Peter Benchley’s 1974 novel Jaws was an immediate success upon release and was subsequently adapted into the blockbuster Steven Spielberg movie of the same name the following year. But despite the book putting Benchley on the map and making him a millionaire, the author began to second guess his work as time went on.

“What I now know, which wasn’t known when I wrote Jaws, is that there is no such thing as a rogue shark which develops a taste for human flesh,” Benchley was quoted as saying in 2000. “No one appreciates how vulnerable they are to destruction.”

Furthermore, Benchley explained that he never would’ve written the hit novel if he’d realized how much damage it would do to the reputation of the great white shark. After the book’s debut, Benchley became a shark expert and spent the rest of his life advocating for the creatures he’d unintentionally demonized.

“Considering the knowledge accumulated about great whites in the past 25 years, I couldn’t possibly write Jaws today…not in good conscience, anyway,” Benchley told the Cape Cod Times ahead of the premiere of his National Geographic documentary Great White, Deep Trouble.

The Author of ‘Jaws’ Became a Shark Conservationist After Learning the Truth About Great Whites

According to scientist Simon Thorrold of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Jaws helped legitimize shark hunting. An estimated 50 to 100 million sharks are killed by humans each year, but sharks are only responsible for a small number of human deaths by comparison.

“If you bought into the fact that you had this rogue, cold-blooded killer going around hunting humans, then obviously anything you could do to stop those sharks was good,” said Thorrold. “It provided cover for people who simply wanted to go out and kill sharks under the guise of somehow making people safer.”

However, Benchley, who died in 2006, insisted that reports of him regretting the book were untrue. “Regret is a waste of time in a case like this,” he argued. “There’s nothing I can do about it.” He eventually learned that stories revolving around sharks attacking boats and staying in a single area to feed on humans were implausible. As he tells it, things wouldn’t happen that way in real life because the animals have a tendency to spit people out.

The post The Author of ‘Jaws’ Said He Could Never Write the Book Today. Here’s Why. appeared first on VICE.

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The Party at Kitty and Stud’s is a softcore porno flick from 1970 that would probably be completely forgotten today if it weren’t for one minor detail: it happens to star Sylvester Stallone. The story, appropriately enough, revolves around a young couple named Kitty (Henrietta Holm) and Stud (Stallone). Despite Stud having his fair share of flaws, the two have a very active sex life, which sometimes ventures into sadomasochism. After Stud posts a party invitation on a bulletin board, a few people drop by the pair’s apartment, and their little get-together quickly turns into a full-blown orgy.

While speaking with Playboy in 1978, Stallone explained that he was destitute when he decided to take the part, which ended up being his first starring role in a movie. “I’d been bounced out of my apartment and had spent four nights in a row at the Port Authority Bus Terminal, trying to avoid the cops, trying to get some sleep and keeping my pens and books in a 25-cent locker,” the actor revealed. “That’s why I thought it was extraordinary when I read in one of the trade papers that I could make $100 a day,” he continued. “And the fact that I had to take off my clothes to do it was no big deal.”

Why Sylvester Stallone Agreed to Star in a Softcore Porn Movie Before He Was Famous

Though The Party at Kitty and Stud’s only appears to have had a limited release initially, the owners of the film, of course, tried to milk it for what it was worth when Stallone had his big breakthrough with Rocky a few years later. Stallone’s raunchy debut was subsequently reissued under the title Italian Stallion—a reference to Rocky Balboa’s nickname. “I can assure you that everything you ever wanted to see of Sylvester Stallone can be seen in this new X-rated movie,” editor Gail Palmer promised viewers in the trailer.

However, this was only after the film’s producers offered Stallone the opportunity to purchase the footage from them. “I think they asked for $100,000, but I wouldn’t buy it for two bucks, and my lawyer told them to hit the pike,” the Rambo star recalled. Looking back on his involvement with the project, Stallone said, “You know, when you’re hungry, you do a lot of things you wouldn’t ordinarily do, and it’s funny how you can readjust your morality for the sake of self-preservation.” He went on to say, “It was either do that movie or rob someone, because I was at the end—the very end—of my rope.”

The post Sylvester Stallone Was So Broke Before ‘Rocky’ That He Starred in This Porno appeared first on VICE.

