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This is the fourth in a series of examinations of legends from movies and the people who make them and whether they are true or false.

Click here to view an archive of the previous movie urban legends.

Let’s begin! Read the rest of this entry »

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Here are quick descriptions of each of the previous editions of Movie Urban Legends Revealed.

To see if they are true or false, you have to click on the link!

1. Ariel from the Little Mermaid was based on the facial features of Alyssa Milano.

2. George Reeves had a number of scenes cut out of From Here to Eternity because test audiences were too jarred at seeing TV’s Superman in the film.

3. J. Edgar Hoover had casting say over the film The FBI Story.

4. Tony Curtis said that kissing Marilyn Monroe was “like kissing Hitler.”

5. Kirk Cameron will not kiss any woman other than his wife, not even for an acting role.

6. The actor who played Alfalfa in the Little Rascals films is buried with a drawing of his dog from the films.

7. Nia Vardalos worked on the film Sorority Sluts 3.

8. Filming of Cheyenne Autumn was halted due to the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

9. In Singin’ in the Rain, there was a bizarre series of voice dubbings.

10. Vera Ellen neck had to be covered at all times in the film White Christmas because her neck was ravaged by the effects of anorexia.

11. Burt Reynolds turned down an Academy Award-winning acting role that was specifically written with him in mind so that he could do Stroker Ace.

12. People all across the United States were flooded with calls due to their number being shown in the film Bruce Almighty, including a church with a pastor named Bruce!!!

13. “As Time Goes By” would have been removed from Casablance had it not been for a haircut.

14. John Patrick Shanley has it written into his contract that no words in his screenplays can be changed.

15. Kevin Smith once picketed his own film.

16. W.C. Fields has an epitaph on his gravestone referring to Philadelphia.

17. An early film adaptation of Anna Karenina contained two versions of the ending, one happy and one sad.

18. Frank Sinatra kept the Manchurian Candidate under wraps for years in the wake of the Kennedy Assassination.

19. Elvis Presley’s first on-screen kiss became a Catholic nun a few years later.

20. Frances McDormand almost lost her role in Blood Simple because she had to watch a soap opera.

21. John Gilbert’s voice translated so poorly to “talkies” that his career was ruined.

22. Die Hard was a screen adaptation of the sequel of a book that also was adapted into a film.

23. Oliver Reed appeared in scenes in Gladiator filmed after the actor died.

24. The FBI felt that It’s a Wonderful Life was communist propaganda.

25. A scene had to be removed from the film The Program because teenagers were killed imitating it.

26. Fritz Lang changed the title of his film, M, because he thought it sounded better and not because of any fear of Nazi persecution.

27. Robert Towne’s original ending for Chinatown was about the complete opposite of the ending that Roman Polanski went with.

28. There was an alternate ending filmed for Raiders of the Lost Ark that was cut from all U.S. prints of the film for fear it would be offensive to U.S. film-goers.

29. Gone With The Wind used the line “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn” in violation of the Motion Picture Association Production Code.

30. William Wyler had a rather interesting excuse for not being there to accept his Best Director Academy Award in 1943.

31. A trained camel saved Peter O’Toole’s life on the set of Lawrence of Arabia.

32. The last words Walt Disney wrote before he died were “Kurt Russell”

33. Roger Moore was Ian Fleming’s first choice to portray James Bond on film.

34. Underage actors resulted in a number of interesting filming issues during Superbad.

35. Ten months after the release of Forrest Gump, the studio behind the film ostensibly were in the HOLE over $60 million on the film!

36. Beverly Hills Cop was written for Sylvester Stallone.

37. Universal Studios used to offer an incentive tied in with a joke from National Lampoon’s Animal House.

38. Ava Gardner made extremely disparaging comments about filming in Melbourne, Australia.

39. An actress took on the name of the character she was playing in a film.

40. The Jean-Claude Van Damme film Cyborg was originally going to be both the sequel to the Masters of the Universe film AND a Spider-Man film.

41. Army of Darkness featured a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle as a cameo/joke.

42. Steven Spielberg won a percentage of the profits of the original Star Wars film in a bet.

43. Don Ameche’s name used to be slang for “telephone.”

44. Jean Acker sued for the right to call herself “Mrs. Rudolph Valentino.”

45. There really a giant octopus in The Goonies.

46. John Wayne once took a George Stevens cue in a memorably pun-derful direction.

47. The dog Pal was acquired TWICE for sums that, in retrospect, seem to be quite astronomically low.

48. Die Hard With a Vengeance was originally written as Lethal Weapon 4

49. FedEx paid to have their products appear in the film Cast Away.

50. Tom Hanks’ acceptance speech at the Academy Awards inspired the movie In & Out.

51. An actor was almost denied appearing in the film Philadelphia because of his HIV status.

52. During work on Toy Story 2, the vast majority of the film was accidentally deleted due to a pair of computer errors.

53. The negative reaction to the death of Optimus Prime in the Transformers movie saved Duke from dying in the G.I. Joe movie.

54. The sequel to Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension was re-worked into the screenplay for Big Trouble in Little China.

