8.15.06 AM Amazing fact 46 |
military
would be portrayed positively. For the
movie "Mission To Mars", director Brian DePalma and crew needed to
re-create the surface of the planet Mars. They chose the more than two million
square feet of a 45-acre sand dune in Vancouver, Canada. To give the sand dune
the color of the planet Mars, they covered it with over 15,000 gallons of red
paint. The first
black and white motion picture to be digitally converted to color was
"Yankee Doodle Dandy", the 1942 biography of George M. Cohen. The first
female monster to appear on the big screen was Bride of Frankenstein. The first
far eastern country to permit kissing in films was China. The first oriental screen
kiss was bestowed on Miss Mamie Lee in the movie "Two Women in the
House" (China, 1926). The movie
"Clue" has three different endings. Each ending was randomly chosen
for different theaters. All three endings are present in the home video. In the Return
of the Jedi special edition during the new Coruscant footage at the end of the
film a stormtrooper can be seen being carried over the crowds. Because
metal was scarce, the Oscars given out during World WarII were made of wood. From Austin
Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me — In the U.S., "shag" is far less
offensive than in other English-speaking countries. Singapore briefly forced a
title change to "The Spy Who Shioked Me." ("Shioked" means
"treated nicely.") In every
show that Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt (The Fantasticks) wrote, there is at
least one song about rain. The studios
wanted Matthew McConaughey, the newest heartthrob in the industry, cast as hero
Jack Dawson in the 1997 box office hit Titanic, but director James Cameron
insisted on Leonardo DiCaprio. The most
popular sport as a topic for a film is boxing. In
"Cliff Hanger" when the girl is dangling off Stallone’s arm,
the camera flashes to the chopper and the old man in the picture is laughing. David Niven
and George Lazenby were the only two actors who played James Bond only once. In the
original "Star Wars: A New Hope", Mark Hamill, who played Luke
Skywalker, called out the name of actress Carrie Fisher, who played Princess
Leia, instead of actually calling out "Leia" in the scene near the
end where he gets out of his X-wing after destroying the Death Star. The error
was never caught. In the movie
Ghost (Patrick and Demi) when Demi is making something on the pottery wheel her
hands are covered in clay. But when her husband comes up behind her to give her
a kiss she turns around and they are completely clean. In
Hitchcock’s movie, "Rear Window", Jimmy Stewart plays a
character wearing a leg cast from the waist down. In one scene, the cast
switches legs, and in another, the signature on the cast is missing. The TV
sitcom Seinfeld was originally named "The Seinfeld Chronicles". The
pilot which was broadcast in 1989 also featured a kooky neighbor named Kessler.
This character later became known as Kramer. Dooley
Wilson appeared as Sam in the movie Casablanca. Dooley was a drummer - not a
pianist in real life. The man who really played the piano in Casablanca was a
Warner Brothers staff musician who was at a piano off camera during the
filming. "60
Minutes" is the only show on CBS that doesn’t have a theme song. For many
years, the globe on the NBC Nightly News spun in the wrong direction. On
January 2, 1984, NBC finally set the world spinning back in the proper
direction. A two hour
motion picture uses 10,800 feet of film. Not including the previews and
commercials. The original
title of the musical "Hello Dolly!" was "Dolly: A Damned
Exasperating Woman." Why did they change it? The original had such music,
poetry, and pizzazz. Bruce was
the nickname of the mechanical shark used in the "Jaws" movies. A theater
manager in Seoul, Korea felt that The Sound of Music was too long, so he
shortened it by cutting out all the songs. The writers
of The Simpsons have never revealed what state Springfield is in. Of the six men
who made up the Three Stooges, three of them were real brothers (Moe, Curly and
Shemp.) The 1997
Jack Nicholson film - "As Good As It Gets", is known in China as
"Mr. Cat Poop". The person
who performs the Muppets - Miss Piggy, Fozzie, Animal, and Grover is Frank Oz.
