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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: There was a special episode of “Cheers” made to help sell United States savings bonds.

One of the best things about our current era of popular culture is the sheer volume of content available to fans of TV shows and films. DVD collections and streaming services have made it easy to gain access to nearly any television series that you would like to check out. However, there still remains a bit of a treasure trove of material that has never been made publicly available since it aired (or, in some cases, since it was produced). For instance, the original “Big Bang Theory” pilot, with a much different (and sexually active) version of Sheldon Cooper in it, has never been made it on to any official release. Due to concerns over the racial stereotypes on the program, “Amos and Andy” will likely never be officially released for purchase by its IP owners. Some of these episodes, though, eventually end up getting released, like the infamous “R-Rated” episode of “Dexter’s Laboratory.”

In a whole other category, though, are the oddities that are the sitcom episodes made special for the United States government, including a “lost” episode of the classic sitcom, “Cheers”!

Read on to learn more about these episodes and to see the episode in question!
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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: James Doohan managed to hide his missing finger throughout the filming of the original Star Trek series.

Something that has come up a number of times over the years in past TV Legends is actors who spent a lot of time on their series hiding things that they don’t want you to see. Some notable examples include Gary Burghoff hiding a misshappen left hand on M*A*S*H* while playing Radar O’Reilly on the series and Larry Hovis hiding his wedding ring as the very single Sergeant Carter on Hogan’s Heroes.

Another famous example that we haven’t discussed before was James Doohan, who hid the fact that he was missing his middle finger on his right hand while playing Scotty on Star Trek.

Did Doohan actually manage to pull off what Burghoff and Hovis could not? Did he manage to hide the hand throughout the three seasons of the series?

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MOVIE URBAN LEGEND: Harrison Ford’s famous “I know” line in “Empire Strikes Back” was improvised.

When it comes time to actually translate movie screenplays into finished films, there are always going to be situations where things change base on circumstances. Sometimes problems that are beyond anyone’s control. There’s a famous scene in the screenplay for “Fast Times in Ridgement High” where two characters listen to a song from Led Zeppelin’s fourth album. Well, what do you do when Led Zeppelin won’t let you use any songs from their fourth album? These sorts of issues came up frequently in the filming of the first few “Star Wars” films, as George Lucas and company would often find themselves debating between multiple options with where to go with the screenplay. Kill off Obi-Wan Kenobi or let him live? Have Han shoot Greedo first or have Greedo take the first shot?

A similar debate came up during the filming of “Empire Strikes Back” in the scene where Han Solo and Leia say heartfelt goodbyes to each other before Han is encased in Carbonite. Leia professes her love and Han, in response, tells her, “I know.”

It’s a great line, and legend has it that Han’s portrayer, Harrison Ford, improvised the line on the spot and the film’s director, Irving Kershner, kept it in the film.

It’s a very popular legend. But is it true?
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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about music and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the movie urban legends featured so far.

MUSIC URBAN LEGEND: Bruce Dickinson was the producer who added cowbell to the Blue Oyster Cult song, “Don’t Fear the Reaper”

One of the most famous Saturday Night Live skits of all-time is the 2000 sketch written by and starring Will Ferrell as a fictitious member of the band Blue Oyster Cult, whose job is only to play the cowbell, something that doesn’t come up very often, but when legendary producer Bruce Dickinson decides that the only thing that the song “Don’t Fear the Reaper” needs is “more cowbell,” then Ferrell’s character really gets into it, much to the dismay of his bandmates…

Besides the made up band member that Ferrell played, the skit tried to be as faithful as it could to the Blue Oyster Cult at the time (including the fact that the song does, in fact, have cowbell in it), depicting the band members very accurately (although they had the wrong member of the band singing lead and made a few other minor errors). However, what about Bruce Dickinson? Did he really produce the song and ask for the cowbell?
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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: An episode of The Simpsons helped two young boys each save someone’s life.

It is easy, sometimes, to lose sight of just how much influence popular television shows and films have on the general public. Whether it is teens killing themselves trying to emulate a scene in the film “The Program” or the public causing a toilet paper shortage because of an errant comment by Johnny Carson on “The Tonight Show,” people can sometimes be surprisingly influenced by popular culture. Heck, for years, “Ameche” was actually a slang term for the telephone, just because Don Ameche played Alexander Graham Bell in a popular movie!

Luckily, though, the pervasive influence of popular culture can sometimes be a good thing. In fact, sometimes it can even save lives, which was the case with one particular episode of the hit long-running animated TV series, “The Simpsons.”

Read on to see what happened!
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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: Albert Finney had a bizarrely hilarious hidden cameo as a woman within his own film, Miller’s Crossing.

