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The circus has always been about performers reaching the pinnacle of courage, strength, and skill, all for the intangible payback of the roar of the crowd. No other acts define this better than those who truly put their lives on the line for your entertai
n 1932, Jerome Howard joined The Three Stooges comedy team
Here's a little-known fact: January 4 is National Trivia Day! Let's celebrate with some of our favorite facts, pulled from our Amazing Fact Generator and the @mental_floss Twitter
By the 1963 Christmas season, The Beatles were already the biggest musical stars in the history of British entertainment. Which makes their live "The Beatles Christmas Shows" of 1963 and 1964 even more bizarre.
Today on Network Awesome (warning: video auto-plays!), Heavy Metal Week continues with the classic documentary The Decline of Western Civilization Part II, The Metal Years. Directed by Penelope Spheeris (who later directed Wayne's World), the film has b
Why They Made This Crazy Movie Released in 1989, The Wizard was a major motion picture that doubled as a promotional vehicle for Nintendo products. It's quite likely the only motion picture to require a "Power Glove Consultant" (for the record, this con
In the 1960s, a unique genre of movies came into the world: the "beach party movies."
Bargain bin recording artists are people, too. In the interest of balanced reporting, I hereby submit to you the very human stories behind some of those infamous photos.
BlöödHag is a death metal band from Seattle who perform, among other places, in libraries. Their songs are "Edu-Core," and focus on science fiction authors and literacy -- check out some lyrics here. In fact, what the heck, I'll just quote their classic
When Janis Joplin died of a heroin overdose on October 4, 1970, she left behind a will that included an offbeat stipulation: $2500 to fund a hard-partying wake in her memory.
While Liberace’s talents on the ivory keys made him famous, it was his showmanship that made him one of the world's highest-paid entertainers throughout the fifties, sixties and seventies. Here's a look at some of the extravagance that helped make a legen
Since the early 1970s there’s been at least one 555 number callers can dial and get an answer—555-1212 is a standard number that rings directory assistance. The rest of the 555 numbers have largely gained fame as fake numbers in movies and on TV.
Let's say you wanted to know what went down on last night's episode of Jeopardy! Well, you'd be in luck -- browse on over to the Show #6128 page on J! Archive, and there you have it -- every clue, every response, all the scores, the whole thing -- you ca
An illeist is someone who refers to himself in the third person, as Richard Nixon famously did when, after losing the bid for the California governorship in 1962, he said, "You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore, because, gentlemen, this is my last p
Tonight, welcome to my world: Portlandia. I've lived in the real-life analogue of Portlandia for eleven years, and it's a place of dreams -- dreams of sleeping late, of opening a yarn store, of becoming a freegan, of getting rid of your car and becoming
Do you remember the adventures of Luke Starkiller? What about the terror of Count Wampyr? Find out which famous characters those rejected names once belonged to.
In honor of tonight's mental_floss fantasy football league draft, here's a story on alternative fantasy leagues that first appeared last summer. Fantasy football drafts are firing up, and workplace productivity will soon grind to a halt as half the offic
Even if they're not the ones on stage belting out their tunes, songwriters can make quite bit of cash from publishing royalties. If you write a hit song, you'll pick up anywhere from a few cents to hundreds of dollars any time it's played on TV, the radi
Today is Star Wars Day, an unofficial holiday that has been gaining steam over the past few years, but not without controversy. Some people celebrate Star Wars Day as May 25th instead, to commemorate the day that the first Star Wars movie premiered in 197
For a four-year stretch in the mid-1930s, Shirley Temple was Hollywood's biggest box-office draw every year.
Dustin Hoffman's 42-year stage and screen career is legendary. From his edgy breakthrough performance in The Graduate, which paved the way for ethnic-looking actors in male leading roles, to his comic portrayal of both Michael Dorsey and Dorothy Michaels
Jason Alexander is known to TV audiences around the world, of course, as George Costanza on Seinfeld, a role which garnered him six Emmy and four Golden Globe nominations, an American Television Award and two American Comedy Awards. He's also appeared in
You may know the sound of these faceless voices, but here are the stories of the real people behind them.
You know him as the man who sang "White Christmas" and co-starred in a slew of movies with Bob Hope. But here are some facts about Bing Crosby that might surprise you.