Oz is also the voice of Star Wars Yoda. By the way, his real name is Frank
Oznowicz. Beaver
Cleaver graduated in 1953. The first
ever televised murder case appeared on TV in 1955, Dec. 5-9. The accused was
Harry Washburn. - Number of
tarantulas: 50 - Number of
boas, cobras and pythons used in the film: 7,500 Raiders of
the Lost Ark (1981), the first film featuring the character Indiana Jones, was
crawling with four-, eight-, and no-legged creatures: Frostbite
Falls, Minnesota, was home to Rocky and Bullwinkle. The average
raindrop reaches a top speed of 22 miles per hour. Seven
billion gallons of water are flushed down toilets in the U.S. every day. The only
country to register zero births in 1983 was the Vatican City. The one extra
room new-home shoppers want the most is the laundry room, at 95 percent. Only
66 percent of new-home buyers request an extra room to use as an office. 53% of high
school grads and 27% of college grads "get most of their information from
TV." Smoking accounts
for at least 7% of all health care costs in the US. The 3
largest newspaper circulations are Russian. Sweden has
the least number of murders annually. People in
Iceland read more books per capita than any other people in the world. Coffee is
the second largest item on international commerce in the world. Seven people
have been struck by meteorite fragments. There was a
ratio of 35 women to one man in England mental asylums in 1971. However in
England prisons, this ratio was the opposite. About 43% of
convicted criminals in the U.S. are rearrested within a year of being released
from prison. Automobiles
take up about 24 percent of the total area of Los Angeles. Statistically
the safest age of life is 10 years old. You are more
likely to win the state lottery than to be attacked by a shark. 57% of
British school kids think Germany is the most boring country in Europe. 67.5% of men
wear briefs instead of boxers. Women
shoplift more often than men; the statistics are 4 to 1. About 1 out
of every 70 people who pick their nose actually eat their boogers. In 1916, 55%
of the cars in the world were Model T Fords. 69% of men
say that they would rather break up with a girl in private rather than in
public. The tail
section of an airplane gives the bumpiest ride. Retirement
planning time: Adults spend an average of 16 times as many hours selecting
clothes (145.6 hours a year) as they do on planning their retirement. Textbook
shortages are so severe in some U.S. public schools that 71 percent of teachers
say they have purchased reading materials with their own money. Ten percent
of men are left-handed while only 8 percent of women are left-handed. Ten percent
of frequent fliers say they never check their luggage when flying. According to
Scientfic American magazine: if you live in the northern hemisphere, odds are
that every time you fill your lungs with air at least one molecule of that air
once passed thru Socrates lungs. According to
a poll, only 29 percent of married couples agree on most political issues. According to
a 1995 poll, 1 out of 10 people admitted that they will buy an outfit intending
to wear it once and return it. About 60
percent of all American babies are named after close relatives. About 25
percent of all male Americans between the ages of ten and fifteen were
"gainfully employed" at the turn of the century. By 1970, so few in
that age bracket were employed that the U.S. Census Bureau did not bother to
make inquiries about them. About 24
percent of alcoholics die in accidents, falls, fires, and suicides. Nearly half
of all psychiatrists have been attacked by one of their patients. The Japanese
cremate 93 percent of their dead, as compared to Great Britain at 67 percent
and the United States at just over 12 percent. Two out of
three adults in the United States have hemorrhoids. Hawaii has
the highest percentage of cremations of all other U.S. states, with a 60.6
percent preference over burial. An eyebrow
typically contains 550 hairs. The most
common Spanish surname is Garcia. The typical
person goes to the bathroom 6 times a day. The voltage
of most car batteries is 12 volts. France has
the highest per capita consumption of cheese. The most
common surname in Sweden is Johansson. The typical
person swallows 295 during dinner. Americans
use over 16,000 tons of aspirin a year. Li is the
family name for over 87 million People in China. The number
of births in India each year is greater than the entire population of
Australia. The chance
of contracting an infection during a hospital stay in the USA is 1 in 15. Lost time in
traffic could cost American businesses up to 100 billion dollars per year. Ten percent
of frequent fliers say they never check their luggage when flying. The photo
most often requested from the U.S. National Archives is that of the meeting
between Elvis Presley and President Nixon in 1970. Presley had requested that
Nixon make him an honorary drug enforcement agent and Nixon accommodated him. In 1977,
according to the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, there were 14.5
telephone calls made for every 100 people in the entire world. Per capita,
Canada has more doughnut shops than any other country. People are
marrying younger today than they did before the turn of the century. In the
United States, in 1890, the average age of men at their first marriage was
