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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: Joe Mantegna came up with the name of his Criminal Minds character from an out of the ordinary source.

Joe Mantegna took over from Mandy Patinkin as the co-lead (along with Thomas Gibson) of Criminal Minds beginning in Season 3.

Mantegna plays David Rossi, a retired FBI agent who comes out of retirement to work with the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit.

Peculiarly enough, there is an actual history behind the seemingly straightforward name of Mantegna’s character.
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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about novels and novelists and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the novel urban legends featured so far.

NOVEL URBAN LEGEND: The Brontë sisters were forbidden by the their father from eating meat.

The three Brontë sisters (not counting their two older sisters who died in their youth) were all novelists in the early 19th Century (here they are in a painting by their brother, Branwell)

The youngest, Anne, wrote a couple of novels, but her two sisters each wrote one of the most well-known and beloved novels of Western Literature.

The middle sister, Emily, wrote Wuthering Heights…

while the eldest, Charlotte, wrote Jane Eyre, which is one of the most popular novels of all-time (and was the most popular novel of the three sisters back then, as well).

Born over a stretch of four years between 1816 and 1820, all three sisters were dead by 1855, with the oldest of the three, Charlotte, living the longest (she died giving birth to her child at the age of 38 – both child and mother died).

What’s fascinating is that so much of the story of their life has been dictated by pretty much one biography, an 1857 biography of Charlotte, published two years after her death. Written by Elizabeth Gaskell, this bio formed the foundation for what the general public knew about the Brontës for over a century.

Which is fair enough, of course, except that Gaskell, as it turned out, was not a particularly faithful biographer!!
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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about novels and novelists and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the novel urban legends featured so far.

NOVEL URBAN LEGEND: Stephen King’s wife fished his work on the novel Carrie out of the trash and forced him to finish it.

A major example of a matter of chance having a major effect on how a person’s life turned out was the case of Stephen King’s first published novel, Carrie.

Carrie is best known for the film adaptation staring Sissy Spacek…

but it was also Stephen King’s first published novel…

It was his first published novel, but it was not his first finished novel, and in fact, it was almost never finished at all!
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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about novels and novelists and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the novel urban legends featured so far.

NOVEL URBAN LEGEND: The taser was invented based on a device in a Tom Swift novel (the taser was actually named AFTER the novel)

Edward Stratemeyer invented the Tom Swift series of novels in 1910, along with the pseudonym Victor Appleton (which would be used as the collective pen name of the series of authors who worked on the title) as the author of the book.

The original series of books ran from 1910 until 1941, and a subsequent revival of the series (starring Tom Swift’s son) took place from 1954 until 1971 (the book series has since been revived a number of times, but no revival was as influential as the first one).

Tom Swift was a self-taught genius who would often invent new devices that would help him resolve whatever the plot was of that particular novel (his inventions started off pretty straightforward and got more fantastical as time went on).

The series of novels was a major influence on a number of science-minded people (legendary science fiction author Isaac Asimov cited the series as a major influence on his work).

One novel that was particularly influential was the tenth novel in the series, Tom Swift and His Electic Rifle, published in 1911.

In the novel, Tom and his friends go on an African safari, aided in great part by Tom’s invention of the titular device, a rifle that shoots electricity.

The book had a lasting affect on young Jack Cover (born 1920), and it stuck with him well into his adult years when he was working for NASA as a researcher (after years of working in the Aviation industry). Really, it is not too surprising, as the idea of a gun that shoots electricity is a pretty good one.

So what did Cover do with the idea?
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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: 20th Century Fox tried to hide the fact that Miracle on 34th Street was a Christmas film when the film was first released.

Christmas films have an odd place in popular culture. The math on Christmas songs is a lot more straightforward. A Christmas album is relatively easy to produce (most of the songs are already written) and if it is popular it will sell a lot in the short term but also will do well for the artist in the long term since so many radio stations spend all of December playing Christmas music. So for a recording artist, it makes a lot of sense to eventually do a Christmas album. Producing a film, though, is a lot more expensive and studios are much more interested in short term results. It does not do a studio head much good if a film becomes a holiday classic eventually if the film does not excel at the box office right away. There is definitely a Christmas niche where a modestly funded film can make good money for a studio (1983’s A Christmas Story cost $4 million and took in $16 million, this year’s Best Man Holiday cost $17 million and has already taken in $67 million), but films rarely break out of that niche to become blockbusters (The Santa Clause, Holiday Inn and White Christmas are some notable exceptions). So if you are a studio executive and you have a really good film that happens to have a Christmas theme, you might be tempted to try to downplay the Christmas theme to have it break out of the Christmas niche. However, when the entire film is about Santa Claus, it would appear to be a difficult feat to do so. And yet that’s exactly what 20th Century Fox’s Daryl Zanuck did with the release of the Christmas classic Miracle on 34th Street. Read on to see how Zanuck tried to hide the nature of the film upon its release in 1947!
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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: Sigourney Weaver actually making a trick shot ended up causing a bit of a scene during the filming of Alien Resurrection.

