The "Today I Learned" Thread • Page 17

Her with Coppola and C Thomas Howell.

 

Things can happen like that. I didn't find out I was 2nd cousins with a member of a certain popular Tampa scene band until my mom randomly brought it up when I was like 20.

 

Just off this description alone I know who this is lol

 

TIL that while Italian immigrants that came to the US and Canada mostly were from southern Italy and Sicily, the Italians immigrants who went to Brazil and Argentina mostly came from northern Italy. Resulting in two distinctly different Italian diaspora cultures between North and South America.

 

TIL: Robert Zemeckis was set to direct a remake of the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine using his motion-capture animation like he used in Polar Express. But after a movie of his flopped, Disney scrapped the project completely

 

TIL: Panera Bread was originally named Saint Louis Bread Company. Despite changing their name to Panera in 1997, 100 locations in the St. Louis, MO metro area maintain the original Saint Louis Bread Company name. They even have the same logo as Panera

 

TIL: Robert Downey Jr. is the only SNL alumni with an Oscar

 

Sandler should/will be the next one

 

TIL last year the boss of the Philadelphia mob Joey Merlino was kicked out of the Mafia for starting a podcast

 

TIL the only three story Walmart in the world is in the tiny valley town of Grundy, Virginia in the middle of nowhere Appalachian Mountains

 

Kinda similar to this. TIL that in 2023 members of American Football and Polyvinyl Records bought the iconic house in Urbana, IL that is on cover of American Football's 1999 ST album. They listed it on AirBnB, giving a discounted rate for lodging to touring bands. Polyvinyl also uses it as a writing retreat for their label members, uses it as an intimate show venue, and as an occasional merch pop up shop.

 

TIL: Walugi wasn’t introduced as a character in the Super Mario franchise until the year 2000. His first appearance was in Mario Tennis

 

Yep and some fans believe it's because Waluigi was created by the third Mario Tennis devs and not by Nintendo directly as to why that character was never given the honor of being a playable character in Smash.

 

TIL that there is a theory that the "uncanny valley" where we feel uneasy at something that looks human but is it a little off is a natural human instinct that developed because of ancient humans interactions with the other types of now extinct sapiens we encountered early in our species history.

 

TIL: Alice In Chains’ MTV Unplugged performance was released as an album on my exact date of birth (July 30, 1996).

Notably, Sublime released their self-titled album and Pearl Jam released Who You Are as a single on that day too (both of which I already knew about)

 

I jumped off on this idea and made a thread for it in the music forum

 

Hey cool! I like that

 

TIL: Actor Bob Balaban played NBC executive Warren Littlefield in the 1996 HBO movie Late Shift, which was about Jay Leno and David Letterman’s battle to become the new host of The Tonight Show.

By coincidence, three years earlier he played Russell Dalrymple, the fictional president of NBC on Seinfeld, who was based off of Warren Littlefield. So in a weird way, he technically played the same character on two different things

 

TIL: Squirrels in California were recently discovered to be developing carnivorous behaviors. A study showed that these squirrels were hunting and eating voles, which is extremely rare and unusual for their species

 

My mom steals forks from restaurants.

 

TIL you can become an FAA certified small drone pilot for less than $400 with exam fees and lessons combined. People say it's the best job cert to get cost of entry to salary ratio wise. Some FAA Part 107 certified drone pilot jobs pay like $60K a year.

 

TIL Paul Giamatti was a member of Skull & Bones when he was at Yale

 

TIL: Beck was apparently tapped to corniche a song to the Shrek 2 soundtrack, but had to decline due to his involvement with Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind

 

TIL: Spring Rolls were given their name due to the fact that they are traditionally prepared/had during the Lunar New Year, at the start of the spring season

 

TIL McDonald's Quarter Pounder is named because the uncooked patty is 4 ounces. Once cooked though it's actually around 2.5 ounces. The end product isn't actually a quarter pound of meat.