As language evolves, we often expand the meanings of certain words and phrases. Thanks largely to slang, words like “bad” and “ill” can now be used positively. In most instances, though, those words rarely lose their original meaning. We just expand our use of them.

However, there are many words in the English language that have truly lost their original meanings over time. It’s not that we’re necessarily using these words wrong or even that we’re using an alternate definition of them. Instead, these words have changed so much over the years that it’s almost impossible to use them in their original contexts without sounding like you’re speaking a different language.

Related: 10 Pop Culture Tattoos (and Their Secretly Ridiculous Meanings)

10 Awful

Awful can mean “bad,” but it’s more commonly associated with “unpleasant.” These days, you typically use “awful” to describe something that is not only bad but that upsets or offends your senses on some level.

Yet, “awful” is derived from the Middle English words “agheful” and “aueful,” which were used to describe the sensation of being filled with awe or to describe something worthy of invoking such a feeling. Even at that time, though, the word was sometimes used to describe something that fills one with so much awe that it also inspired a sense of dread. That helps explain how the word eventually came to invoke powerful feelings of disdain.^[1]

9 Apology

We all apologize (hopefully) when we’ve done something wrong and wish to make amends to the person we’ve wronged. It’s essentially an admission of guilt mixed with a plea for forgiveness. That’s nearly the opposite of how the word was originally used years ago, though.

As recently as the 16th century, the word “apology” was used to describe one’s defense against an accusation. An apology (or “apologie”) could be rooted in facts but was also a way to say “here is my side of the story” to defend yourself—as in Plato’s Apology. It’s not entirely clear when the popular shift in meaning occurred, though Shakespeare’s use of the word in Richard III and other works gradually brought us to the point where apologies became associated with forgiveness.^[2]

8 Terrific

Centuries ago, the word “terrific” was commonly used to describe something that invoked a great sense of terror. Even as late as the 1800s, the word was more closely associated with things of great size or intensity. It was essentially a combination of “terrifying” and “excessive” that grew to emphasize the meanings of the latter word.

So, how did “terrific” come to mean something wonderful? The shift seemingly happened in the late 1800s when writers began to use the word somewhat ironically in things like advertisements and reviews. The increasingly popular idea was that something could be so bold or excessive that it almost had to be seen. Interestingly, the English language is filled with words that were once used to convey terror but gradually became something positive through the bridge concept of “awe.”^[3]

7 Cynicism

The ancient Greeks used the word “cynic” to convey the idea of someone or something having “dog-like” features. It was commonly applied to a group of philosophers who believed that people should live simple lives in pursuit of virtue. Those philosophers were referred to as Cynics by those who saw them as beggars and outcasts.

However, by the time the word “cynic” began to appear in English writing, it was most commonly used to describe those philosophers and their beliefs in a more neutral, observant way. Over the years, though, the idea of being “cynical” was adopted by those who derided such people due partially to the belief that they were judging those around them. That revised definition, combined with the beliefs of the original philosophers, eventually gave us the now-common idea of a cynic being skeptical toward modern people and systems.^[4]

6 Peruse

In more recent years, people have used the word “peruse” to describe a casual observation of something. For instance, you may peruse the sales rack of a store or a book as you flip through its pages. As far back as the 16th century, though, peruse was used to describe someone reading something in great detail or otherwise performing a thorough examination.

Remarkably, people are still arguing over the correct definition of peruse to this day. Some dictionaries offer both seemingly contradictory meanings of the word, while other sources have sided with one or the other. It’s not clear why the “skim” definition has become especially popular in recent years, though you can find centuries-old uses of that interpretation in various published works.^[5]

5 Nice

While the word “nice” can be used as an insult these days—such as saying someone is too nice or using the word to mock an obvious mistake—it is considered the standard way to convey that something is pleasant. In the 1300s and 1400s, though, “nice” was more commonly used to call someone ignorant.

What changed? Society did. The word “nice” was gradually used to describe excess luxury and, eventually, high society people who focused too much on polite appearances. As parts of the world shifted to gradually emphasize such behavior, “nice” eventually became a far less derogatory concept. Of course, you can still find the roots of the word in those who use “nice” as an insult these days.^[6]

4 Naughty

Essentially, the opposite of “nice” (especially around the holidays), “naughty” is used to describe someone or something that is very bad. It’s such an obvious example of that idea that the word is often used when you want to convey an exaggerated parody of that concept.

However, “naughty” was originally used to describe poor people who had very little in life. The word eventually grew to describe such people who were also believed to lack basic morality, which is the use of the phrase that slowly caught on. By the 1600s and 1700s, “naughty” was more commonly used to describe someone (usually a child) who is misbehaving or generally exhibits bad behavior.^[7]

3 Meat

It’s hard to imagine that there could be another definition of the word “meat.” Sure, we have adopted various slang phrases that use that word in slightly different contexts, but it’s difficult to imagine a time when “meat” was popularly used to describe anything other than food that comes from the flesh of an animal.

Yet, until around the 14th century, “meat” was used to describe almost any solid food (as opposed to liquids). If you go far enough back, you’ll find that variations of the word have been used to describe a wide variety of substances. As the English language evolved, though, the word “meat” eventually conveyed something much more specific. It grew to be used in the more specialized way we use it today.^[8]

2 Speed

Until around the later days of the Middle English era (the late 1500s), the word “speed” and its variations were typically used to convey the idea of success. Specifically, it was often related to the pursuit and achievement of your goals. While achieving those goals quickly was sometimes implied in variations of the phrase, the idea of rapidity wasn’t necessarily automatically applied to the word “speed” (or even the phrase “Godspeed”) at that time.

By the mid-1500s, though, “speed” was more commonly used to imply a quick and successful journey or endeavor. As that phrase was used by growing industrial sectors to suggest increased work and production rates, the haste aspect of “speed” became much more prominent. Even today, you can argue that we often use the word with the implication of success.^[9]

1 Bully

As late as the 1500s, the word “bully” was used like we may use the phrase “sweetheart” today. It was a term of endearment that could describe a variety of people you have an intimate relationship with. Around the 1600s, though, we find more instances of the phrase being used to describe males as essentially being “good guys” or “fine fellows.”

Interestingly, the word continued to evolve from there and was eventually used to describe blusterous individuals (typically males) who were not afraid of taking risks. Eventually, some applied that word to people fitting that description who had also done something wrong (usually something violent) to them. While “bully” was often used at that time to describe ruffians and thugs, the original intimacy of the phrase is arguably still implied in the hurt we feel that someone socially close to us would do us harm.^[10]

From the moment it hit movie screens, Ghostbusters was destined to be an instant classic. It’s at the top of childhood favorite lists and helped to define a generation.

It also marked the beginning of big budget comedy films and proved, perhaps for the last time, that Saturday Night Live alumni could make the leap to a successful movie franchise. (We kid. The Ladies Man was awesome.)

Like most cultural phenomena, the impact of Ghostbusters was a surprise to those involved in making the movie. In fact, the film almost didn’t happen. Here are 10 other surprising facts from one of the 1980s’ best movies.

10 Shocking Secrets Of Stephen King’s Original IT Movie

10 Hell On Wheels

The Ectomobile (aka the Ecto-1) is an iconic car that’s right up there with the black Pontiac in Knight Rider and the DeLorean in Back to the Future. A vehicle like this can set the entire tone for a scene and spin off a fortune in merchandising. But the Ecto-1 wasn’t always what you see on-screen. In fact, it almost wasn’t anything.

Originally, the car driven by the gang was supposed to be a pink Cadillac ambulance. After the crew (thankfully) scrapped that idea, they decided to paint the whole thing black. Stephen Dane came in and saved the day by designing the over-the-top, lights-flashing, sirens-blaring response vehicle we all know now.^[1]

Though it may have looked fierce on-screen, the all-black Ecto was almost impossible to film in the night scenes according to cinematographer Laszlo Kovacs. Despite all this, fans are lucky that they saw any footage of the Ectomobile. As Dan Aykroyd revealed, the thing was a piece of junk. They could barely keep it running between takes, and it broke down constantly on set.

9 Who’s On First?

All movies go through casting changes. However, with an unproven franchise just getting started, changes happened left and right on the Ghostbusters set. According to some sources, Dan Aykroyd initially wrote the movie for John Belushi, Eddie Murphy, and himself as the original Ghostbusters. Unfortunately, Belushi died of a drug overdose and Murphy was already committed to Beverly Hills Cop.

John Candy was supposed to play Louis Tully (Rick Moranis’s character). But Candy wanted to portray the character with a German accent and a pair of Schnauzers as companions. The writers balked, and Candy moved on.

Ernie Hudson took the role of Winston Zeddemore, the fourth Ghostbuster. His part was reduced in rewrites from an original Ghostbusters team member to someone who is hired from an ad later in the film.

Through some creative negotiating, Frank Price of Columbia Pictures convinced SNL alum Bill Murray to take the role of Ghostbuster Peter Venkman, and, well . . . the rest is history.^[2]

8 Special Cameo

One of the most popular characters in the first Ghostbusters movie didn’t even have a name. On set, he was known as “Onion Head Ghost” because of his terrible smell, but the name never stuck.

The floating ball of green slime that wreaked havoc in the Manhattan hotel scene and scarfed down everything in sight was affectionately known as “Slimer” to fans. But writers Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis thought of Slimer as the ghost of John Belushi. They wanted the green goblin to resemble Belushi as a sort of tribute to their deceased friend, a man who meant so much to so many and just missed being part of something very special.^[3]

7 Stick To The Script

Everyone in the cast was familiar with Saturday Night Live and improv by the time Ghostbusters started filming. Many of the stars were former cast members, so it should come as no surprise that many lines were ad-libbed when it came time to shoot.