55. Ray Bolger occasionally set himself on fire while on set during the filming of the Wizard of Oz.

56. Howard Hughes filmed an entirely different ending to Scarface (withOUT actor Paul Muni) to help appease censors.

57. Four million dollars worth of animation had to be redone on Shrek when Mike Myers decided to redo all of his dialogue on the film with a Scottish accent.

58. Marlon Brando made a “miraculous recovery” while preparing for his first motion picture role.

59. Shirley Williams almost got the lead in National Velvet!

60. A fictional character was nominated for a Best Screenplay Academy Award.

61. Leonard Nimoy requested that Spock be killed off if Nimoy was to play Spock again in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

62. Michael Bay apologized for the film Armageddon

63. A case of mistaken identity led to the inclusion of a number of Al Kapone songs on the soundtrack to Hustle and Flow.

64. Fast Times at Ridgemont High used the song “Kashmir” even though it did not fit into the script.

65. Carol Reed hired Anton Karas to do the soundtrack of The Third Man based on seeing him play at a bar in Vienna.

66. Michael Corleone avenged his wife’s murder in each of the first two Godfather films, but each time it was cut from the actual movie.

67. A Hard Day’s Night was filmed in black and white to save on costs.

68. A John Wayne anti-Communism film was dubbed in Europe and other places as an anti-drug film.

69. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory was essentially a film-length commercial for a new line of candy from Quaker Oats.

70. Mandy Patinkin’s character in Alien Nation was going to be named George Jetson but a rights issue spoiled the opportunity.

71. The Trayvon Martin case led to a Sci-Fi comedy film changing its title.

72. Bela Lugosi learned his lines for the film Dracula phonetically – he did not speak English at the time!

73. The car chase in The French Connection was done without any permits.

74. A dealer raising his price for professional wrestling footage led to the making of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer.

75. There is an X-Rated Director’s Cut of the film Scarface

76. House Party nearly starred DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince.

77. 20th Century Fox tried to work out a “trade” of Jean Harlow and Clark Gable so that Shirley Temple could star in MGM’s Wizard of Oz.

78. A dispute with Technicolor kept the MGM Wizard of Oz as the first instance of black and white turning to color at Dorothy’s arrival in Oz.

79. Victor Fleming had an…interesting method for getting Judy Garland to keep from laughing during the filming of a scene for the Wizard of Oz.

80. Marty McFly originally time-traveled in a refrigerator in Back to the Future.

81. Douglas Fairbanks and Charlie Chaplin had a memorable first meeting outside of a movie theater.

82. Carole Lombard’s death led to a notable edit in her last film.

83. James Cameron used a trickier method than trick camera work to have two Sarah Connors in a scene in Terminator 2.

84. Was Nightmare on Elm Street seriously inspired by the 1970s pop hit “Dream Weaver”?

85. Dimitri Tiomkin asked for and received the publication rights for “Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darlin’” for free!

86. Did famed Alien designer H.R. Giger really design a Batmobile for Batman Forever?

87. Stephen Spielberg directed his first work for a studio when he was 21 years old.

88. Bob Dylan co-wrote “The Ballad of Easy Rider.”

89. Nintendo owns the rights to Super Hornio Brothers, a porn parody of Super Mario Brothers.

90. The assistant in Frankenstein was named Igor.

91. Frank Capra had a Machiavellian way to get Claudette Colbert to show her legs in It Happened One Night.

92. Concern over toy sales kept Han Solo from being killed off in Return of the Jedi.

93. A typo led to the title of the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies.

94. Did Dracula (and vampires in general) not have vampire fangs in films until a Turkish film in the 1950s?

95. Theodor “Dr. Seuss” Geisel won two Academy Awards for Documentaries.

96. The University of Oregon agreed to let Animal House film at their college because their Dean of Students had earlier turned down The Graduate.

97. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial was originally going to be a horror film.

98. Gwyneth Paltrow had an interesting approach to a radio contest revolving around her.

99. Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. attended Harvard University.

100. More than 40 actors in Philadelphia died of AIDS within a few years of the film’s release.

101. The Wampa attack on Luke Skywalker in the beginning of The Empire Strikes Back was written to explain away Mark Hamill’s facial injuries he suffered in a car accident.

102. A scene of Jack Palance mounting a horse in Shane was a rewound shot of Palance dismounting the horse!

103. Sigourney Weaver actually making a trick shot ended up causing a bit of a scene during the filming of Alien Resurrection.

104. 20th Century Fox tried to hide the fact that Miracle on 34th Street was a Christmas film when the film was first released.

105. The plot of the film adaptation of The Big Sleep was so convoluted that not even the screenwriters fully understood the plot.

106. Walt Disney kept the actress who played Snow White under contract for years to keep her from ruining the illusion behind Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs by performing elsewhere.

107. James Dean not only was a “Stunt Tester” for Beat the Clock, but he was fired from the gig for an amusing reason.

108. David Mamet’s first work writing for films was in Garage Girls, Who Stole My Wheels?…and it was rejected!

109. Lalo Schifrin re-used his rejected score for The Exorcist for The Amityville Horror.

110. Mel Blanc, the voice of Bugs Bunny, was allergic to carrots.

111. Darth Vader was not originally Luke Skywalker’s father in The Empire Strikes Back.

112. Robin Williams vowed never to work for Disney again over a dispute over the size of the genie on the Aladdin movie poster.

