Category Archives: America Fun Fact of the Day

Re-Awarding the Academy Award for Best Picture (1970-1974)

Posted on March 26, 2018 | 7 comments

“And the winner is…Crash? Wait that can’t be r…”

~What Jack Nicholson Should Have Said in 2006

Like it or not, the Academy Awards carry a lot of influence in terms of what movies we deem to be worth remembering. It doesn’t matter if it’s about a ruthless mob family, or the subtleties of fish fucking, the Academy Award for Best Picture ensures all winners go down in history.

But sometimes history is wrong, and in the case of the Academy Awards, it’s wrong often. Now, Academy Award voters don’t have the benefit of hindsight, but we do. We have all the hindsight. ALL OF IT.

That’s why we decided to go through every Academy Award ceremony from 1970 through 2009 and give out those Best Picture Oscars one more time. Sometimes this will mean that the same movie is going to win. But a lot of the time, we’re going to be taking away Academy Awards and giving them to more deserving films.

Yes, you are going to get mad a lot reading this series. And yes, you are going to be very confused by our decision to go with the year each award was given out, as opposed to the year the winning movies were released. Listen, when you make an omelette, you’re going to mix up a few metaphors, alright?

Here’s what we’re going to do. For each Academy Award ceremony, we’ll tell you who won, and who else was nominated. We will list the IMDB user rating for each film—it’s an imperfect marker of quality, for sure, but it at least can give you an idea of how the general public views the movie today.

Then, we’ll tell you which movie gets the AFFotD-awarded Oscar. For all we know, the movie might end up being one that wasn’t even nominated. Either way, we’ll go through the important movies that came out each year, and tell you who wins that designated Oscar (again, remember, the ceremony takes place after the movies are released, so the 1970 ceremony is for 1969 movies, 1971 is for 1970, etc.) All clear? Good.

So strap yourselves in, because the next few weeks, America Fun Fact of the Day is going to fix the Academy Awards. You’re welcome.

Re-Awarding the Academy Award for Best Picture (1970-1974)

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Posted in America Fun Fact of the Day, Re-Awarding the Academy Award for Best Picture (1970-2009)

Tagged A Clockwork Orange, A Touch of Class, Academy Awards, Airport, America, American Graffiti, Anne of the Thousand Days, Best Picture, Best Picture Winners, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Cabaret, Costa-Gavras, Cries & Whispers, Deliverance, Five Easy Pieces, Hello Dolly, Love STory, M*A*S*H*, Midnight Cowboy, Movies, Nicholas and Alexandra, Oscars, patton, Re-Awarding the Oscars, Sounder, The Emigrants, The Exorcist, The French Connection, The Godfather, The Sting

An Incomplete List of Every Strange, Surprising, or Altogether Weird Names on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (Part 4- Names That Are Also Penis Jokes, Because We Are Grown Adults)

Posted on March 21, 2018 | 1 comment

“Haha, we have the emotional maturity of children.”

~AFFotD Editor-in-Chief, Johnny Roosevelt

You knew it was just a matter of time until this would happen. After devoting nearly 4,000 words to celebrities with stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame who are either kind of famous (but shouldn’t have stars), super obscure (and randomly have stars), and have silly names (and stars) we’ve landed on the most important part of this whole endeavor.

Dick jokes.

Okay, okay, we’re kidding, you got us, no we’re not going to just write an entire article of “people with stars on the Walk of Fame who have a pun for male genitalia somewhere in their name.” No, that would be childish, ridiculous and, frankly, unprofessional.

There’s also a name with the word “butt” in there.

Listen, we’re not happy about it either, but this is happening, so strap on in.

An Incomplete List of Every Strange, Surprising, or Altogether Weird Names on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (Part 4- Names That Are Also Penis Jokes, Because We Are Grown Adults)

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Posted in America Fun Fact of the Day, Strange America

Tagged America, Constance Cummings, Dick Haynes, Dick Jokes, Dick Lane, Dick Van Dyke, Dick wolf, Hollywood, Hollywood Stars, Pat Buttram, Pee Wee Hunt, Pee Wee King, Sam Wood, Walk of Fame

An Incomplete List of Every Strange, Surprising, or Altogether Weird Names on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (Part 3- Silly Names)

Posted on March 14, 2018 | 1 comment

“Tee-hee, look at the name on that star.”

