Louis XVI (1754–1793) is generally known mainly as the French king who was guillotined when his country fell into chaos during the French Revolution in the late 1700s. The French Revolution was inspired by the American Revolution, Enlightenment ideals, economic problems, and conflict between the aristocracy and bourgeoisie. It resulted in mass executions, upheaval, and the end of absolute monarchy in France. But for all his faults, the weak-willed, indecisive King Louis XVI made great strides for progress and human rights—despite uncontrollable circumstances that almost guaranteed his failure.

10 Religious Tolerance

While the Catholic Church remains one of the wealthiest institutions in the world today, it was even more powerful hundreds of years ago. In France, those of non-Catholic faiths such as Judaism and Protestantism were not legally recognized or given civil rights until the late 1700s.

Louis XVI changed this with his 1787 Edict of Tolerance (aka the Edict of Versailles). His signing of the Edict granted non-Catholics in France the right to nondiscrimination based on their faith and civil status so that they could register marriages, births, and deaths and own property.

Full rights for Protestants and other non-Catholics weren’t enforced until Code Napoleon in 1804, but Louis XVI’s Edict of Tolerance was a huge step forward for their civil rights.

9 Supported The American War For Independence

Again on the right side of history, King Louis XVI gave great support to the American independence effort, and France’s backing was instrumental in the US victory.

In 1778, he backed the Treaty of Alliance, which stated that France would ally with the US if Britain declared war. He also let Britain know that France acknowledged the independence of the newly-formed US. When Britain consequently declared war four days later, Louis sent aid and arms across the Atlantic to the American rebels. French officers were also recruited to join the Americans, including the Marquis de Lafayette.

Other ways that France helped the Americans included sending uniforms, a secret loan, providing naval support, and sending troops to supplement American forces over four years from 1778 to 1782.

8 Abolished Serfdom On Royal Land

While serfs weren’t quite as low in status as slaves—they did have the right to own property—they were the lowest social rung of the feudal ladder, and when land was sold, they were sold with it. They had no freedom of movement.

There was vocal opposition to the perceived inhumanity of serfdom, particularly from famed Enlightenment writer Voltaire. In 1779, Louis XVI abolished serfdom on all land under royal control in hopes that this would encourage other landowners to do the same.

Serfdom was fully abolished in France when the feudal rights of the nobility were taken away on August 4, 1789, by the National Constituent Assembly.

7 Encouraged Exploration

Louis XVI played an important role in supporting French exploration of the world during the late 18th century.

The king was fond of the book The Voyages of Cook and wrote A History of the Exploration of the South Seas, which was published in 1791. Dissatisfied with France’s lack of knowledge of the southernmost parts of the globe, he decided in 1785 to send out an expedition with two Navy ships, La Boussole and L’Astrolabe, and chose Captain La Perouse to lead the round-the-world voyage. Louis was intimately involved with the voyage, choosing crew and setting its objectives (setting up new trading posts, meeting new peoples, and mapping the world).

The voyage came to a tragic end in 1788, when the ships sank off Australia, killing all 227 people aboard, but it was hugely important for all the data sent back from each port, which is now kept in Versailles.

6 Abolished Torture For Confessions

In another display of tolerance, Louis XVI abolished the use of torture to extract confessions in French courts.

Torture was a commonly used tool in Western criminal courts for 600 years, from around 1250 to the 19th century, but was criticized for its inhumanity and because of the consequent unreliability of confessions. John Langbein said that with torture, “no safeguards were ever found which could protect the innocent and guarantee the truth. The agony of torture created an incentive to speak, but not necessarily to speak the truth.”

Louis XVI decreed on August 24, 1780, the abolition of one kind of torture, known as la question preparatoire. Later, in 1788, he abolished torture prealable. Torture preparatoire was used to extract confessions from suspects on trial who might have been innocent, whereas torture prealable was used before executions to get the names of accomplices from convicts on death row.

5 Damage Control

While France undeniably underwent huge upheaval during and after Louis XVI’s reign, it is a testament to the unlucky king’s efforts that he managed to keep the country together for that long.

Firstly, Louis was never supposed to be king. As the third son of the dauphin of France (heir apparent to the throne), there were two people in line before him for the throne after his grandfather Louis XV—his older brother and his father. But his brother, who was always favored, died aged nine, when Louis was seven. Four years later, his father died, leaving only 11-year-old Louis to assume the throne, which he did at age 19 when his grandfather died in May 1774.

Secondly, the political climate in France was ripe for revolution, and there was little anyone could have done to change that. France’s loss in the Seven Years War under Louis XV left it in serious debt. An unexpected flurry of crop failures in the 1780s caused severe shortages of bread. The ancient tax system was deeply unfair, with the common people bearing the brunt of the cost while the nobility were free of responsibility. Finally, the ideals of the Enlightenment began to really take hold at this point and caused revolutionary thinking.

Louis XVI was perhaps the unluckiest French king in history.

4 Tried To Help The Poor

With France in debt and the middle and lower classes suffering from poor harvests, Louis XVI tried to make the tax system fairer. He tried to get the nobility to pay more taxes so that the burden wouldn’t be entirely on the poor people of the country, but the nobility refused and even managed to get some of the Third Estate (the commoners) on their side. Despite his theoretical absolute monarchy, the uncooperative nobles stopped Louis from making crucial tax reforms.

The nobles caused plenty of problems in the lead-up to the Revolution, as well. For example, they were supposed to pass up most of the tax money that they got from peasants on their land to the king, but they tended to keep most of it for themselves; only a third of the tax from the gabelle (salt tax) made its way back to the king.

3 Abolished The Labor Tax

In yet another example of the lowly status of French peasants in the mid-1700s, they were required to do 14 days of forced, unpaid labor to build and repair the country’s roads. True to form, Louis XVI and his finance comptroller, Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot (who happened to be friends with Voltaire) ended the corvee en nature and replaced it with a land tax, which angered the nobility.

Angering the nobles in efforts to please and help the commoners was a theme of Louis XVI’s reign. He wanted to be loved by his people, but the nobles were a force to be reckoned with.

2 Promoted Enlightenment

In a Europe with still-low literacy levels (approaching 50 percent for French men in the late 1700s), Louis XVI was a shining example of intellectualism, and he tried to pass it on. He reportedly had one of the most impressive private libraries of the time (with 8,000 books) and was fluent in French, English, and Italian and was outstanding in Latin, astronomy, history, and geography.

The late king founded a school of medicine in Paris in 1774, then known as L’Academie et le College de Chirurgie, (Academy and School of Surgery), now known as Universite Paris Descartes. He was also a patron of the arts, commissioning beautiful pieces like Jacques-Louis David’s Oath of Horatii and supporting US poet Joel Barlow’s epic The Columbiad.

1 Abolished The Death Penalty For Deserters

Louis XVI never could have guess how ironic the fact that he abolished the death penalty (for army deserters) would become when he was guillotined decades later during the Revolution.

In keeping with his liberal style, Louis gave unusual leniency times to army deserters and took away the threat of capital punishment. This was part of a push to instill some initiative in his soldiers rather than having an army of robots. This decision may have been influenced by the important play Le deserteur (The Deserter), written in 1769 by Michel-Jean Sedaine.

Elle blogs at elleloughran.blogspot.ie and is on Twitter @frizzyroselle.

Thanks to Netflix, COVID-19 stay-at-home orders are a little more bearable. On March 20, 2020, the uber-popular streaming service released Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem, and Madness, and the world hunkered down for its next binge-watch.

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Tiger King features Joe Exotic, founder of Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park (aka, G.W. Zoo), who is now serving 22 years for a murder-for-hire scheme. He was also found guilty of falsifying wildlife records and for violating the Endangered Species Act at his private roadside zoo, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office Western District of Oklahoma.^[1]

A record-breaking 34.3 million people viewed the show over the first ten days and were rewarded with a one-of-a-kind true crime story.^[2] The seven-part series featured exotic animal abuse, arson, suicide, maiming, death threats, copyright infringement, missing persons, cults, polygamy, embezzlement, and even a gubernatorial run. Each new episode delivered yet another mind-blowing revelation. Fans experienced whiplash with one bizarre turn of events after another and soon found themselves taking sides: Should Joe Exotic be in prison, or not?

Here, we highlight just eight of Tiger King’s most remarkable stories. WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!

8 Joe Exotic Is a Gay Polygamist

Fifty-seven-year-old Joseph Schreibvogel, aka Joe Exotic, is an openly gay, gun-wielding polygamist who sports a horseshoe mustache, bleach-blonde mullet, and a giant chip on his shoulder.

Joe’s love life has been complicated and extensive, and the show highlighted a dramatic portion of it: his double-marriage to employees John Finlay and Travis Maldonado. In 2014, the “thruple,” donning matching pink shirts and boutonnieres, celebrated an unofficial wedding ceremony with zoo colleagues and live animals.

It was 2003 when Joe hired 19-year-old John Finlay for his zoo and roadshow. Finlay said Joe Exotic taught him what love was all about. He expressed his devotion to his boss/lover with a variety of tattoos, including below-the-belt ink that read, “Privately Owned by Joe Exotic.” On-screen interviews always featured Finlay with no shirt and few teeth (aka, “meth mouth”). After the show aired, Finlay admitted that he wasn’t thrilled with the way he came across in the series. “I was portrayed as a drugged-out hillbilly and that was not me then,” he stated. “At that time, I was four to five years clean.”

