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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends related to board games and whether they are true or false. Click here for an archive of all board game urban legends so far.

BOARD GAME URBAN LEGEND: The board game Operation was sold for just $500.

For over fifty years, fans of all ages have enjoyed the board game Operation, in which players have to test their precision skills by trying to lift items from small holes in a board (the board is of a man and the items are in parts of his body, like removing an apple from where his Adam’s apple would be – stuff like that) using a metal tweezers. If the tweezers hit the metal sides of the holes, then an electrical current is connected and a buzzer goes off and the patient’s nose lights up.

As the story goes, the whole rights to the game were sold for $500 and a job – and only one of those two things ever actually happened!

Is it true?
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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: Inara on Firefly had a syringe that was originally going to tie into a very dark rape plot on the series.

Very often, what TV shows have originally planned for their characters does not necessarily end up being what happens on the screen. Sometimes plots go off in different directions on their own and sometimes outside forces step in. Ally McBeal was about to get married until her would-be husband was abruptly written off the show due to Robert Downey Jr. getting arrested again over drugs. The West Wing writers were close to having Arnold Vinick win the Presidency before the death of John Spencer solidified the show’s original plan to have Matt Santos win the job. All My Children had a bomb storyline that had to be cut short due to the Oklahoma City bombing. So there’s all sorts of reasons why planned plots do not actually become reality. Sometimes, though, it is more natural reason, like the show simply deciding to go in a different direction. That was the case on Joss Whedon’s classic TV series, Firefly, which had a very dark storyline planned for Inara (Morena Baccarin) that never came to fruition.

Read on to see what Whedon originally had planned.
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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/TV URBAN LEGEND: MGM gave up the rights to Lassie in exchange for not paying $40,000 in back pay to owner/trainer Rudd Weatherwax.

(NOTE: This is also pretty much a TV Legend, as well, so I’ll include it in both archives)

Rudd Weatherwax and his brother Frank trained the dog Pal who starred in the hit 1943 film, Lassie Come Home (co-starring a young Roddy McDowell), which was adapted from the Eric Knight novel of the same name.

The movie was popular enough to spin off a series of sequels, including, among others, one film featuring a young Elizabeth Taylor…

In 1951, the film series was dried up and MGM was looking for a way to get out of their contract with Weatherwax. They still owed him another $40,000, which certainly was not chump change in 1951. What they decided to do next changed, well, Lassie’s history, at least, forever.
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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: Radar O’Reilly’s left hand was never shown on M.A.S.H.

One of the few actors to star in both the film M.A.S.H. and the TV series M.A.S.H….

Gary Burghoff, otherwise known as Radar O’Reilly, the innocent supply clerk for the M.A.S.H. unit (not like the surgeons, who would do all sorts of crazy stuff, like have a casino in their tent), is one of the actors most associated with M.A.S.H. (perhaps only Jamie Farr and Alan Alda are more associated with the series than Burghoff).

Look again at the picture above. Notice anything? In the photo, Burghoff is hiding his left hand. This is because Burghoff was born with a misshapen left hand. Reader Eric P. wrote in to ask if it was true that Burghoff’s left hand was never seen on the series.
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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: There was nearly a love triangle between Peter Parker, Mary Jane Watson and DOCTOR OCTOPUS in Spider-Man 2.

When it comes to major motion pictures, there are often a surprising amount of screenwriters involved in the writing of each film. There are complicated and often draconian systems in place to see who actually gets credited for the final film. Movies can have a dozen screenwriters but only have one or two actually credited when the film is released. As you might imagine, then, that leads to drastically different stories for films based on who was writing the story. In one draft of Empire Strikes Back, Luke had a whole other sister! In one draft of the Green Lantern film, Superman was going to get a chance at a Green Lantern ring! In one draft of Batman Returns, the villainous Max Schreck was the Penguin’s long-lost brother!

This system of drafts led to an interesting period when Doctor Octopus in Spider-Man 2 was going to be part of a love triangle between Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson!

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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: Marge Simpson’s hair hides two rabbit ears.

Something that we’ve dealt with repeatedly in this column is the fact that very often, major decisions about movies and television shows aren’t made until pretty much the final moment. In the world of animation, sometimes it seems like it is even longer than that, since you’re not dealing with real life actors, so changes can be made much further along in the process (as you don’t have to worry about casting). Over the years, we’ve learned how Homer Simpson and Krusty the Clown were originally going to be one and the same, that Eric Cartman was originally going to have a father and a sister and that Waylon Smithers was going to be married with kids. In the case of Cartman and Smithers, the changes were made as a result of scenes getting cut out of early episodes that would have established those facts and when it came time to rethink them, the show’s creators thought otherwise. In the case of Homer and Krusty the Clown, that was more a case of Simpsons creator Matt Groening throwing out a ton of ideas early on, not all of them were feasible.

