Showing posts with label trivia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label trivia. Show all posts

20 Things You Didn't Know About LOST

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Season Five just aired for the highly entertaining and ultra confusing ABC's LOST. There is so much we still don't know. We can't look into the future (unless we find the island) to figure out what's next, but we can do a little research and find some behind-the-scenes things. Here are 20 things you probably didn't know about LOST.

20. Jorge Garcia was cast as Hurley after J.J. Abrams saw him in "Curb Your Enthusiasm"

19. 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42 all added together equal 108, the total of minutes left to enter those very numbers into the computer each time, and the number of days that the castaways spent on the island before the Oceanic Six were rescued.

18. Charlie's shoulder tattoo reads, "Living is easy with eyes closed". This is a lyric from the song "Strawberry Fields Forever" by The Beatles.

17. The rocks used in the waterfall cave set are made of rubber so that the sound of the actors, and crew members walking about are not picked up on camera.

16. The part of Charlie was originally written for someone much older, but when Dominic Monaghan auditioned, the writers and producers loved him so much that they set about re-writing the part to Dominic's strengths.

15. The shirt that Sawyer wears that has a fish on it is from an actual restaurant. One of the show's creators went to Humpy's in Alaska and liked the logo so much he wanted to use it on the show. They didn't get permission to use it until much later so they took the logo from the site and made their own. No one at Humpy's knew how it got onto the show until much later.

14. ABC picked up the show before there even was a script. J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof had only turned in an outline and based on this ABC picked up the show.

13. When Jin is at the house of the person he is meant to kill, Hurley is on the television behind him. If you look (extremely) carefully you can see that he is wearing the grey shirt that he is wearing when the television cameras show up at the petrol station later on in the series.

12. Originally, Michael Emerson was only cast for a few episodes in season two. The producers were so impressed with his performance that they cast him as a regular and rewrote the part of Henry Gale/Ben to feature him more prominently.

11. In the original description for Kate, she was a slightly older woman separated from her husband, who went to the bathroom in the tail-section of the plane. However, that idea ended up being used for the character Rose.

10. The character of Sawyer was originally meant to be an older, slick, suit-wearing city con artist from Buffalo, NY. However, when Josh Holloway forgot a line at his audition and subsequently kicked a chair in frustration and loudly swore, the writers liked the edge he brought to the Sawyer character and decided to write Sawyer as more of a Southern, darker grifter instead.

9. John Locke was a 17th-century English philosopher who described the human being as "tabula rasa" - translated as "unwritten sheet" or "empty canvas" - at birth. It's obvious that the creators of the show were inspired by this when creating the character Locke.

8. Yunjin Kim originally read for the character of Kate. The producers felt she was not what they were looking for in Kate, but decided to create a new character for her, along with a spouse.

7. Josh Holloway was trying to cover up his Southern accent while shooting several of his first scenes in the first season. It wasn't until producer J.J. Abrams told him that the reason they cast him was BECAUSE of his accent that Holloway changed it. There are still some scenes left in the pilot where he doesn't use his Southern accent.

6. Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje came up with his own character's name, "Mr. Eko", while he and the writers were developing the character.

5. Forest Whitaker was originally cast in the role of Sawyer, but opted out of the role to direct First Daughter.

4. Jennifer Jason Leigh was approached to play the part of Libby, but she declined.

3. Ethan Rom is an anagram for "other man".

2. Matthew Abbadon is an anagram for "what bad boatmen".

1. Originally, Michael Keaton was cast as Jack. In the first draft of the script Jack was to be killed by the monster after they arrived at the cockpit. ABC told the producers that they shouldn't kill off the hero so soon in the series and the script was changed. After the change, Michael Keaton backed out of the role since he did not want to commit to a regular series.