Less than a year after their unconventional wedding ceremony, Finlay decided he wanted out of the relationship. He ran off with a woman who also worked for the zoo. The couple, who spent three years together, share a child. Today, he’s engaged to Stormey Sanders, who he met online. He works as a welder, and his fiancee moderates a Facebook page called “The Truth About John Finlay.”

Travis Maldonado came to the G.W. Zoo from Southern California in 2013. The show briefly touched on the 19-year-old’s struggle with drug addiction. Arguably, the most shocking moment in the Tiger King series was Maldonado’s accidental suicide in the zoo’s gift shop in 2017. Episode 5 features CCTV footage of Joe Exotic’s campaign manager, Joshua Dial, witnessing the shooting. Maldanado wanted to prove to Dial that his Ruger pistol wouldn’t fire without its ammunition clip. He removed the magazine but not the bullet in the chamber. He fired the gun and was killed instantly.

“I was sitting in the chair you know, looking at him when he put the gun to his head,” Dial said. “It’s not like in the movies. I knew he was dead the second he pulled the trigger but at the same time I didn’t, you know? I thought it was a joke. Because, you know, Travis was a jokester. He was a prankster. He liked to play pranks on people.”

7 Joe Exotic Had Five Husbands in All

Before marrying Finlay and Maldonado, Joe Exotic had two other husbands. In the late 1980s, he met 19-year-old Brian Rhyne in a gay cowboy bar in Texas. Brian, who was with Joe when he opened the zoo, died of complications from HIV in 2001.

A year later, Joe Exotic met second husband J.C. Hartpence, 24, with whom he developed a traveling tiger/magic show. The pair soon found that they had different visions for the business, and their relationship turned ugly. Joe threatened to feed his husband to the tigers, and Hartpence reportedly held two guns to Joe’s head while he slept. Hartpence is currently serving a life sentence for murder. He is also a convicted pedophile.^[3]

Two months after Maldonado died, Joe Exotic married 22-year-old Dillon Passage and changed his surname to Maldonado-Passage. Despite Joe’s incarceration, the pair remain married.^[4]

6 Carole Baskin is Crazy…Like a Fox

Joe Exotic has made a lot of enemies, but his No. 1 nemesis was — and always will be — “Carole Fucking Baskin.” Baskin, 58, is the founder of Big Cat Rescue, an animal sanctuary in Tampa, Florida that works to end the breeding and exploitation of privately owned big cats in the US. Her current (third) husband, Howard Baskin, has christened her the “Mother Theresa of cats.”^[5]

Private exotic animal owners criticize Baskin for doing the same thing they’re doing but with a bigger profit margin. While Joe Exotic and the like purchase and breed cats at their own expense, Baskin gets her cats for free by “rescuing” them from offenders. And while zookeepers pay their workers (albeit dismally), Baskin’s labor is all volunteer. She claims that the Joe Exotic types create the problems, and she fixes them. But her sanctuary, along with her huge social media presence, appears to be making Baskin a very wealthy woman.^[6]

With the help of PETA, Baskin effectively shut down Joe Exotic’s roadshow. The roadshow involved taking tiger cubs to shopping malls, where Joe made tens of thousands of dollars by charging fans to pet the cubs. Baskin used her online presence to target zookeepers and exotic animal owners, and her efforts negatively impacted their bottom line.

Joe pushed back on his internet show. He informed animal rights activists that they would “stop breathing” before they shut him down. He repeatedly threatened Baskin’s life, even airing footage of himself shooting mannequins and blow-up dolls in her likeness. For Baskin’s birthday, Joe had her mailbox stuffed with venomous snakes.

But Baskin had deeper pockets and a farther reach than her nemesis, and she continued to make his life miserable. And now, while Joe sits in jail, Baskin continues to profit from her “charity” work.

5 Did Don Lewis Disappear, or Was He Fed to the Tigers?

By episode three of Tiger King, we discover that the real Baskin drama involves neither her charity work nor being in Joe Exotic’s crosshairs. What viewers really want to know is: WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED TO HER SECOND HUSBAND?!

In January 1981, after feuding with her allegedly abusive first husband, Baskin was tearfully roaming the dark streets when married millionaire Don Lewis spotted her from his car. On his third attempt to pick her up, he offered to let her keep his pistol aimed at him while they drove around together. (Yeah, weird.) They kicked off their long-term extramarital affair that night, eventually divorced their respective spouses, and wed in 1991.

In 1992, Baskin and her new husband founded Wildlife on Easy Street, a bed and breakfast that offered tourists the opportunity to sleep with exotic cats in rented cabins. The couple purchased and bred a lot of big cats–the very thing that Baskin fights today. Eventually, the couple’s visions diverged: Lewis wanted to keep breeding; Baskin wanted to turn the B&B into a big cat sanctuary.

In June 1997, Lewis filed a restraining order against Baskin, claiming that she possessed multiple firearms and threatened to kill him. The restraining order was rejected. On August 18, 1997, Don Lewis disappeared. His body has never been found, and the missing person case remains open.

However, after five years, a missing person can be declared dead. So, five years and one day after Lewis’ disappearance, Baskin did just that. As the executor of his estate, she inherited somewhere between $5 million and $10 million. Oddly, Lewis’s will specified, in highly unusual language, that Baskin would get everything in the event of his death “or disappearance.” Chilling.^[7]

There is no evidence that Baskin killed Lewis or was involved in his disappearance. But the Tiger King series certainly raises questions about her innocence. Joe Exotic, along with Lewis’s former wife and daughters, speculates that Baskin murdered Lewis, put his body through the meat grinder, and fed him to the tigers. The zookeeper even published a music video entitled “Here Kitty-Kitty” that features Baskin’s doppelganger feeding raw meat–meant to be Lewis’s remains–to caged tigers. Theories like this make for great TV. And Joe Exotic knows it:

“Me and Carole made money off each other,” he bragged. “We became popular off of each other because I was her number one most-wanted cub abuser that she could make money off of, and she was my number one murdered-her husband-and-fed-him-to-the-tigers and crazy bitch out there that I could make music videos and shit about.”

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4 Zoo Staffers Ate What the Big Cats Ate

It’s expensive to feed hundreds of big cats, alligators, bears, and other exotic animals every day. Joe Exotic claimed it cost him about a quarter of a million dollars a year to feed his extensive collection. And that’s with his extreme cost-cutting approach of using roadkill, dead farm animals, and other donated fodder.

The G.W. Zoo relied most heavily on regular truckloads of expired meat from Walmart. Packages of pork, beef, and chicken spilled out of 18-wheelers to sustain not only the cats but, it seems, the workers as well. Joe Exotic’s employees lived on-site and earned “$128 per week,” according to zookeeper Erik Cowie. The employees got first pick of the expired meat, which was often all they had to eat. The castoff food was also used to make the pizza that was sold to zoo customers!

3 Being Mauled By a Tiger Is Apparently No Big Deal

Zoo staffer Kelci “Saff” Saffery was introduced in episode one, but it wasn’t until episode two that we noticed he was missing an arm. (Note: There has been much controversy and discussion about whether Saff goes by “he” or “she.”)

The show begins with chaos, a 911 call, and a bleeding Saff lying on the ground next to a tiger cage. Joe quickly donned his medical bomber jacket and informed customers that “an employee stuck their arm through the cage and a tiger tore his arm off.” He offered refunds and rain checks and fretted over how he would ever recover financially.

Saff, meanwhile, was rushed to the hospital. His hand was still working but the prognosis was grim. The surgeon proposed two years of reconstructive surgery or amputation. Saff opted for the amputation and returned to work the following week.

When asked why he would return to a job that took his arm, he said, “Our mission is to give these animals a fighting chance. If I stay in the hospital, the media wins.”

Subsequently, footage of the attack was shown to prospective employees. “There was a time and place where we had to use it as a safety video,” Saff said. “We didn’t have any further of a conversation than this should be the one thing people see before they decide if this is a career move they want to make.^[8]

2 To Be Honest, Joe Exotic Is No Stranger Than His Peers

Tiger King focused on Joe Exotic but also introduced other nefarious zookeepers who are every bit as bizarre as the star.

Take Bhagavan “Doc” Antle, for example, who owns Myrtle Beach Safari.^[9] Antle has a lot of big cats … and a lot of women. (Wives? Girlfriends? Harem?) Teenagers and twenty-somethings, aka “apprentices,” flock to him to gain experience working with exotic animals. He grooms them, they sleep with him. A bond is established, and the women stay for years. Like a cult.

The show featured one such apprentice who worked under Antle for eight years. She joined the “cohesive family unit” hoping to practice yoga and train animals. Instead, she worked twelve hours a day–every day–in exchange for $100 a week, roach-infested accommodations, and an unsolicited breast augmentation.

Like Joe Exotic, Doc Antle makes a lot of money charging people for up-close encounters with tiger cubs and other exotic animals (prices range from $100 to $539). Unfortunately, no one knows for sure what happens to most of the cubs when they become too big to cuddle. Baskin says he euthanizes them. Antle admits nothing.