You don’t need me to tell you that the amazing basketball shots, home runs and touchdown passes in films are invariably achieved through trick photography. Sometimes, the scenes are less well done as others (the basketball game at the end of Teen Wolf, for instance, has a special place in film historians’ hearts for its awfully unrealistic looking basketball sequence – like people barely bending their arms on their shots but the ball just happens to fly right into the basket).

Well, that was NOT the case in the film, Alien Resurrection…

Ellen Ripley, played by Sigourney Weaver, is effectively brought back from the dead via cloning by “The Company” after her death in the third Aliens movie (she killed herself because she had a Queen Alien embryo implanted in her)

The new Ripley, though, has enhanced abilities due to her DNA merging with the Alien.

She demonstrates these skills on the basketball court. Ripley is sparring with a group of mercenaries, particularly a character called Johner, played by Ron Perlman.

To demonstrate her new powers, Ripley was to shoot a basketball one-handed with her back to the basket a goodly distance away and have it go in.

Weaver was determined to make the shot “live,” and had practiced to the point where she could actually make it about once every six shots.

Director Jean-Pierre Jeunet was getting a bit impatient, as he was perfectly fine with just using trick photography (or special effects) to get the shot, but Weaver was adamant. Ultimately, Jeanet agreed to give her six takes to get the shot in.

Weaver missed the first five times, but on the sixth try, the ball went right in!!
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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: A scene of Jack Palance mounting a horse in Shane was a rewound shot of Palance dismounting the horse!

Jack Palance’s work in westerns was a defining aspect of his stellar career in the film industry. Heck, he even ended up winning an Academy Award in 1992 for spoofing his “tough guy cowboy” image in the Billy Crystal film, City Slickers…

But the role he is perhaps best known for is the ominous hired gun Jack Wilson in the Alan Ladd western Shane.

Palance is almost effortlessly menacing in the film. There was just one problem that popped up in the filming of the movie – Palance did not know anything about horses!
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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.

MUSIC URBAN LEGEND: Kanye West wrote “Gold Digger” after seeing Jamie Foxx play Ray Charles in “Ray.”

“Gold Digger” was a massive hit single by Kanye West that came out in 2005. You practically couldn’t go anywhere in the late Summer/early Fall of 2005 without hearing this tune on the radio (I was on a road trip down to Washington DC from New York that August and we literally heard it six times on five different stations in an hour – yes, one station played it more than once in an hour!).

The song samples the classic Ray Charles hit “I Got a Woman”…

Jamie Foxx sings the Charles parts of the song, which is interpolated throughout the song.

Foxx, of course, won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Charles in the 2004 film, Ray.

So naturally, folks believed that West wrote the song after seeing Foxx in Ray. Is that true?
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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.

MUSIC URBAN LEGEND: “December, 1963 (Oh What a Night)” was originally about the repeal of Prohibition.

By the middle of the 1970s, the Four Seasons were in a bit of a pickle. Their lead singer (and most famous member), Frankie Valli, had tremendous problems with hearing loss, so he was no longer able to be the lead singer for the group.

In a clever move, rather than disbanding, the group brought in two new band members (by “the group,” I basically just mean Valli and co-founder Bob Gaudio) who would sing the lead vocals for the group while Valli would contribute occasional bridges, just to make his presence felt in the group (as he WAS still the most famous member of the group). New drummer Gerry Polci and bassist Don Ciccone were the two main vocalists on the album Who Loves You…

Polci was the lead vocalist on the song that became “December, 1963 (Oh What a Night).”

The tune would become a massive hit, and helped cement the Four Seasons as a group able to succeed in the (then) current pop charts.

The song was a catchy tune about a young man losing his virginity.

However, the original title of the song showed what the original topic of the song was.

Originally, the tune was titled “December 5th, 1933,” which happens to be the day that the Constitutional Amendment was passed repealing Prohibition!
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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 Misfit Toys were never saved in the original airing of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

Holiday specials hold a unique place in television history in that they tend to be the only classic programming to still be aired every year on network television. Other non-holiday programs like The Wizard of Oz or the Mary Martin Peter Pan specials were annual network traditions that gradually faded away. However, films like It’s a Wonderful Life and animated specials like A Charlie Brown Christmas, How the Grinch Stole Christmas and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer continue to air decades into their existence. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, for instance, will mark its 50th anniversary next year, airing every year since it debuted on NBC in 1964.

A problem with airing specials from decades ago today, though, is that there are many more commercials per every televised hour these days. So classic television shows have to be edited to make room for these commercials, and since Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was originally an hour-long special, it does not have the freedom that A Charlie Brown Christmas has to avoid edits by simply airing the original A Charlie Brown Christmas (which ran in a half-hour time slot) in an hour-long time slot with some additional filler material to make it work (even then, A Charlie Brown Christmas has had other notable edits, which I’ve spotlighted in the past here). So Rudolph has seen a number of edits over the years, with songs being trimmed, songs being cut and whole scenes being eliminated entirely.

However, interestingly enough, one of the biggest changes in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer since its original airing in 1964 was an added scene. You see, the first time around, the Misfit Toys were never actually saved!

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