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On October 6, 1993, five-year-old Austin Messner accidentally burned down his mobile home in Moraine, Ohio, which resulted in his two-year-old sister, Jessica Matthews, being killed. Austin had reportedly been playing with a lighter when he inadvertently set fire to his bed. “There was smoke everywhere, I tried to make it past my bedroom door, but the flames were too much,” said Austin’s mother, Darcy Burk, while recounting the story in 2011. “I had to jump out my window.”

Darcy quickly pointed the finger at Beavis and Butt-Head for inspiring the deadly blaze, citing Beavis’s well-known fascination with fire. As she tells it, Austin’s babysitter allowed him to watch the show, and he would go around imitating the characters’ signature laughs. MTV responded to the controversy by moving the series to a later time slot so that kids were less likely to see it. They also went back and removed all the fire references from earlier episodes.

But that wasn’t enough for Darcy, who was quoted as saying that she wanted Beavis and Butt-Head “completely off the air.” Furthermore, Darcy vowed that she would do everything she could to see that the show was canceled. However, MTV’s Carole Robinson pushed back against Darcy’s assertion that the series was to blame, telling the press, “I think the fire was an unbelievable, terrible tragedy. But we do not feel the program is responsible.”

For his part, Beavis and Butt-Head creator Mike Judge echoed Robinson’s sentiments when it came to the show being held accountable. “First of all, I don’t agree with any of that [kind of criticism] and I don’t take any responsibility for any of it at all,” Judge told The Spokesman-Review in 1996. “They didn’t get cable [in the trailer park where the fire occurred],” he continued. “No one mentioned that when the story was getting inflated.”

The post The Tragic Reason MTV Had to Censor ‘Beavis and Butt-Head’ in 1993 appeared first on VICE.

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Steve Burns hosted the Nickelodeon series Blue’s Clues for four seasons between 1996 and 2002, which is pretty weird, considering he was supposed to have died in 1998. That was the year rumors started making the rounds—for whatever reason—that Burns had passed away from a heroin overdose. In other versions of the story, he’d either committed suicide or been killed in a car accident. But as it turns out, this is just another one of the internet’s favorite urban legends.

While appearing on Rainn Wilson’s Soul Boom podcast last year, Burns revealed that he was in the “throes of depression” when he left Blue’s Clues in 2002, and speculation about his death was not what he wanted to be hearing. “When a rumor like that persists for three or four years, it stops being funny,” Burns explained. “When it persists for 10 years it feels like a cultural preference,” he continued. “When it persists for 15 or 20 years, you start to feel like you’re supposed to be [dead].”

Steve From ‘Blue’s Clues’ Wasn’t Dead, but the Rumors Nearly Broke Him

Following his departure from the show, Burns turned to alcohol and barely left his Brooklyn home. “I didn’t recognize me,” the actor told Wilson. “Everyone thought I was dead, and eventually I started playing along.” But although the experience took a toll on Burns as time went on, he said that he learned one valuable lesson from it: “Never Google myself.”

Nowadays, the rumors have died down significantly (no pun intended), but Burns still finds himself addressing them on occasion. However, he opts to treat them with playful humor at this point in his life. For example, Burns’s current Instagram handle is @steveburnsalive. And just to make it perfectly clear to his hundreds of thousands of followers, Burns posted a picture of himself in 2024 sporting a shirt that says, “Not dead yet”:

View this post on Instagram

The post Why Everyone Thought Steve from ‘Blue’s Clues’ Was Dead (And What Really Happened) appeared first on VICE.

The folks at the Goodrich Capital 8 movie theater in Jefferson City, Missouri, have some weird ideas for entertaining their patrons. For example, in May 2013, when Iron Man 3 premiered, reports said a man walked into the theater wearing tactical gear and carrying guns. As it turns out, the theater hired the guy to give customers a little more bang for their buck. Not everyone realized that, however.

“We had just finished watching Iron Man 3. We’re just getting into the car when I spotted a man in full assault gear, carrying what appeared to be a modified M4 and 9mm on his side,” John Morlock, a retired Army veteran who suffers from PTSD, told ABC News. Morlock didn’t tell the police, but according to JCPD captain Doug Shoemaker, the department received a series of calls pertaining to the incident. As a result, officers believed they were responding to an active shooter investigation.