twenty-six years, compared with twenty-three today. For women, the
corresponding figures are twenty-two then and just under twenty-one now. Half a
billion people - about one of every eight - are suffering chronic malnutrition
today. In 1993
there were an estimated 64 million cats in the United States. On a bingo
card of ninety numbers there are approximately 44 million ways to make
B-I-N-G-O. There are
more television sets in the United States than there are people in Japan. Every year,
over 8800 people injure themselves with a toothpick. In the
United States, five million teeth are knocked out annually. No one knows
how many people live in the country of Bhutan. As of 1975, no census had ever
been taken. New York
City has the largest black population of any city in the United States. It is
followed by Chicago and Philadelphia. More than 63
million Star Trek books, in more than 15 languages, are in print; 13 were sold
every minute in the U.S. in 1995. Burns are
second only to traffic accidents as the cause of accidental loss of life in the
U.S.: about 6,000 fatal burns a year. In the
famous Parker Brothers game "Monopoly," the space on which a player
has the greatest statistical chance of landing is Illinois Avenue. This is
followed by the B&O Railroad, Free Parking, Tennessee Avenue, New York
Avenue and the Reading Railroad. In the
United States, deaf people have safer driving records than hearing people
nationally. Every minute
47 Bibles are sold or distributed throughout the world. 4 out of 5
sing in the car. 44% of men
tailgate to speed up the person in front of them. 12% of men
never use their car blinkers. The average
IQ is 100, while 140 is the beginning of genius IQ. There are
over 15,000 miles of lighted neon tubing in the many signs on the Strip and
downtown Las Vegas. The average
life span of London residents in the middle of the 19th century was 27 years.
For members of the working class, that number dropped to 22 years. It takes an
average person fifteen to twenty minutes to walk once around the Pentagon. 81.3% would
tell an acquaintance to zip his pants. 54.2% of us
always wash our hands after using the toilet. 30% of us
refuse to sit on a public toilet seat. Significantly
more black women die from heart disease than any other group. 78% would
rather die quickly than live in a retirement home. 15%
regularly go to a shrink. 14% have
attended a self-help meeting. Only 30% of
us know our cholesterol level. 44% have
broken a bone. 4 out of 5
of us have suffered from hemorrhoids. 49% believe
in ESP. 57% have had
deja vu. 10% of us
claim to have seen a ghost. 33% of women
lie about their weight. 62% of us
pop our zits. 58% of women
paint their nails regularly. 53% of women
will not leave the house without makeup on. 9% of women
and 8% of men have had cosmetic surgery. Nearly 1/3
of US women color their hair. The typical
shower is 101 degrees F. 22% leave
the glob of toothpaste in the sink. 2/3 of us
speed up at a yellow light. 45% of us
consistently follow the speed limit. 71% can
drive a stick-shift car. 6% propose
over the phone. 1 in 5 men
proposed on his knees. The biggest
cause of matrimonial fighting is money. 2 out of 5
have married their first love. 20% of women
consider their parents to be their best friends. On average,
we send 38 Christmas cards every year. 51% of
adults dress up for a Halloween festivity. 28% of us
have skinny-dipped. 14% with the opposite sex. 53% of us
would take advice from Ann Landers. 90% of us
depend on alarm clocks to wake us. 16% of us
have forgotten our own wedding anniversary (mostly men). 53% read
their horoscopes regularly. 66% of women
and 59% of men have used a mix to cook and taken credit for doing it from
scratch. 57% save
pretty gift paper to reuse. 44% reuse
tinfoil. 40% of us
have had music lessons. 20% of us
have played in a band at one time in our life. 56% of women
do the bills in a marriage. 53% prefer
ATM machines over tellers. 37% claim to
know how to use all the features on their VCR. Less than
10% are trilingual. 71.6% of us
eavesdrop. 29% of us
ignore RSVP. 45% use
mouthwash every day. Only 13%
brush our teeth from side to side. 14% of us
eat the watermelon seeds. 22% of all
restaurant meals include French fries. 66% of us
eat cereal regularly. 9% of us
skip breakfast daily. 22% of us
skip lunch daily. Snickers is
the most popular candy. 70% of us
drink orange juice daily. 85% of us
will eat Spam this year. When nobody
else is around, 47% drink straight from the carton. 69% eat the
cake before the frosting. 35% give to
charity at least once a month. On average,
12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents daily. Over 50%
believe in spanking - but only a child over 2 years old. 29% of us
are virgins when we marry. 13% (mostly
men) have spent a night in jail. 45% believe
in ghosts. 82% believe
in an afterlife. 10% believe
in the 10 Commandments.(Only 10%?!) 90% believe
in divine retribution. 50% admit
they regularly sneak food into movie theaters to avoid the high prices of snack
foods. 3 out of 4
of us store our dollar bills in rigid order with singles leading up to higher
denominations. 85% of women
wear the wrong bra size. 67.5% of men
wear briefs. 40% of women
have hurled footwear at a man. Men do 29%
of laundry each week. Only 7% of women trust their husbands to do it correctly.