~Tourists walking down the Hollywood Walk of Fame

We’ve already written two articles about the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and specifically about the people who manage to get their name put on stars that make us think, “…Huh. Really?” We’ve already talked about some famous people who might not be super deserving, as well as some people we have never fucking heard of that are scattered throughout. But now we’re going to go to our favorite section—people who got their stars despite being people we’ve never heard of who also have extremely silly names.

And no, we’re not going to have names that sound like dirty jokes. That would be juvenile. Also, we’re saving all those for part four. Here we go!

An Incomplete List of Every Strange, Surprising, or Altogether Weird Names on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (Part 3- Silly Names)

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Posted in America Fun Fact of the Day, Strange America

Tagged America, Hank Mann, Helen Twelvetrees, Hollywood, Hollywood Stars, Smiley Burnette, Soupy Sales, Spanky McFarland, Walk of Fame, Y Frank Freeman

An Incomplete List of Every Strange, Surprising, or Altogether Weird Names on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (Part 2- Much, Much, Much Less Famous, but Equally Confusing Entries)

Posted on March 12, 2018 | 2 comments

“What do you mean no one knows who I am anymore? I got a star on the Walk of Fame, dammit!”

~Wesley Ruggles

Last week, we posted an article about famous celebrities who have a star on the Walk of Fame that maybe, just maybe, proved that getting a star has less to do with your achievements and more to do with your willingness to find someone to spend $40,000 on the damn thing. But despite the amount of shit we gave Bobby Flay for his Hollywood star, all the people included in our first article were at least some amount of famous to today’s culture.

But Hollywood has been around for a while, and let’s just say that not all the stars on the Walk of Fame have aged particularly gracefully. So for our second Hollywood Walk of Fame article, we will focus on people who, sure, may have been big deals a half century ago, but now simply elicit blank stares of, “…Who?” when we come across their name today. Consider this, we don’t know, a history lesson or something.

An Incomplete List of Every Strange, Surprising, or Altogether Weird Names on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (Part 2- Much, Much, Much Less Famous, but Equally Confusing Entries)

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Posted in 20th Century Insanity, America Fun Fact of the Day, Strange America

Tagged America, Dead End Kids, Fibber McGee and Molly, Hollywood, Hollywood Stars, Hoot Gibson, Johnny Hayes, paderewski, Parkyakarkus, Walk of Fame

An Incomplete List of Every Strange, Surprising, or Altogether Weird Names on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (Part 1- Famous But Confusing Entries)

Posted on March 7, 2018 | 3 comments

“Meh, I’m good.”

~Clint Eastwood, When Nominated For a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame

Ever since it opened to the public in 1960, the Hollywood Walk of Fame has held a special place as an arbiter of cultural importance. You know someone’s made it when they get their name on a star. It shows that they’re real giants of the industry. You know, your John Waynes, your Steven Spielbergs, your Levar Burtons.

However, the process for getting a star might not be quite as selective as you’d think. It largely depends on agreeing to show up to the ceremony, and getting a third party to pay $40,000 for the application fee. Sure, there’s a committee that has to determine if you’re “worth” the star, but that’s more of a formality than anything else. Which means that people who are, let’s say, fringe candidates get stars surprisingly often.

And as a result, there are some…let’s say strange stars on the Walk of Fame. So, we did some digging, and helped come up with an incomplete list of stars that have been given to people (or things) that we find generally bemusing. Since there were so many (seriously there are so many stars on the damn thing) we decided to split it into four parts. Here’s part one, entries that you’ve definitely heard of, but when you hear they got a star on the Walk of Fame your initial response would be…really?

An Incomplete List of Every Strange, Surprising, or Altogether Weird Names on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (Part 1- Famous But Confusing Entries)

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Posted in America Fun Fact of the Day, Strange America

Tagged America, bobby Flay, Disneyland, Godzilla, Hollywood, Hollywood Stars, Hollywood Walk of Fame, Munchkins, Pitbull, Shrek, Stars on the Walk of Fame, Thomas Edison, Walk of Fame, Walk of Fame Stars

The Original Little Rascals Cast Was Probably Cursed?

Posted on February 28, 2018 | 8 comments

“Okay guys, I don’t know who decided to write this article, but I’ve doubled our whiskey rations for it. Things are about to get bleak.”