The Time an ‘Iron Man 3’ Publicity Stunt Went Horribly Wrong

The theater manager, Bob Wilkins, later claimed the man with the guns was there for promotional purposes and that the stunt was planned months in advance. Wilkins also said only a few people were upset, but “hundreds were entertained.” When asked if he’d taken the Aurora movie theater shooting from the previous year into consideration while planning this bizarre gimmick, Wilkins replied, “Absolutely. That’s my number-one priority every day. It’s the safety and security of our guests.” 

The theater quickly posted an apology on its Facebook page afterward. “We apologize and are sympathetic to those who felt they were in harm’s way with our character promotion for Iron Man 3,” it began. “We have worked with the Cosplacon group on many movies to dress up and help entertain our customers,” the statement continued. “We have had many complaints about the members dressed specifically as S.H.I.E.L.D. operatives carrying fake guns. We didn’t clearly tell our customers and some people didn’t realize it was for entertainment purposes.”

For the record, S.H.I.E.L.D. operatives weren’t even featured in the movie.

The post A Movie Theater Once Tried to Promote ‘Iron Man 3’ and Accidentally Sparked an Active Shooter Scare appeared first on VICE.

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When Freddy vs. Jason hit theaters in 2003, it included a line of dialogue that even caught the writers off guard. During Kelly Rowland’s character Kia’s brief encounter with Freddy Krueger, she uses a certain gay slur that you can probably guess without us having to type it out for you.

In the event that you’re unable to narrow it down on your own, you can check out the scene in question right here:

It’s only natural for people to blame the film’s screenwriters in a situation like this, but they say someone else is responsible for the line’s inclusion. Damian Shannon and Mark Swift, who penned the final draft of the screenplay, spoke to Bloody Disgusting about the controversial sequence in 2016, and though it’s not clear which one of them was quoted, they firmly denied that the slur came from them.

A Controversial ‘Freddy vs. Jason’ Scene Was Originally Written Very Differently

“All we can tell you is…we didn’t write it, and we were really shocked when we heard it in the movie,” their response began. “We complained about it after the first screening, but it was never changed,” they continued. The pair went as far as to say that the dialogue was “a real stain on the movie,” in their opinion.

While it remains a mystery who came up with the line, a quick look at Shannon and Swift’s script confirms their story. In fact, that scene was completely different as originally written. Instead of ripping on Freddy like she does in the video above, Kia was supposed to mistake Jason for Freddy and simply tell him that she wasn’t afraid of him. Freddy then pops up just before Jason kills her and says, “Wrong one, b—h!”

The post One of the Most Controversial Lines in ‘Freddy vs. Jason’ Wasn’t in the Original Script appeared first on VICE.

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If you were asked to select the most unsettling television theme song ever composed, what would you go with? In the event that your answer ends up being Unsolved Mysteries, literally nobody on the planet is gonna have an argument for you. Not one person. However, should you be in the rare position of not knowing what we’re talking about right now, go ahead and listen to the terrifying intro music below—and, for Christ’s sake, turn on a light first.

Composers Gary Malkin and Michael Boyd wrote that haunting little tune you just heard back in the 1980s, and it’s been striking fear into the hearts of everyone who’s listened to it since. Believe it or not, even Malkin himself wasn’t immune to the song’s chilling effects. While speaking with the Los Angeles Times in 2020, Malkin recalled that after spending countless hours on the score and watching reenactments of murders and abductions in the process, he couldn’t get the melody out of his head. “I was destroyed for weeks,” he revealed, “I had horrible nightmares.”

Why the ‘Unsolved Mysteries’ Theme Still Gives You the Creeps

But Malkin was far from the only one his music gave the creeps to. As he tells it, the folks at NBC had to deal with quite a few complaints over the years regarding kids being freaked out by the show’s opening credits. “We used to get letters all the time from parents saying, ‘Could you please change the theme music? Our children are terrified of it,’” Malkin remembered.

As for what it is that makes the Unsolved Mysteries theme so eerie, Malkin explained that he and Boyd used an interval called the tritone (a.k.a. the devil’s interval), a dissonant combination that, according to musicologist Neil Lerner, creates a sense of tension, ambiguity, and instability. Evidently, religious songs from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance avoided the tritone because it made people feel uneasy. Malkin and Boyd were also inspired by the sinister music featured in earlier horror movies, like John Carpenter’s classic Halloween theme, for example.

The post This TV Theme Scared Kids So Much, Parents Wrote Letters Asking NBC to Change It appeared first on VICE.