According to the cast, almost every scene had at least one line that wasn’t in the script. The actors were constantly putting their own spin on the characters they portrayed.

That might be one reason why the movie feels so honest and real. Murray said that he decided to act exactly how he would if he found himself in the same situation, providing a transparent view of the iconic actor in a parallel ghost-busting universe.^[4]

6 What’s In A Name?

Ghostbusters is one of those instantly recognizable, perfect names. It gets to the point, it drives the message home, and . . . it almost wasn’t what they called the movie at all.

Dan Aykroyd was the driving force behind Ghostbusters in the early days and came up with the concept. He was inspired by a number of personal events, including his family’s history in law enforcement. He knew what he wanted the movie to be named. Unfortunately, a TV show with the same name had previously aired, forcing a legal battle over rights.^[5]

After waffling between awful alternatives like Ghost Smashers, the studio was able to work out a deal on the movie title, with the original company securing usage rights. But the uncertainty did lead to something even more iconic . . . 

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5 No Ghosts Allowed

During the movie title debacle that tied up naming rights for a large part of the production, the team still needed a logo for early promotion. So they created a logo that expressed in no uncertain terms the feel of the movie without the presence of a title.^[6]

That’s how the world got “Mooglie,” the cartoon ghost that we’ve all seen trapped in the red line and circle (the universal “no” symbol, as in “no ghosts”) on lunchboxes, billboards, posters, and more. Once naming rights were settled, the official Ghostbusters title was added under the logo (with the logo also replacing the letter “o” in “Ghostbusters”), thus creating the iconic poster we’ve all seen ever since.

4 Work For It

Some actors will go all out to prove they’re the right choice for the role. Fresh off the success of Alien, Sigourney Weaver wanted to make it clear during her audition that she could play any part to perfection.

When she showed up for the reading, Weaver told producers that Dana’s character should turn into a dog and that she could play that role better than anyone. She started barking, gnawing on the cushions, and terrorizing the room.^[7]

Reitman cut the film and told Weaver to “[never] do that again.” But he also called Harold Ramis (Egon) immediately and told him they’d found their actress. Sadly, that scene was never shot. But clearly, Weaver was ready for anything you could throw at her.

3 Not Strictly Legal

One big surprise to Ghostbusters fans is that much of the movie wasn’t shot in Manhattan. For a film that so perfectly grasps the feel and mood of New York in the 1980s, relatively few shots were done within the city limits.

Schedules and New York City crowd control made it almost impossible when Los Angeles was already perfectly set up to handle that sort of thing. Another problem was shooting permits, which proved difficult to get in New York City.

The team decided to go rogue and shoot as much as possible there while they could. This landed them in hot water with New York local law enforcement, especially where the montage scene was filmed on Day One. In one scene, someone who looks like a security guard is chasing the cast while Dan drives the Ecto-1.^[8]

2 Sometimes It Just Works

The theme song for Ghostbusters is by far one of the most easily recognizable songs in the history of cinema. Three notes in and most fans are already swaying along.

Surprisingly, the song—written and performed by Ray Parker Jr.—was actually done in just two days. It was an instant classic that came off in record time.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the end of the deal. Huey Lewis, who was originally hired to write the theme song, sued over infringement claims involving his hit “I Want a New Drug.” The case was settled out of court. So now, we still have the funky ’80s classic to remind us “who you gonna call.”^[9]

1 Who You Gonna Call?

It’s a running gag in movies that phone numbers are almost always fakes. The standard “555” area code leads nowhere to protect innocent people from getting hounded on their phone lines. An example is the unfortunate list of people who could be reached at 867-5309, the number repeated many times in the lyrics of Tommy Tutone’s 1980s hit song “867-5309/Jenny.”

Ghostbusters, however, was different. In a fake TV spot in the movie, the team states emphatically: “We’re ready to believe you.” The 555 number that flashed on-screen was live at the time. While it was up, the 1-800-555-2368 line received around 1,000 calls per hour and played a recorded message from Peter Venkman (Bill Murray) and Raymond Stantz (Dan Aykroyd).^[10]

+ The Mandela Effect

An additional tidbit in Ghostbusters lore involves a curious Mandela effect in the original script. One scene didn’t quite fit in the movie and left a lot of viewers (especially younger ones) a little confused. (You can see it in the video montage above at the 2:48 mark.)

Most fans remember seeing Aykroyd’s character get a pleasant surprise from a spirit floating over his bed in the firehouse. However, if you view the scene again, you’ll notice that the team is not in the firehouse and Aykroyd is wearing a military uniform from the 1700s.

What gives?

As it turns out, the entire scene was part of a subplot created to give Aykroyd’s character a love interest. It played out at Fort Detmerring (spellings vary) where the team was performing an on-site investigation. It didn’t fit in the movie, and the plot was complicated enough already. So they cut the subplot, but this one scene made it in, creating a lot more questions than answers.^[11]

++ Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction

So, where does an idea like Ghostbusters come from?

For Dan Aykroyd, who developed the idea and brought the team together, it came from his own life. Aykroyd’s family was very into spiritualism and the occult when he was growing up. His father and grandfather often held seances at home to communicate with the dead. Also, Dan Aykroyd was once a reserve commander for the Harahan, Louisiana, police department who carried his badge everywhere.

The film idea coalesced into the concept of a comedic paranormal investigation service to catch ghosts. The rest, as they say, is history.

Of all the cast members, Aykroyd still very much believes in and is fascinated by the paranormal. In fact, his dad, Peter Aykroyd, actually wrote the book (or more like “the encyclopedia”) on ghosts in A History of Ghosts. It was published in 2009 when Peter was 87 years old.^[12]

10 Warnings And Messages Hidden In Films And TV Shows

About The Author: Jason Stokes is an author and owner of Gestalt Media, an independent publisher. @JSGestalt

Long before we started giving cards to girls to let them know that we choo-choo-choose them, the Romans were celebrating love in their own way. Every February 15, they held Lupercalia—the original Valentine’s Day.

The holiday has gone through a few changes over the past few thousand years. But don’t worry—if you’re hoping to celebrate a truly traditional Valentine’s Day this year, has you covered. We’ll let you know everything you need to do.

10 The Murdering Of The Cute Puppies

On the original Valentine’s Day, the Romans kicked off the festivities by dragging two goats and a puppy into a cave and letting a group of cultish priests ritually slaughter them. The instructions were specific about the puppy part. It couldn’t be a mature dog—it had to be an adorable baby puppy.

Even the Romans didn’t really understand why they had to kill a puppy. The best sources we have on the holiday were written centuries after it began. By then, Lupercalia was just an old tradition and the Romans writing about it make it clear that they didn’t understand any of it.

Plutarch was pretty sure that they stole the puppy-killing thing from the Greeks. Based on how Plutarch described them, the Greeks were puppy-killing aficionados. He said that the Greeks killed puppies in rituals so often that they had a word for it: periskulakismoi (“purification by puppy”). This word has also been translated in some real academic papers that people with PhDs were paid to write as “pupprification.”

But even that’s just a theory. By the time Plutarch came around, nobody really knew why they were killing puppies—they were just following tradition. He had another theory, though. Pure spite. “Is it that the dogs bark at the Luperci [priests],” Plutarch theorized, “and annoy them?”

9 The Feigning Of Laughter Of The Blood-Soaked Boys

After the puppies and the goats were killed, two young noble boys were brought into the cave to do something that creeped the hell out of the Christians, who ended up banning this festival.

The priests would touch their knives to the heads of the boys, staining the boys’ heads with blood. Then the priests would dip wool in milk and rub it on the boys’ heads. That was kind of strange, but what really made this unnerving was what came next: With milk and blood streaking down their heads, the boys were required to feign laughter.

Again, the Romans had no idea why they were making creepy, blood-stained children laugh in a dark cave. The Romans believed that it was a purification ritual, but even that was just a theory. It was just a tradition that they’d been following for as long as they could remember, and they weren’t about to break it.

After this, though, came the main event. The priests would make leather thongs out of the goats, the boys would strip naked, and the real games would begin.

8 The Streaking Of The Thong-Carrying Men

“At this time, many of the noble youth and of the magistrates run up and down through the city naked,” Plutarch tells us, “striking those they meet with shaggy thongs.”

These naked men would be covered in oil first. The lower class wasn’t allowed to do this. These were the highest-ranking and most dignified men in the city. People like Mark Antony would strip naked, oil up, and run down the streets.

Once they were good and oily, they’d run around hitting people with shaggy thongs. In particular, they’d target women, who would pretend to run from it. But secretly, the women would try to get hit with the thongs. If you got hit with a thong, the Romans believed, you would become more fertile. So women would bare their backs and offer up their hands in the hopes that naked oily men would whip them.

Those thongs, by the way, were called februare—and they were named before the month. That’s right—the entire month of February is named after magical potency thongs.

7 The Eating Of The Entrails On A Stick

Lupercalia also involved a feast. Although when it came to food, it wasn’t exactly the best holiday. Even Roman poetry calls the feast of Lupercalia “scanty”—and with good cause. The priests would put the entrails of the sacrificed goats on willow spits, cook them up, and feed them to a crowd of people.

Splitting two goats between all the citizens of Rome probably didn’t extend that far, but that wasn’t all they got. Some vestal virgins would also burn salt cakes, which seem to have been something like ancient pancakes. But that was the feast—a tiny bit of goat entrail on a stick and some burned cakes.

None of that might seem particularly appealing, which is probably why the Romans served one more dish: copious amounts of alcohol. For the rest of the day, the people of Rome would be drunk out of their minds.