113. Godzilla was originally going to be a giant octopus.

114. There was no secret decoder ring in A Christmas Story.

115. Black Widow very nearly had a movie before Iron Man and Thor.

116. Pretty in Pink originally ended with Andie and Duckie together.

117. The unrated and sexually explicit trailer for Nymphomaniac was accidentally shown to attendees of a showing of the children’s animated film, Frozen.

118. All of the timepieces in Pulp Fiction are set to 4:20.

119. ‘N Sync filmed appearances as Jedi knights in Star Wars: Attack of the Clones.

120. Universal Studios sued Nintendo over Donkey Kong infringing on their King Kong trademark.

121. Walt Disney used to not allow women to be trained as animators for his company.

122. An NFL team once drafted John Wayne when he was 63 years old.

123. A film that pushed a horse off of a cliff led to the film industry allowing the American Humane Association oversight over treatment of animals in films.

124. Star Wars was originally subtitled “Episode IV A NEW HOPE” as an homage to Flash Gordon cliffhangers and not because of any planned sequels

125. There was no “Episode IV A NEW HOPE” subtitle in the original Star Wars film because 20th Century Fox had it removed because it would be too confusing for moviegoers.

126. Dumbledore was originally going to be straight in the Harry Potter movies.

127. The song “Let it Go” in Frozen saved Elsa from being a villain.

128. Robin Williams ad-libbed so much of Aladdin that the movie was rejected for a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.

129. Edward Bennett Williams turned down 10% of the production company that made box office smashes Vera Cruz and Marty.

130. George Lucas added a scene involving a severed arm to assure that Star Wars would be rated PG rather than G.

131. Harrison Ford accidentally auditioned for the role of Han Solo in Star Wars.

132. Joss Whedon cast one of the leads in his film Much Ado About Nothing based on just a single scene in The Avengers where she was an extra.

133. The mask used in Scream was discovered in an abandoned house during location scouting for the film.

134. Kevin Smith wrote a decoy screenplay for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.

135. The film Major League originally had a dramatic twist at the end involving the team’s owner.

136. Superman Returns used CGI to reduce the size of Brandon Routh’s crotch while he was wearing his Superman costume.

Ta da!

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Here are quick descriptions of each of the previous editions of Music Urban Legends Revealed.

To see if they are true or false, you have to click on the link!

1. – Harry Nillson’s coffin was lost during an earthquake

2. A Frank Zappa album was given a Parental Advisory sticker…even though the album was completely instrumental!

3. Bob Dylan had to re-record a song due to worries about slander/libel.

4. A musician was sued for infringing on the copyright of a silent song.

5. Graham Nash once wrote a hit song on a limo ride on the way to the airport on a dare from the driver.

6. “Softly as I Leave You” was written by a dying man as his wife slept at his bed side.

7. Kiss got into trouble for the Kiss logo appearing to contain the logo for the Nazi S.S.

8. A musician used morse code to express his displeasure with his record company.

9. Polka was created in Poland.

10. A misheard lyric led to the title of the song “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida”

11. George Michael’s “Father Figure” accidentally became a slow tempo song.

12. “Mr. Bojangles” is about the famous dancer Mr. Bojangles.

13. The Rolling Stones were performing “Sympathy for the Devil” when a crowd member was killed at the Altamont Free Concert.

14. The song “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” was inspired by the film “Roman Holiday.”

15. The Temptations’ “Papa Was a Rolling Stone” won a Grammy for Best R&B Instrumental!

16. Michael Jackson’s song “Dirty Diana” was about Diana Ross and/or Princess Diana

17. An American poster company airbrushed a cigarette from a poster of the Beatles’ Abbey Road.

18. Bob Dylan had an amusing response to The Byrds changing the lyrics to one of his songs.

19. The Lovin’ Spoonful got their name from a slang term for heroin?

20. The Lovin’ Spoonful got their name from a slang term for male ejaculate?

21. The Lovin’ Spoonful were the original choice for the TV series that eventually became the Monkees.

22. Pearl Jam was named after a peyote concoction that Eddie Vedder’s great-grandmother Pearl used to make.

23. The Green Day song “Stuck with Me” got its name by someone in the studio switching the labels on two songs.

24. Alvin and the Chipmunks made a comeback in 1980 based on a joke by a New York disc jockey

25. The Rolling Stones’ song “Wild Horses” is based on something Marianne Faithfull said after almost overdosing.

26. Paul McCartney once used a pseudonym for a song to see if he could write a hit song without using the fame from his name.

27. Petula Clark went to extreme great lengths to keep a scene between Harry Belafonte and herself in a TV special she made in 1968.

28. Stephen Sondheim’s “Marry Me A Little” was first recorded by Harry Nilsson…as a Christmas present!

29. Jon Bon Jovi’s first professional song recording was for a Star Wars Christmas Album.

30. The CEO of Montgomery Ward returned the rights to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer to his creator for free.