Only 30% of
us can flare our nostrils. Pennies,
plural, have value to most Americans. A penny, singular, does not. Almost half
of Americans say they would not bother to bend over to pick up a penny on the
street, but more than half of us report having stashes of pennies laying around
the house. During the
heating months of winter, the relative humidity of the average American home is
13% nearly twice as dry as the Sahara Desert. Nine out of
10 Americans tell pollsters they have NEVER had a professional massage. The standard
escalator moves 120 feet per minute. Most deaths
in a hospital are between the times of 4pm and 6pm, the time when the human
body is at its weakest. The chance
of contracting an infection during a hospital stay in the USA is 1 in 15. By 1995 8
million U.S. households had computers with CD-ROM drives, a 1600% increase over
1990. 68% of
Americans who view computer commercials on TV that advertise a processor, such
as the Pentium III, believe it speeds up your Internet connections. However, a
modem does that. A United
Parcel Service delivery person typically makes up to 300 pickups or deliveries
a day. That compares to someone doing 600 sets of step aerobics a day. The Earth
experiences 50,000 earthquakes a year. Last year
Americans ate more than 8.5 million pounds of tortilla chips on Super Bowl
Sunday. Dominos
Pizza sales typically double on Super Bowl Sunday. Super Bowl
Monday sales of antacids increase by more than 20% over other Mondays. In the USA -
more toilets flush at the half time of the Super Bowl than at any other time of
the year. During the
Christmas buying season, Visa cards alone are used an average of 5,340 times
every minute in the U.S. It rains
more often in London, England, on a Thursday than any other day of the week. You have to
break a lot of eggs to serve breakfast in Las Vegas. At Caesar’s Palace
alone, an average of 7,700 are prepared each day. With 2.8 million eggs
delivered each year to that one resort. Caesars serves over 427 pounds of
coffee each day and pours more than 3,000 ounces of orange juice every 24
hours. There are
over 15,000 miles of lighted neon tubing in the many signs on the Strip and
downtown Las Vegas. The number
one reason people choose to buy a wireless phone is for safety (nearly 50% of
those who own wireless phones purchased it for safety). In the U.S.,
54% of wireless phone users are men and 46% are women. They call it
puppy love: An American Animal Hospital Association poll showed that 33% of dog
owners admit that they talk to their dogs on the phone or leave messages on an
answering machine while away. The most
popular name given to boat-owners’ boats is "Obsession". Conception
occurs in December more than any other month. Over 2500
left handed people a year are killed from using products made for right handed
people. As of 1983,
an average of Three billion Christmas cards were sent annually in the United
States. In 1790, the
U.S. government conducted its first head count. The total population was just
under four million (3,929,625). In 1984,
13,126 people were arrested in Federal drug cases. There are
more Barbie dolls in Italy than there are Canadians in Canada. Portion of
land in the US owned by the government: 1/3 Chances that
a burglary in the US will be solved: 1 in 7. Portion of
Harvard students who graduate with honors: 4/5 The average
American pays more in taxes than for food, clothing and shelter put together. The average
US worker toils for two hours and 47 minutes of each working day just to pay
income tax. 55,700
people in the US are injured by jewelry each year. 56% of the
video game market is adults. |
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