6 The Hooking Up Of The Swingers

In some parts of Rome, they would take the whole fertility ritual a bit further. Eligible young women hoping to get pregnant would write their names on clay tablets and place the tablets in a jar. Then the men would draw a name at random. Two completely random strangers would be hooked up and be together for the rest of the festival.

Some of the details on this are a bit vague and inconsistent, but it seems like these two weren’t just going on a blind date. The man was there to make the woman’s dream of having a baby a reality. Exactly how long they stuck together seems to vary. Some say they just spent the festival together. But according to others, those two would be sexual partners for the next year.

5 The Airing Of Grievances

Lupercalia had its own songs, too. The lyrics have been lost to time, but we have enough of a description to get a pretty good picture of them. For one thing, we don’t have any records that mention the songs without using the words “licentious” or “obscene.”

At least by the fifth century AD, people at the festival would break into filthy, vulgar songs that described every bad thing their neighbors had done. If you had an affair or got caught at a brothel, your neighbors would come out on Lupercalia and sing a song about your sexcapades for everyone to hear.

The idea was to shame people into good behavior. But as far as the Pope was concerned, the songs tended to come across more as celebrations than criticisms. When they got the chance to talk about what their neighbors had been up to, the Romans apparently got a bit carried away.

4 The Celebration Of The Horny God

Like any good festival, Lupercalia had its classic stories. One was the classic Lupercalia story of Faunus, which Ovid called “an old tale full of laughter.”

Faunus sees Hercules walking with his mistress and declares, “She will be my passion!” This, however, is Rome. So that doesn’t mean he is going to write her love notes and ask her on a date. Instead, he plans on waiting until she’s asleep, sneaking into her house, and going wild.

Faunus sneaks into the girl’s home, unaware that she had covered up Hercules with her own clothes before she went to sleep. So Faunus just starts groping the mound that looks like her clothes. He feels something strange and recoils. As Ovid describes it, someone “will draw back his foot on seeing a snake”—which is more or less what Faunus realized he was grabbing.

Hercules gets up, Faunus falls down, and everyone realizes that Faunus just tried to sexually assault Hercules’s mistress. But nobody gets the slightest bit upset. “Hercules laughed,” Ovid tells us, “as did all who saw him lying there, and the Lydian girl laughed, too.”

According to Ovid, men ran naked on Lupercalia to honor Faunus’s failed attempt at sexual assault. “So the god hates clothes that trick the eye!” Ovid wrote, “and calls the naked to his rites.”

3 The Uncertainty Over Whom You Are Worshiping

The Romans would spend Lupercalia telling stories about Faunus, but he wasn’t actually the god of the holiday. The holiday was called Lupercalia. It was held in Lupercal Cave by Luperci priests. So obviously, it was dedicated to the god Lupercus. The thing is, nobody—including the Luperci priests—actually knew who Lupercus was.

They had a whole cult dedicated to this god, but they didn’t know what he stood for. Lupercalia was an old farming religion. Nobody could remember when the holiday started, let alone why. They were just doing what their parents had done before them.

Their only hint was a statue of a naked man in a goatskin girdle outside Lupercal Cave. The Romans also figured that he probably had something to do with farmers. But that was it—that was all they knew. Lupercus wore a girdle, and that was enough for people to dedicate their lives to being his priests.

2 The Crowning Of Julius Caesar

A major moment in the life of Julius Caesar happened during Lupercalia. When Mark Antony put a wreath on Caesar’s head and offered him the throne, it wasn’t just any day—it was Lupercalia. When you realize that, you realize it went down a bit differently from how you’ve always pictured it.

History specifically states that Caesar was watching the festivities when it happened. But he wasn’t watching people eat; we’re specifically told that he was watching naked, oily, young men run down the streets when Mark Antony came over to offer Caesar the throne.

Unlike Caesar, though, Mark Antony wasn’t just a spectator. He was participating. Plutarch describes him as “one of the runners in the sacred race,” which means that he didn’t walk over to Julius Caesar wearing a tunic. Antony walked over completely naked, holding a shaggy thong in one hand and a laurel wreath in the other.

So, next time your local drama club puts on a production of Julius Caesar, you can make sure they get the costumes right.

1 The Killing Of People Named Valentine

The last Lupercalia was held at the end of the fifth century. By then, Christianity had taken over Rome, and Lupercalia was one of the few Roman holidays that was still being celebrated. Pope Gelasius ended it, though, declaring that it was a pagan ritual full of blood sacrifice that glorified sex.

Most of this ritual had been stopped anyway. Although we don’t know all the details of how it was celebrated in the fifth century, we do know that the Pope challenged the Romans who complained to actually do that “running around naked” part—and none were willing to do it.

The Romans weren’t too happy about losing a festival, though, so a new festival came into existence: St. Valentine’s Day. Well, technically, the Pope replaced Lupercalia with the slightly less popular “Feast of the Purification of The Blessed Virgin Mary,” but eventually, it became Valentine’s Day.

The holiday got the name St. Valentine’s Day because people named Valentine had a strange habit of dying on February 14. Two separate Valentines had already died on that date, so they created St. Valentine’s Day—a day to remember a saint who got beheaded.

Over the next 1,500 years, some things changed. Instead of putting their names in jars, women got cards. Instead of hitting women with girdles, men gave them flowers. But the holiday we celebrate today got its start here.

For the thousands of songs the world hears, millions go unlisted. Musicians can often save time from songwriting to shift through the cultural detritus of unknown records. Be it sampling or covers, that process created the following 10 iconic songs. Though lesser known, the original versions have their own fascinating, and frequently, weirder histories.

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10 The Tetris Theme

Tetris is a bunch of squares falling in a line. It is the most straightforward video game of all time. There is no room for anything scandalous. Yet, “A Theme,” the 80’s arcade earworm is a classic example of Russian nihilism.

Long before the Game Boy, the maddening theme song originated in an 1861 poem by Nikolay Nekrasov. “Korobeiniki,” titled after the Russian word for “peddler”, builds momentum until it crescendos to a tragic loss. The toetapper’s basic outline is two Russian merchants fall in love while selling their wares. They consummate their new relationship with a one-night stand. The man, now self-assured that he found the right suiter, plans to propose to the woman. While returning to his new future, he encounters a thief who robs and kills him. Game Over.^[1]

9 “Turkey in the Straw”

Few people realize how many times they have heard the traditional British song “The Old Rose Tree.” The omnipresent song serves as the central melody for nursey rhymes, “Do Your Ears Hang Low” and “Turkey in the Straw.” Hank Williams bemoaned his doomed relationship in “Why Don’t You Love Me” over a sample of the English staple. Rapper Jibbs even charted in the Top 10 when he interpolated it on 2006’s “Chain Hang Low”. For children everywhere, the instrumental loop announces incoming ice cream trucks. The only version you don’t hear is the one that started it all. There is a good reason for that.

In the late 1820s, the “Zip Coon” was one of the most notorious individuals in minstrel shows. A cosmopolitan counterpart to the infamous caricature Jim Crow, the blackface character mocked free black man with exaggerated verbiage and gawdy outfits. In 1834, the derogatory representation was immortalized in the song “Old Zip Coon.” Decades later, “Turkey in the Straw” removed the offensive text for a more digestible tale of whacky poultry. That version is responsible for the limitless proliferation in popular consciousness.^[2]

8 The James Bond Theme

An agent’s silhouette slithers into a gun barrel. He quick draws one shot causing a red filter to drip like blood. Bombastic horns blare out, cuing the introduction of the world’s greatest spy. The iconic opening montage of Dr. No and subsequent James Bond films would not work if the background track was not as suave and seductive as its protagonist. The original song carried a license to kill, but in a far less sexy way.

The theme music was initially used for a musical adaptation of VS Naipaul’s novel A House For Mr. Biswas. One of the songs Monty Norman composed, “Bad Sign, Good Sign” details Mr. Biswas plight. Because he was bound to the story’s plot, the original lyrics were:

I was born with this unlucky sneeze
And what is worse I came into the world the wrong way round
Pundits all agree I am the reason why
My father fell into the village pond and drowned.

When the play failed, Norman stored the song for later use. Film scorer John Barry suggested Norman give his piece a jazzy arrangement and drop the lines about fatal boogers.^[3]

7 “Whatta Man”

Salt-N-Pepa were brazen showstoppers never afraid of inviting controversy with shocking lyrics. “Whatta Man’s” buoyant display of lasciviousness is no exception. However, the raucous rager also serves as a subtle political salute to a forgotten trailblazer that was even more transgressive.

After opening for powerhouses like James Brown and Ike &Tina Turner, Linda Lyndell seemed destined to be the next big act on the soul circuit. Otis Redding, moved by her full-throated range, encouraged her to sign with Stax Records. She recorded two singles in 1968, “Bring Your Love Back to Me” and, the eventually sampled, “What a Man.”

Her promising career came crashing down after mighty, mighty bad men in the Ku Klux Klan led boycotts to stop her sales. The important thing to note was the Linda Lyndell was Caucasian. Hatemongers did not approve of her consorting with majority black audiences. Black crowds had their own reservations over a white woman co-opting black sound. Forced into retirement after her lone record pressing, Lyndell languished in obscurity for 30 years. Once Salt-N-Pepa and En Vogue revitalized her catalog, the city of Memphis invited Lyndell to give her first concert in decades.^[4]

6 “It’s All in the Game”

Only two noble prize recipients have writing credit on a number one hit. As one of the greatest songwriters in American history, Bob Dylan is an obvious candidate. The other, Charles Dawes, is more inexplicable.

