Tell Me Something I Don't Know

[KhirasHY]

Baby opossums are so small you could fit 20 of them on a teaspoon....

(God bless QI)

I LOVE QI! Any time Jimmy Carr is on, I'm guaranteed to choke laughing at least once

[Kit-Ginevra]

Baby opossums are so small you could fit 20 of them on a teaspoon....

(God bless QI)

[KhirasHY]

Not quite WW2 trivia, but how about Band of Brothers trivia?

-Almost all the main actors were cast because of their close physical resemblance to the real-life soldiers they were portraying.

-Despite what was suggested in the third episode, Pvt. Albert Blithe did not die in 1948. Fellow Easy Company Currahee veterans had thought that Blithe did not recover from his neck wound and had died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1948. He in fact recovered and served several tours in Korea and Taiwan. He died in 1967; due to kidney failure.

-The actors endured a grueling ten day boot camp where they learned the basics, from how to wear a uniform and stand at attention, to sophisticated field tactics and parachute jump training. The average day was 16 hours long, beginning at 5:00 a.m., rain or shine, with strenuous calisthenics and a three-to-five-mile run, followed by hours of tactical training, including weapons handling and jump preparation.

-By the third episode of shooting, the special effects department had used more pyrotechnics than were used in the entire production of Saving Private Ryan

-In "Day Of Days" when the company first attacks the German gun position at Brecourt, there appears to be some kind of cinematic error when it looks as though an American soldier throws a grenade and it explodes upon hitting a fleeing German soldier. Grenades don't explode on contact; they have timed fuses. However, this actually happened: 'Buck Compton' had been an All-American catcher for UCLA and threw that grenade at the enemy with no arc and it exploded as soon as it struck.

-Damian Lewis (Dick Winters) showed up for his audition with a really bad hangover, having been partying heavily the night before and only having three hours sleep.

-A heavy day of filming required up to 14,000 rounds of ammunition

-"Currahee" is the American aboriginal Cherokee Indian equivalent for "Stands Alone". The original members of the 506th were trained at Currahee Mountain Georgia. "Currahee" was the cry of the 506th paratroopers as they cleared the door on their first jump, and it continued to be their cry when in combat.

-During the actors' ten day "Basic Training" they were required to stay in character at all times. The only exception was the "Officers" were treated just as poorly as the "Enlisted" by the training cadre.

-The 10-part miniseries features 500 speaking roles.

-David Schwimmer portrays Capt. Herbert M. Sobel, and filmed his scenes while on hiatus from Friends. In that TV series, his on-screen father is portrayed by Elliott Gould, who in A Bridge Too Far portrayed Col. Stout, a character based on Col. Robert F. Sink, and Sobel's direct superior officer.

-During the liberation of Eindhoven in episode 4, the real Pvt. Edward "Babe" Heffron can be seen in one of the shots. He is sitting down and waving a Kingdom of the Netherlands flag.

-More than 2,000 extras worked on the miniseries during the course of production

-The village (Carentan), which became 11 different European cities and villages, was 12 acres - the size of nine American football fields.

-Captain Dale Dye (USMC Ret.), the series military advisor, also had a main supporting role as Colonel Robert F. Sink.

-All of the 1,200 civilian costumes were authentic vintage clothing.

-Joe Liebgott (portrayed by Ross McCall) is portrayed as a Jew in the miniseries, and based on his name, appearance, and utter hatred of the Germans his fellow members of E Company all believed that he was Jewish, but in reality, Liebgott was a Roman Catholic, the son of Austrian immigrants. He was apparently aware that his fellow troopers assumed he was Jewish but never bothered to correct them as he found it amusing.

-In the series, Joe Liebgott (Ross McCall) states that he wants to go home after the war and run a taxi service. In real life, Liebgott was a barber by trade. This is reflected in the first episode's opening montage of the paratroopers getting ready for the D-Day jump, where Liebgott can be briefly seen shaving another soldier's head.

