I love a good fun fact, especially the kind that makes you stop and say, “Wait, what?” I even write a weekly post full of them, because there’s always some strange or surprising detail hiding in history or pop culture. And, honestly, it’s because finding out something new about a movie, song, or celeb you thought you knew everything about is both fun and a little mind-blowing.
Recently, I came across a Reddit thread where user icey_sawg0034 was looking for fun trivia when they asked: “What was a pop culture fun fact that made your jaw drop?”
The thread quickly turned into a fun collection of surprising tidbits about movies, music, TV, and more. So here are some pop culture facts that made people’s jaws drop when they first heard them:
1.“That J. R. R. Tolkien first created the language, and then created one of the most popular worldbuilding around it. For a long time, I believed it to be vice versa, and was really surprised to learn that, and that made me respect him more.”
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2.“Nintendo is older (1889) than Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897).”
3.“The director of The Human Centipede, Tom Six, also directed the first ever season of the original and first Big Brother in the Netherlands.”
4.“The X-Files, Law and Order SVU: Special Victims Unit, Homicide: Life on the Street, The Wire, Luther, and Arrested Development all share a universe. And what connects them all? Detective John Munch.”
5.“Dolly Parton was an uncredited executive producer on Buffy the Vampire Slayer (for both the movie and TV series), and both Dolly and the titular character, Buffy Summers, share the same birthday (January 19th).”
6.“Dolly Parton wrote ‘Jolene’ and ‘I Will Always Love You’ within a few days of each other. She was GOING THROUGH IT.”
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7.“Christopher Lee witnessed the last public execution by guillotine in France. (Among other things, he had a wild life.)”
8.“I knew that the omegaverse started in the Supernatural fandom, with roots in Star Trek. What I didn’t know was that the first omegaverse fanfic was about the actors Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki.”
9.“The lead singer of Toto, Joseph Williams, is John Williams’ son.”
10.“Janis Joplin recorded ‘Mercedes Benz’ in one take, a cappella, and died three days later.”
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11.“Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. paid for Julia Roberts’ birth.”
12.“Freddie Prinze Jr. was on the writing team of the WWE. His wife, Sarah Michelle Gellar, has said he’s also written for television shows under a pen name.”
13.“Marlene Dietrich had an affair with both Joe Kennedy, Sr., and his son, John F Kennedy. Reportedly, JFK asked if she had ****** his dad, and she lied.”
14.“The Stuart Little movie was co-written by M. Night Shyamalan.”
15.“Dermot Mulroney (My Best Friend’s Wedding, New Girl, Shameless) is not only an actor, but is also an accomplished cellist. He’s worked on scores for a few popular movies and also had his own band. I heard a passing comment on a radio show about it and at first didn’t believe it. But, yeah. He’s so unassuming, and yet here he is, rocking classical arts.”
16.“Barry Manilow wrote the jingles for State Farm (‘Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there’) and Band-Aids (‘I am stuck on Band-Aid ‘cause Band-Aid’s stuck on me’).”
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17.“Helena Bonham Carter’s ancestry is wild, to the point that the Bonham Carter family has its own page on Wikipedia. She’s also distantly related to the British royal family, if I remember correctly.”
18.“Lucille Ball helped get Star Trek on the air. After a failed first pilot, she helped finance a second one to make sure they got their show.”
19.“Julia Child was an intelligence officer with the OSS (precursor of the CIA) during WWII. Among other things, she was part of the team that developed a shark repellent. It was used to coat explosives so they could be used against U-boats without sharks interfering/setting them off. She met her husband in the OSS, and he encouraged her to pursue her interest in cooking, eventually becoming her partner and producer in her TV career.”
20.“Vera Farmiga from the Conjuring franchise is the lead singer/co-founder of a metal band, the Yagas, and they’re actually pretty **** good.”
You can read the original thread on Reddit.
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.
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