In Miami, there’s Mario Tabraue. In 1987, Tabraue was arrested on racketeering and narcotics charges. He was allegedly the kingpin of a $75 million illegal drug operation in South Florida and was accused of using a machete to dismember the body of a federal informant who had been murdered by his own men. In 1987, Tabraue was sentenced to 100 years behind bars but, because he turned informant for federal authorities, was released after serving 12 years.^[10] (Tiger King included clips from Scarface in honor of Tabraue, who is said to be the inspiration for Tony Montana.)

Since his release, Tabraue has devoted his energy to his Miami zoo, the Zoological Wildlife Foundation. Children under 18 can enjoy an hour-long sloth encounter for $35, while a “special wildlife encounter” costs $700 per person. While he continues to come under harsh criticism for owning exotic animals, the murderous drug lord appears to be the sanest zookeeper of the bunch.^[11]

Then there’s Jeff Lowe. Lowe came along to rescue Joe Exotic when his zoo was going under. He and his wife Lauren took Joe’s tiger cubs to Las Vegas to make money and “get girls.” In Lowe’s words: “A little pussy gets you a lot of pussy.” He bragged about orgies, swinging, and the hot new nanny he hired for his pregnant wife. (She could stand in while Lauren got her body back in shape.) “If you’re gonna bring in one, why bring in one that’s not enjoyable to look at?”

Lowe entered the scene as an angel investor but soon moved to co-ownership of the G.W. Zoo. Before long, he was the sole owner. (The series interviews featured a lot of talk about how he “stole the zoo from Joe.”) The zoo continues to run, and ticket prices range from $15 for general admission to $175 for VIP tours.^[12]

1 Everyone On Tiger King Has Terrible Taste in Clothes

John Reinke is the dedicated zoo manager with prosthetic legs. Not your typical fake appendages, mind you. Reinke’s are covered in graphic art. Like his colleague John Finlay, who opts to go shirtless to show off his tattoos, Reinke rarely covers his legs with pants. (Note: While one might think that zoo manager with no legs suffered a tiger encounter, Reinke’s legs were lost to a ziplining accident.)

For someone who claims he’s not a cult leader, Doc Antle sure does dress like one. He strolls around in breezy tunics, sandals, ponytail, and soul patch. Antle dresses his associates (harem) as well. He dons them in costumey tigerstripe unitards and tacky club clothes to lure in customers. Handling big cats is difficult enough when wearing practical clothing!

Jeff Lowe is quite the spectacle, too. The supposed millionaire is stuck in a gone-bye era. When he’s not trying too hard in head-to-toe Harley Davidson gear he’s sporting dated Ed Hardy-style apparel and ripped jeans that are way too young for him.

Rick Kirkham is the chain-smoking, coffee-guzzling, Crocodile Dundee of documentary filmmaking. Full stop.

Predictably enough, it’s nothing but animal print for Carole Baskin. But even though Baskin is a multi-millionaire, she’s not investing in high-end fashion. At her big cat sanctuary, she might pair a pink leopard caftan with a crown of flowers, giving off a hippie vibe. When she lobbies to protect big cats, she flaunts an outfit of cheetah print and pearls. “It’s almost a uniform,” she explained. “When I got in to talk with a legislator, if I go in there dressed head-to-toe in cat prints, people remember, ‘Oh, that’s the person that’s going to be all over my case about why cats need to be protected.” It’s a wonder her husband Howard is able to find her among her home decor, which includes furniture, vases, wall hangings, towels, and more in an array of big-cat patterns.
Joe Exotic has a pretty extensive (albeit terrible) fashion range. His blonde mullet, undyed ‘stache, and tattooed eyeliner are ever-present, but his outfits run the gamut from cowboy to priest to king (or, perhaps, queen?). A glimpse of his closet reveals an entire row of fringed leather jackets but also has plenty of flannel and an even better supply of sequins. Joe always covers his ‘do with a hat and almost always dons a firearm and bullets as part of his ensemble.^[13]

As they say: You can’t make this stuff up. In one season, Tiger King generated more television entertainment than anyone could have anticipated. Now, fans sit back and wait for answers to the big questions. Will the big cat zoos be shut down? Will Carole Baskin be reinvestigated for Don Lewis’s disappearance? Will Joe Exotic be pardoned? Stay tuned.

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Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. never got to live in the better world he helped create. His world, until the moment he died, was one ruled by hate, inequality, and oppression. The only life he knew was the one of his childhood, growing up in Atlanta. It was a cruel life, ruled by Jim Crow laws and plagued by inequality.

We’ve all heard Dr. King’s speeches, but his life story is usually left on the cutting room floor. That story, though, is every bit as important. It shows why he became the man he was and gives us a glimpse into the world as it was before he changed it.

10 His Grandfather Accepted Being Cheated

King’s father, Martin Luther King Sr., played a huge role in who he grew up to be. His father’s life began on a plantation, where King Jr.’s grandfather worked as a farmhand. They were treated as second-class citizens—and King Sr. was told to accept it.

However, King Sr. had a hard time living as a lesser class of human being. When he was little, he caught the white plantation boss cheating his father out of the money he’d worked so hard to earn. King Sr. called him out on it, but it didn’t do him any good. The boss said, “Jim, if you don’t keep this nigger boy of yours in his place, I am going to slap him down.” His father, too afraid of losing his job to speak out, told King Sr. to be quiet and went home without pay.

King Sr. left the farm when his father, in a drunken stupor, nearly beat his mother to death. The boy had to wrestle his own father to keep him from killing her. Afterward, he fled town and went to Atlanta, where he would become a preacher and start his family. For the rest of his life, he vowed, “I ain’t going to plough a mule anymore,” and he held his son to the same promise.

9 He Wasn’t Allowed To Be Friends With A White Boy

From the time he was three years old, King Jr.’s best friend was a white boy whose father owned the store across the street from his home. When they were preschoolers, they would play every day and treated each other as equals.

When they started school, though, they drifted apart. They couldn’t study in the same building; King had to study in a school for blacks, and his friend studied in one for whites. The boy didn’t come around often anymore. Then, when he was six years old, the boy informed King that his father wouldn’t let them play together anymore.

“For the first time, I was made aware of the existence of a race problem,” King would later recall. He hadn’t thought of himself as different until that moment—but now he knew how he was seen. For a long time, the experience filled him with hate.

“From that moment on,” King said, “I was determined to hate every white person.”

8 His Father Beat Him Horribly

King’s friends told him, “I’m scared to death of your dad.” And there was a reason for it. Both at home and at work, Martin Luther King Sr. was a stern man. He was a preacher, but he didn’t always follow Jesus’s methods. During one service, he threatened to collapse a chair over the head of a congregation member if he didn’t calm down—and that was a story he bragged about.

At home, he was even worse. He would beat Martin and his brother, Alfred, senseless for any infraction, usually with a belt. Sometimes, the beatings got out of hand. On one occasion, a neighbor heard him through the walls, yelling, “I’ll make something of you, even if I have to beat you to death!”

King Jr. took his beatings in silence. “He was the most peculiar child whenever you whipped him,” his father would later say. “He’d stand there, and the tears would run down, and he’d never cry.”

7 He Was Dressed As A Slave For The Premiere Of Gone With The Wind

In 1939, when King was ten years old, he got to perform at the Atlanta premiere of Gone with the Wind. His father had been put in charge of organizing a 60-person choir for the show, and his boy was to be in the choir. They were to sing for an all-white audience, members of a Junior League association that only accepted white people. Before they performed, the choir was put on stage in front of a picture of a plantation and forced to dress up as slaves.

The family couldn’t actually go into the theater after performing. They were part of the entertainment, but only whites were allowed inside. They weren’t the only ones banned, either. Even Hattie McDaniel, the black actress who played Mammy in the film, was forbidden from watching it because of the color of her skin.

6 He Attempted Suicide After His Grandmother Died

King’s teachers described him as a moody and withdrawn boy—and they had reason to believe it. By the time King was 13, he’d tried to kill himself twice.

His most serious attempt at suicide came when his grandmother, Jennie Parks, died. She had been a major presence in their home and had helped raise the kids. She had especially doted on little Martin. King would later say, “I sometimes think I was her favorite grandchild.”

He was supposed to be with her on the day she died, but he sneaked out of the house. A parade was in town, and the curious boy ran to see it. While he was out, his grandmother had a heart attack and died.

King blamed himself. He believed it was his fault that she had the heart attack. Filled with remorse, he climbed up to the top floor of his home and leaped out of the window. He survived, but it took him a long time to recover. His father, telling the story, would say, “He cried off and on for days afterward, and was unable to sleep at night.”

5 His Father Couldn’t Accept Living With Jim Crow Laws

King Sr. was also a civil rights activist. He was the president of the NAACP in Atlanta and a ferocious fighter who managed to erode some Jim Crow laws on his own. And he was a man who never accepted being treated as a lesser person.

King Sr. talked back to every white person he saw. When a shoe store clerk asked them to sit the back, he stormed out, refusing to buy anything. He refused to ride the bus because of how blacks were treated on them.

He took some major risks with it. One time, when he was pulled over by a police officer for running a stop sign, the officer called him “boy.” King Sr. wouldn’t stand for it. “Let me make it clear,” he told the officer. “You aren’t talking to a boy. If you persist in referring to me as a boy, I will be forced to act as if I don’t hear a word you’re saying.”

A black man back-talking a police officer in those days was risking his life. King Sr. was lucky, though: The officer just gave him a ticket and let him go.