[AnaKhouri]

During the Rape of Nanking, Indiana native Minnie Vautrin and the staff at her missionary college used a combination of diplomacy and deception to save more than 10,000 women and children from the wrath of the invading Japanese army.


(thanks to Ha Jin's novel Nanjing Requiem for this stunning revelation- in China she is still famous as The Goddess of Mercy, while in America she is all but unknown)

[fireheart]

What the hell is Two Up?

Basically heads or tails x2. You rest the coins on a special piece of wood and then fling the coins in the air. People then bet on whether they'll both be heads, both be tails or one of each.

[Jester]

What the hell is Two Up?

[fireheart]

Fun fact: in Australia, it is usually illegal to play the game "Two-up" unless you're a casino, or somewhere designed for the purpose of teaching tourists how to play the game. (that is, you're not actually running a mini-casino out of your tourist trap)

There are only a few exceptions to this rule:

-2 casinos still run "two up" as a table game. (one in WA, one in Victoria)
-It is legal to play two-up on ANZAC day and it is commonly played in pubs and RSL's on the day. In most cases, they will have special pennies that are used for this purpose (actual Aussie coins are too light)

You can still buy two-up kits in some places.

There has also never been anyone actually addicted to two-up (as a problem gambler).

[Fudgethatkay]

It's...Monty Python's Flying Trivia!

This post wins, everyone go home.

Why...yes...I may be a Monty Python fan

[KhirasHY]

It's...Monty Python's Flying Trivia!

-Funds earned by Pink Floyd's album "The Dark Side of the Moon" went towards funding The Holy Grail. The band were such fans of the show they would halt recording sessions just to watch Monty Python's Flying Circus

-The famous depiction of galloping horses by using coconut shells (a traditional radio-show sound effect) came about from the purely practical reason that the production simply couldn't afford real horses.

-During production, the troupe became increasing irritated by the press, who seemed to always ask the same questions, such as "What will your next project be?" One day, Eric Idle flippantly answered, "Jesus Christ's Lust For Glory". Having discovered that this answer quickly shut up reporters, the group adopted it as their stock answer. After production completed, they did some serious thinking about it, and realized that while satirizing Christ himself was out of the question, they could create a parody of first-century life, later realized in Life of Brian

-As part of their stained glass and interior decoration, several medieval cathedrals included illustrations of virtues and vices. The vice of cowardice was depicted as a knight running away from a rabbit. Notre Dame in Paris has no fewer than three such medallions of the "Killer Rabbit".

-"God" is in fact a photograph of the famous 19th-century English cricketer W.G. Grace.

-Since the armour the Knights wore was really made of wool, and the weather conditions in Scotland and England being what they normally are, the actors spent most of the shooting days being very cold and wet. To make matters worse, the hotel where they were staying only had a limited number of baths and hot water. At the end of shooting each day, there was a mad dash to see who could get back to the hotel first, and into some hot water. The Monty Python troupe all seem to agree that they did not enjoy much of the filming experience for this movie.

-The airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow is roughly 11 meters per second, or 24 miles per hour, beating its wings 7-9 times per second rather than 43. It's true: a 5 ounce bird cannot carry a one pound coconut, but furthermore, no swallow weighs 5 ounces. The barn swallow, which is what most English people mean when they say "swallow", weighs only 20 grams (2/3 of an ounce).

-Two weeks before location shooting was scheduled to begin, the Scottish Department of the Environment withdrew permission for the Pythons to shoot within their castles, saying that the film's script would be "incompatible with the history and fabric" of the castles. The interiors of Camelot and Swamp Castle, and exteriors of Castle Anthrax, French Castle and the opening castle were all shot at Doune Castle (with various rooms redecorated and reused many times). Recently-rebuilt Castle Stalker was used for the Castle Aarrgg. Both of these were privately owned and could be used. The Constitutional Peasants' castle and Camelot are each 10ft high plywood models (hence Patsy's comment) which had a tendency to blow over in the middle of each take; hence the trailer shows another in-joke, with King Arthur knighting someone who just built a large castle but when the plywood building falls over Arthur stabs him.