A self-taught composer, Dawes possessed many talents. In 1912, Dawes sketched out a piano composition called Melody in A Major. In 1951, Carl Sigman added lyrics to the piece turning it into “It’s All in the Game.” R&B crooner Tommy Edwards’ 1958 version sat at number one for six weeks. Between Melody in A Major’s inception and Edward’s performance, the world drastically changed. A great deal of that can be linked to Charles Dawes.

Dawes rose to political prominence following his service in World War I. Rising in ranks to brigadier general, his tenure at the United States War Department drew the attention of Republican politicians. In 1924, Calvin Coolidge nominated Dawes to serve as his Vice President. A year later, Dawes won the Noble Peace Prize for his economic program, the Dawes Plan. At the time, the Dawes plan was reluctantly adopted to relieve Germany’s post-war debts. Its legacy has only grown more controversial. The Dawes Plan stabilized Germany’s economy by injecting loans dependent on American banks. When the world economy crashed during the Great Depression, the investments were so entangled with foreign governments that Germany could not recover. The resulting political instability collapsed the Weimar Republic. The Macarena may be annoying, but at least its authors did not help Adolf Hitler rise to power.^[5]

10 Rocking Facts About Bands From The Golden Age Of Music

5 “I Want Candy”

The Strangeloves had hits before they existed. In 1963, producers Bob Feldman, Jerry Goldstein, and Richard Gottehrer lucked into penning a number one song when The Angel’s recorded “My Boyfriend’s Back.” To continue their success, they created an alter ego group, the Strangeloves.

In the early days of the British Invasion, Feldman noticed audiences clamored for foreign bands. He figured the more foreign, the more popular. Convincing his fellow producers to don faux zebra fur and African spears, the newly formed group adopted the fictional persona of a family of experimental Australian sheep farmers financing their musical aspirations by inventing a new breed, the long-haired “Gottehrer.” The absurd backstory did not exactly move albums, but it allowed them to write the garage rock stomper, “I Want Candy.”

Both the Strangeloves and “I Want Candy” have had quite the after-life. Though the band flamed out rather quickly, all members left for continued music careers. As one of the cofounders of Sire Records, Richard Gottehrer played a key role launching influential acts like Blondie, Madonna, The Ramones, Talking Heads, and The Go-Go’s. Appropriately, the New Wave sound Gottehrer shepherded into the mainstream ensured The Strangloves’ legacy. Bow Wow Wow’s incandescent version remains a perennial Halloween playlist favorite. Thankfully, Aaron Carter’s version is never heard outside of Lizzie McGuire reruns.^[6]

4 “Get Together”

It is no surprise that the guy who wrote “The National Hippie Anthem” smoked pot. Chet Powers, a burly carnival employee, did not intend to distill his age’s zeitgeist. He just wanted to get laid. A year before she became Andy Warhol’s bohemian muse, Edie Sedgwick had a short-lived fling with Powers. He transported his fleeting courtship into a universal expression of love.

His carnie background led to a series of petty crimes culminating in a two-year stint in Folsom Prison for marijuana possession. To raise money for his legal fees, Powers sold record manager Frank Werber the publishing rights to “Let’s Get Together.” Powers lost out on millions of potential royalties.

After shortening the name, Werber gave the song to folk outfit Kingston Trio to middling success. Desperate to follow up their surprise hit, “You Were on My Mind,” Werber tried again with another act he signed, We Five. Signe Toly Anderson, inspired by the We Five, convinced her band, Jefferson Airplane, to record a cover for their 1966 debut album. That was how Jesse Colin Young eventually discovered the song. Along with his band the Youngbloods, he released the drippy call for peace in 1967. The song is so sixties that it initially only hit #62. If you’ve heard the song they sing, it was because the National Conference of Christians and Jews used the song for a public service announcement for unity in 1969. The spot revitalized interest in the Youngblood’s version. The song recharted into the top 10 and became the go to needle drop for the Summer of Love’s idealism.^[7]

3 “Down Under”

The Wiggles are probably the band least expected to be indirectly responsible for killing two people. As the celebrity guests on the quiz show Spick and Specks, host Adam Hill posed a question perfect for children entertainers, “What children’s song is contained in the song ‘Down Under’?” Despite being right in their wheelhouse, the group failed to come up with the correct answer, “Kookaburra.” What should have been, at most, a missed round of trivia spiraled into a strangely dark saga.

One of the people watching that night was the managing director of Larrikin Music, Norman Lurie. In 1990, he bought the rights to the folk song for $6,100. Written by humble school teacher Marion Sinclair, “Kookaburra” was conceived in a Church choir as a way to raise funds for a girls’ jamboree. Ignoring the wholesome origin, Lurie demanded Men At Work pay him millions in royalties.

Released in 1981, “Down Under” was an international smash, topping charts in multiple countries. After a contentious legal battle, the judge eventually ruled the plagiarized flute solo warranted a $100,000 penalty. Frontman Colin Hay insists the stress of the case contributed to his father’s death. Tragically, the flautist Greg Ham slipped into a cycle of depression and heroin after blaming himself for the whole debacle. At 58, Ham died from either a heart attack or possible overdose.^[8]

2 “The Star-Spangled Banner”

All rise for the national anthem. Now, shake it down for the national anthem. The patriotic salute to America’s perseverance in the War of 1812 has become a political flashpoint in recent years. Commentators demand the piece be respected. However, the songs inception was far from solemn. It was the favorite of a bunch of bawdy drunks.

The biggest betrayal is that the song is not even American. The Anacreontic Society was a rowdy gentleman’s club that convened in London taverns in the late 18th century. The term is derived from the Greek poet Anacreon. To celebrate their namesake, the group composed the drinking song “To Anacreon in Heaven.” With lines like “and besides I’ll instruct you, like me, to intwine the Myrtle of Venus with Bacchus’ Vine,” the singalong was a call for unchecked debauchery of sex and booze. American colonist accompanied many pints of ale with their own renditions. The tune was on Francis Scott Key’s mind when he watched the rockets’ red glare at Fort McHenry.^[9]

1 “The Best I Ever Had”

As of this writing, Drake has lodged more songs in the Top 10 than any other artist in Billboard Hot 100 history. The first song in that imperial reign was “The Best I Ever Had.” The central motif in Drake’s breakout swells courtesy of the string arrangement of Hamilton, Joe Frank and Reynolds’ “Fallin’ in Love.” It took such a circuitous route for the cheesy 70’s soft rockers to record their fluke chart-topper that by the time they did, their ungainly name no longer made sense.

In 1959, Sascha Burland scored an improbable top 40 hit with The Nutty Squirrel’s “Uh-Oh.” Shockingly, Burland could not pay the bill by pretending to be a jazz scatting rodent. He moonlit writing advertising jingles. Digestive aid company Alka-Seltzer asked Burland to compose a musical accompaniment for their commercial showcasing various torsos. The backing track was so popular that he released it as the standalone single, “No Matter What Shape (Your Stomach Is In)”. Session musicians were recruited to play under the impromptu name The T-Bones. Blindsided by the instrumentals runaway top 10 success, a band of low tier Liberty Records signees were commissioned to turn the T-Bones into a real band. This sham arrangement was made up of Dan Hamilton, Joe Frank Carollo, and Tommy Reynolds.

Hugh Heffner signed the act to the short-lived Playboy label. The American public was apparently reluctant to buy music from a pornography distributor, because the enterprise folded after only releasing a handful of songs. After Tommy Reynolds renounced his hedonistic lifestyle to become a preacher, the group replaced him with Alan Dennison. It was that configuration of recruits from singing rodent turn gas relief pitchman and a porno mag entrepreneur that helped launch the most popular musician of the 21st century.^[10]

Top 10 Bizarre Musical Genres That You Need In Your Life

These days, it seems Hollywood only wants to make sequel after sequel or remake something classic. When the latter occurs, odds are, it’s going to suck compared to the original.

There’s little hope that a remake will be as good or better than the movie it’s based on. That said, it does happen… rarely, and these ten movies weren’t only remakes; they were better than the flicks that came before them.

Top 10 Things Disney Doesn’t Want You To See

10 Little Shop of Horrors (1986)

The 1960 film, The Little Shop of Horrors, was directed by Roger Corman and is considered a classic. It inspired a musical released in 1982 Off-Off-Broadway, but it didn’t stay there for long. It became so popular, it received a Broadway release, where it remained in production for five years.

In 1986, Frank Oz released Little Shop of Horrors starring Rick Moranis, Ellen Greene, Vincent Gardenia, and Steve Martin. Oz’s film was adapted from the musical, adapted from the original movie, making it an adaptation of an adaptation. However, it remains mainly true to the Broadway play.

For most Little Shop of Horrors fans, the ’86 film is the best of the three, though few fans of Oz’s film have likely seen the 1960 movie. Despite being overshadowed by the remake, the original film is as funny and dark as the remake. It rates 2% higher than Oz’s movie according to the paid shills of the mainstream media on RottenTomatoes but tanks at a massive 24% lower by the real reviewers (the audience)! It features an early appearance by Jack Nicholson.

Interestingly, the 1986 film features the only time in film history that Steve Martin and Bill Murray shared the screen. The two comedy legends appeared opposite one another for less than five minutes of screentime in the movie.

9 Evil Dead 2 (1987)

In 1981, Sam Raimi released a little movie called The Evil Dead. He made the film with just $90,000 he got from investors, and it’s clear there wasn’t a lot of money put into it. He screened it at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival, which helped him earn widespread distribution, thanks to a rare Stephen King review.

By 1987, Raimi’s career was exploding, so he was given the opportunity to make a sequel with a budget of $3.5 million. Initially, he wanted to do a proper sequel set in the Middle Ages (via time travel), but the producer insisted it be more like the original.

