Page 69 - Other Facts

The Guinness Book of Records was originally published by Guinness Breweries as a reference for settling pub arguments.

The Guinness Book of World Records is an annually published reference book containing a collection of world records ranging from the impressive to the absurd. It holds records of human achievements and the extremes of the natural world.

You might remember that the book itself is a world record for the best selling copyrighted book series of all time. It’s also one of the most stolen books in the US libraries.

Its roots go back to 1951, when Sir Hugh Beaver, the managing director of Guinness Breweries, got in in argument over what was the fastest game bird in Europe. He realized it was impossible to confirm, and thought that there had to be numerous other questions debated in pubs. To solve the problem, he went to Norris and Ross McWhirter, twins running a fact finding agency in London. His goal was to create a reference book to end all pub debates. In August 1954, the first Guinness Book of Records was born.

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Ever wondered why the Simpsons are yellow?

The choice of color for the Simpsons characters was very strategic, actually. As soon as Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons, was given a drawing of the characters in yellow by an animator, he knew it was perfect. 

The idea was that whenever someone was flipping through the channels, they would automatically know The Simpsons was on when they saw the yellow bodies flash by. Speaking of characters, all of them are a digit short of a full, human-like hand. Actually, the only character to ever have five fingers on a hand was God. 

Until 1998, the 8 main voice actors for The Simpsons received $30,000 per episode. From 1998 until 2004 they made $125,000 per episode. Today, they receive $400,000 per episode. The theme song was created by Danny Elfman in 1989. He composed the now famous song in just two days time. That’s not too bad for a two day job. 

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In a limited series crossover published by both DC and Marvel comics, Batman and Wolverine were made into one character named Dark Claw!

Logan Wayne became the merged character of Batman and Wolverine with the superhero name of Dark Claw. At the age of 5, he witnessed his parents being murdered by an armed robber and sent to live with his uncle in Alberta, Canada. His uncle, a policeman, was shortly murdered after Logan’s arrival and he was then sent to live with nuns. 

He joined the Royal Canadian Air Force and met Creed H. Quinn. Quinn and Wayne were accepted into an elite program where Wayne had adamantium bonded to his bones and learned of his metamutant nature. Quinn became increasingly insane during the program and ended up becoming Dark Claw’s archenemy named, Hyena. 

Dark Claw’s powers include regenerative healing, foreign chemical immunity, superhuman stamina, insulated weather adaptation, and superhuman strength and acute senses. Dark Claw is a weapons master, has the ability to intimidate, is a master acrobat, has an indomitable will, and is a master of stealth. The guy has it all. 

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Two news helicopters crashed while covering a story. One station aired the sound of the crew as they were going down.

On July 27, 2007, 2 News Helicopters collided while live on the air and covering a police chase. Despite the best efforts of the stations, one of the audio feeds from a helicopter continued to broadcast the screams of a crew as they plummeted to their deaths.

It’s now known as the 2007 Phoenix news helicopter collision. The incident went down when the helicopters from KNXV-TV and KTVK collided in midair above Steele Indian School Park in Phoenix. Four people in the helicopters were killed. The helicopters were covering a car chase happening at the time. 

When the helicopters collided, someone on the KNXV one was heard to say “Oh, geez!” Right after that, the image broke up and violent crashing noises were heard. The station cut to the studio anchor, but the screaming of the people on board could still be heard because the link hadn’t yet been cut off. 

The cause of the accident was ruled to just be both pilots failing to see each other. At first, the suspect in the car chase that was being reported on was going to be charged in the deaths, but that charge never went through. 

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Terrance and Phillip from South Park were a response to critics who said the show was poorly animated and full of fart jokes!

In the show South Park, Terrance and Phillip are a comedy duo from Canada who star in their own show and movies. The main characters of South Park are all wild fans of them. Terrance and Phillip are voiced by creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker, respectively. 

The characters came about when the show was the subject of complaints about the fart jokes in South Park. In the commentary for the first episode including the characters, Stone and Parker said that many people claimed the show was poorly animated and only fart jokes. 

In response, they decided to make a show within the show that was literally all fart jokes and poorly animated to make people see what that was really like. 

The poor animation for Terrance and Phillip is what ultimately became the makeup for all Canadian characters on the show. 

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