-In several scenes the monks chant in Latin: "Pie Iesu domine, dona eis requiem". The translation of this is: "Merciful Lord Jesus, grant them rest." It's part of the standard Latin funeral rite.

-During the witch hunt, Eric Idle bares his teeth and bites down on the blade of the scythe he is holding. This was not scripted; Idle was actually about to burst out laughing and bit his scythe to stifle himself so as not to spoil the take. (If you look closely, you can see him shaking slightly, trying to keep his laughing under control.) Michael Palin can be seen hiding laughter at the same time as well, while earlier in the scene John Cleese quickly turns his head to one side just before the shot cuts, though not quickly enough to hide that he has broken character and is grinning broadly. All three comment on each others' corpsing on the DVD commentary.

-Sir-Not-Appearing-In-This-Film is Michael Palin's infant son William.

-Though he was renowned as the most restrained and unflappable of the Pythons, when Michael Palin was asked to do a seventh take of the scene where he crawls through mud, he had, in his own words, "A jolly good blow-up." John Cleese and Graham Chapman were so astonished they gave him a round of applause.

-Unusually for a Monty Python feature, all the female roles (apart from Dennis's mother, played by Terry Jones) are played by women. In the TV series and the two following films, almost all the female roles are played by men.

-Terry Gilliam was originally supposed to play Sir Gawain, whose role would have consisted of repeatedly breaking the fourth wall and pointing out how special effects and other aspects of the film's production were achieved. His role ultimately ended up being turned into Patsy, with his medium awareness jokes being toned down big-time.

-Regarding the bridgekeeper's question, Assyria (now part of Iraq) had four capitals throughout its history: Ashur (or Qalat Sherqat), Calah (or Nimrud), the short-lived Dur Sharrukin (or Khorsabad), and Nineveh.

-Terry Gilliam dies more than any other actor in this movie, with a grand total of 4 deaths. His characters that die are the Green Knight (sword through the face), Sir Bors (decapitated by the Killer Rabbit), the Animator (major heart attack), and the Bridgekeeper/Soothsayer (cast into the "Gorge of Eternal Peril"). John Cleese and Terry Jones, by contrast, have no death scenes in this film at all.

-In the Castle Anthrax sketch, Galahad suspects that Lancelot is gay, which Lancelot flatly denies. In the Swamp Castle sketch, Lancelot meets the effeminate, "ladylike" Prince Herbert. In the 2006 "Spamalot!" stage show, the possibility of a romance between Lancelot and Herbert is strongly implied.

-The only knights that finally get to cross the Bridge of Eternal Peril are Sir Lancelot, King Arthur and Sir Bedivere. The bridge was constructed by a Scottish mountaineer and was perfectly safe, though scary. John Cleese suffered from giddiness, so a stuntman crossed in his place. Graham Chapman (a good mountaineer when not in a crisis of abstinence from alcohol) and Terry Jones crossed the bridge by themselves.

[Kit-Ginevra]

Isn't the Newcastle accent rather similar to Geordie? Certainly when our friend Bob is singing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co26PuQPX2s

it sounds very much north-eastern-almost like Lindisfarne. Way aye mon!

[fireheart]

Here's a fun fact:

Despite the fact that Australians all sound the same around the globe, South Aussies have an accent (as in the state, not the region). We pronounce our words with long "a" sounds where possible (ie "castle" with a long a, as opposed to "castle" with a short a). This accent is supposedly so distinctive that you can walk into another state and sound exactly like you're from the other state.
(Honestly, I can't tell the difference. The main two accents to watch out for in Australia are the general Aussie accent and the aboriginal australian one. The latter tends to sound slightly more deeper/muted)

[AnaKhouri]

One form of defense a turkey vulture employs is to projectile vomit on the thing it perceives as a threat. Since they eat decaying flesh anyway, by the time they puke it back up, it's really, really horrifying.

