Mental Floss

From The Archive







Paramount Pictures

Typically, a screenplay is the backbone or blueprint for a movie—but occasionally, a film will go into principal photography without a finished script, with writers frantically trying to complete scenes for a quick and dirty production. Sometimes, it work

Rudie Obias


Being a Disney prince might not be all it's cracked up to be. The ladies typically get all the glory, while you're relegated to a line or two of harmony in a ballad—and some don't even get that (looking at you, Eric). Nonetheless, there are some talented

Stacy Conradt








As these stories show, making Mel Gibson’s sprawling Mayan adventure film was an epic journey in its own right.

Sean Hutchinson
iStock

Sauce has come a long way from its original noun meaning, passing through idiom, to adjective, to adjective-forming suffix. Still, it has kept in touch with its roots.

Arika Okrent
David Hume Kennerly/Getty Images

The phrase, "What's the deal with..." is so synonymous with a specific brand of '90s observational comedy, I bet you just read those words in Jerry Seinfeld's voice. It's funny because he always said it! Or did he?

Nick Greene






istock

Some apples names are really just a desperate cry of “look how yummy I am!” Here are 18 varieties that, frankly, don’t care what you think.

Arika Okrent


You may already know everything about Goku’s battles with Piccolo, but these nuggets will give you an even richer experience when you watch Dragonball Evolution.

Sean Hutchinson
Getty Images

In 1859, George W. Matsell, the first Chief of Police in New York City, published a glossary of terms used by criminals. Vocabulum; or The Rogue’s Lexicon, Marshell assured, was meticulously and painstakingly "compiled from the most authentic sources."

Hannah Keyser