“I don’t care how long I have to live with this system,” King Sr. told his son, “I will never accept it.”

4 After His First Speech, He Had To Stand On A Bus For Hours

King Jr., though, was young. He didn’t have the luxury of being as bold as his father. “I wouldn’t dare retaliate when a white person was involved,” King said.

He was eight years old the first time he faced such a scenario. He accidentally stepped on a woman’s foot, and she slapped in the face and called him a “nigger.” King didn’t do anything; he was eight years old, and she was white.

His childhood would be full of worse moments. He watched the Ku Klux Klan beat a man in front of him. He watched the police beat a black man senseless. And he saw more than one black body hanging from a tree.

But the moment that made him, in his words, “the angriest I have ever been in my life” came when he was 13. As part of a competition, he delivered a speech entitled The Negro and the Constitution and then hopped on the bus for the 145-kilometer (90 mi) trip home.

When white people boarded, he was asked to give up his seat and stand. King hesitated, which got him cursed out by the bus driver. So he gave up his spot and stood the whole way home while the white passengers sat.

3 He Was Embarrassed By His Father’s Church

By the time he was a teenager, King felt humiliated by his father’s preaching style. His father led a Southern Baptist church, filled with whooping and clapping, which he felt fed into the minstrel caricatures that white people saw in them.

He started resisting it. At the age of 13, he argued with his Sunday school teacher, insisting that Jesus couldn’t really have come back from the dead. “None of my teachers ever doubted the infallibility of the scriptures,” King said. “Doubts began to spring forth unrelentingly.”

He joined the church because the rest of his family did, but he lived with a lot of religious doubt. He even surprised himself when he went on to become a reverend. He did it, though, because he thought it was the best way for him to talk about social issues. King pledged to be a “rational” minister, one who would be “a respectable force for ideas, even social protest.”

2 He Nearly Married A White Woman

During summers, King worked on a plantation to earn some extra money for college, despite his father’s protests. It was an integrated workforce, and here, working alongside white people for the first time, his hatred started to calm down. “Here I saw economic injustice firsthand,” King later wrote, “and realized that the poor white was exploited just as much as the Negro.” His dream of an integrated world was born in those fields.

He nearly married a white woman. She was a cafeteria worker at his school, the daughter of German immigrants, and King swept off her feet. King was in love, and he told all of his friends that he was going to marry her.

They were outraged. They insisted it was a mistake, that whites and blacks both would be furious, and that his shot at being a pastor would be ruined. His family wouldn’t accept it, either. They told him that he needed to find and marry a nice black woman and keep things calm.

King’s family made him call it off. King told a friend that he could brave his father’s fury but “not his mother’s pain.” After six months together, he broke it off. According to a friend, “He never recovered.”

1 He Experienced Equality For The First Time When He Was 15

Martin Luther King skipped two grades in school. He was only 15 years old when he got accepted into Morehouse University and started his path toward becoming the reverend we remember. His family, however, didn’t have enough money to pay for his education, so he took a job on a plantation in Connecticut.

This plantation worked with Morehouse. The school sent them black workers, and in exchange, they sent the school money. The work there was hard. The boys had to work from 7:00 AM to 5:00 PM and had curfew at 10:00 PM, but for a group of black Southern boys, this was the most freedom they’d ever had.

The plantation was called “the promised land” by those who worked there, simply because they had the freedom to go into town on weekends. “I never thought that a person of my race could eat anywhere,” King wrote his mother in an excited letter home, “but we ate in one of the finest restaurants in Hartford.”

King got to choose his seat on the train ride back—until they made it to Washington, DC, and he was told that if he wanted to go on to Atlanta, he would have to move to the all-black car. For the first time, though, King knew what equality felt like. “It was a bitter feeling going back to segregation,” he wrote. “The very idea of separation did something to my sense of dignity and self-respect.”

King Henry VIII is probably the best-known English ruler of all time. The subject of countless stories, TV programs, and movies, Henry VIII is most famous for being hugely fat, having a fixation with beheadings, and for having no fewer than six wives during the course of his nearly 38-year reign.

However, it might surprise you to learn that there was a lot more to this Tudor king than meets the eye. Henry VIII did a lot more during his reign than order executions and gain weight. Here, we look at ten amazing things that we bet you were never told about this much-married monarch.

10 Henry Was An English Sex Symbol Of His Day

All of the portraits that we see today of King Henry usually show him as a massively overweight old man with a beard. However, in his younger days, he was actually known as a bit of a sex symbol. He wasn’t only popular with the ladies because of his money and power—Henry was also hugely admired for his good looks. Clean-shaven for much of his life, Henry was very tall for the time at 191 centimeters (6’3″) and had a full head of extremely striking red hair.^[1]

Henry also had an athletic build thanks to his love of jousting, hunting, and tennis, and he was especially famous for his fine calves—the equivalent of having a six-pack today! It was only after a jousting accident in his later years led to a permanent leg injury which prevented him from exercising that he put on weight and turned into the enormous mountain of a man that we recognize from the movies.

9 Henry Should Never Have Been King

Although he is arguably the most famous English monarch of all time, Henry VIII should never have ascended to the throne. There are two reasons for this.

Firstly, his father, Henry VII, seized the throne from King Richard III after the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 and therefore wasn’t the rightful king of England.^[2] In fact, Henry VII’s claim to the throne was extremely tenuous; he was the great-great-grandson of King Edward III’s fourth son with his third wife. Should the line of succession have continued, Henry would never have gotten anywhere near the crown!

Also, Henry VIII had an older brother named Arthur, who should have succeeded to the throne on his father’s death. Unfortunately, Arthur died when he was just 15, leaving Henry as the only male heir.

8 Henry Ate A Shocking 5,000 Calories Every Day Before He Died

While we know that Henry VIII was overweight in his later years, it’s hard to imagine just how big he was. However, a quick look at his daily diet makes it easy to see just why the king was so big. Every single day, he would eat about 13 different courses, mainly made up of meats like chicken, lamb, pork, rabbit, swans, peacocks, and venison. Not only did he eat excessively, but he also drank as many as 70 pints of ale every week, together with sweetened red wine.

The total amounts to about 5,000 calories per day, twice today’s recommended allowance for an active man.^[3] It’s no wonder that one of his surviving suits of armor, which is displayed at the Tower of London, has a waist size of 132 centimeters (52 in)!

7 Henry Was Surprisingly Prudish

Although he ran through an amazing six wives during his lifetime, it’s likely that Henry VIII wasn’t very adventurous when it came to activities in the bedroom. We know that Henry had numerous mistresses over the years, some of whom he had children with, but there is no evidence that he tried any unusual sexual practices with them.

Although he had a great love of women, it appears that he preferred to stick to tried and tested lovemaking techniques and was reportedly shocked by Anne Boleyn’s sexual knowledge when she finally gave in to his demands.^[4] In fact, her “French bedroom practices” were cited against her when she was brought to trial for witchcraft and adultery and no doubt led to her being accused of sleeping with “a hundred men” before being found guilty and executed by the sword.

6 Henry Was The Very First English Monarch To Write A Book

There is no doubt whatsoever that Henry VIII was an extremely intelligent and well-educated man. The fact that he was fluent in at least three languages is well-known, and he had an impressive knowledge that spanned everything from theology to medicine. Yet most people are completely unaware that he was the first king of England to write and publish his own book.

In 1521, Henry VIII published the rather confusingly titled Defense of the Seven Sacraments, or, to give it its Latin title, Assertio Septem Sacramentorum, as a response to Martin Luther’s challenge to the pope’s authority in publishing the Ninety-five Theses. At 30,000 words long, Henry’s book became a top seller in its day, and he was actually awarded the title of “Defender of the Faith” by the pope as a reward for his efforts.^[5]

5 Henry Didn’t Write The Song ‘Greensleeves’

For generations, people have associated the song “Greensleeves” with Henry VIII; however, the Tudor monarch didn’t actually compose this piece of music.^[6] While this ballad was almost certainly penned by someone at Henry’s royal court, Henry himself was not responsible for its creation.

Nevertheless, the king was a very accomplished musician, skilled at playing the lute and the recorder, and he did compose a number of musical pieces, including “Pastime with Good Company.” Perhaps the best surviving example of his musical genius comes in the form of the Henry VIII Manuscript, a collection of over 100 instrumental pieces and songs which were composed by a number of foreign and court musicians in Henry VIII’s entourage. Almost a third of this collection, no less than 33 of the pieces, were composed by King Henry himself.

4 Henry Had Severe Health Anxiety

Even when he was young and healthy, Henry had a terrible fear of death and illness.^[7] He was especially afraid of catching the plague or sweating sickness, two diseases which were rife in England during Henry’s time. He was so desperate to avoid infection that he kept well away from anyone who may have been exposed to an illness, and when a bout of the sweating sickness arrived in London during 1517 and 1518, Henry left the city for almost a full year. He even refused at one point to see his ambassadors because he was so afraid of catching the sweating sickness, and despite his great passion for Anne Boleyn in 1528, he refused to go anywhere near her until she had made a full recovery from the disease.

It’s possible that the death of his brother Arthur at the tender age of 15 was the cause of Henry’s hypochondria, but his dreadful fear of illness was so great that he required his physicians to examine him every morning of his life. He even learned as much as he could about the medicine of the day, making his own remedies from a hidden cabinet of ingredients in his apartments.