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On October 3, 1992, Sinéad O’Connor appeared as the musical guest on Saturday Night Live for the second and last time of her career. That evening, she performed two songs: her new single “Success Has Made a Failure of Our Home,” and an a cappella version of Bob Marley’s 1976 record “War.” At the conclusion of “War,” O’Connor held up a picture of Pope John Paul II, tore it to pieces, and yelled, “Fight the real enemy!” You can take a look at the footage for yourself below.

SNL producer Lorne Michaels reportedly demanded that the studio’s “Applause” sign be turned off immediately after the incident, which resulted in O’Connor’s actions being met with absolute silence from the audience. The network was said to have received upwards of 4,000 complaints in response and banned O’Connor from appearing on the show ever again. O’Connor’s behavior was also promptly condemned by everyone from Catholic cardinal Bernard Francis Law to the Anti-Defamation League.

The Notorious Sinead O’Connor Incident That Got Her Banned From ‘SNL’

On the following week’s episode, guest host Joe Pesci brought up O’Connor during his opening monologue. “She was very lucky it wasn’t my show, cuz if it was my show, I would’ve gave her such a smack,” Pesci joked, to a round of applause. “I would’ve grabbed her by her…her eyebrows,” he continued, poking fun at O’Connor’s bald head:

Madonna parodied the stunt as well when she was the musical guest in January 1993, tearing up a photo of Joey Buttafuoco at the end of one song:

For her part, O’Connor addressed the backlash in a letter that was sent to several news publications, calling herself an abused child and revealing that she became a singer so that her story could be heard. “The Catholic Church have controlled us by controlling education,” O’Connor continued, “Through their teachings on sexuality, marriage, birth control, and abortion. And most spectacularly through the lies they taught us with their history books.”

O’Connor closed out her statement by writing, “My story is the story of countless millions of children whose families and nations were torn apart for money in the name of Jesus Christ.”

The post 34 Years Ago, Sinéad O’Connor Was Banned From ‘SNL’ After This Notorious Moment appeared first on VICE.

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While performing at the Punk Rock Music & Bowling Festival in Las Vegas on May 27, 2018, NOFX members Fat Mike and Eric Melvin joked around about the Route 91 Harvest mass shooting that left 58 people dead and hundreds more injured. After Melvin suggested that you don’t get shot in Vegas unless you’re in a country band, Fat Mike responded by saying, “That sucked, but at least they were country fans and not punk rock fans.” Take a look at the footage for yourself right here:

Stone Brewing, who created NOFX’s official beer, Punk in Drublic, and sponsored their music festival of the same name, quickly cut ties with the band over the incident, and NOFX was even dropped from the lineup of their own festival. A little while later, the group issued an apology on social media, writing, “There’s no place here to backpedal. What NOFX said in Vegas was shameful.” It went on to say, “We crossed the line of civility. We can’t write songs about how people in this world need to be more decent when we were clearly being indecent.”

NOFX Got Banned From Performing in the U.S. Over a Mass Shooting Joke

By the end of June, Fat Mike took to Instagram to explain to fans that the ramifications of his joke were way worse than anyone was expecting. According to him, all of their upcoming shows in the U.S. had been canceled because of the controversy. Furthermore, Fat Mike claimed he was told that NOFX wasn’t welcome at any major venue in the country. He closed out his statement, which you can read below, by thanking his followers and telling them that the Punk in Drublic tour would still continue overseas.

View this post on Instagram

Though things eventually cooled off, the wound was still too fresh for NOFX to perform at the Punk Rock Music & Bowling Festival in 2021. The band was scheduled to headline on September 24 of that year but dropped out due to complaints. “There has been a lot of hate messages and threats because we are on the bill,” their announcement read. “It just feels wrong. We know we said shitty things that caused it, so we get it. Sorry to everyone that wanted to see us.”

The post 8 Years Ago, NOFX Made a Joke That Led to Canceled Shows and a Public Apology appeared first on VICE.

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If anyone can take credit for It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’s longevity, it’s Danny DeVito. The veteran actor joined the cast during the second season because the network thought they needed to hire somebody famous in order to boost the ratings. As Dennis and Dee’s father, Frank Reynolds, DeVito immediately clicked with fans, and arguably helped save the long-running series from cancellation. But he wasn’t the only big name being eyed for the part.