31. Van Morrison was pressured to change his song “Brown Skinned Girl” to “Brown Eyed Girl.”

32. The BBC originally banned the playing of the Who’s “My Generation” because it was offensive…to stutterers!

33. Lou Reed was given some striking early advice from the legendary American poet and author, Delmore Schwartz.

34. Carly Simon auctioned off the identity of who “You’re So Vain” was about for $50,000!

35. Bob Holness played saxophone on Gerry Rafferty’s hit, “Baker Street.”

36. Maya Rudolph is referenced by name in the song “Loving You.”

37. A misheard word due to the accent of Tom Petty’s wife led to the Stevie Nicks’ song “Edge of Seventeen.”

38. Morey Amsterdam wrote the song “Rum and Coca Cola.”

39. A singer once had a Top 40 song with 28 variations of the song depending on where the song was released!

40. Igor Stravinsky was arrested for adding a chord to the U.S. National Anthem.

41. Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring caused a riot upon its first performance.

42. Igor Stravinsky had a particularly cutting telegram retort to a request to have his worked altered by another musician.

43. The band behind “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye” did not really exist.

44. The Beatles used flag semaphore to spell out “help” on the cover of their album, Help!

45. During the Civil War, the Star-Spangled Banner had an extra verse written by Oliver Wendell Holmes!

46. William Zanzinger murdered Hattie Carroll by beating her to death with a cane.

47. Both the trees in Joshua Tree AND “One Tree Hill” have since died!

48. Kris Kristofferson used a highly dramatic method of getting Johnny Cash to pay attention to his demo tapes.

49. Marvin Gaye tried out for the Detroit Lions.

50. Frank Sinatra had to conduct an odd race against time to record “Strangers in the Night.”

51. The head of Madness’ record company bet his company that “It Must Be Love” would be a hit.

52. Billy Idol wrote “White Wedding” as a put down towards his sister.

53. Salman Rushdie secretly lived in Bono’s guest house in Ireland for four years.

54. Elton John wrote a song for a sports team that was gone before the song was even released.

55.Joe Walsh sneaked hidden messages via Morse Code into a couple of his songs.

56. The violinist for Bob Dylan’s album, Desire (as well as the accompanying tour), was hired off of the street.

57. The film A Hard Day’s Night originally was made just so United Artists’ music company could get around Capitol Records’ exclusive rights to put out Beatles music in the United States.

58. The lyrics to “Every Breath You Take” are taken from an actual stalker’s letters.

59. Delbert McClinton taught John Lennon how to play the harmonica.

60. The original recording of Jimi Hendrix on Happening With Lulu was saved by being hidden on an old tape by a BBC engineer.

61. The Cure put a disclaimer sticker on their singles compilation album, Standing on a Beach, to make sure people did not misinterpret the meaning of one of their songs.

62. “We’ve Only Just Begun” was originally a song for a bank commercial.

63. Ricky Valance named himself after Richie Valens.

64. A non band member sang “Incense and Peppermints” because no one in the band wanted to.

65. Pat Boone recorded Fats Domino’s “Ain’t That a Shame” but changed the song to the grammatically correct “Isn’t That a Shame.”

66. “Hang On Sloopy” is the Official Rock Song of the State of Ohio.

67. Cher’s first single was a novelty song about Ringo Starr.

68. ti-result-in-the-song-being-sanitized/”>Pat Boone’s recording of Little Richard’s “Tutti Frutti” resulted in the lyrics being sanitized.

69. Bob Dylan lifted a number of lines from a Japanese novel for songs on his album “Love and Theft.”

70. Clem Snide’s “Moment in the Sun” is a parody of Jewel.

71. The song “Laura” is from the soundtrack of the film “Laura.”

72. Alice Cooper’s title track for the film Man with the Golden Gun was rejected by the film’s producers.

73. “Unchained Melody” was actually the melody to the film Unchained!

74. “Danger Zone” was originally going to be a Toto song!

75. Barry Manilow wrote “Mandy” about his dog.

76. Giorgio Moroder wrote “Danger Zone” and “Take My Breath Away” with his former mechanic.

77. Old Crow Medicine Show co-wrote a song with Bob Dylan, working nearly thirty years apart!

78. Tom Lehrer quit writing protest songs because Henry Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize.

79. The BBC forced a change to the song “The Cover of Rolling Stone” for it to be played in England.

80. An interesting confluence of events had to occur on the road to “Whatever Will Be, Will Be (Que Sera, Sera)” winning an Academy Award for Best Original Song (including a title change).

81. David Bowie adapted the song Paul Anka used to write “My Way” before Anka!

82. “December, 1963 (Oh What a Night)” was originally about the repeal of Prohibition.

83. Kanye West wrote “Gold Digger” after seeing Jamie Foxx play Ray Charles in “Ray.”

84. The Crystals’ “He’s a Rebel” was not performed by The Crystals

85. Paul Anka got the publisher’s rights to “My Way” for free.

86. Angus Young was still a teenager when AC/DC signed their first record contract.

87. AC/DC was named after a slang term for bisexuality or a sly satanic reference.

88. The Rolling Stones almost did not release “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” because Keith Richards felt that the famous riff sounded too similar to another song.

89. Doublemint gum adapted Chris Brown’s “Forever” into a gum commercial.

90. The cereal Wheaties was saved from termination by a radio jingle.

91. The famous “I wonder, wonder who, who-oo-ooh, who” part of the Monotones’ “Book of Love” was inspired by a Pepsodent commercial!