3 Henry May Have Had Blood That Was Kell-Positive

One of the facts that everyone knows about Henry VIII was his difficulty in producing a male heir to his throne, but today, it is believed that, in fact, it was Henry’s blood that was to blame for the problem. There is a modern theory which suggests that Henry may have had a rare blood type which was positive for the Kell antigen group.^[8] This would have meant that if he got a woman pregnant and the resulting baby was also Kell-positive, their mother would then develop Kell antibodies which would attack future fetuses.

Since Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn both experienced several miscarriages in later pregnancies, and Henry’s two sons, the legitimate Edward VI and Henry Fitzroy, his illegitimate son with his mistress Bessie Blount, were both the result of first pregnancies, this theory is a strong possibility.

2 Henry May Have Suffered From McLeod Syndrome

Most people are aware that Henry VIII had a terrible temper and was prone to outbursts of rage, but the reasons for this remain unknown. Henry was famous in his day for his unpredictable behavior, especially during his later life, and his courtiers often experienced his wrath firsthand. He beheaded more people during his reign than any other British monarch, and many of the people who met their grisly end at his hands were his closest friends and relatives. Not only did he condemn two of his wives to an untimely death, but he also signed death warrants for a number of his intimate advisors and companions, including Thomas Cromwell and Thomas More.

Recent theories have suggested that Henry may have suffered from a condition called McLeod syndrome, which causes cognitive impairments as well as a number of other physical problems such as mobility issues, which Henry also experienced.^[9] Since McLeod syndrome also has links to people who have Kell-positive blood, it looks increasingly likely that Henry may have been a sufferer of this rare condition.

1 Henry Turned Beards Into A Status Symbol

Portraits of England’s best-known monarch usually depict him wearing an impressive set of whiskers. However, it isn’t widely known that Henry introduced a tax which was levied on the wearing of beards and which turned facial hair into a status symbol overnight.^[10] There have been some seriously bizarre taxes over the years, but Henry’s beard tax has to be one of the strangest. In 1535, the king demanded that taxes be paid by any man who chose to wear a beard, and the amount charged varied depending on the social status of its wearer, meaning that every man who wanted to be viewed as high-status immediately decided to grow their facial hair.

So, there you have it—ten amazing things that you never knew about England’s not-so merry monarch. The next time you see a movie or TV show featuring this Tudor king, you’ll know a little more about what made him tick!

Originally trained as an actress, in a former life I worked as a secretary and an early years teacher before falling into freelance writing almost by accident! Today, I write all kinds of content, from reviews and blog posts to entire websites, but my true passions are musicals and history.

Stephen King, the undisputed ruler of the horror genre, is no stranger to having his books turned into movies. His debut novel, Carrie, was released as a film only two years after its initial publication in 1974 and the trend has continued unabated ever since, with countless King stories adapted for screen over the years.
As fans of the author will know, these efforts were more often misses than hits. There are some notable exceptions, like 1994’s The Shawshank Redemption, but these just go to prove the general rule – King movies are often terrible. Or, rather, were terrible. Things have changed of late, and recently we’ve seen some excellent movies and TV series based on King’s work. With many more set for release in the coming years, there’s good reason for fans to get excited, and what better way to do so than by looking back at the top 10 King screen adaptations of the last decade.

Top 10 Modern Horror Novels More Terrifying Than A Stephen King Book

10 Carrie (2013)

Since Carrie was King’s first novel and the first to become a movie, there’s no better place to start than the excellent 2013 remake. The story, in essence, is about retribution as Carrie White ultimately uses her telekinetic powers to exact brutal revenge on those who wronged her. There’s so much more going on here though, as the lead character, expertly played by Chloe Grace Moretz, evokes strong feelings of pity despite her homicidal actions at the end. Julianne Moore rounds out a strong cast with her portrayal of Carrie’s mother, proving that the strength of King’s story lies always in its characters.

Throughout the girl’s troubled teenage years we’re given a heartbreaking portrayal that’s both relatable and all too easy to believe. True, Carrie’s telekinesis is fictional but her struggles with bullying at school, abuse and mental illness at home, and a general longing to fit in are all too real and relatable. Kimberly Pierce, one of the few prominent female directors in Hollywood, proves her worth with the depth of subtlety and nuance she packs into every scene. But make no mistake, this is a horror story through and through, and the blood-soaked final scenes leave no doubt that this is vintage King.

9 Mr. Mercedes (2017)

In his 62nd novel, King went in a new direction, leaving the supernatural behind and opting rather for a straightforward detective story. Mr. Mercedes features no fanciful elements, just strong characters, an engaging plot, and a viscerally shocking opening scene. These elements come through strongly in the popular 2017 TV series, possibly because this kind of character-driven investigative plot is perfectly suited to episodic storytelling.

After Brady Hartsfield murders several people by driving a Mercedes sedan into a crowd of job seekers one cold morning and disappears without a trace, detective Bill Hodges is unable to solve the case. Later, in retirement, he’s taunted by the killer in a series of messages and picks up the hunt once more, this time without the burden of a badge. Starting with a bang as it does is a risky move as everything that follows could come across as anticlimactic, but Mr. Mercedes is spared this fate by its colorful cast of characters and a plot that moves along briskly, engaging the viewer as it does. The story might be fairly standard, bordering on predictable, but for purposes of pure entertainment, it performs admirably.

8 1922 (2017)

Stephen King’s 2010 collection of four short stories, entitled Full Dark, No Stars, was popularly received by fans. Not too surprisingly, three of these stories have been subject to screen adaptations and, of those, 1922 is the best of the bunch. Released as a Netflix exclusive and backed up by an impressive 91% Rotten Tomatoes rating, the departure from the contemporary setting, not something King does too often, works well in narrowing the focus of the plot to the most critical aspect – the main character’s descent into insanity.

In a very Poe-like way, the story begins with Wilfred James holed up in a hotel, the threat of rats in the walls, and his own guilty conscience, driving him to recount his grizzly tale of spousal murder and how the deadly dead cost him his unwitting accomplice – his son. The story unfolds as more of a slow-burn psychological thriller but the strong character development sees the viewer quickly invested in the plot, and there are more than enough hair-raising moments to remind one that Stephen King knows exactly how to mesmerize and terrorize as he spins a yarn, be it in book or movie form.

7 Pet Sematary (2019)

Pet Sematary, one of King’s more shocking stories, deals with the issue of death and resurrection. The book was made into a movie in 1989 and, even though the author wrote the screenplay, the effort was thoroughly forgettable. The story was brought back to life in a 2019 reboot and this time, it’s a vast improvement. “Sometimes dead is better,” claims one of the characters in the story, but this is not one of those times. Like things buried in the titular pet sematary, the movie has come back from the grave changed, but these changes are mostly for the better.

That’s not to say the movie was popularly received, nor that it’ll go down as a horror classic. It shines only in comparison to the previous attempt and as a faithful adaptation of an excellent novel that goes all out in its efforts to terrify. While part of this impact is lost in the movie, some clever foreshadowing and one or two heart-stopping moments stand out, as does John Lithgow’s convincing performance as Judd Crandall, the old neighbor who sets all the chaos in motion. King claims his stories are like fast food – nothing fancy but they fill a need. The same could be said for this movie. Its sole objective is to entertain and in that, it succeeds beyond doubt.

6 In the Tall Grass (2019)

In the Tall Grass is a collaborative novella written by Stephen King and his son, Joe Hill. Horror fiction connoisseurs will know that Hill tends to up the ante when it comes to the fright factor and his stories are some of the scariest around. Writing as he does in the shadow of his illustrious father, he seems to go out of his way to differentiate his approach and the effective colliding of two unique styles is likely what attracted seasoned director, Vincenzo Natali, to this project.

Following a brother and sister who get lured into a field of tall grass in the middle of nowhere on a cross country road trip, the movie starts strongly with Natali expertly using his signature visual-poetry style to add a deep sense of foreboding and tense expectation to proceedings. From there, it deteriorates somewhat into the expected thrills and spills of the genre as the movie follows the general arc of the novella, getting decidedly weirder as it progresses. Any structural flaws here, though, are not the fault of the film but rather can be attributed to the story being an experimental collaboration that perhaps signals the passing of the baton from one King to another.

5 Doctor Sleep (2019)

Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film, The Shining, drew strong praise or harsh criticism depending on who you asked. Fans of the book and, famously, Stephen King himself, hated the movie because, while some license-taking is expected, Kubrick altered not just vital plot elements but the overall feel of the story as well. When King wrote a sequel in 2013, he must have had higher hopes for the film version, and, fortunately for him, Mike Flanagan picked up the project and delivered an excellent movie in 2019’s screen adaptation of Doctor Sleep.

Flanagan had the unenviable task of connecting the opposing visions of King and Kubrick in the direct sequel that follows a grown-up Danny Torrence as he battles his psychic abilities in a journey that takes him, inevitably, back to the scene of his childhood nightmare – The Overlook Hotel. That the place was destroyed in the novel but not in the movie of The Shining is one example of the kind of challenges Flanagan had in marrying the two in a single film, and he succeeds admirably, catering to both sets of fans and to horror lovers in general. Add in some strong acting by Ewan McGregor and Rebecca Fergusson, and you have one of the better King adaptations to ever grace the silver screen.