~AFFotD Editor-in-Chief, Johnny Roosevelt

Our Gang helped define an entire era of early Hollywood entertainment. From 1922 through 1944, the franchise, which you may know better as The Little Rascals, put out 220 short films and one film, featuring 41 child actors during that span.

They remain such an important cultural touchstone that we even decided to revisit the characters in a 1994 motion picture (which, like, did only okay). But when we started looking into the actors who played iconic characters such as Spanky and Buckwheat and Alfalfa, we discovered something a little…perturbing.

That cast is haunted, guys.

Sure, snopes has weighed in on this to preemptively tell us we’re wrong. But we’re not. To prove so, we’re going to talk about the early, non-natural demises of original cast members in what promises to be our most depressing article yet. We excluded things like overdoses and people who got heart attacks in their 50s because, well, we just don’t want to write a bunch of jokes about that kind of stuff today.

But we’ll leave it to you once you’ve seen the evidence. Was the original Little Rascals cast cursed?

(Yes they fucking were.)

**The Original Little Rascals Cast Was Probably Cursed?**

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Posted in 20th Century Insanity, America Fun Fact of the Day, American Heroes, The Best of the Rest

Tagged Alfalfa, America, Billy Laughlin, Bobby Hutchins, Bonedust, Carl Switzer, Chubby, Clifton Young, Darla, Darla Hood, Darwood Kaye, Donald Haines, Froggy, Harold Switzer, Jay R. Smith, Little Rascals, Little Rascals Curse, Norman Chaney, Our Gang, Waldo, Weston Doty, Wheezer, Winston Doty

A Brief Foray into How Other Countries Are Ruining Pizza

Posted on February 21, 2018 | Leave a comment

“Oh God, no, not pizza. Ruin ANYTHING ELSE but spare the pizza!”

~Your Taste Buds

We talk a lot about pizza around these parts, but can you blame us? Pizza is just about the perfect, when done right. But, as you no doubt know, it’s…not always done right. Now we get a lot of flack from St. Louis and Ohio Valley residents because of our article that (correctly) points out what their regional pizzas are (garbage) but we can at least take solace in knowing that, as a nation, we generally have our shit together.

Other countries, though? Not so much. Sure, we’ve previously talked about Pizza Hut’s crazy international menu items, and England’s hot dog crust pizza, but we’ve not really taken the moment to sit down and let you know how badly other countries are screwing up pizza.

And boy howdy, are they screwing up pizzas.

Granted, this article only lists isolated instances—a bad pizza idea from a country other than America does not mean that the country in question does not know how to make at least passable pizza otherwise. But still, when we see pizzas being ruined across the world, it’s our duty, as Americans, to point it out. You know, so we can feel superior, and also so we can say, “Well, sure, we have St. Louis-style pizza, but we’re not monsters.”

Because these pizzas? Yar, there be monsters.

A Brief Foray into How Other Countries Are Ruining Pizza

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Elizabeth Marian Swaney Is Our New Favorite Olympic Athlete

Posted on February 20, 2018 | Leave a comment

“Unfortunately, just a little small, and not grabbing the tricks.”

~Literally the Most Polite Olympics Announcer Ever

For the last few weeks, our TV sets have been (largely idly, but still) tuned to the Winter Olympics, that one time every four years where dozens of nations can get together and pretend they understand advanced curling strategies.

We’ve been watching because it’s our duty to root for America in the Olympics (even if we’re getting our ass handed to us by Norway) and also because the biathalon looks goofy as hell. Eeven though we don’t understand how there are so many different biathalon competitions, nor can we figure out how America is never good at that sport. We have way more guns than France, so what the hell is this Fourcade guy doing that’s so much more elite than our own athletes?

Anyway. As we’ve been watching speed skaters fall and ice dancers try very hard not to bang each other on the ice, we came across our favorite athlete of all time. While she is in fact an American, she qualified for the Olympics under the Hungarian flag on the Ladies’ Ski Halfpipe. And…like, we linked her run at the top of this article, but we’re going to link it again here, because it is the most wonderful and hilarious ski run of all time. Seriously, watch it. We’ll wait.

Holy shit, right? Like, she just…just skis up and down the halfpipe, never attempting a jump, and just…basically staying upright. And this was in the Olympics. The winning score was more than double what she was awarded! How did this happen!? Well, we’ll dive into that, and also try to piece together a general history of Elizabeth Swaney, our new favorite athlete.