92. Filter’s “Hey Man, Nice Shot” was about the real life suicide of Kurt Cobain.

93. Stone Temple Pliots took their band name from an attempt to keep the same initials as their earlier, extremely “unsafe for radio” band name.

94. Cher was one of the fake Crystals on the hit song “He’s a Rebel.”

95. The hit song “The Poor People of Paris” got its name through a mistaken translation.

96. Toto’s “Rosanna” was about Rosanna Arquette.

97. A song was re-named years after it first came out because it was used in a clip package for an Olympic athlete.

98. Jack Lawrence wrote a song for a one-year-old little girl who grew up to marry Paul McCartney.

99. “Windy” was originally written about the hippie boyfriend of the songwriter, with the lyrics re-written by The Association to be about a woman.

100. Not only did C + C Music Factory use a different singer to lip sync to the music sung by another singer for the music video AND some live performances of their hit song “Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now),” they did not even CREDIT the actual singer on the song!

101. Before becoming a judge on American Idol, Kara DioGuardi was part of a musical hoax along with Dave Stewart.

102. The song “Let it Go” in Frozen saved Elsa from being a villain.

103. Before saying goodbye for the last time before Buddy Holly died in a plane crash, Waylon Jennings told Holly that he hoped his plane crashes.

104. Simon Cowell or American Idol’s parent company owns the publishing rights to Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah”

105. Outkast was sued by Rosa Parks for a song named after her.

106. Due to a marquee missing a “D,” the Food Fighters became the Foo Fighters.

107. 50 Cent was sued over the use of the term “it’s your birthday” in “In Da Club.”

108. The song “Mony Mony” was named after the bank Mutual of New York.

109. The Red Sox began playing “Sweet Caroline” in honor of a Red Sox employee who named her newborn daughter “Caroline” in 1998

Ta da!

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Here are quick descriptions of each of the previous editions of TV Urban Legends Revealed.

To see if they are true or false, you have to click on the link! The legends are in chronological order, so the most recent ones are at the end of the list!

1. Cheers was a fire hazard.

2. Empty Nest was a spin-off of The Golden Girls without actually spinning off any characters from the Golden Girls.

3. There were no black people in Mayberry.

4. Spike Milligan wore a shirt that said “Hashish” on it when he was on the Muppet Show.

5. One of TV’s Friends had a painting in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

6. One of the stunt shots in the beginning of the Fall Guy was not even done by a stuntman.

7. Aaron Spelling paid Luke Perry’s salary himself for the first two seasons of 90210.

8. A British candid hidden camera show accidentally aired a man masturbating to a porno tape in his house live.

9. Janitor was written in the first season and a half of Scrubs as though he was a figment of J.D.’s imagination.

10. Warner Bros. sued a company over the rights to the term “Daisy Dukes.”

11. The Simpsons edited a scene from re-airings of an episode because the original episode was offensive to those with Tourette’s Snydrome

12. RTE turned down Father Ted because of a similar show already airing on RTE.

13. Good Times was not originally a spin-off of Maude.

14. Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz divorced twice.

15. An actor was fired from a TV movie where he played John Lennon because it was revealed that his name was Mark Chapman.

16. Clay Aiken learned of the results of American Idol Season 2 before they were revealed.

17. When Season 8 went to a Final 13 instead of a Final 12, that caused trouble due to a porn company owning all American Idol phone numbers beyond #1-12.

18. In Season 5, American Idol skipped Austin, Texas and just pretended that auditions in other cities were their Austin auditions.

19. A sketch written for a 1975 episode of Saturday Night Live ended up being used fourteen years later on the show.

20. Allen Funt produced an adult version of Candid Camera called Candid Candid Camera.

21. At the end of the George Burns and Gracie Allen Show, Burns would say “Say Goodnight, Gracie” and Allen would follow with, “Goodnight, Gracie.”

22. Officers Renko and Hill were intended to be killed off at the end of the first episode of Hill Street Blues

23. A Hill Street Blues episode was actually re-shot after airing to show a character who was killed surviving his attack so that they could bring him back.

24. An impostor came up on to the stage to accept Betty Thomas’ Emmy for her in 1985.

25. All My Children cut a storyline short in the middle of it because of the Oklahoma City bombing.

26. The police liaison to Dragnet ended up taking Lieutenant Joe Friday’s badge number when he made Lieutenant.

27. The Beverley Hillbillies’ original theme song included two alternate verses (each one about their sponsor)!

28. The Flintstones did commercials for Winston Cigarettes.

29. A Charlie Brown Christmas originally had an extra scene featuring its original sponsor.

30. The TV series Caprica was originally pitched NOT as a Battlestar Galactica tie-in!

31. A major character on Dark Shadows came into existence due to a typo!

32. Arnold Vinick was originally going to win the election until John Spencer died, and the producers decided they did not want Matt Santos to lose his running mate AND the election.

33. A perceived slight at an awards ceremony after Season 1 of the West Wing set off a chain of events that ended up with a plotline in a Season 3 episode.

34. The actor who played Eddie Haskel went into adult films (sometimes the legend is more specific and it is that the actor who played Eddie Haskel changed his name to John Holmes and started doing adult films)

35. The actress who played Judy on Family Matters went into adult films.

36. Cookie Monster was originally created as the “Wheel-Stealer” for a cheese snack commercial.

37. 60 Minutes gained its famous time slot due to an FCC regulation.