Miller’s Crossing is a 1990 gangster film by the Coen Brothers…

In it, Gabriel Byrne plays the right-hand man to an Irish-American mob boss (played by Albert Finney) while also having an affair with his boss’s girlfriend (played by Marcia Gay Harden).

While everyone in the film is quite good, Finney’s Leo O’Bannon is certainly a stand out, especially a wonderful sequence where he fights off an assassination attempt while in his home in a robe listening to “Danny Boy.”

However, amusingly enough, this is not the only character Finney plays in the film!

In one of the early scenes in the film, Byrne’s Tom Reagan storms into a ladies’ restroom to confront Harden’s Verna Bernbaum.

This naturally offends the ladies within the room at the time.

Check out who one of the ladies is…

Yep, it is Finney dressed as a woman (click here for a larger version of the image)

I don’t know WHY he did it, but it sure is hilarious (and I assume that this is all the reason needed – that it was a funny bit)!

The legend is…

STATUS: True

Feel free (heck, I implore you!) to write in with your suggestions for future installments! My e-mail address is bcronin@legendsrevealed.com.

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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: “Good Will Hunting” was originally an action thriller.

When it comes to films from original screenplays, it is sometimes shocking just how different the finished film looks from what was originally envisioned in the first draft of the screenplay. The Ghostbusters were originally time travelers, E.T. was originally a killer alien, “Snakes on a Plane” was originally a serious thriller, “Die Hard With a Vengeance” was once both “Lethal Weapon 4” and an original Brandon Lee starring vehicle!

That was the case for 1997’s “Good Will Hunting,” the smart and touching story about a math genius with a tortured past being forced to see a therapist and work through his many issues. Written by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, the film ended up becoming a major hit and won its young writers (who also starred in the film) the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.

However, amazingly enough, when Damon and Affleck first wrote the film, it was an action thriller! Read on to see how it all happened…
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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: Tom Hanks sang the theme song to Bosom Buddies.

Bosom Buddies was a sitcom that lasted for two seasons from 1980-1982 that starred Tom Hanks and Peter Scolari as two friends who pretended to be women so that they could live in a cheap apartment that was in a building only for women.

The theme song for the show (although not for the DVD release or syndication, as I suppose they just didn’t want to pay for the song rights) was Billy Joel’s “My Life,” only not sung by Billy Joel (too expensive). The singer of the song is not credited in the closing credits of the series.

Years ago, a reader wrote in to ask me whether it was true that the mystery singer was, in fact, Tom Hanks. It is normal enough for the star of a show to also do the theme song. On the popular website, TV Tropes, they wrote the following on their Bosom Buddies page, “Tom Hanks sang the theme song and the rest of the cast provided backing vocals,” so this is not just something that an unnamed reader thought (sorry for losing your name, reader, feel free to write in and I’ll add your name in!).

So is it 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.

MOVIE URBAN LEGEND: Fox made any theater that wanted to show the film The Other Side of Midnight agree to also show Star Wars.

As we have noted a few times over the years, like when George Lucas hired Alan Dean Foster to write a cheap sequel to Star Wars or when Lucas talked about how he was fine with killing Darth Vader because he didn’t think he was all that great of a character, in the time between the completion of the original Star Wars film and the release of the movie, there really was no way to know that the movie would be one of the most successful films of all-time.

The closer the film came to actually being released, it was more and more apparent that the film WOULD be successful, although no one knew just HOW popular it would become. However, that was long after they had to make their initial sales of the film to the theaters of the United States. When they did the initial sales of the movie, Fox did not know if they had a hit or not, so they actually made an unusual deal where they paired Star Wars with another film, a very different type of film called The Other Side of Midnight.
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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about music and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the movie urban legends featured so far.

MUSIC URBAN LEGEND: The rapper Pitbull got his stage name from his love of dogfighting.

On the Doug Loves Movies podcast, celebrity guests compete against each other in games based on movie trivia. Each guest competes on behalf of a member of the crowd who brings a sign with their name on it (typically in the form of a movie poster using a movie pun, like if your name was Parker, you could have a Jurassic Park sign with Parker instead of Park. Stuff like that). Each crowd member also writes the name of someone on the back of the poster. In the event that they lose, the host of the show, comedian Doug Benson, will call whoever they write on the back a “$#!thead.” It can be someone that just the crowd member knows or it can be a famous person. Whatever they like. It doesn’t even have to be a person. Anyhow, in a recent episode I was listening to the other day, one of the names was “Pitbull, who got his name from his love for dogfighting.” I had never heard that, and I wondered if it was true.

Pitbull, as you may or may not know, is a famous rapper from Miami who became famous in that city (calling himself “Mr. 305” after Miami’s area code) before becoming world famous (he know calls himself “Mr. Worldwide”).

So is the origin of his name true?
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