It’s that latter type of idea that we’re talking about today, in response to reader Joe B.’s request that we address something that has been puzzling him for a long time – does Marge Simpsons’ long blue hair hide a pair of rabbit ears?

Let’s find out!
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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: Josie and the Pussycats did not receive any money for the excessive product placement within the film.

Josie and the Pussycats was a film adaptation of the Archie comic book series (and animated series) of the same name that came out in 2001, starring Rachael Leigh Cook, Tara Reid and Rosario Dawson as Josie and the Pussycats, respectively.

The film was famous at the time (or infamous?) for its constant use of product placement within the film.

A few of my friends were discussing the movie recently on Facebook, and my buddy Mark noted:

Interestingly, the “product placements” were part of the satire, and according to the commentary, they weren’t actually product placements because they didn’t receive a dime from them. They just figured that using real world products would have a bigger impact than if it was fake products. Or at least that’s how I remember it from watching the commentary 15 years ago. Hey Brian Cronin, would that be a good Entertainment Legends Revealed? Did the movie Josie and the Pussycats actually get money from all the product placement?

Let’s find out!
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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 Fear Factor never aired because a contestant died during the filming.

One of the most common questions that I get answered involves the popular reality series, Fear Factor, which aired on NBC for six seasons between 2001 and 2006 (plus a short-lived revival from 2011-2012).

The show, hosted by Joe Rogan, involved contestants competing with one another in a series of stunts that were either physically taxing or psychologically taxing. Like, for instance, seeing how long contestants can remain in a cylinder filled with snakes…

Now, some of the action-oriented stunts, like the Sky See Saw, could look pretty darn dangerous…

Obviously, everyone is decked out in advanced safety harnesses, but it is not like those things have never gone wrong. People die on “safe” amusement park rides every once in a while, as well. So what people keep asking me is whether a contestant ever died competing on Fear Factor (people also wanted to know the same thing about MTV’s reality series, Fear). A couple of people asked if that was why the show was canceled the first time around.

Read on for the answer!
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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: Supergirl was originally going to be Superman’s love interest in Superman III.

As we have seen a number of times over the years, the original pitches for movies sometimes don’t end up matching the finished film. The Ghostbusters didn’t end up traveling through time and space, Marty McFly didn’t travel back to the future in a refrigerator and Elsa didn’t end up as the main villain of Disney’s Frozen. Those changes, though, pale in comparison to Ilya Salkind’s original plans for Superman III, where he was going to introduce Supergirl to the Superman movie mythos…as Superman’s love interest!

Read on to learn more about this odd 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: Shaft was originally going to star a white actor.

Shaft, directed by Gordon Parks and starring Richard Roundtree as the titular private detective, was a massive box office smash upon its release in 1971 and became the face of what was later referred to as “blaxploitation” films (I’ll let you judge whether you feel it qualifies as “blaxploitation”). The film, which won an Academy Award for Best Song for its theme (written and performed by Isaac Hayes), was selected for preservation in 2000 in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”

For years, though, legendary blaxploitation producer and director Melvin Van Peebles has told the story of how Shaft was originally not going to star Richard Roundtree, but the title detective was going to be played by a white actor! Here’s a New York Press blog article that sums up Van Peebles story well:

It’s been almost 40 years since the box office success of Sweet Sweetback’s Badasssss Song (1971), the first-ever independent film to profit commercially and what Van Peebles claims, “changed everything” in the movie making industry. Sweetback boosted the cinematic black image and influenced the lead in films like Shaft, whose black protagonist was originally cast as a white character.

That’s what you’ll generally see told in regards to this story, that the unexpected sucess off Van Peebles’ independent release, Sweet Sweetback’s Badasssss Song, about a young black man who stands up against white authority, changed the course of Shaft’s history. Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song is undeniably an important film. It clearly influenced a number of blaxspolitation films (although, much more so than Shaft, Van Peebles’ film is definitely not an exploitative film – the knockoffs of it, though, were) and, more importantly, it showed that you could have a hit film not only written and directed by black filmmakers (which was not necessarily in doubt at the time, as Gordon Parks had already had success as a director) but that you could have a hit film produced and financed by black people, as well. Comedian Bill Cosby loaned Van Peebles the last $50,000 he needed to make the film. So yes, Sweet Sweetback’s Badasssss Song is an important film. However, I believe Van Peebles is overstating its influence upon the film Shaft.
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