38. Jay Thomas’s character on Cheers was killed off because he called Rhea Perlman ugly.

39. Congressman Matt Santos was based on Barack Obama.

40. Barry Williams dated his TV mother, Florence Henderson.

41. An episode of How I Met Your Mother contained an genuine wedding proposal!

42. James Michael Tyler’s ability to work a cappuccino machine got him a decade-long acting gig.

43. Rebecca Schaeffer’s murder led to the cancellation of My Sister Sam.

44. Ernie Hudson auditioned for the role of Winston on the Real Ghostbusters animated series and did not get the job.

45. The Mafia ordered a hit on Desi Arnaz for his role as the producer of The Untouchables

46. When the series was first conceived, Remington Steele was not going to exist…for real!

47. Johnny Carson accidentally caused a toilet paper shortage in 1973.

48. 77 Sunset Strip was released in theaters specifically to take away rights from the show’s creator.

49. Edd Byrnes appeared on the pilot of 77 Sunset Strip as a totally different, and evil, character than Kookie.

50. NBC’s “Must See TV” was created for its Thursday night sitcom lineup.

51. Martin Luther King Jr. kept Nichelle Nichols from leaving Star Trek after the first season of the show.

52. Baretta was originally intended as a continuation of a previous series.

53. Wheel of Fortune’s Vanna White won a lawsuit over a commercial featuring a robot with a blond wig turning letters.

54. Joanna Kerns and Sandra Kerns are sisters (in the alternative, they are related)

55. The first two Emmy Awards for Best Lead Actor in a Drama Series went to Robert Young for Father Knows Best.

56. The BBC bought the trademark to blue police boxes from the Metropolitan Police.

57. Julie Newmar once had a particularly cutting response to a crude remark by Michael Dunn.

58. Larry David had scenes from an earlier episode of Seinfeld re-shot so that Jerry Stiller could play the role of Frank Costanza in all of the Frank Costanza appearances.

59. The last episode of Ellery Queen aired as an episode of Murder…She Wrote!

60. Seaquest correctly predicted the Florida Marlins’ 2003 World Series victory.

61. Krusty the Clown was originally going to be Homer Simpson in disguise.

62. Kirstie Alley once had a publicist provide mother’s milk for Alley’s pet opossum.

63. Harrison Page was nominated for a Best Lead Actor Emmy Award for…Quantum Leap?!?

64. Dr. McCoy’s medical instruments on Star Trek were really just fancy salt shakers.

65. MTV canceled the TV series Fear because a contestant was killed during filming of an episode.

66. An episode of Quantum Leap correctly predicted that the Pittsburgh Steelers would play in Super Bowl XXX.

67. Mister Ed was made to talk through the use of peanut butter on his lips (in the alternative, through tiny electric shocks).

68. Star Trek once got John Drew Barrymore suspended from the Screen Actors Guild!

69. Sammy Davis Jr. did not do the theme song for Baretta at first for a slightly out of the ordinary reason.

70. There are aliens hidden in every episode of South Park.

71. Julie Newmar, Catwoman on the Batman TV series, received a federal patent on a special type of pantyhouse that accentuates a woman’s ass.

72. Omar was going to be killed off during Season 1 of The Wire.

73. Doris Roberts hid a back injury so that she could be cast on Remington Steele.

74. Every Saturday Night Live sketch set backstage since Seth Meyers became the head writer of the shows features a llama, a showgirl and Abraham Lincoln.

75. Dan Haggerty lost his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame because of a well-publicized drug bust.

76. X-Files and Picket Fences almost had a crossover episode until the network squashed it at the last minute.

77. Tom Selleck could have filmed Raiders of the Lost Ark AND done Magnum P.I.

78. Dolly Parton produced Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

79. An actor’s refusal to take of his wedding ring caused creative filming during the run of the TV series Hogan’s Heroes.

80. Life Goes On changed their opening credits for the series finale to give some justice to their dog.

81. There is a special R-rated version of Dexter’s Labratory called “Dexter’s Rude Removal.”

82. When Phylicia Rashād was cast as Clair Huxtable on The Cosby Show, the intent was for her to be a female version of Ricky Ricardo.

83. Ron Howard was hired for Happy Days based on his performance in American Graffiti.

84. There was an unaired episode of the Simpsons where Bart dies.

85. Lawrence Welk played “One Toke Over the Line” on his TV show.

86. Ken Osmond (Eddie Haskell from Leave it to Beaver) grew up to be the rock singer Alice Cooper.

87. John Charles Daly resigned from ABC News because of ABC’s rather…odd coverage of Election Night in 1960.

88. An episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation was never filmed because it featured two gay crew members on the Enterprise.

89. Scooby Doo was based on The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.

90. Michael J. Fox had a clever “revenge” for Brandon Tartikoff’s early doubts about whether Fox would be popular enough to star in a regular TV series.