In a 2022 episode of The Always Sunny Podcast, Glenn Howerton revealed that there was actually a point when they were “really serious” about getting Ray Liotta to play Frank. Though primarily known for his dramatic work, Liotta did venture into comedy at different stages of his career, appearing in films like Observe and Report, voicing characters on Family Guy and The Simpsons, and even guest-starring on a few sitcoms. It’s unclear why he didn’t end up getting the role of Frank, but needless to say, the character’s run would’ve been cut short if he had, due to Liotta’s untimely death in 2022.

‘It’s Always Sunny IN PHILADELPHIA’ Could Have Had a Very Different Frank Reynolds

One Always Sunny cast member at least got to work with Liotta later on, however, as the Goodfellas star played a film producer in Charlie Day’s 2023 directorial debut Fool’s Paradise. Unfortunately, Liotta didn’t live to see the project’s release because production was delayed several times, but he was reportedly very enthusiastic about it. “Ray would text me every three months like, ‘Hey, man, what’s going on with that movie we did?’” Day recalled ahead of the premiere. “And I would say, ‘Ray, I’m so sorry. I’m stuck back doing It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.’”

But according to a later episode of The Always Sunny Podcast, Liotta also came close to doing a guest spot on the show. Though Day remains uncertain as to whether or not Liotta ever watched it, the two did discuss the possibility of him making an appearance. “So he was like, ‘And why don’t you have me on your TV show sometime?’” Day remembered. “I was like, ‘Absolutely, we’ll find something for him.’” 

Liotta died on May 26, 2022, a few months after Always Sunny’s 15th season concluded. Fool’s Paradise finally hit theaters the following May.

The post ‘It’s Always Sunny’ Almost Cast a ‘Goodfellas’ Star as Frank Reynolds appeared first on VICE.

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2005’s The Amityville Horror is the second film adaptation of the controversial 1977 book of the same name, written by Jay Anson. The movie, like the book, revolves around George and Kathy Lutz (as played by Ryan Reynolds and Melissa George), who, along with their three children, move into a house in Amityville, New York, where multiple murders took place. The previous owner, Ronald DeFeo Jr., had actually killed six of his relatives in the house depicted in the film on November 13, 1974. 

As you can imagine, making a movie inspired by such grisly events is creepy in and of itself, but the eerie things that happened while the Reynolds version was in production didn’t help ease any of the tension on set, that’s for sure. To begin with, the real Kathy Lutz died right after shooting commenced in August 2004. As if that wasn’t strange enough, Reynolds said that a lot of the people working on the film kept waking up at 3:15 in the morning, which was the precise time DeFeo murdered his family. “I think a lot of people make that stuff up to sell their movie,” Reynolds told MovieWeb in 2005, “but there was some weird stuff that happened.”

That weird stuff apparently included a corpse popping up near one of the filming locations, by the way. While speaking with Radio Free Entertainment ahead of the movie’s release, Melissa George claimed that the police showed up as they were shooting a boathouse scene. “They were on the water there, and they said that they found a dead body that had floated to the surface,” she recalled. “We were like, ‘Awesome! That’s making everything much more comfortable in this movie!’”

Reynolds backed up George’s story during an interview with that same publication, telling them, “I know nothing about it, and we certainly didn’t treat the situation cavalierly.” He went on to say, “This was a densely populated lake area as well. I mean, it wasn’t like a secluded pond, and this Mafia member floated up or something.” In the end, Reynolds chalked the person’s death up to a “legitimate accident,” but very little information has come to light since.

The post Ryan Reynolds Says Police Found a Body Near the Set of ‘The Amityville Horror’ appeared first on VICE.

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Mark Hamill will forever be remembered for playing Luke Skywalker, the main protagonist from 1977’s Star Wars, but according to him, the character came very close to being known by another name. As Hamill revealed in a tweet from 2020, George Lucas actually had to reshoot the scene in which Luke rescues Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) because he’d originally introduced himself as Luke Starkiller:

May The 24 Be My Age When We Had To Reshoot The Imprisoned Princess Scene In #StarWars Because The First Time We Filmed It I Said: "I'm Luke Starkiller, I'm Here To Rescue You."#TrueStory pic.twitter.com/FVJiwxpONL

— Mark Hamill (@MarkHamill) May 24, 2020

After HuffPost picked up the story and erroneously reported that Hamill botched the line, Hamill clarified that the scene was redone on account of Luke’s name getting changed at the last minute:

This article states we reshot the rescue of Leia scene because I "botched" my line. In fact, we had to redo it weeks later, because my name was changed to Skywalker AFTER we did it the 1st time (when my name was still Starkiller). #TrueFunFact https://t.co/ubcWztJs47

— Mark Hamill (@MarkHamill) May 26, 2020

As for the reason Lucas made an adjustment like that so far into production, the director had previously addressed the issue himself in J.W. Rinzler’s The Making of Star Wars: The Definitive Story Behind the Original Film. “That I did because I thought a lot of people were confusing [Luke] with someone like Charles Manson,” said Lucas. “It had very unpleasant connotations.”

