That’s Entertainment
Netflix recently released Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond, a documentary about Man in the Moon, the 1999 film about avant grade comedian Andy Kaufman starring Jim Carrey. One thing neither movie covers: Did Kaufman fake his 1984 death and assume another identity as one of his patented comedy stunts? The Daughter The Andy Kaufman […]
Well gaaaaaaaaaawleeeee. Jim Nabors, the actor best known for portraying lovable dimbulb Gamer Pyle on The Andy Griffith Show and Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. has passed away this month at the age of 87. Here’s a little bit more about the man and his life. Nabor’s Singing Career Serving as a stark contrast to Nabors’ embellished […]
Need a vacation from Christmas Vacation? Don’t think It’s a Wonderful Life is so wonderful anymore? Then check out one of these, well, quirky, holiday movie recommendations from Uncle John. All American Christmas Carol (2013) It’s the umpteenth adaptation and variation of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, in which the Scroogey central character learns the […]
Who’s the most popular musician on the radio today? Well, it’s December…so it’s Bing Crosby. His recordings of Christmas songs are perennial classics, so much so that nowadays he’s pretty much exclusively celebrated with the holiday. But in the mid-20th century, there was nobody bigger than Bing. White Christmas According to pre-computerized sales tracking systems, […]
Being a movie star is pretty sweet work if you can get. So are the perks. Roger Moore James Bond is a gentleman who enjoys gentlemanly things, such as martinis that are shaken instead of stirred. James Bond portrayer Roger Moore also liked the finer things – so much so that when he agreed to […]
Celebrities: They’re beautiful, talented, and they even invent words and phrases! Courtesy flush As purveyors of the world’s finest and largest books of trivia read in the bathroom, we like to keep up with all the slang terms and phrases related to everything that goes on in what we call “the reading room.” One phrase […]
At the recently held consumer electronics show E3, Microsoft enraged cash-strapped gamers with an announcement that its latest system, the Xbox One X will cost nearly $500. That’s actually par for the course, because video games are two things: fun…and expensive. MAGNAVOX ODY$$EY The first widely available video game system in the U.S. came out […]
We’ve fallen “behind” with our word origins posts lately, so let’s get to the “bottom” of things. Make sure to read to the “end”! Tush Linguists say this one only dates back about 50 years. It’s also a specifically American slang term. It’s an all-American Englishification and shortening of tukhus, or tokhes, which is a […]
Here’s a little bit about a bunch of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s list of acts that may be officially enshrined early next year. The Moody Blues Before they picked “The Moody Blues,” the group was called the M&B Five, named after Mitchell and Butler, the Birmingham, England, pub that sponsored them. Radiohead […]
Yes, movies still get banned by cities, countries, and movie theater chains. And it’s usually for a very particular reason. Gone with the Wind Gone With the Wind is one of the most acclaimed movies of all time, and, adjusted for inflation, it’s still the highest-grossing movie of all time. It is, however, a little […]
Filming a movie is a very costly and time-consuming endeavor. And sometimes someone in the cast or crew messes up so badly that it eats up even more time and money. Napoleon Dynamite Shot on a relatively tiny budget of $400,000 and grossing $45 million, the quirky high school comedy Napoleon Dynamite was the surprise […]
Here are some theories on how to be the best at the only game that matters. Psychological Factors Professor Zhijian Wang of Zhejiang University in China led a study that revealed psychological factors in how people play Rock, Paper, Scissors—which a competitor in the know could use to their advantage. The Zhejiang group discovered that […]
Artists create things all the time. Here are some creators of well-known things who knew how to make a product people would love…but more about the business side than the people who negotiated their contracts. In short: They held on to the rights to something that only they knew would be worth a lot of […]
Uncle John knows pretty much everything—and if he doesn’t, he puts one of his many associates on the case. So go ahead, in the comments below the article, ask away. Why do so many cartoon characters wear white gloves? Some things about cartoon characters just don’t make sense. Okay, beyond the fact that mice, rabbits, […]
The final episodes of long-running TV shows can be major cultural events—the country just about shut down for the final chapters of Seinfeld, Cheers, and M*A*S*H, for example. But life isn’t fair, and neither is TV, when it comes to these iconic TV shows that didn’t get a proper sendoff. Law & Order For 20 […]
Everybody knows Superman can fly faster than a speeding bullet, and that Spider-Man can fling webs and crawl on them. But there are a lot of superheroes in the worlds of comic books and movies—and they can do a lot more than fly and crawl fast. SUPERMAN THE VENTRILOQUIST This particular Man of Steel power […]
It’s long been a custom for celebrities staying at hotels, hospitals, and other places to do so under a fake name. It allows them to maintain a little bit of privacy. The next time you’re at a hotel, see if you spot any of these names on the register. Beyoncé When she recently checked into […]
The unlikely, common origin stories of two very different icons of American pop culture. “We’ve Only Just Begun” In 1970, California-based Crocker National Bank enlisted the help of San Francisco ad agency Hal Riney & Partners to increase the bank’s awareness with young adult customers. The agency hired the songwriting team of Roger Nichols and […]