91. Joe Penny forced Jake and the Fatman to move filming from Hawaii to Los Angeles because of his health problems.

92. When she was a little girl, Crystal Bernard was part of an Evangelical Christian singing act with her older sister.

93. Denise Crosby was fired from Star Trek: The Next Generation because she posed nude in Playboy.

94. Bill Cosby tried to purchase the rights to the Amos and Andy TV series to keep it off the air.

95. Masi Oka appeared on the cover of Time Magazine as a kid!

96. A short-lived Matthew Perry sitcom from the 1980s correctly predicted the year that Muammar Gaddafi would be killed.

97. The staff of The Simpsons got a measure of revenge on Justin Timberlake after he took issue with the dialogue that they wrote for him for a guest appearance.

98. Wacky Races was originally going to be a live action game show.

99. Mumbly was created as a stand-in for Muttley in the Laff-A-lympics.

100. Muttley and Dick Dastardly were removed whole cloth from one show and added to another.

101. Sheldon Cooper on The Big Bang Theory originally had a typical sexual appetite.

102. Studebaker came up with an interesting way to sponsor Mister Ed.

103. Larry David based the “George quitting his job and then coming back to work on Monday pretending not to have quit” on a real life experience he had while working at Saturday Night Live.

104. The Misfit Toys were never saved in the original airing of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

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

106. A character on Seinfeld was named after a Producer of Smallville.

107. Charles Schulz owning a Ford indirectly led to A Charlie Brown Christmas.

108. Star Trek: The Next Generation used Sherlock Holmes characters in an episode not knowing that the characters were not yet in the public domain.

109. A TV series continued production even after one of the two leads on the show killed himself.

110. Dick Gregory received almost 50,000 votes in the 1968 Presidential Election.

111. The Golden Girls spun out of a joke at an NBC function introducing the 1984-85 NBC lineup.

112. First Lady Barbara Bush wrote an apology letter to Marge Simpson.

113. Lost in Space coined the term “Does Not Compute”

114. Robert Downey Jr. was written out of his character’s wedding episode on Ally McBeal.

115. There was at least one back-up Mother in the show How I Met Your Mother.

116. Michael Jackson didn’t actually do any singing in his guest appearance on The Simpsons.

117. The first interracial kiss on a TV drama was originally going to be between Mr. Spock and Lt. Uhura.

118. Johnny Carson wouldn’t guest star on The Simpsons if they made fun of him.

119. Michael Landon had the set for Little House on the Prairie destroyed so that no one other shows could re-use the set and that there could be no future reunions for the show.

120. Oprah Winfrey got her name via a typo on her birth certificate.

121. The Da Vinci Code was nearly adapted for the third season of 24.

122. The state of Mississippi once banned Sesame Street

123. B.A. Baracus never actually said “I pity the fool” on The A-Team.

124. Robert Young once made a particularly dark “episode” of Father Knows Best to help sell U.S. savings bonds.

125. Kiefer Sutherland added lines to episodes of 24 just to mess with fans playing 24-based drinking games.

126. James Arness is the tallest person ever to be the lead in a television series in the United States.

127. Sarah Michelle Gellar was banned for life from eating at McDonald’s.

128. Miami Vice originated as a two-word brainstorming memo – “MTV Cops.”

129. Laverne Cox is the first openly transgender person to be nominated for an Emmy Award.

130. The Cagney from the first season of Cagney and Lacey was replaced because CBS executives felt that the show seemed like it was about a pair of lesbians.

131. Ellen Burstyn was nominated for an Emmy Award for an appearance that lasted fourteen seconds.

132. In The Simpsons contest “Who Shot Mr. Burns?,” no one guessed the correct answer.

133. Danielle Fishel was originally cast in another non-Topanga role in Boy Meets World.

134. Originally Cartman from South Park had both a father and a sister.

135. How I Met Your Mother worked an insult of the show by Jason Segel into the series.

136. Barack Obama personally squelched a Saturday Night Live sketch

137. Walter O’Brien has the fourth-highest IQ ever recorded.

138. Gabrielle Reece was cast as the She-Hulk in a failed She-Hulk TV pilot

139. The Apartment Building in 227 was the same one used on Sesame Street

140. Ray Palmer on Arrow was originally going to be Ted Kord, the Blue Beetle

141. Perry White was nearly played by James Earl Jones on Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman

142. The Big Bang Theory Originated the Term “Bazinga”

143. A Glee Plot involving a boy not being allowed to sing a “girl” song was drawn From Chris Colfer’s life

144. A TV writer once got a parking spot for his pseudonym

145. Spock originally was going to have red skin on Star Trek

146. Paul McCartney had a hidden message in an episode of The Simpsons

147. A Surprising character on Friends was originally going to have a kid

148. There was an odd secret behind Little House on the Prairie’s “Baby Battering Ram”

149. An actor was hired and fired as a Bonanza cast member all in one episode

150. All in the Family become Archie Bunker’s Place after Jean Stapleton left the show

151. The Simpsons’ famous opening credits were created to save on animation time

152. Family Guy was originally going to just be a segment on MadTV

153. Lily Aldrin on How I Met Your Mother had a strange origin involving the wife of one of the show’s creators

154. A nude stripper appeared on Soupy Sales’ kids show

155. A character’s NAME on ER saved the character’s life

156. South Park was not allowed to kill off Sally Struthers

157. Waylon Smithers was originally going to be black and married with a wife and kids

158. The Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer TV Special was written without access to the original Rudolph Picture Book