If you’re not clear on why Lucas would’ve felt that way, Manson was responsible for orchestrating the infamous Tate-LaBianca murders in 1969, which resulted in the deaths of seven people, including actress Sharon Tate. Then, less than a year before principal photography began on Star Wars, Manson Family member “Squeaky” Fromme was arrested for the attempted assassination of President Gerald Ford.

For his part, Hamill wasn’t thrilled with the name change initially, mainly due to the fact that Skywalker sounded a bit too close to “flyswatter.” “I was so used to Starkiller, which had a little macho in it, which I thought the character could use,” he explained.

The post How the Charles Manson Murders Changed Luke Skywalker’s Name in ‘Star Wars’ appeared first on VICE.

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Rob Reiner’s The Princess Bride wasn’t a box-office success when it first hit theaters in 1987, but thanks to home video and TV airings, it went on to have quite an impact. For example, Reiner once had a chilling run-in with a henchman of John Gotti’s, who quoted the famous “Prepare to die!” line from the movie to him outside of a restaurant. And then there’s that video of Ted Cruz reenacting a Princess Bride scene during his 2016 presidential campaign:

According to Reiner, the film can also be credited with saving a few lives. As the director explained to Variety in 2017, he was out to lunch with his co-producer, Andrew Scheinman, and a friend who’d worked on Fletch when he found out. “We were talking about people quoting The Princess Bride all the time, and it was just going into profits after all those years,” Reiner recalled. “You know, I produced this movie Fletch, and people tell me in colleges that they quote it all the time,” said his friend at one point.

When the friend left, a young woman who’d overheard the conversation approached Reiner and Scheinman with an interesting story. “I am an extreme skier,” she told them, “and The Princess Bride saved my life.” From there, the girl recounted how an avalanche trapped her and a few other skiers she was with years earlier. As a huge fan of Reiner’s film, she’d memorized the whole thing, and decided to act it out for the sake of survival.

“When we were freezing, I did the entire movie to keep everybody occupied and to keep everybody up, happy and listening,” the woman continued. “I am not exaggerating,” Reiner insisted. “Then she said, ‘You know, because Fletch just wouldn’t do.’” The filmmaker went on to say, “That was the best line I ever got: ‘The Princess Bride saved my life.’”

The post How ‘The Princess Bride’ Helped a Group of Skiers Survive an Avalanche appeared first on VICE.

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Family Guy has touched on pretty much every taboo subject imaginable over the years, but that doesn’t mean creator Seth MacFarlane is proud of all the things they’ve done on the show. While speaking with Entertainment Weekly in 2012, MacFarlane revealed that there was at least one gag he’d had second thoughts about. “There have been jokes that I would have rather we not have done,” MacFarlane admitted. “The JFK Pez dispenser was something I would probably not do now.”

The gag in question was from the Season 1 episode “A Hero Sits Next Door,” in which Peter becomes jealous of his wheelchair-bound neighbor, Joe Swanson, who also happens to be a heroic police officer. To show how heroic he can be, Peter attempts to stop a bank robbery. In the process, he gets mistaken for the robber and nearly gets shot by a police officer. Thankfully, Lois grabs the cop’s gun at the last second, causing the bullet to miss Peter.

As this is going on, a little boy comes running out of a nearby store, showing off his new John F. Kennedy Pez dispenser. The bullet meant for Peter then immediately blows the head off of the miniature JFK. “Oh. Good thing I still have my Bobby Kennedy Pez dispenser,” the boy says in response. This is, of course, in reference to the fact that both Kennedy brothers were assassinated. You can check out the segment, which was removed from later broadcasts, right here:

Seth MacFarlane Had Second Thoughts About This Early ‘Family Guy’ Joke

MacFarlane singling out this particular JFK joke is odd, considering that just a few years prior to his Entertainment Weekly interview, Family Guy featured a parody of the former president’s assassination that some have argued is more offensive. In 2009’s “Road to the Multiverse,” Stewie and Brian end up in an alternate universe where Mayor McCheese of McDonald’s fame gets killed instead of JFK. Afterward, Jacqueline Kennedy is shown eating the parts of his head that were blown off:

The post The ‘Family Guy’ Joke Seth MacFarlane Said He Wouldn’t Make Again appeared first on VICE.