To that end, Raimi made what many call a sequel/remake because the plot of Evil Dead II is incredibly similar to The Evil Dead. There are some different scenes and some important changes, but for the most part, it’s a remake. Of course, if you ask Bruce Campbell, the film’s star, it’s a “requel.”

Evil Dead 2 is basically what happens when you give a filmmaker a budget that is nearly 40 times their original and let them run with it. Raimi not only redid his movie bigger and better than before, but he created a lasting film franchise in the process.

8 Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1986)

In most cases, when a movie is remade, it retains the title of the original, but not always. The 1986 film dirty Rotten Scoundrels is one such film, as it’s a remake of the 1964 movie Bedtime Story, starring David Niven and Marlon Brando.

In Bedtime Story, the two actors play con artists who prey on women in a Mediterranean hot spot. One is more cultured than the other, and they bet one another to see who is the better con man. The same story was adapted by Frank Oz for the ’86 film, starring Steve Martin and Michael Caine.

Reviews of both films place Dirty Rotten Scoundrels well above its predecessor. Of course, like the rest of the movies on this list, the original isn’t bad by any stretch of the imagination — it just doesn’t stand up to the remake, which is considered a classic.

Even Dirty Rotten Scoundrels wasn’t immune to being remade, and in 2019, another title was applied to the same story. In a sex-swapped version, Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson conned men in The Hustle, though that version utterly bombed in comparison to its predecessors.

7 The Thing (1982)

When John Carpenter’s The Thing hit theaters in 1982, it was widely slammed by critics and quickly became a box office bomb. It only made $19.6 million off a $15 million budget, which amounts to a loss for the studio. These days, it’s a cult classic regarded as one of the greatest science-fiction movies ever made.

The movie is based on the 1938 John W. Campbell Jr. novella, Who Goes There?, though it’s not the first film adaptation of Campbell’s work. The 1951 movie, The Thing from Another World, is the first movie to adapt Campbell’s novella, and it did well upon release.

It, too, has gone on to become a classic. Still, despite its success and its successor’s failure, Carpenter’s The Thing is widely considered the best of the two adaptations. Carpenter’s movie used grotesque body horror special effects, which were brought to life by Rob Bottin with help from Stan Winston.

The movie has since garnered a critical reassessment and has been called “one of the most influential horror movies of the 1980s.” Modern audiences who have seen Carpenter’s film rarely take the time to watch the original, as it’s mainly been overshadowed by it.

6 The Last of the Mohicans (1992)

It should come as no surprise that James Fenimore Cooper’s 1826 novel, The Last of the Mohicans: A Narrative of 1757, has been made and remade numerous times. It’s considered a literary classic, and Hollywood rarely fails to adapt those multiple times.

There have been 11 film adaptations, beginning in 1909, with the last coming in 1992. For most viewers, the 1936 film, The Last of the Mohicans, stood as the absolute best, which was true for a long time. That film starred Randolph Scott in the lead role, and it earned him an Academy Award nomination.

Ultimately, Hollywood stopped making adaptations of the book in 1992. The reason for that begins and ends with the legendary actor, Daniel Day-Lewis. The film, directed by Michael Mann, is the quintessential adaptation of Cooper’s novel, and Day-Lewis’ performance is unmatched.

Day-Lewis received his second BAFTA Award nomination for Best Actor in a Leading Role for his work on the film. The Last of the Mohicans holds an 88% on RottenTomatoes, which is considerably higher than its predecessors.

5 The Fly (1986)

Back in 1958, moviegoers were horrified to see Kurt Neumann’s The Fly, starring David Hedison, Patricia Owens, Vincent Price, and Herbert Marshall. The movie was based on a short story published the year prior by George Langelaan. The Fly (1958) was an instant classic, and it spawned two sequels.

Ultimately, the movie was remade in 1986, starring Jeff Goldblum. The remake embraced the more horrific elements from the original and blew them out of proportion. This was, of course, due to the direction of legendary body horror master David Cronenberg.

In the original, a scientist gets his atoms crossed with a fly during an experiment, producing a human/fly hybrid. The remake follows the same premise, though it combines the scientist and fly’s DNA via an experiment with a teleportation device. The result is a man who slowly transforms into a grotesque, giant fly.

The 1986 film earned an Academy Award for Best Makeup, marking the only time a Cronenburg movie earned an Oscar. The film is considerably better than the original. It helped launch Jeff Goldblum’s career, making him into a household name.

4 Scarface (1983)

Believe it or not, the 1983 Al Pacino movie Scarface isn’t an original film. It was based on a 1932 film of the same name based on the 1929 novel written by Armitage Trail. The book was inspired by Al Capone, and the ’32 film’s plot is centered around Antonio “Tony” Carmonte, a gangster who rises through the ranks in Chicago’s gangland.

The ’32 film is considered to be an absolute classic and holds an 86% on RottenTomatoes. Despite being one of the greatest crime movies ever made, there aren’t many people around who have seen it (or know it exists). That’s because Pacino’s performance in the ’83 crime drama (93%) is one of the actor’s all-time greatest.

Of course, while the two films share the same name and the same general plot, the events depicted in them are very different. One deals with a violent rising through the ranks in Chicago, while the other is about everything from immigration and drugs to over-the-top violence and a rising through the ranks in Miami.

Despite their differences, the ’83 film is most definitely a remake of the original Scarface. Director Brian DePalma dedicated his film to the writers of the original, Howard Hawks and Ben Hecht.

3 The Ten Commandments (1956)

Cecil B. DeMille is widely known for directing epic movies, having released Cleopatra and The Ten Commandments. Still, most modern viewers likely don’t know that he released The Ten Commandments not once but twice! His original version was released in 1923 as a silent picture.

He recreated his work in 1956 with vibrant color and sound, and that remake stands as one of the greatest movies ever made. In the original movie, he told the story of the Book of Exodus alongside a modern-day tale about a family. The film was good, but it was a product of its time.

DeMille’s 1956 version of The Ten Commandments is widely considered one of the greatest movies ever made. It was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture. It took home the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, and DeMille won the Foreign Language Press Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director.

When adjusted for inflation, The Ten Commandments is the second highest-grossing biblical film of all time. Its box office take in ’56 amounts to $845.5 million in 2021 (It lost the #1 spot to The Passion of the Christ). It airs every Easter season on network television and has since 1973

2 The Maltese Falcon (1941)

Humphrey Bogart’s Sam Spade from the 1941 adaptation of the novel, The Maltese Falcon, stands as one of cinema’s greatest private dicks. Still, he wasn’t the first to play the character. After Warner Bros. got the rights to the 1930 novel, the studio wasted no time getting it adapted into a major motion picture.

The Maltese Falcon was released in 1931, and it stars Ricardo Cortez as Spade. The movie is widely considered a classic, but it isn’t the one most people remember. In fact, if you ask someone about The Maltese Falcon, odds are, they won’t know about the ’31 movie because the ’41 adaptation completely overshadows it.

This is primarily because the 1931 film was completely re-edited to remove “lewd” scenes. What was left was largely unwatchable, and it wasn’t until 1966 that the movie was returned to its original form. By that time, the world was already in love with Bogart’s performance.

Ultimately, both films are fantastic, but only one is considered one of the greatest films of all time, and it isn’t the one released in ’31. Both score high on RottenTomatoes, but Bogart’s holds a 91% while Cortez’s sits at 48%.

1 The Wizard of Oz (1939)

Believe it or not, The Wizard of Oz from 1939 was a remake of a 1925 movie. Since most people aren’t aware of the earlier picture and consider the remake to be a cinematic classic, it’s fair to say that Judy Garland’s movie is the better of the two.

The original film was a silent picture that adapted L. Frank Baum’s novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, with a few significant changes. Without sound, there aren’t any grand musical numbers the follow-up is known for. About all anyone remembers about it is that it stars a young Oliver Hardy (of Lauren & Hardy fame) as the Tin Man.

Conversely, the 1939 remake features an all-star cast and some of the most memorable imagery and musical numbers ever recorded in a movie. The 1939 film is widely beloved and considered to be one of the best movies ever made.

To be fair to the 1925 film, it wasn’t the first film adaptation of the novel. The first adaptation came in 1910. Between 1910 and 1925, Baum’s book had five cinematic adaptations, though none compare to the 1939 picture.

Top 10 Remakes That Don’t Suck

There are many products in our world, some more useful than others! But did you know that some common household names weren’t always used for what we do now? Here are ten products that ended up being used for something other than their original purpose!

Related: 10 Victorian Invention We Just Can’t Do Without

10 Play-Doh

Everybody recognizes Play-Doh—the fun, moldable clay-like substance! But did you know Play-Doh wasn’t always meant to be a children’s toy? Play-Doh’s inventor, Joseph McVicker, had initially created Play-Doh in about 1930 as a wallpaper cleaner!

It was created in Cincinnati, Ohio, and you would use it by rolling it against a wall to remove built-up soot. By the late ’40s, vinyl-based wallpaper had reduced McVicker’s business to moderate success. Later, a friend of his, who happened to be a teacher, told him about her students having difficulties with the clay they were using. McVicker had the great idea to give them his wallpaper cleaner, which could be molded much easier. By 1955, this wallpaper cleaner had become “play-dough” after he supplied it to other Cincinnati schools, becoming what we all know today as Play-Doh.^[1]

9 Post-it Notes

Post-it notes have come to the aid of millions of people, whether for school teachers, students, businessmen and women, and so much more. These small sticky notes have reminded us to do our chores, go to work, and that the test is on the 15th. But these notes have quite an interesting backstory.

