That’s Entertainment
We’ve got Mother’s Day in May, Father’s Day in June, Grandparents Day in September, and we’ve got this holiday to celebrate brothers and sisters…Siblings DAY! Here are some famous people you might not have known share the same parents. Imagine the pride if one of your children won an Oscar. Then imagine if two of […]
The early ‘90s gave rise to one of the strangest family feuds of all time: The Bush family—as in President George H.W. Bush and First Lady Barbara Bush—and the Simpsons…as in the fictional one from TV’s The Simpsons. This dispute had some near-Hatfields and McCoys levels of tension. “The dumbest thing I had ever seen.” […]
There are only a few TV producers and TV show creators whose names are as famous as TV stars—people like Norman Lear, Garry Marshall, Shonda Rimes, and Steven Bochco, who died this month at age 74. Steven Bochco was a TV innovator who developed and produced classic, groundbreaking shows like the gritty and harrowing police […]
Here are some fab facts about the most underrated, overlooked, and mocked Beatle, Ringo Starr. “Ringo Starr” is not his real name. The “Starr” is short for “Starkey” and “Ringo” comes from his habit of wearing rings. Somebody called him that once and it stuck, which the drummer himself liked because he thought it made […]
March 14 was “International Ask a Question Day,” and over on our Facebook page, we invited our readers to, well, ask a question and be entered in a giveaway. The response was overwhelming—hundreds of you BRI stalwarts posed a trivia conundrum. Unfortunately, we can’t answer all of them and not everyone can be a winner, but […]
Say you’re a musician and you work and toil for years and finally score a big hit song…but then you can’t ever manage another one. How to pay the bills? Write musical scores for film and television. Jay Ferguson Jay Ferguson is a double one-hit wonder. In 1968, his rock band spirit scored its only […]
How can you be a rock superstar and a one-hit-wonder at the same time? When you leave your successful group for a solo career…and it doesn’t work out. Nick Lachey There was a slew of “boy bands” in the late ‘90s and early 2000s. The one teeny bopper from the era who is still a […]
This doesn’t take away from their talent or cast doubt on if they deserve fame, but it’s certainly interesting that some celebrities got off to a good start early on—they were already wealthy before they became famous. Taylor Swift Taylor Swift is the most successful pop star on the planet right now—to the tune of […]
Twenty-five years ago this week, one of the most remarkable works of art in the Western canon emerged, shedding light on the big questions of life, and the very nature of existence itself. We’re talking, of course, about Beavis and Butt-head, which aired its first episode on MTV on March 8, 1993. Huh-huh, huh-huh. Based […]
Today is National Barbie Day. Why? It was on this day in 1959 that the doll was unveiled to the public for the first time, at the American International Toy Fair in New York. TV-based Marketing Strategy Barbie was the first toy to have a TV-based marketing strategy. That was revolutionary—lots of kids were watching […]
You’re a true TV buff if you can remember these short-lived offshoots of popular TV shows. The humorous X-Files spinoff Amidst the spooky aliens and supernatural investigations, three characters (ironically) called “the Lone Gunmen” provided comic relief throughout the run of The X-Files. They appeared from time to time to point out to agents Mulder […]
Ever wanted to be “privy” to what goes on behind closed doors at the Bathroom Readers’ Institute? Well, here’s a story about how we printed one of our biggest ever goofs. It wasn’t an error when it started. When we make a Bathroom Reader, we research our work very carefully to ensure that it’s true. If, […]
If Uncle John were ever nominated for an Oscar, you can be sure he’d be seated in that auditorium on the night of the ceremony to hit the stage in case they called his name. Then there are these actors—they couldn’t make it, and then they won. Here’s why. Michael Caine Michael Caine won Best […]
Some musicians are so associated with a certain style of music, it’s hard to believe that they wrote these very out-of-character songs for other people. “Stand Back” Stevie Nicks took a break from Fleetwood Mac in the early ’80s to record some spooky folk pop by herself for a while. One of her biggest hits, […]
When the star of a hugely popular, long-running TV show leaves, it’s a little hard to get used to their replacement, but what else can producers do? Eventually, fans warm to, say Kelly Ripa instead of Katie Lee Gifford, or Kirstie Alley instead of Shelley Long. But then here are some TV star replacements that […]
Spinoffs have long been a part of TV and the movies. The Simpsons and Frasier launched off from The Tracey Ullman Show and Cheers, respectively, while Minions is a spinoff of the Despicable Me movies, to name some examples. The phenomenon happens in video games, too, although those spinoffs seem to be a bit on […]
You’ve probably stared at a few of these covers while you listened to the music with your headphones on and grooved, man. If you ever thought there was more than meets the eye to these pieces of classic album artwork…you were right. The one with the dancing witch and the dangling balls Just about everybody […]
Even if you’ve never read J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books or seen the film adaptations, you’ve still probably heard of quidditch, the broomstick-brandishing sport that forms an integral part of her wizarding world. (This article was first published in Who Knew?) Not Just for Wizards In Rowling’s novels, it’s a sport that’s been played […]