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A lot of celebrities would probably love to get revenge on the tabloid magazines that print bogus stories about them, but Burt Reynolds actually saw that fantasy through. For years, Reynolds was the subject of many a National Enquirer article, and needless to say, they didn’t paint a pretty picture of the Smokey and the Bandit star. Though Reynolds remained quiet when it came to their nonsense claims, he finally reached his breaking point when the folks at the Enquirer announced that they’d erected the tallest Christmas tree in the world. 

Reynolds didn’t think it was right for a publication of that sort to hold such an honor, and decided to take action. At the time, the National Enquirer headquarters was located in Lantana, Florida, about 25 miles from Reynolds’s ranch in Jupiter. Reynolds had close to 100 horses living there in those days, and as a result, he would accumulate quite a bit of manure. Ordinarily, ranchers compost this overabundance of horse crap or sell it to local farmers, but Reynolds had other plans for it on this particular occasion.

Burt Reynolds Once Showered a Tabloid’s Christmas Display With Horse Manure

At around 3 a.m. on Christmas Eve, Reynolds and his ranch foreman loaded up his helicopter with a bunch of manure and sent it raining down on the Enquirer’s pride and joy. “Dumping a helicopter full of horse s—t on the National Enquirer made me feel great,” Reynolds told The Guardian in 2017. “They’d been writing crap about me for years, so I thought it was only fitting,” he continued, adding that he and his accomplice “flew over the building and watched it cascade down their giant Christmas tree.”

The National Enquirer addressed the incident on their website the following year, calling Reynolds a “Grinch-like star” who “took delight in taking aim at the Enquirer’s annual Christmas display that thrilled local kids in Florida.” They went on to say, “It had become a Sunshine State tradition for children to gather at Enquirer headquarters to see an annual holiday display featuring animated figures, 280,000 twinkling lights, and the world’s tallest Christmas tree. But none of that mattered to Burt…”  

The post Why Burt Reynolds Dumped Horse Manure on the ‘National Enquirer’ From a Helicopter appeared first on VICE.

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After Battlestar Galactica debuted in September 1978, Mattel quickly got to work cranking out toys based on the popular sci-fi series. One of the toys they released that holiday season was the miniature Cylon Raider spaceship featured in the video below, which was capable of firing tiny, spring-loaded plastic missiles.

By December of that year, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) revealed that there had already been three reports of kids inhaling or swallowing the toy missiles. Though the product had passed the safety regulations of the day, Mattel agreed to add warning labels to its existing inventory under the circumstances. Unfortunately, the company’s problems didn’t end there.

On December 31, a four-year-old boy named Robert Jeffery Warren died as a result of a freak accident involving the toy. While pointing the Cylon Raider toward his face, Robert inadvertently hit the missile’s release button. The object then flew into his throat with such force that it bounced off the roof of his mouth and got lodged in his windpipe. Robert was reportedly choking for about four and a half minutes before losing consciousness and suffering “full cardiopulmonary arrest.”

The following month, Mattel announced that they were initiating a “Missile Mail-In” campaign to prevent future fatalities. Children and parents were urged to send back any of their remaining plastic missiles in exchange for a free Hot Wheels car. The missile-firing mechanism was also removed from later versions of the Cylon Raider. 

Robert’s parents, John and Doris Warren, eventually sued Mattel over their son’s death, seeking $14 million in damages.

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Barry Manilow has been getting songs stuck in everybody’s head for a lot longer than people realize. You see, before he started churning out hit records like “Mandy” and “Copacabana (At the Copa),” Manilow had a brief stint writing jingles for commercials. “I learned the most about music working in the jingle industry,” Manilow revealed while accepting the Clio Award for his early work in 2009. “It was the best music college I could ever imagine.”