I just remembered this, back in high school I worked at a raptor rehab center and once had to throw away a pair of shoes because of this.

[KhirasHY]

How about some Breaking Bad (with one spoiler at the end)?

-During an August 2013 interview with Terry Gross on her public radio program "Fresh Air," Bob Odenkirk said that when he first heard a description of the character he ended up playing, Saul Goodman, from the showrunner Vince Gilligan, Odenkirk heard the character's name and said that he might not be the best choice for the role because he isn't Jewish. Gilligan responded that Saul Goodman isn't actually Jewish either--that "Goodman" is a fake last name that the character adopted because he thought it sounded stereotypically Jewish. Odenkirk also told Gross that Goodman's odd hairstyle--a thinning combover-mullet combination--was his idea. Additionally, "Saul Goodman" is a transposition of a phrase: "It's All Good, Man." His entire name is a bad sales technique.

-Two names refer to famous scientists/chemists: Heisenberg is referring to Werner Heisenberg, who formulated the uncertainty principle, which states that it is impossible to determine simultaneously both the position and velocity of an electron or any other particle with any great degree of accuracy or certainty. Meanwhile, Hank Schrader's family name is also related to chemistry. The German scholar Gerhard Schrader was the one who accidentally discovered the original nerve gas.

-In the original pilot script, Jesse Pinkman was named "Marion Alan Dupree" and was always referred to by his last name.

-Samuel L. Jackson showed up unannounced during filming on the Pollos Hermanos set one day, dressed in his Nick Fury outfit from The Avengers. Both productions of Breaking Bad and The Avengers were happening on the same studio lot, and Jackson wanted to be an extra during the scene being filmed. The producers denied his request to appear as Nick Fury on the show.

-Bryan Cranston (Walter), Anna Gunn (Skyler) and Bob Odenkirk (Saul Goodman) have guest starred in Seinfeld. Anna played Jerry's girlfriend in "The Glasses" (Season 5). Bryan made his first appearance as Dr. Tim Whatley, a dentist whose conversion to Judaism annoys Jerry when he realizes Tim only converted so he could tell Jewish-themed jokes, a year later, in "The Mom and Pop Store" (Season 6). Bob played Ben Galvant in "The Abstinence" (Season 8); Elaine is dating Ben because she thinks he is a doctor, but Ben reveals he hasn't passed his medical boards yet and proves inept in a real-life health crisis. Once Ben does become a doctor, he breaks up with Elaine and explains, Saul Goodman-style, that the point of becoming a doctor is to end up dating someone who was out of his league before he became one. Larry Hankin appeared on "Seinfeld" too and was co-creator Larry David's first choice to play Kramer. Other "Breaking Bad" actors who appeared on "Seinfeld": Nigel Gibbs, Mark Harelik and Jessica Hecht.

-Jonathan Banks (Mike) played in Gremlins (1984), while Dean Norris (Hank) appeared in the sequel Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990).

-SPOILER (highlight text to view): Body count: 270, including 167 unnamed passengers killed during the plane crash in 'ABQ'. Excluding the plane crash, being shot is the most common way for characters to die, accounting for 56 of the 98 deliberate killings in the series.

[wolfie]

The RSPCA may venture to differ with you on that...

If you're referring to the figure of speech, the RSPCA would lose interest once they find out it's not the literal meaning.

[fireheart]

Moving away from dicks and onto dumb laws!

These all apply to Australia, some of these apply to specific states:

-Bars are required to stable, feed and water the horses of their patrons.
-Taxi cabs are required to carry a bale of hay in the trunk (O_O)
-You must have a neck to knee swimsuit to swim at Brighton Beach (NB: I'm not sure if this is Brighton, SA or Brighton, NSW)
-It is illegal to wear hot pink pants after midday on Sunday

-Children may not purchase alcohol, cigarettes or condoms, but can legally use them ()
-