernell Roberts, Dan Blocker and Michael Landon (as his three sons, Adam, Hoss and Little Joe)….
Roberts was not a huge fan of the material of the series, and very early on he began making noise about wanting to leave the series. The first instance of the producers taking Roberts’ demands seriously came in the beginning of the fourth season, when in the first episode they added actor Barry Coe to the cast as Little Joe’s roguishly charming half-brother Clay Stafford.
The casting was a bit of a game of chicken between the producers and Roberts. “You want to leave, well here you go, we have a replacement for you.”
However, the producers were not counting on the reaction that they would receive from a DIFFERENT cast member. Read the rest of this entry »
Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about movies and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the Movie urban legends featured so far.
MOVIE URBAN LEGEND: Robin Williams’ character in Dead Poets Society originally died at the end of the film.
When Robin Williams tragically died last year, tributes to the actor and comedian poured in from throughout the internet. One common method of fans paying tribute to Williams was through a reference to his acclaimed performance (he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Lead Actor) in the 1989 film, Dead Poets Society (spoilers ahead for a 26-year-old film!). At the end of the film, about an inspirational English teacher named John Keating at a conservative prep boarding school in the late 1950s, Keating’s students protest his firing by standing on their desks and reciting “O Captain! My Captain!,” which is the first line of the famous 1865 Walt Whitman poem written in response to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
Fans of Williams shared photos of themselves on social media standing on desks along with the hashtags #MyCaptain and #OCaptainMyCaptain, making those two hashtags trend nationally on Twitter. Talk show host Jimmy Fallon even stood on his desk on The Tonight Show, as well, in tribute to Williams.
It was a very sweet and touching way for fans to pay tribute to their fallen hero, but amazingly enough, if the original version of Dead Poets Society had come about, it would have been a particularly on point tribute, as originally Keating was set to die at the end of the film! Read the rest of this entry »
I know I don’t typically diverge from just posting legends on the site, but I thought it would be worthwhile to try a little something different. I am now going to post occasional reviews of movies, TV shows or books that I think are specifically related to entertainment and sports legends. You know, like a book that goes into interesting behind-the-scenes secrets or a documentary that could serve as fodder for a future legend.
The first movie I want to talk about is Atari: Game Over, a documentary from last year about the rise and fall of Atari.
The documentary is cleverly framed around the search for the truth behind the urban legend that thousands of unsold E.T. video game cartridges were buried in a New Mexico landfill during the 1980s. That in of itself is an interesting topic (and really the main reason why I figured I’d post it here in particular), but the whole story of the ups and downs of Atari is fascinating, especially the designer who designed E.T.
Go check it out. It’s currently available to stream on Netflix! Here is a trailer for the film…
Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about theater and whether they are true or false.
THEATER URBAN LEGEND: Edwin Booth saved Robert Todd Lincoln from being hit by a train.
People often write about the American Civil War as being a war of “brother against brother.” In the case of Edwin and John Wilkes Booth, that was very accurate (well, except for the fact that neither served in the war, but you get my meaning). Both Booths were accomplished theater actors, but Edwin was a Unionist and John was a secessionist. Edwin even voted for Lincoln, a fact that really gnawed at his brother, who insisted to his brother than Lincoln was going to try to become the King of America.
Edwin Booth in 1879.
In any event, an interesting legend involving the older Booth brother has become very popular over the years, which is that Edwin actually saved the life of Abraham Lincoln’s oldest son, Robert Todd Lincoln, a year before Booth’s brother assassinated the President.
Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about TV and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the TV urban legends featured so far.
TV URBAN LEGEND: Michael Landon pulled a prank on an artist in her death scene on Little House on the Prairie, resulting in her seemingly using a baby as a battering ram in the episode.
Michael Landon’s long-running television series Little House on the Prairie (based on Laura Ingalls Wilder’s classic books about her youth growing up in the frontier) has gained a reputation since it went off the air of being a throwback to more wholesome times (reruns of the show currently air on both the Hallmark Channel and INSP, formerly known as The Inspiration Network). While that is certainly true to a certain extent, that also overshadows just how dark the show could be at times. Just looking at the main family on the show, the Ingalls, Charles and Caroline Ingalls lost a son in the first season, their oldest daughter Mary went blind and Mary then had a miscarriage after getting married to her teacher from the School for the Blind. This is on top of the plagues and droughts that seemingly popped up every other season. There was also the infamous episode where a teenage girl is raped by a sociopath who dressed up like a mime. Heck, even the finale of the series, as I noted in an old TV Legends Revealed, ended with their town being blown to smithereens! So the show had a lot of dark moments in it. Likely none more dark, however, than Season 6’s “May We Make Them Proud,” which aired as a special two-hour episode for February sweeps in 1980. Read the rest of this entry »
If you enjoy this site, there's a good chance you'll enjoy my books from Plume Publishing (a division of Penguin-Random House Books) Was Superman a Spy? and other Comic Book Legends Revealed! and Why Does Batman Carry Shark Repellent?. Plus, my newest book from Triumph Books, 100 Things X-Men Fans Should Know and Do Before They Die
Here are links to some fine online bookstores where you can order copies of the books!
100 THINGS X-MEN FANS SHOULD KNOW AND DO BEFORE THEY DIE