In 1968, a U.S. scientist working at 3M was attempting to develop a super-strong adhesive. The scientist was Dr. Spence Silver, and what he created instead was…a pressure-sensitive, weak adhesive. It garnered the nickname “unglue” for its useless practicality. However, in 1974, a colleague of Dr. Silver’s and another 3M scientist, Art Fry, found a use for it in his Hymn book! Art found his bookmarks unreliable and annoying, for they would frequently fly out of his book when he was done reading it. When Art applied the adhesive to a piece of paper and stuck it to his book, he found a solution to his problem! The adhesive and paper combo would stick well to his book, and when he was done using it, he could take it right off without any damage.

After this discovery, in 1977, 3M tried to sell it under the name “Press ‘N Peel’ with underwhelming results. A year later, however, they changed the name to “Post-its” and were met with great success! Can you imagine a world without these tiny, handy things?^[2]

8 Bubble Wrap

Bubble wrap, one of the most useful packaging products there is, and an even more useful noise machine! But there’s more to bubble wrap than just meets the eye. Let’s get popping because it was originally wallpaper!

Two engineers working at Sealed Air Corporation, Alfred W. Fielding and Marc Chavannes, attempted to make it big with their new invention in 1957. What was it, you ask? Well, it was a textured wallpaper! This interesting idea was created by pushing two shower curtains with bubbles spread across them and sealing them together. Unfortunately for Fielding and Chavannes, their wallpaper idea didn’t do them any good. They searched for alternative uses, and by 1959, they found some luck.

The tech company IBM announced their new computer, and Sealed Air Corp proposed using bubble-wrap as a packaging material to protect the computer. IBM approved, and soon enough, bubble wrap was used for packaging things worldwide—computers, phones, microwaves. They all came in this amazing packaging^[3]

7 Super Glue

Super Glue doesn’t play around when you want to stick two things together. Super Glue is the go-to when you want the job done with its incredible adhesive power and quick-dry. But can you believe Super Glue wasn’t always supposed to be a super glue? In fact, it was almost something other than super glue twice!

During World War II, Dr. Harry Wesley Coover attempted to create clear, plastic gun sights for the allied armies to use. While searching for materials for his project, Coover and his research team came across a substance called cyanoacrylate, an extremely sticky compound he deemed perfect for holding the gun sights. The problem with it was that the cyanoacrylate would stick to anything it came in contact with, nearly destroying the project. So Coover searched elsewhere for materials.

However, in 1951, Coover came across the substance again! At Eastman Kodak, he rediscovered this sticky substance when assisting a team attempting to create heat-resistant polymers for jet engines. This time, however, an assistant of Coover’s, Fred Joyner, put the adhesive to use when he used it to glue two prisms together. To both of their amazement, the prisms stuck together almost instantly without any problems. Eastman Kodak began production of the adhesive and set it up for sale. The name “Super Glue” comes from when Eastman Kodak licensed the cyanoacrylate to the company Loctite, which sold it under the name “Super-Bonder.”

Besides being the product to use when needing a strong bond, Super Glue was also used in the Vietnam war to seal American soldiers’ battle wounds on the field. When injured, the main focus was to stop the bleeding, so the soldiers could be brought to the medic before they bled out. Super Glue almost instantly sealed the wounds and saved countless lives.^[4]

6 The Treadmill

The treadmill, one of the most popular pieces of exercise equipment! It gets your cardio game up and your heart pumping. But did you know it was not always meant to help you lose weight?

The first known treadmills originated in the Roman Empire, where they were used as a winch in their ancient cranes. Here, the treadmill was a “tread wheel” of sorts, where men would walk inside the wheel to lift double their weight. The treadmill evolved in the 1800s, when farmers, needing a more reliable energy source for their stationary machines, found that if they put horses on the treadmills, they could produce much more energy than wind and water. The power needed to power the machines became known as “Horse Power.”

Our next iteration of the treadmill brings us to 1818 Great Britain, where engineer William Cubitt created a prison treadmill (or penal treadmill). These treadmills were used by putting prisoners on them and having the mills grind corn, occasionally being used for punishment only. The Prison Act of 1889 ended these treadmills, though, as hard labor was abolished in the prisons. At last, in the 1960s, Bill Staub and Dr. Kenneth Cooper brought to fruition the first home exercise treadmill, which is where it has comfortably stayed for the most part. The treadmill has had hundreds of years of innovation and history—just be grateful it’s in your home and not in a prison!^[5]

5 WD-40

WD-40 is most commonly used as a maintenance product, usually as a lubricant of sorts, but for the most part, it’s a multi-use substance! WD-40 wasn’t always this multi-use wonder it was today, though.

In 1953, the three-person staff of Rocket Chemical Company decided to look into creating a rust-preventing, slick chemical to use in the aerospace industry. In San Diego, California, the staff members tried multiple times to get the results they wanted. It took them 40 times to perfect their Water Displacement substance. That’s right, WD-40 is an acronym, which stands for Water Displacement, 40th attempt.

WD-40 was first used by Convair to cover the outer shell of the Atlas missile, surprising so many Convair employees with its good results that they took some bottles of WD-40 for themselves. In 1960, Norm Larsen, the founder of Rocket Chemical Company, decided to put WD-40 in commercial cans to sell to the public.

The company grew substantially, and by 1961, WD-40 was being used to treat damage to vehicles and houses after Hurricane Carla struck the U.S. Gulf Coast. By 1969, Rocket Chemical Company was renamed the WD-40 Company, Inc., and the rest is history. WD-40 has come quite far, with a product meant simply for rust prevention turned into a product with thousands of uses. WD-40 can be found in 4 out of 5 American homes—that’s a lot of WD-40!^[6]

4 Chewing Gum

Chewing gum—the tasty, chewy, addicting candy “rubber”—pleases adults, children, and those who stick it under tables. Chewing gum wasn’t always meant to be heard because of lip-smacking, though!

Gum has existed for thousands of years, specifically in the Mayan and Aztec cultures, where it was known as chicle and used as a food and a breath freshener, respectively. The chewing gum we know today brings us to the United States in 1869, where Thomas Adams Sr., learns of “chicle” from Mexican general Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. Adams tries creating many things with the chicle: rain boots, face masks, and even toys! However, none of these creations brought him any success.

Later, though, Adams had a bright idea. Add flavor to the chicle! Adams began commercially selling the flavored chicle as “Adams New York Chewing Gum.” By 1870, Adams and Sons began selling sour orange-flavored gum as a candy. Adams eventually patented a chewing gum machine, and after years of innovation, we were given the chewing gum we know today. Can you imagine wearing rain boots made out of gum?^[7]

3 The Necktie

The necktie, one of the most formal items you can wear! It’s dapper, classy, and all-around gives you a sophisticated look. But did you know the necktie wasn’t always meant to serve as a simple fashion item?

It is the 17th century, and the 30 Years’ War is raging throughout most of Europe. French King Louis the VIII has paid off mercenaries from Croatia to fight on the side of France. These Croatian soldiers had an ornate piece of cloth around their neck, used to hold up the top of their jackets. (LINK 18) King Louis the VIII took a liking to these cloth designs, so much so that he made them an official part of Royal Gatherings, making them a mandatory accessory to wear. He gave them the name “La Cravate.” While ties were much different in the 17th century, sometimes old habits don’t die hard! The tie we most commonly know was most likely brought into fashion around the 1920s.^[8]

2 Listerine

Listerine, one of the most popular mouthwashes in the world, is used by about a billion worldwide. That’s a lot of people, hopefully with clean teeth! But Listerine wasn’t always meant to be a mouthwash.

In 1865, after the findings and theory of germs had been published by Louis Pasteur, the first surgery performed in a sterilized chamber was achieved by Sir Joseph Lister, allowing for a drop in death rates among patients. A man following the footsteps of both of their works, Doctor Joseph Lawrence, concocted an interesting solvent that would disinfect wounds, both on an operation table or on a battlefield.

He dubbed it “LISTERINE” after none other than Sir Joseph Lister. Throughout the late 19th and early 20th century, Listerine was sold as a floor cleaner, deodorant, and even a remedy for diseases. In 1923, it was finally settled on as an antiseptic mouthwash. Listerine has had quite an interesting history—it makes you wonder if it can still clean your floors!^[9]

1 The Slinky

The Slinky, one of the most infamous toys there is! Almost everyone has played with a slinky at least once in their lives, a simple spring coil that looks cool while going down your stairs! The Slinky has quite a significant history, though!

In 1943, a mechanical engineer named Richard James attempted to invent a spring that could keep a naval ship’s equipment steady as it voyaged across the sea. While working, James knocked a couple of his previous spring designs down off of a shelf. Rather than tumbling over or rolling off the shelf, the springs uncoiled and “gently” landed off the shelves. Astonished by what he saw, James set off to turn this tension spring into a toy.

When his wife Betty caught wind of his idea, she scavenged the dictionary for a name for his new toy. She found the word “Slinky,” meaning “graceful and sinuous in movement.” The name matched the toy perfectly, and thus it stuck. After another two years of experimentation with different lengths and sizes for the Slinky and a 500 dollar loan to manufacture the product, Richard and Betty James hit the jackpot after an initial sales slump. At the 1945 Gimbels Department Store in Philadelphia, Christmas time, the two sold 400 Slinkys in minutes! From a maritime device to a children’s favorite toy—the Slinky is quite the novel invention!^[10]

Adding new characters to a long-running television show is no easy task. In fact, there’s an entire trope called the Cousin Oliver, named after the character from the 1970’s classic The Brady Bunch. This is an extensive list of TV characters that were created late in the game to “spice things up.” This trope usually has a negative connotation, but not all late-stage characters are denounced by fans. For every Scrappy-Doo, there’s a gem that goes on to become a fan and critics darling.