4 IT: Chapters 1 & 2 (2017 & 2019)

Yes, this is technically two for the price of one, but since the recent film translation of King’s classic horror novel is a single story, divided only for convenience, they can’t really be separated and so appear as one on this list. Given the formidable length of the book, a single movie could never work, which is why the previous attempt to televise the tale took the form of a miniseries back in 1990. Needless to say, it wasn’t spectacular, although it did bring the terrifying form of Pennywise, the murderous clown, to a whole new generation. And now, thanks to Andres Muschietti’s efforts, we have a screen version that does the chilling tale justice at last.

If you’ve read the book you’ll know that its allure is far more than just that of a scary story. Within, we find an engaging account of the enduring bond of childhood friendship, of bullying, abuse, loss, unhealthy family dynamics, and banding together to defeat our demons with the power of love. This is less cheesy than it sounds when one of said demons is a literal shape-shifting monster. King often comes under fire for his weak endings, and the ending of IT is not just weak but also bizarrely obscene. Thankfully, the movie changes it, removing the elements of underage intercourse and going for a more traditional conclusion that even the author agrees is a vast improvement.

3 Gerald’s Game (2017)

We’ve already discussed Mike Flanagan’s excellent work on Doctor Sleep and here we find proof that that movie wasn’t the first time he worked wonders with a King story that wasn’t exactly film-friendly. Gerald’s Game, considered one of King’s least successful novels, was never a likely candidate for a movie version. The majority of the story takes place in a single room, with the protagonist handcuffed to a bed, and most of the plot unfolding by way of internal dialogue, visions, and flashbacks. But, a lifelong King fan and having long ago pledged to attempt the project, Flanagan brings all his talent to bear on this excellent 2017 movie.

The director knows exactly what confines he’s operating within when it comes to the plot and, rather than change key elements as many others would’ve done, he seeks to amplify the feel of isolation and confinement of the novel with some excellent cinematic effects. Here again, King’s inability to finish off a story to the satisfaction of the reader is evident, as many feel Gerald’s Game unravels in the final third. But, committed to a faithful remake as he was, Flanagan boldly sticks to the script and pulls it off excellently, making Gerald’s Game not just an excellent movie, but a fitting tribute to the source material, just as it was intended.

2 The Outsider (2020)

Following the success of the Bill Hodges trilogy (of which Mr. Mercedes was the first installment) King used some of the same characters in The Outsider, released in 2018. Naturally, it was picked up by HBO and made into a series two years later. While Mr. Mercedes is a pure detective story, The Outsider blends elements of crime and horror fantasy in a more traditional King way, and the series received widespread acclaim, despite being terminated after only one season.

The plot involves a mysterious, shape-shifting creature that commits gruesome murders disguised as innocent civilians, leaving the poor individuals to deal with the aftermath. Terry Maitland, played excellently by Jason Bateman, is one such, and his efforts to clear his name lead him ultimately to a confrontation with the horrific creature. Along the way, he enlists the aid of Holly Gibney, the very woman who spectacularly stopped Mr. Mercedes in his tracks. Each episode is fresh and engaging and rockets along to a satisfying conclusion. As season one concluded the events of the story, no follow-up was planned. The recent release of King’s short story If It Bleeds, a direct sequel to the Outsider, gives us hope that a second season may now be possible.

1 The Stand (2020)

King fans would’ve been delighted to hear of the recent miniseries based on the author’s epic 1978 novel. Not because it deals with a pandemic (although it does) nor because the previous televised effort in 1994 was terrible (although it was) but simply because The Stand is a deeply engaging story packed with memorable characters, making it a prime candidate for a TV series adaptation. Josh Boone and Benjamin Cavell obliged and, aided by an excellent cast and King himself as a consultant, the result is every bit as engaging as fans had hoped.

By fans, however, I mean fans of the book. As long as the novel is, a nine-part miniseries was always going to leave aspects out, and the only letdown here is that the story wasn’t extended into multiple seasons. Character progression is a crucial aspect of the novel, as is the linear plot. The producers of the series opted for a rather confusing past/present shift reminiscent of Lost, which is exactly how anyone not familiar with the book must have felt during the first few episodes of The Stand. These complaints, however, are minor. Even the uninitiated will be drawn in and the diverse array of characters and constant intrigue make this an excellent screen adaptation of one of Stephen King’s finest books.

Top 15 Stephen King Books

Dozens of Stephen King’s short stories and novels have been adapted into film and television, and it seems every one has its own love affair with the rest of King’s work.

The various King adaptations are packed with easter eggs and references to other titles, and it’s no surprise—King constantly does the same in the books themselves. Maybe it’s the oft-shared settings in and around Maine, maybe it’s King’s patchwork attempts at establishing a shared universe, or maybe it’s just self-congratulatory fun. Regardless of why King always references King, the same holds true for his movies and television shows.

This list is dedicated to ten of the cheekiest of those self-referential winks, times when King and his adaptors posed the question, “Say, do you remember King and his adaptors?”

Related: 10 Easter Eggs You Might Have Missed In Famous Crime Films

10 The Dark Tower – Pennywise

Stephen King always intended The Dark Tower to unite his many works into one shared multiverse, so pulling easter eggs from it feels like cheating. But because the movie was a Nikolaj Arcel adaptation, I’m calling it open season. Of its many easter eggs, it’s the unmistakable It reference that stands out.

At one point in the film, the young shine-empowered hero Jake Chambers finds himself stumbling through the ruins of the universe known as Mid-World. There, he wanders into the ruins of an ancient theme park. What remains is a half-buried statue with its clown hand emerging into the surface, holding Pennywise’s trademark bunch of balloons, as well as a theme park ride, labeled oh-so-subtly “Pennywise.”

9 Castle Rock – “Wanna See a Body?”

Let’s continue with getting the easy easter eggs out of the way first. Like The Dark Tower, Castle Rock’s TV show is also meant as a bridge between King’s various stories. Many locations, props, and even characters themselves are direct references to various King books. However, some of the show’s easter eggs are more subtle and unexpected, like one brief nod to Stand By Me.

As King has come to be known as a master of horror, some forget that he also penned the story that became the classic coming-of-age film Stand By Me. The movie’s inciting incident is young Vern’s sincere question to his gang of friends, “You guys wanna go see a dead body?” The same line shows up in Castle Rock episode five, when the Kid stands atop a roof, overwhelmed by a deluge of internal voices. Amidst the crowded chorus, one voice cuts through the rest and says, “Wanna see a body?”

8 It – Turtles

Fans of King lore will know of Maturin, the massive, god-like turtle that birthed at least one of the universes and who doesn’t look very highly upon Pennywise. In the novel, Maturin makes direct appearances, communicating with Bill and offering the boy advice and encouragement. Though its parts were cut from the movie, director Andy Muschietti included a few winks to the divine reptile.

Throughout both movies, during pivotal or emotionally charged scenes, turtles find their way onto the screen. They come in the form of a turtle sticker, turtle Lego bricks, turtle statues, and conversations about actual turtles. However, the most subtle reference (because it’s never stated in the movie) is that the root Mike obtains from the Native Americans to guide him on his journey is itself named Maturin. As director Muschietti said, “Maturin’s still there in the movie. It’s just not personified by a giant turtle.”

7 Pet Sematary – Cujo

The original Pet Sematary novel contained an overt reference to Cujo and its titular murderous St. Bernard. In the book, old neighbor Jud Crandall tells the protagonist, Louis Creed, about a rabid dog that killed four people a few years ago. The same story made its way into the 2019 film adaptation, but the story became even darker.

In the movie, Jud again tells the story, but this time to a guest in the middle of a child’s birthday party. It’s an inappropriate story for that setting and makes you question Jud’s judgment. More than that, it makes you wonder how that version of Maine could have so much bad luck with pets in just a few years.

6 The Mist – Gunslinger Roland

The 2007 big-screen adaptation of King’s The Mist was a tense and violent horror that provided some solid commentary on partisan factionalism. Perhaps the most notable part of the film is its ending: a bleak, anguish-laden sequence that pulls a complete 180 from King’s original, happier ending. As far as easter eggs go, however, it’s the opening shot that wins a spot on our list.

The very first shot is of protagonist David Drayton, painting Roland the Gunslinger from The Dark Tower. The painting is unmistakable, between the gun in the figure’s hand, his bandoliers, the solitary red rose, and the literal dark tower behind him. The figure looks like Clint Eastwood, reflecting the early Dark Tower cover art that portrayed Roland as a carbon copy of Eastwood.

5 The Shining – Hedge Maze Foreshadowing

Stanley Kubrick’s film version of The Shining is likely the best King adaptation ever, and ironically the one King likes the least. Regardless, it’s a classic. Its heavy use of symbolism, combined with Kubrick’s reputation as an obsessive auteur, has caused fans to pick over every frame of the film for symbols, allusions, foreshadowing, and even evidence that the moon landing was faked. Whether all or any of it is real, there is no end to the theories. One such clever observation is how the film cleverly foreshadowed its hedge maze ending.

