Page 61 - Other Facts

Tic Tacs are labeled as having zero sugar even though that is their main ingredient!

Tic Tac is a brand of mint produced by the Italian confectioner Ferrero. They were first introduced in 1969 and come in a variety of flavors from fruity to minty. For a long time, the individual Tic Tacs were colored to correlate the flavor they were, but today in many countries the Tic Tac box is colored to represent the flavor and the actual Tic Tacs are just white.

The Ti Tac container itself has become very popular and recycled by many for other uses with its flip open tab. Each Tic Tac weighs just under 0.5 grams. Since the US regulations states that if a single serving contains less than 0.5 grams of sugar it is allowable to express the amount of sugar in a serving as zero.

A single serving of Tic Tacs is a single Tic Tac, so in the US they are labeled as having zero sugar, even though it is their main ingredient.

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It’s A Wonderful Life was a box-office flop and only became popular after a copyright debacle made it free to show on TV!

When the movie was released in 1946, it was given a 28 year copyright term with an eligibility of a 28 year copyright renewal. A request wasn’t put in for the renewal, though, and it fell into the public domain in 1975. The movie studio saw the film as a gem and subsequently fought for the rights of the film for a decade. Had they not done that, the movie would have become another dollar movie in those large bins.

The movie was a financial box-office flop when it was released. It came in at 26th in the box-office ranks. During the time it was in the public domain, the film was showed on a variety of networks throughout the year. Today, NBC owns the rights to the film and it plays only twice a year. The royalties for the film are outrageously expensive. Copyright laws are becoming more intricate and absurd as time goes on and their length is ever growing.

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If you eat a teaspoon of sugar after eating something spicy, it will completely neutralize the heat.

Maybe you’ve been out eating Indian food and realized too late that you have a low tolerance for spice. The most common response to something too spicy seems to be water, but as we all know it doesn’t work that well. Actually, drinking lots of water spreads the spiciness around, so it’s best not to go that route. Dairy products can work better. Yogurt, milk, sour cream, cheese, etc, all work to a degree.

Dairy helps to kind of absorb some of the spiciness. So feel free to follow up that pepper with a scoop of ice cream. The best way, though, is sugar. A sugar cube or a teaspoon of sugar will suffice. The sugar absorbs all the spicy oil that coats the mouth, and gives a strong, different taste to replace it with. So if you’re ever off to dinner with friends, you’ll be more prepared.

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Have you ever wondered exactly what the Beast from Beauty and the Beast is supposed to be? Read on!

Beauty and the Beast is a fairy tale about a man who is turned into a horrific beast by a witch, and to be turned back into his human form must fall in love. While the Beast’s makeup isn’t really that important to the story, in the Disney version his appearance seems to be a combination of animals- which it is.

The supervising animator in the Disney film, Glen Keane, describes the beast as being not based off of one animal, but being a chimaera, meaning he is multiple animals. Specifically, he has the head structure and horns of a buffalo, the arms and body of a bear, the eyebrows of a gorilla, the mouth and mane of a lion, the tusks of a wild boar and the legs and tail of a wolf. He’s also meant to resemble a cross between a minotaur and a werewolf.

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Minesweeper received criticism for being offensive to mine victims and now has a flower mode!

Minesweeper is a Microsoft single-player video game. The object of the game is to clear an abstract minefield without uncovering a mine. The game has been used in a number of platform systems, but Windows is the most common. The game is quite simple, but extremely addicting. There is strategy involved and winning the game isn’t that easy.

In 2001, the Italian International Campaign to Ban Winmine strongly complained about the game. They claimed that the game was offensive to victims of landmines and all those who risk their lives to clear them. So, they created their own “Winflower” game. They lobbied Microsoft to use their game in Windows 98 instead of Minesweeper.

Microsoft took notice of the criticism and included the alternate version in Windows Vista and Windows 7 offers a mode where you can interchange mines with flowers.

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