Let’s look at ten fan-favorite TV characters who weren’t a part of the show’s original cast. But be warned, there are a few spoilers as well.

Related: 10 Iconic Characters Who First Appeared In Ads

10 Frank Reynolds: It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

The hit FX show It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is one of the longest-running comedies on television. As of 2022, it has 15 seasons under its belt, with no sign of slowing. Considering its humble beginnings, it’s easy to call this the little show that could. In the early 2000s, Charlie Day, Glenn Howerton, and Rob McElhenney were aspiring actors who crossed paths while auditioning for other films and TV shows. They eventually started shooting their own home movies on a Panasonic DVX100A, out of which the idea for It’s Always Sunny was born.

After shooting a pilot on a camcorder, it was picked up by the cable channel FX. The show was slow to attract an audience at first, but the execs at FX believed in it. They realized something was missing from the cast and decided to add a big name.

Enter Danny DeVito.

Despite the cast’s initial hesitation, Devito was added in season 2 as Dennis and Dee’s stepfather Frank Reynolds. The character is the polar opposite of the lovable persona DeVito is known for publicly. Instead, Frank is crass, profane, and cynical, making him the perfect addition to this dark comedy. This addition pulled the show back from the brink of cancellation. Most long-time fans of the show agree that DeVito’s character was the cherry on top that elevated a good show into greatness.^[1]

9 Ben Linus: Lost

For fans of the hit ABC show Lost, it’s almost hard to remember that Benjamin Linus was not part of the original cast. This serialized drama had audiences hooked from the get-go with its unfolding mysteries. Beyond its successful first season, the show only continued to grow in popularity with its sophomore outing. And much of that growth is thanks to the addition of actor Michael Emerson in the role of Ben.

For most of the second season, Ben was held prisoner and fooled the main group into thinking he was a man named Henry Gale. When his lies are unearthed at the end of the season, it’s revealed that Ben is actually the leader of The Others, a shadowy group that inhabits the unexplored side of the island. Worst of all, Ben spent most of season 2 exactly where he wanted to be—observing the group. Ben’s grey morality, thirst for power, and often murderous tendencies are just a few of the qualities that make him a fan favorite.^[2]

8 Fin Tutuola: Law & Order: Special Victims Unit

Much like Danny DeVito in It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Ice-T was a well-known entertainer before joining the cast of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit at the beginning of its second season. In the show, he plays Odafin “Fin” Tutuola, a street-wise cop who transfers to the SVU from narcotics. His character has a tough exterior but a passion for helping abused children and victims of rape and assault. He is initially paired with Munch, a cynical and jaded older detective with a penchant for conspiracy theories. Despite being polar opposites on the surface, many SVU fans felt these two characters had a chemistry that matched that of Benson and Stabler, the show’s leads at the time.

Currently, Fin has been a main character on SVU for 22 years, making him the longest-tenured non-orignial castmember on this list. After Elliot Stabler left the squad back in 2011, Fin became the now-Captain Benson’s right-hand man and longest-running supporter.^[3]

7 Rafael Barba: Law & Order: Special Victims Unit

The role of the assistant district attorney on Law & Order: Special Victim Unit has long been a revolving door. It’s tough to say which has been the most popular with fans, considering how loved Alexandra Cabot and Casey Novak were, but Rafael Barba easily gave them a run for their money.

Barba, played by Broadway vet Raul Esparza, first appeared in the season 14 episode “Twenty-Five Acts,” making him the latest season-joining character on this list. The actor was bumped up to a series regular the following season. Barba was known for being a no-nonsense strategic thinker who looked sharp in a three-piece suit. Fans of the show quickly embraced him for his wit, sass, and charisma. His character was the first male ADA to join the main cast.

In 2018, Esparza decided to leave the show and revive his stage career. His character received a rather divisive send-off in the episode “The Undiscovered Country” but has since made guest starring appearances across the 21st through 23rd seasons.^[4]

6 Desmond Hume: Lost

Desmond Hume is one of the most enigmatic characters to come out of the show Lost, and that’s saying a lot. His first scene alone is considered one of the show’s most iconic when he is revealed to be among the contents of the hatch, one of the central mysteries of the show’s first season. Despite appearing in the first scene of season 2, his character takes off and isn’t seen again until the season finale. Desmond becomes a regular cast member the following year.

At first, Desmond appears to have lost his sanity, which is unsurprising since he has spent years in solitary confinement, thinking the world outside the island no longer exists. But as the series progresses, we learn more about his backstory, and a beautiful love story between him and his wife Penelope unfolds. His character is the main focus of the much beloved season 4 episode, “The Constant.” This surreal episode ties “Through the Looking Glass” as the top rated of the entire series, according to fans on IMDB. Desmond’s story is quite different from the vast majority of characters on Lost, but that uniqueness, paired with his affable and kind nature, is what makes him a favorite.^[5]

5 Tommy Oliver aka the Green/White Ranger: Power Rangers

The first season of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers became a surprise smash hit with millennials back in the mid-1990s. Kids flocked to these five karate chopping, color-coded superhero teens. But the show shocked fans when it introduced an evil ranger in the 17th episode of the first season. Tommy Oliver was the new kid on the block, who also happened to be under the spell of Rita Repulsa, the arch nemesis of the show’s heroes.

What made Tommy popular with audiences was not just his long hair and bad boy looks—Power Rangers fans also empathized with his quest to find family and belonging. Beyond this, the show’s writers flexed their skills by crafting a great redemption arc in which he eventually regains control of his mind and goes on to lead the group as the White Ranger. The character also had an epic romance with Kimberly, the Pink Ranger.^[6]

4 Michonne: The Walking Dead

Michonne Hawthorne is one of the most popular, and most lethal, characters from the hit AMC show The Walking Dead. However, many long-time fans of TWD forget that this katana-wielding assassin was not part of the original cast—despite making a brief cameo as a cloaked figure at the end of season 2. However, she does not become a regular cast member until the following season.

In the beginning, Michonne travels with Andrea, one of the main characters from the first two seasons. But the two quickly part ways when Andrea decides to stay in the mysterious suburban community of Woodbury, which Michonne rightfully doesn’t trust. So she goes out on her own and happens to cross paths with Rick Grimes and the rest of Andrea’s original group of survivors. Despite initial hesitance to trust her, Michonne quickly befriends Rick’s son Carl and eventually ends up in a relationship with Rick himself.

Michonne, played by Black Panther star Danai Gurira, remained a main cast member on The Walking Dead until its 10th season. She is believed to have a kill count that rivals that of Rick Grimes and Daryl Dixon.^[7]

3 Lexa: The 100

There aren’t many characters on this list whose death almost tanked the entire show. The 100 is a post-apocalyptic teen series that aired on the CW from 2014 to 2020. The show focused on a group of 101 juvenile delinquents sent down to Earth from a space station 97 years after the end of the world. While never becoming a ratings juggernaut, the show maintained a fairly healthy viewership and garnered a passionate online fan base throughout its seven-year run.

In its second, and arguably best, season, The 100 introduced what would eventually become their most iconic character—a warrior queen named Lexa, played by Alycia Debnam-Carey. Lexa is introduced in a similar manner as Ben from Lost. The audience is led to believe she’s a limping servant girl, but it’s soon revealed that she is the leader of the grounders, the main antagonists (and eventual allies) of the first 2 seasons.

Lexa quickly became the love interest of Clarke, the show’s main character. In the third season, her character was killed by a stray bullet meant for Clarke soon after the two consummated their relationship. Off-screen, Debnam-Carey was simultaneously cast as a lead in the AMC series Fear the Walking Dead and was unable to continue shooting The 100. Unfortunately, many fans were furious and the show received a lot of public backlash. This also resulted in a drop in viewership and the show losing sponsors. Despite limping on for four more seasons, The 100 never quite regained its popularity.^[8]

2 Spike: Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is easily one of the most critically acclaimed supernatural teen dramas to ever grace the airwaves. The show originally was conceived as a retooled version of a movie of the same name, both by writer and director Joss Whedon.

In the third episode of the second season, the hit WB show introduced a handsome, bleach-blond vampire named Spike, played by actor James Marsters. Spike is a fast-talking, charismatic bad boy who dons a leather jacket and rides in on a motorcycle. He is, in many ways, the antithesis of his old friend Angel, who is Buffy’s boyfriend and the only vampire with a soul. While Angel tries to live up to his name, Spike, on the other hand, revels in being bad.

Despite his edgy exterior, Spike is a hopeless romantic at heart who believes in the beauty of love and poetry. Spike also has a contentious and controversial romance arc with the lead character Buffy, which is something that continues to divide the fanbase decades later. The character not only spent six seasons on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but he also spent time as a lead character on the spinoff show Angel.^[9]

1 Klaus Michaelson: The Vampire Diaries

Rounding out the list is yet another vampire—well, hybrid, to be correct. The Vampire Diaries quickly became must-see television for teens when it premiered back in 2009. And despite its successful and fast-paced first season, this CW outing massively upped its game in season two by centering the plot around a family of vampires called the Originals.

Klaus is essentially the patriarch of the Originals, who are the original family of vampires within TVD lore. This makes him different from your run-of-the-mill vampire. While most vampires in The Vampire Diaries universe can be killed with any wooden stake, original vampires can only be killed with a stake made of wood from an ancient tree. Klaus also becomes part-werewolf, making him the first hybrid in this cinematic universe.