For one thing, there’s Jack’s first tie, a decidedly forest-green affair with a large, exaggerated knit pattern that crisscrosses over itself, forming what looks eerily like a hedge maze. For another, there are the cartoons Danny watches. The first cartoon he watches shows Wile E. Coyote chasing the Road Runner through a literal maze of train tracks. The following cartoon Danny turns on features the same Looney pair, this time accompanied by a song that goes, “The coyote’s after you, Road Runner. If he catches you, you’re through.”

4 It: Chapter 2 – “Here’s Johnny!”

Speaking of The Shining, It: Chapter 2 references the horror classic that is unusually obvious for a non-multiverse-driven King film. Perhaps the single most famous piece of dialogue from The Shining comes from Jack Torrence as he breaks down a bathroom door, sticks his head through, and yells, “Here’s Johnny!” It: Chapter 2 repeats the line and shot almost exactly.

When Bev ends up stuck in a bathroom stall, Pennywise tries to force his way in, taking on the forms of the people closest to Bev and pushing on the door. In the form of bully Henry Bowers, Pennywise sticks his head through the cracked door and delivers the classic Nicholson line. The shot is even framed the same way as the original Kubrick shot.

3 It – Tim Curry Cameo

Tim Curry delivered a memorable performance as Pennywise in the 1990 It miniseries, and the 2017 film was essentially guaranteed to shout him out in some way. It did indeed, in the form of an unmistakably Curry-styled Pennywise doll.

In the film, Richie finds himself trapped in a room with dozens of frightening clown dolls, all variations on the Pennywise theme. One clown on the left has the exact hair, makeup, and outfit that Curry’s Pennywise wore, and the reference is clear.

2 Doctor Sleep – Original Danny

Many easter eggs are obvious and easy, but the reason this particular egg from Doctor Sleep gets the number two spot is that it seemed like the absolute last thing that would ever make it into the film.

During a little league game in which the villainous True Knots scouts out a young player with shine, the camera shifts to a conversation between two onlookers in the stands. One of those two men is actually a grown-up Danny Lloyd, who played the original Danny Torrance as a child. As fun as that is, it becomes much more impressive when you find out that Danny Lloyd retired from acting after The Shining and his Doctor Sleep cameo was his first acting job in 38 years.

1 It: Chapter 2 – Bad Endings

Perhaps the best easter egg from any King-based film comes in It: Chapter 2 in the form of King personally roasting himself. Throughout the film, a running gag is that Bill, now grown up and a successful writer, is talented and beloved—aside from his crappy endings. This is a nod to probably the most common criticism King gets in real life: that his books are wonderful but never end satisfactorily.

Taking it even farther, King himself cameos in the film and personally says to Bill that his endings stink. It shows a lot of endearing humility on King’s part, or if looked at another way, a bird flipped to his constant critics. Either way, it’s a fun easter egg and a natural culmination to King’s long career of referencing himself.

King of the Hill remains one of the most popular cartoons ever aired on primetime television. However, during its run, it was somewhat overshadowed by fellow FOX series The Simpsons. Still, series creator Mike Judge’s Texas-themed sitcom enjoyed 13 great seasons as one of America’s greatest television shows before wrapping in 2009.

In the years since, old fans have religiously re-watched episodes as new fans continue to fall in love with the series via reruns. Comedy Central’s Adult Swim carried the show’s resurgent popularity through the 2010s with late-night repeats. Later, Hulu picked up the series for streaming. Younger audiences immediately connected with the relatable world of Hank Hill’s family and friends. By the 2020s, viewers were clamoring for a reboot. The world wanted to know how the years have treated Arlen’s residents.

In July 2022, Judge seemed to concede to the demand, telling fans at San Diego Comic-Con that the series “has a very good chance of coming back.” That may come to pass—but do you know how the show came together in the first place? Here are ten unexpected facts that all true King of the Hill fans should know!

Related: Top 10 Real-Life Inspirations For Famous Cartoon Characters

10 Hank’s Very Familiar Inspiration

Judge came to King of the Hill after a popular run with Beavis and Butthead. As any fan of those two Gen-X degenerates knows, the troublesome teens loved to antagonize their neighbor, Tom Anderson. And as any Judge fan knows all too well, Anderson’s voice, mannerisms, and sense of decency were all very much inherited by Hank in the FOX series.

In fact, Hank’s Tom Anderson inspiration nearly went so far as to be familial. In early meetings with network execs, Judge pitched Hank as being Tom’s son. “I was kind of thinking we’d tie it into Beavis and Butthead as a sort of spin-off or something,” Judge said in an interview years later, “but Fox said no.” Still, bits and pieces of Tom Anderson live on in Arlen!^[1]

9 There Was A Real-Life Boomhauer

Hank’s three pals are mainstays in the show. Dale’s conspiracies, Bill’s misfortune, and Boomhauer’s mumblings made the alley what it was. Of the three fellas, Boomhauer’s backstory is the least developed. Viewers have to wait until the series finale to learn his first name (Jeff) and his occupation (Texas Ranger). But did you know Rainey Street’s sworn bachelor was inspired by a real-life voicemail?

Before King of the Hill, Judge rose to fame with Beavis and Butthead, which flourished on MTV through the 1990s. Not everybody was impressed with that snarky show, though. One upset viewer found Judge’s phone number and called to complain about the cartoon. The “deranged hillbilly” critic left a long voicemail, whining about the MTV show.

Whether he was drunk, angry, or something else, the man’s twang was unintelligible. Judge had to replay the tape over and over to figure out what he was saying. But the incoherent, rambling rant proved to be a stroke of inspiration. When it came time to create King of the Hill, he incorporated the speaking style into Boomhauer’s character. Dang ol’ yep, man.^[2]

8 Lucky’s Lucky Break

Luanne Platter’s sexy figure catches the attention of almost every man on the show, from her deadbeat (dead) ex-boyfriend Buckley to Hank’s boss Buck Strickland. But Hank’s niece finally settles down with Lucky Kleinschmidt, a lovable loser who astounds Hank with quasi-deep stupidity. Originally, writer John Altschuler envisioned Lucky as being like “Tom Petty without the success.” The animators came through, drawing him as a rock-and-roll fan with long blond hair and a snaggle tooth.

Inspired by the creative burst, Judge’s team swung for the fences and tried to get Petty himself to voice the role. Luckily (pun intended), the writer’s room quickly learned King of the Hill happened to be one of the rock star’s favorite television shows. Petty stepped into the recording booth and perfectly fit the role of Lucky. The rock musician loved voicing the hard-rocking loser and once described Lucky as a “philosophical idiot.”^[3]

7 The Death Of Common Sense

Judge grew up in Albuquerque, but he was familiar with Texas before creating the show. In fact, Arlen was inspired by the Dallas suburbs of Garland and Richardson. When Judge started laying out the show, he took co-creator Greg Daniels around those neighborhoods to inspire ideas for the series. As the pair hired writers to staff the show, Daniels took the research a step further.

The Los Angeles-based writers had little knowledge about small-town Texas, so Daniels ordered them to read The Death of Common Sense. The 1995 bestseller by Georgetown University Law School professor Philip K. Howard argues bureaucracy has made Americans abandon common sense in favor of caution and distrust. The book’s message clearly stuck with the show’s writers. In countless episodes, Hank’s no-nonsense common sense and practical wisdom butts heads with the poor policies of bureaucratic buffoons throughout Arlen.^[4]

6 Arlen Beats Springfield

Judge’s MTV success with Beavis and Butthead earned him a sweet gig with FOX. The network wanted the full focus of the exec’s creative energies. So they inked him to a lucrative production deal that gave them rights to his TV pitches. The network hoped to create a companion show for its incredibly popular animated series The Simpsons. Using that bit of financial security to his advantage, Judge thought about creating a show he would personally want to watch.

Slowly but surely, Arlen came together. Judge even pitched the show to the network with a pencil test that directly addressed FOX’s president and other network execs. The big-wigs loved the original pitch idea, and they were touched by the all-American Hill family. Viewers were too. Early episodes of King of the Hill had higher ratings than FOX’s first animated hit and virtually everything else on the network.^[5]

5 Taking a Chance on a Theme Song

As King of the Hill started to come together before its premiere, Judge and Daniels went on the hunt for a theme song. The manager of the Arizona-based band The Refreshments heard the call and encouraged his clients to submit a track. The group took their shot with an unknown instrumental piece they had casually been performing at soundchecks before shows. The risky choice paid off. Judge and Daniels picked the song out from among hundreds of entries. It became the show’s memorable intro music.

Years later, the hard-driving track still resonates with viewers. The Refreshments tried to capitalize on the popularity later in 1997 by releasing an “ambitious and largely misunderstood” album. The record didn’t sell, and their label dropped them before a follow-up could come together. Unable to handle the stress of an indie gig, the group broke up in 1998. Their instrumental theme song lived on, though, airing every week on FOX for another 12 years past the band’s breakup.^[6]

4 The Tasty Luanne Platter

Judge and Daniels loved to make real-life references to Texas themes, topics, and places throughout the show. Hank’s beloved dog, Lady Bird, is named after Lady Bird Johnson, the Texas-born former First Lady of the United States. In the show, the hound is even supposed to have descended from the dog that tracked down MLK assassin James Earl Ray—a true bloodhound with southern roots.