Elizabeth Marian Swaney Is Our New Favorite Olympic Athlete

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The Worst Sports Fan Apparel Ever Made

Posted on February 14, 2018 | 1 comment

“I just wanted to root for the Cubs, why do we have to bring death into this?”

~Normal Baseball Fans

Look at that right there. That, friends, is a bad idea for a sports shirt. It’s not for sale anymore since, you know, the Cubs won one before many (not all ☹) people died. But as sports apparel, it’s shockingly bad. It’s awkward, it’s weird, and it makes everyone involved uncomfortable. And it’s hardly unique among athletic paraphernalia. There are a shocking amount of shirts, jerseys, and, well, miscellaneous items out there for sale that are intended to show your mettle as a true “super fan” that back fire in truly spectacular ways. Here are some of those items.

The Worst Sports Fan Apparel Ever Made

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Posted in America Fun Fact of the Day, Strange America

Tagged America, Apparel, Bad Sports Apparel, baltimore ravens, Boston Celtics, Green Bay Packers, Michigan State, Spartans, Sports, Sports Apparel, Toronto Blue Jays, Victoria's Secret

Chang and Eng Bunker Were America’s Original Siamese Twins

Posted on January 31, 2018 | Leave a comment

“But how did they…you know…”

Trust Us, We’ve Been Wondering the Same Thing, All We’ve Got Are Theories at This Point

We as a species have been making humans for long enough that we’ve mostly got the kinks worked out. Two people get sweaty together, nine months later a new person comes out, and typically that person has a set number of fingers, toes and, like, bones. Listen we’re not biologists or whatever, but you get the point.

However, sometimes that whole process doesn’t exactly work out as intended, which is what happened to Chang and Eng Bunker, two Thai-Americans born in the early 19^th century. Specifically, their number of fingers, toes and, like, bones…well, sort of doubled. Yes, as you’ve probably figured out from the picture just above this inelegant paragraph, Chang and Eng Bunker were conjoined twins.

Actually, they’re kind of the reason why conjoined twins are called Siamese twins, and will be about 75% of the time no matter how angry you get about it online. Despite being born in a time and place with the odds stacked against them in the most impressive way possible, they actually ended up living a full and American life. They pretty much represented the American Dream (okay but with more slave owning, *cringe*).

Here’s their story.

Chang and Eng Bunker Were America’s Original Siamese Twins

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Category Archives: America Fun Fact of the Day

Re-Awarding the Academy Award for Best Picture (1970-1974)

Re-Awarding the Academy Award for Best Picture (1970-1974)

An Incomplete List of Every Strange, Surprising, or Altogether Weird Names on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (Part 4- Names That Are Also Penis Jokes, Because We Are Grown Adults)

An Incomplete List of Every Strange, Surprising, or Altogether Weird Names on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (Part 4- Names That Are Also Penis Jokes, Because We Are Grown Adults)

An Incomplete List of Every Strange, Surprising, or Altogether Weird Names on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (Part 3- Silly Names)

An Incomplete List of Every Strange, Surprising, or Altogether Weird Names on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (Part 3- Silly Names)

An Incomplete List of Every Strange, Surprising, or Altogether Weird Names on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (Part 2- Much, Much, Much Less Famous, but Equally Confusing Entries)

An Incomplete List of Every Strange, Surprising, or Altogether Weird Names on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (Part 2- Much, Much, Much Less Famous, but Equally Confusing Entries)

An Incomplete List of Every Strange, Surprising, or Altogether Weird Names on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (Part 1- Famous But Confusing Entries)

An Incomplete List of Every Strange, Surprising, or Altogether Weird Names on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (Part 1- Famous But Confusing Entries)

The Original Little Rascals Cast Was Probably Cursed?

**The Original Little Rascals Cast Was Probably Cursed?**

A Brief Foray into How Other Countries Are Ruining Pizza

A Brief Foray into How Other Countries Are Ruining Pizza

Elizabeth Marian Swaney Is Our New Favorite Olympic Athlete

Elizabeth Marian Swaney Is Our New Favorite Olympic Athlete

The Worst Sports Fan Apparel Ever Made

The Worst Sports Fan Apparel Ever Made

Chang and Eng Bunker Were America’s Original Siamese Twins

Chang and Eng Bunker Were America’s Original Siamese Twins

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