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10 Things You Didn't Know About M*A*S*H

Friday, April 10, 2009

If you didn't grow up watching M*A*S*H either during its run or via syndication, then you didn't have a TV. One of the greatest shows on Television, even with it preachiness. It ran for 10 years, but how much do you know about the show? Here are 15 things you probably didn't know about M*A*S*H

15. On "Sesame Street" (1969), Big Bird's teddy bear is named Radar. This is in homage to Radar O'Reilly's teddy bear.

14. Klinger was only going to appear in one episode. However, he proved so popular that he became a regular.

13. First American network series to use the phrase "son-of-a-bitch".

12. Klinger's attempt to be thrown out of the army by wearing women's clothing was inspired by the comedian Lenny Bruce, who received an honorable discharge from active service in the Navy by dressing up as a WAVE officer (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency service).

11. The filming location for the exteriors of the 4077 M*A*S*H camp is today known as Malibu Creek State Park in Malibu, California. Formerly called the Fox Ranch, and owned by 20th Century Fox Studios until the 1980s, the site today (early 2001) is overgrown with foliage, and marked by a rusted Jeep and an ambulance used in the show, as well as a small sign. The state park is open to the public. It was also the location where How Green Was My Valley (1941) and the "Planet of the Apes" (1974) TV series were filmed.

10. Gary Burghoff's left hand is slightly deformed, and he took great pains to hide or de-emphasize it during filming. He did this by always holding something (like a clipboard), or keeping that hand in his pocket.

9. The character of Spearchucker, played by Timothy Brown, appeared in episodes 1, 4, 5, 9, 10, and 11 in the first season, until it was discovered that there were no Black surgeons in Korea at the time.

8. McLean Stevenson, who played Lt. Col. Henry Blake, died of a heart attack on 15 February 1996. The next day, 16 February, Roger Bowen, who played Lt. Col. Henry Blake in the movie, died of the same cause.

7. Jamie Farr and Alan Alda were the only two cast members to have actually served in the US Army in Korea. Both of them did their tours of duty after the 1953 cease fire.

6. Tom Skerritt was approached to reprise his role as Duke Forrest on the series but he declined, because he felt a TV version of the movie would be unsuccessful.

5. Radar's teddy bear, once housed at the Smithsonian, was sold at auction July 29, 2005, for $11,800. (It was originally found on the Fox Ranch, where the series was filmed, and became part of the show.)

4. By the time the series ended, three of the regulars were promoted: Klinger (Jamie Farr) from Corporal to Sergeant, and Father Mulcahy (William Christopher) from Lieutenant to Captain. Frank Burns (Larry Linville) was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel when he was shipped back to the US following Margaret's Marriage. (Farr and Christopher also saw their names move from the closing credits of the show, to the opening credits.) Radar O'Reilly was temporarily promoted to Second Lieutenant, but disliked officer's duties, and asked Hawkeye and B.J. to "bust" him back to Corporal.

3. Throughout the run of the series, any "generic" nurses (nurse characters who had a line or two, but were minor supporting characters otherwise) were generally given the names "Nurse Able", "Nurse Baker", or "Nurse Charlie". These names stem from the phonetic alphabet used by the military and HAM operators at the time. During the time period of the Korean War, the letters A, B, and C in the phonetic alphabet were Able, Baker, and Charlie (since then, the standard has been updated, and A and B are now Alpha and Bravo). In later seasons, it became more common for a real character name to be created, especially as several of the nurse actors became semi-regulars. For example, Kellye Nakahara played both "Able" and "Charlie" characters in season three before becoming the semi-regular "Nurse Kellye"; on the other hand, Judy Farrell (then Mrs. Mike Farrell) played Nurse Able in eight episodes, including the series finale.

2. While most of the characters from the movie carried over to the series, only three actors appeared in both: Gary Burghoff (Radar O'Reilly) and G. Wood (General Hammond) reprized their movie roles in the series (though Wood appeared in only three episodes). Timothy Brown (credited as "Tim Brown") played "Cpl. Judson" in the movie and Spearchucker Jones in series.

1. This television series, set during the Korean War, lasted eleven seasons. The actual Korean War lasted only three years.

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