But the most bald-faced nod to the Lone Star state sets upon Peggy’s niece Luanne Platter. She’s famously named after the “Lu Ann Platter”—an entree, a side, and a roll—available at Texas cafeteria-style food mainstay Luby’s. The restaurant chain has its own tongue-in-cheek reference on the show, too: The Hills often eat at Luly’s. The real-life Luby’s loved the meta-reference, and in 2010, they dressed a model as Luanne and had her visit some of their Lone Star locations.^[7]

3 Vaya Con Dios!

In 2000, Judge and Daniels came together to develop a spin-off. There was just one quirk: it was a live-action spin-off from their animated series. On King of the Hill, Hank’s family could often be seen watching a catholic priest named Monsignor Martinez on a phony Arlen TV show. The pious priest was also a violent vigilante fond of saying “Vaya con Dios” to the men he killed on screen.

In the live-action spin-off, Judge and Daniels were prepping to showcase Martinez’s antics and adventures. FOX nearly bit on the pilot too. An old official show logline described the plot as “a macho, renegade priest who joins forces with a young stockbroker and ex-nun to destroy the drug dealer that murdered his favorite altar boy.” Sadly, the spin-off fell through, and the live-action show never made it to air. Vaya con Dios, Monsignor Martinez, wherever you are today.^[8]

2 King of the Hollywood Hills?

Hank’s strong dislike of California, specifically Hollywood, is very well-known. So fans were shocked following the end of the show’s second season when FOX launched a PR campaign claiming the Hill family was being pushed to move to… Los Angeles? The network sent press releases to media outlets claiming they were in “discussions” with Judge and Daniels to move the setting of the series.

Viewers flipped out and sent hundreds of letters, emails, and phone calls to FOX, asking them to reconsider. Fortunately, the whole thing was a ruse. As it turned out, the network was moving King of the Hill from Sunday nights to Tuesdays—and not from Texas to California. The weeknight move didn’t work out anyways. After the show spent a low-rated season in the Tuesday night slot, Hank and the gang moved back to Sundays for the rest of the run. It would have been funny to see Hank sell propane in Beverly Hills, though.^[9]

1 Finale Fiasco

It was all supposed to end for King of the Hill after its tenth season finale. FOX opted to cancel the series after its ten-year run. Sad but determined to end things on their terms, Judge and Daniels planned accordingly. The final episode of the season, “Lucky’s Wedding Suit,” showed Lucky and Luanne walking down the aisle in a picture-perfect, family-friendly ending.

After the episode aired, FOX changed their minds. Network executives decided to bring Judge’s crew back for more. The writers had been booted from their offices after the initial cancellation, though, and had to move back in to restart their work. It all worked out in the end, though: The show ended up running another three full seasons, giving the world dozens more memorable episodes.^[10]

It’s hard to think of a monarch who has inspired as much heated debate as King Richard III of England. Was he an evil pantomime villain? Or a misunderstood peacekeeper? He spent the first 30 years of his life playing the loyal brother to King Edward IV, maintaining order and upholding justice in the north of the country.

Then, on Edward’s death in 1483, he apparently underwent a complete personality change. He’d been trusted by his brother to act as Lord Protector and make sure the heir, Prince Edward, was placed safely on the throne. Instead, Richard declared the heir illegitimate, chased the widowed queen into hiding, and imprisoned both of his nephews in the Tower of London. He then promptly proclaimed himself King of England. The two boys were never seen again.

His triumph didn’t last long, though. Soon after Richard’s coronation, his son and heir, Edward of Middleham, died at the age of 10 from an unknown illness. A short while later, his wife, Ann Neville, died of presumed tuberculosis. Richard himself died at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, just two years after becoming king, while fighting desperately to defend his crown. He was beaten by a distant relative named Henry Tudor—and a new era was ushered in.

In a strange postscript to a bizarre and short-lived reign, Richard’s skeleton was discovered under a parking lot in the English city of Leicester in 2012. Until then, his final resting place had been a mystery, and many experts had given up hope that he would ever be found. Richard’s skeleton was carefully excavated, and his remains were studied. He now lies in state at Leicester Cathedral. A visitor’s center has been set up over the site where his remains were discovered, and the actual spot where his body lay for over 500 years can be viewed through a glass floor.

Using modern isotopic techniques and DNA analysis, scientists have been able to learn a lot about Richard’s life and the manner of his death from his skeleton. And the results—like everything surrounding Richard III—are absolutely fascinating.

10 Is It Really Richard’s Skeleton?

There is a 99.999% chance that the skeleton belongs to Richard. We know this because scientists tirelessly worked to sequence the mitochondrial DNA from the bones and match it with two living relatives, Wendy Duldig and Michael Ibsen. Richard’s son didn’t survive to reproduce, so they traced the line all the way down from Richard’s sister, Anne of York, to descendants alive today.

Other information gleaned from the skeleton supports this conclusion. Forensic analysis of the bone joints suggests that the skeleton belonged to an adult male aged 30–34. As Richard died at the age of 32, this would fit.^[1]

9 Taken to Grey Friars after Death

Throughout the centuries, there have been theories about what might have happened to Richard’s remains after the Battle of Bosworth. The most famous emerged in 1611 when the Chronicler John Speed published an account in which he described a mob of Leicestershire locals seizing Richard’s skeleton and tossing it off Bow Bridge into the River Soar. As a result of this (untrue) account, many believed Richard’s remains were lost forever.

We now know that Richard’s body was carried from Bosworth Field to Leicester after his death and laid to rest in the Grey Friars Church. It was the foundation of the church that archaeologists—working in conjunction with Leicester City Council, the University of Leicester, and the Richard III Society—were trying to uncover. They were working on a hunch that the deposed king might have been taken there after the battle and buried in the crypt. They were a mere six hours into the two-week dig when they found Richard!^[2]

8 No Withered Arm

In his famous play Richard III, Shakespeare described the king as having several birth defects, including a hunchback and a withered arm. Richard is portrayed as a treacherous and backstabbing usurper, taking joy in the misery of others and declaring himself a proud “villain” to the audience within the first few lines of the play.

Analysis of the skeleton shows that Richard’s arms had developed normally and were of equal length. This eagerness to cast Richard in the role of pantomime villain was probably due to the audience Shakespeare was writing for—after all, Shakespeare lived during the Tudor era, and Queen Elizabeth was the grandchild of the man who had deposed Richard and taken his crown. A play that praised Richard or presented him in a positive light would not have gone down very well!^[1]

7 Stricken with Scoliosis

An examination of Richard’s spine confirms that he did, in fact, suffer from severe scoliosis, which would have resulted in uneven shoulders (his right shoulder would have been higher than his left shoulder). This matches accounts written by his contemporaries during his lifetime.

It doesn’t seem to have hampered his ability to fight, though, and he won many battles on behalf of his brother during Edward IV’s reign.^[4]

6 Above Average Height

Richard’s skeleton shows that he was 5ft 8in (173 centimeters) tall, which was above average for the time. However, scientists believe that the effect of the scoliosis on Richard’s spine would have made him appear quite a lot shorter than this.

Also, Richard’s portraits often don’t truly portray the man. He is shown as an older king who looks little like the young man he was. Richard was only 32 at his death, and a new facial reconstruction from his skull was revealed to show a more accurate picture.^[5]

5 His Feet Were Missing

Don’t worry—his feet were still attached to him during his lifetime! They had been separated from the rest of his body at some point during the 500 years he lay in the earth. His skeleton was also missing a leg bone. This isn’t particularly unusual for very old remains. In fact, scientists were surprised that the skeleton was so complete!

He probably lost his feet and the missing leg bone during the Victorian era, when an outhouse was built directly above his resting place. Luckily, the rest of the skeleton was left intact for us to examine. Phew!^[6]

4 Multiple Injuries at Death

Medieval battles were tough, unforgiving, and super gory. With no guns to give you the advantage and a limited choice of long-range weapons, combatants were forced to get up close and personal—stabbing, clobbering, and grappling their opponents into submission. Scientists counted eleven wounds on Richard’s body, including blows to his face and ribs, which were severe enough to impact the bones.

We know that Richard received these wounds on or around the time of his death because they hadn’t begun to heal. It’s likely that there were other, more superficial wounds that we can’t see evidence of.^[7]

3 Killed by Blow to Head?

Richard’s skull shows evidence of three very serious injuries sustained on the battlefield. One is a small hole to the side of his head, which may have been caused by a long, thin dagger. The other two are larger wounds at the back and base of the skull and would have been caused by something larger, like an axe or a sword. Both larger wounds could have been fatal, and either could have caused his death.^[8]

2 Stabbed in the Butt

Scientists have identified a mark on Richard’s pelvic bone, which suggests he may have been stabbed in the backside by a sword around the time of his death. Since he would have been wearing heavy armor during the battle, historians think that this wound was probably inflicted after Richard had been killed and stripped of his clothing.

It’s likely the act was symbolic, and it may have been inflicted on his bottom instead of his face to ensure that he would still be recognizable to his supporters when his dead body was paraded around the streets.^[9]

1 Change in His Diet

Using isotopic analysis, scientists can tell an incredible amount about Richard’s diet. They know he ate a lot of fish—typical of a high-status individual at the time. Amazingly, they can tell from studying his tooth enamel that he spent his early childhood in the east of England (he was born in Northamptonshire) but that he had moved to the west of the country by the age of seven. They can also see that his wine consumption increased dramatically in the final years of his life, along with the luxuriousness of his food, and this tallies with his ascension to the throne.^[10]