159. South Park was originally going to be a big parody of The X-Files

160. A famous TV director got his start on Buck Rogers as a protest over the show’s cancellation

161. A longtime How I Met Your Mother Mystery was almost revealed on the show’s final season

162. Lisa Kudrow was a virgin until she got married

163. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia subtly revealed the name of the waitress in an episode

164. Darkwing Duck is coming back to television in 2018

165. Bruce Willis only guest-starred on Friends because he lost a bet to Matthew Perry

166. Two 1980s teen stars had to turn down Breaking Bad before Bryan Cranston had his shot

167. Treehouse of Horror V was intentionally extra violent over complaints about the series’ use of violence

168. Sally Jessy Raphael kept wearing her trademark eyeglasses even after getting corrective eye surgery

169. The Brady Bunch’s dog was replaced mid-episode because their original dog was killed

170. How I Met Your Mother created an actual Canadian Sex Acts website

171. The host of Family Feud married one of the contestants

172. TaleSpin was sued over the voice of King Louie

173. “One Shining Moment” was almost a football song

174. A Survivor of the bombing of Hiroshima met one of the men who dropped the bomb on a reality TV show

Ta da!

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Here are quick descriptions of each of the previous editions of Dancing Urban Legends Revealed.

To see if they are true or false, you have to click on the link!

1. Ron Cunningham had a rather painful introduction to the world of ballet.

2. Gelsey Kirkland made herself intentionally sick so that she would not be able to do the film The Turning Point.

3. Marie Taglioni was the first ballet dancer to dance en pointe.

4. Fred Astaire’s will stipulates that he never be portrayed in a film.

5. Jim Thorpe was a champion ballroom dancer.

6. Cyd Charisse’s legs were insured for a million bucks each.

7. George Bernard Shaw had a particularly witty rebuke to a comment by Isadora Duncan.

8. Unexpected acceptances by two major rock bands led to Merce Cunningham developing a brand new dance routine.

9. Famed dance critic Louis Horst gave a unique and stinging review to an early dance of famed choreographer Paul Taylor

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Here are quick descriptions of each of the previous editions of Architecture Urban Legends Revealed.

To see if they are true or false, you have to click on the link!

1. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial was originally designed as a school project at Yale!

2. Architects William Van Alen and H. Craig Severance engaged in a cloak and dagger race to see whose skyscraper would be the tallest in the world.

3. The campus at the University at Albany in New York was originally designed to be used in Arizona.

4. There is a law in Washington D.C. that states that no building be as tall as the Washington Monument.

5. A California woman had a house constructed entirely out of a recycled Boeing 747 airplane!

6. Frank Lloyd Wright used massive amount of college student urine to treat the copper in his buildings at Florida Southern College.

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Here are quick descriptions of each of the previous editions of Magazine Urban Legends Revealed.

To see if they are true or false, you have to click on the link!

1. Time magazine intentionally placed “devil horns” on Billy Graham and/or Bill Clinton as some sort of commentary.

2. TV Guide once put Oprah Winfrey’s head on Ann-Margaret’s body for a cover.

3. A Playboy centerfold is the standard test image for image processing algorithms.

4. A series of photos of the Normandy landing during D-Day by famed war photographer Robert Capa for Life Magazine were blurry because Capa’s hands were shaking as he took the shots.

5. A British magazine introduced into the modern lexicon not only the actual word “magazine,” but also the word “Columbia” to describe America and the slogan “E pluribus unum.”

6. Men’s Fitness gave Andy Roddick someone else’s biceps for the cover of the magazine.

7. Gerald Ford was a male model who appeared on the cover of Cosmopolitan.

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Here are quick descriptions of each of the previous editions of Novel Urban Legends Revealed.

To see if they are true or false, you have to click on the link!

1. Miguel de Cervantes wrote Don Quixote while in prison.

2. Pamela began originally as basically a self-help book.

3. Robert B. Parker created a popular series of novels just so an actress could have a good role – a role she never ended up playing.

4. The taser was invented based on a device in a Tom Swift novel (the taser was actually named AFTER the novel)

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

6. The Brontë sisters were forbidden by the their father from eating meat.

7. Charles Dickens was paid by the word.

8. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) aided Boris Pasternak’s Nobel Prize chances in 1958 for his novel Doctor Zhivago.

9. Graham Greene came in second in a contest to parody Graham Greene’s writing style.

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Here are quick descriptions of each of the previous editions of Musical Urban Legends Revealed.

To see if they are true or false, you have to click on the link!

1. The Kennedys being referred to as “Camelot” came about directly because of the musical Camelot.

2. Rodgers and Hammerstein’s song “Edelweiss” is based on an Austrian folk song.

3. Cole Porter worked on song lyrics while lying crushed underneath a horse.

4. Andrew Lloyd Webber had a hit dance single on the British charts in 1992 with a song about Tetris (featuring music from the video game).

5. Into the Woods was almost made into a film by Jim Henson Productions.

6. Paul Robeson originated the role of Joe (and as a result, first sang the song “Old Man River”) in Show Boat.

7. Richard Rodgers would not let the melody of “Edelweiss” be used for religious hymns.