Power and strength aren’t the only things that made Klaus such an unforgettable character. For one thing, he’s played by classically trained actor Joseph Morgan, who many say is one of the best actors to grace the CW. On top of being a dominant alpha, Klaus is a tortured artist who puts family before everything. His character became so popular that he was chosen to star in his own spinoff series, aptly titled The Originals.^[10]

Writers rarely, if ever, crank out a perfect story on the first try. More often than not they go through a few drafts and sometimes the final product is vastly different from the original version. In the modern age, with stories being translated and updated from much older texts, not to mention being adapted into TV shows and movies, many details can be lost. Not just subtle things either, but whole plot lines, characters and much more. 

10. Pinocchio Murdered Jiminy Cricket Then Gets Hanged 

The story of Pinocchio, the wooden puppet who becomes a boy, has been adapted to film literally dozens of times. The original story was called The Adventures of Pinocchio and was written back in 1881 by Carlo Collodi as a serial story. The book as a whole was released in 1883.

As is the case with many tales intended for children from a bygone era, the original Pinocchio was a bit more grim than today’s version. For instance, while the original featured the talking cricket who was later named Jiminy, he was not really a friend of the titular hero. Instead, when the talking cricket decides to give Pinocchio an order, the puppet angrily throws a hammer at the bug’s head and kills it. 

Pinocchio himself ends up dying in the story, at least for a little while. After Gepetto is arrested for abusing the puppet, Pinocchio meets a fox and a cat who learn that he has some gold so they hang him from a tree and steal it. 

Pinocchio’s death was supposed to end the story, a little morality tale about the dangers of lying and disobedience, but his editor encouraged him to continue the tale, so the Blue Fairy arrives and saves him and his adventures continue until, eventually, he ends up becoming a real boy. 

9. Pazuzu, From The Exorcist, Was Invoked to Fight Off Worse Demons

The name Pazuzu was not exactly a well known one before the 1973 movie The Exorcist. In that story, Pazuzu is the demon that possesses Linda Blair’s character ostensibly to punish the priest, Father Karras, for his lack of faith. He encountered representations of the demon earlier in his life in Iraq and it clearly took an interest in him.

The author of the book The Exorcist, didn’t pull the name Pazuzu out of the air. In real life, Pazuzu comes from Mesopotamia where it was the personification of the West Wind. He is the king of the wind demons and has two pairs of wings, a monstrous head and a scorpion’s tail. But our modern idea of what a demon is was not necessarily what it was to the people between the 8th and 6th centuries BC when Pazuzu was in his prime.

Demonic though he may have been, Pazuzu was also the bane of other, more malevolent spirits like Lamashtu. Invoking Pazuzu could protect you from Lamashtu, who was thought to prey upon pregnant women and newborn babies. In his own way, Pazuzu was an exorcist who kept a far worse demon at bay. 

8. The One Ring Was Not the One Ring in the Original Hobbit

Before The Lord of the Rings became a massive, worldwide success worth hundreds of millions of dollars, it was a humble series of children’s books written by J. R. R. Tolkien. And before there was a Lord of the Rings there was simply The Hobbit.

The Hobbit was originally published in 1937 and at that time it was a standalone book that Tolkien hadn’t particularly intended to turn into a vast universe. Because of this, the original Hobbit is actually different from The Hobbit we know. Once Tolkien set about expanding his story with the Lord of the Rings, he had to revise The Hobbit to make the story work. In particular, the One Ring and Gollum needed substantial edits for the further story to work.

Prior to revisions, the One Ring was not the One Ring at all. It was just a ring. It was magical, sure, but not in any significant way. The wearer was invisible but that was no big deal. When Bilbo met Gollum, Gollum was happy to bet his magic ring on their little contest because it didn’t matter to him that much. He still uses the name Precious, but he’s talking about himself, not the ring. After Bilbo wins the ring, they go their separate ways and Gollum seems to not really care one way or the other. 

7. Sherlock Holmes Was Originally a Cocaine Addict

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes is one of literature’s greatest characters and endures to this day in new tales in print and on the screen. His first appearance was in A Study in Scarlet in 1887 and his keen observation skills and intellect made him an instant classic as well as a model for numerous fictional detectives that followed.

One major difference between the original Sherlock and what became of him was that Sherlock Holmes was originally a cocaine addict. And not just a casual coke head, this man loved his cocaine. In Sherlock’s second novel, The Sign of the Four, published in 1890, the book actually opens with Watson annoyed that Sherlock is shooting up again. Holmes states in no uncertain terms that he’s using cocaine, a 7 percent solution, and even offers some to Watson. This is after Watson points out he’s watched Holmes inject himself three times a day for “many months.”

While Watson doesn’t approve, Holmes counters that while cocaine may be physically harmful, the mental effects are worth it because he finds it “transcendently stimulating and clarifying to the mind.”

By 1904, Holmes was no longer an addict, as clarified in the short story The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter. There, we learn Watson had weaned him off the drug. This coincides with the time period when cocaine, once used in all manner of products including Coca-Cola, was being banned because of the harmful effects.

6. The Original Stage Version of Wizard of Oz Had a Cow Instead of Toto

Most of us know the story of the Wizard of Oz and, even if you aren’t a fan, you’re aware there’s a lion, a tinman, a scarecrow and even a little dog named Toto. That’s because of how popular the original Hollywood movie was. But not every Wizard of Oz followed that blueprint.

Before The Wizard of Oz with Judy Garland was a film in 1939, it was a novel by L. Frank Baum published in 1900. And in between those two events there was a Broadway musical in 1902. That version inspired an 1910 silent movie, and neither one is the story you’d recognize.

The stage show, and subsequent silent film, featured notable changes like Toto being replaced by a cow named Imogen. Dorothy went to Oz with her cow. Word is this was because the stage production didn’t want to have to rely on a trained dog. 

When Dorothy arrives in Oz she meets a lunatic, a streetcar conductor and an anarchist, among others. There are no Munchkins and while the witches do exist, they don’t do much. The Witch of the West is only mentioned, never seen. 

5. There Were No Rats in the Original Pied Piper Tale

The Pied Piper of Hamelin is a legend that dates back hundreds of years to the town of Hamelin in Germany. It tells the tale of a piper hired to rid the town of rats, which he does. The town, shady characters that they are, decide not to pay the man. So he uses his pipe to lure their children away as well. It fits the dark aesthetic of many of these old legends and fairy tales that seem light and cute until they become dark and grim.

In a much darker twist, if you follow the story back to its origins there is some evidence that there were originally no rats at all, and that it actually happened. The real town of Hamelin had chronicled the tale apparently as far back as the year 1300 where it was a part of a stained glass window in a church. According to written accounts of the long-lost window, in that version a piper appeared and 130 kids disappeared.

So what truly happened? Theories range from the story being a metaphor for some great tragedy and the Piper being death,to him being a kind of recruiter, leading a migration out of Germany.

4. Peter Pan May Kill the Lost Boys

Like Pinocchio, Peter Pan is another childhood favorite made popular by Walt Disney. In the story, Peter lives in Neverland and while modern audiences may know this as a place where no one grows old, that’s not how it was in the original. Only Peter stayed young, the Lost Boys did age out of their place.

In J. M. Barrie’s original text, published in various forms in the early 1900s before finally being released as one full novel called Peter and Wendy in 1911, the Lost Boys were acknowledged to grow up. Chapter five begins by describing the lost boys out looking for Peter and the pirates looking for the lost boys. It then describes how the number of boys varies on account of some being killed and others growing too old, which is against the rules. The text says “when they seem to be growing up, which is against the rules, Peter thins them out.”

The exact meaning of this is never established, but it seems like it can only mean Peter sends them away or kills them. One theory from fans even suggested Captain Hook’s animosity is because he was a lost boy who grew up, survived, and came back for revenge. 

3. The Room Originally had Vampires

Tommy Wiseau’s The Room is, infamously, one of the worst movies ever made and beloved for that fact. Rumor has it that it was almost even more bizarre than the finished product we actually got.

According to Greg Sestero, the other star of the film, one of Wiseau’s early ideas was to reveal his character was actually a vampire. This would have really been hit home with a scene that would have had Johnny’s car flying away into the night because, you know, he’s a vampire. 

2. In the Original Myths Medusa was Always a Monster

Medusa is one of the more well-known creatures from Greek Mythology, a Gorgon with snakes for hair who can turn those who see her to stone. In the most well known version of the story, she was a beautiful mortal who had been a lover of Poseidon/Neptune who was later cursed by Minerva/Athena to become a monster who no one could even gaze upon. But that was Ovid’s version of the tale, written many years after the original myth.

As one of the Gorgon sisters, Medusa was originally always a monster, never a mortal woman. It was only later that she was transformed into a mortal while two monster sisters, and beautiful as opposed to hideous, to make the whole story more tragic.

1. There is No Balcony in Romeo and Juliet

If you Google Romeo and Juliet right now as an image search, you’ll notice a common theme in many of the images. The scene depicted is often the famous balcony scene.Formally, this is Act II, Scene II and one of the most quoted parts of the play. It features Romeo’s “but soft, what light through yonder window breaks,” speech. In dozens, if not hundreds, of movies and stage productions it features Romeo in a garden with Juliet on a balcony above him. All of this is quite ironic since Shakespeare never wrote of a balcony.

Remarkably, the word balcony never appeared in print until 20 years after Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet. Balconies weren’t a thing back then. But they were a thing when Thomas Otway‘s famous play The History and Fall of Caius Marius was staged, years after Shakespeare had fallen out of favor and his plays were never being performed.

Caius Marius was, for lack of a better term, plagiarized. Otway stole whole scenes and dialogue from Shakespeare and his balcony scene, which heavily stole from Shakespeare, happened on a balcony. And the play was very popular, being performed 30 times over a 30 year period in which Shakespeare was never performed once. So the scene, to most people, became heavily associated with the balcony because that was how it was always presented to them.