In the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, Manilow wrote catchy tunes for a number of different companies, a couple of which are still in use today. Remember the old Band-Aid theme? You know…“I am stuck on Band-Aid brand, cuz Band-Aid’s stuck on me”? Who honestly hasn’t hummed that to themselves at one point or another (whether they enjoyed it or not)? If it somehow managed to elude you up until now, here’s the little ditty we’re talking about:

You’ve Probably Been Singing Barry Manilow Songs Without Realizing It

On top of that, Manilow penned songs for the likes of Kentucky Fried Chicken, Pepsi, Dr. Pepper, and McDonald’s—just to name a few. Oh, and how could we forget that “Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there” jingle you’ve heard a million times over the years? Yup, you can thank Manilow for that one, too. And if you can believe it, he only got paid $500 for the job:

But despite getting to collaborate with major brands, Manilow admitted that there were some low points during his jingle-writing career. As he once explained to Ellen DeGeneres, he also had to come up with songs for Bowlene toilet bowl cleaner and Stridex pimple cream. “Then they asked me to write a douche commercial, but I said no,” the singer joked. “Anyway, nothing rhymes with douche.”

You can watch Manilow perform a medley of his old jingles with Rosie O’Donnell below.

The post Barry Manilow Is Behind Two Iconic Commercial Jingles You Definitely Know appeared first on VICE.

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On September 13, 2004, Oprah Winfrey famously gave away 276 Pontiac G6 sedans to everybody in her studio audience. “You get a car, you get a car, you get a car!” Winfrey declared, while pointing out random people in the crowd. Looking back, the former talk show host called it one of her “all-time favorite happiest moments ever.” You can check out the clip for yourself right here:

Winfrey reportedly asked her producers to fill the studio with people who desperately needed cars for the stunt, and as you just saw, the recipients were overjoyed with the generous gift—at the time, at least. But before long, all those proud new Pontiac owners realized their free cars weren’t quite as free as they’d been led to believe. You see, because the new G6s were valued at $28,500, the folks who received them were now being forced to fork over as much as $7,000 in taxes. And that was after Pontiac agreed to pay the state sales tax and licensing fees for them.

Oprah’s ‘Free’ Cars Came With a $7,000 Tax Bill

As a result, some opted to pay their bills by taking out loans, while others traded in their Pontiacs for less expensive cars. “It’s not really a free car,” said one lucky winner. “It’s more of a 75% off car,” they joked. A spokesperson for Winfrey’s Harpo Productions later explained—rather coldly—that beneficiaries had three options: keep the car and pay the tax, sell the car and pay it from the profits, or forfeit the vehicle altogether.

Winfrey and her producers seemed to learn their lesson from the scandal, and for their next giveaway, they gave each attendee a $2,500 check that they hoped would cover their tax bill—keyword: “hoped.” Unfortunately, most people still ended up owing the IRS between $4,500 and $6,000. However, the promotional gimmicks worked out for Winfrey in the long run. In fact, her 2004 giveaway earned the show its highest ratings in eight years.

The post The Truth About Oprah Winfrey’s Famous Free Car Giveaway: ‘It’s Not Really a Free Car’ appeared first on VICE.

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On May 11, 1955, Reverend Kiyoshi Tanimoto—a survivor of the Hiroshima bombing a decade earlier—appeared on the American TV series This Is Your Life. Tanimoto was there to discuss the Hiroshima Maidens, a group of 25 women who were left disfigured from the attack. However, the show’s host, Ralph Edwards, had his own agenda that day. 

Early on in the broadcast, Edwards says that he’s been working behind the scenes to put together Tanimoto’s life story. Through the door located to the left of them, Edwards explains, will come many people who helped shape Tanimoto’s destiny. Although this was always the show’s basic premise, Tanimoto clearly didn’t know that and was blindsided by the revelation. “We hope you’ll have some pleasant moments,” Edwards tells Tanimoto before turning to the camera and saying, “And we hope, too, ladies and gentlemen, that you will have a better understanding of what it is to look into the face of atomic power.”

A Hiroshima Survivor Was Brought Face-to-Face With an ‘Enola Gay’ Crew Member on LIVE TV

From there, Edwards jumps right into the events of August 6, 1945—the day the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Aided by sound effects, dramatic music, and real footage of the city’s destruction, Edwards walks a visibly distraught Tanimoto through that fateful morning and questions him about his actions around the time of the explosion. “What did you do when you heard that bomb?” asks Edwards at one point. “Well, I didn’t hear any sound, but I saw a strange flash,” Tanimoto responds, adding that he was lying down in a garden afterward, where he felt “strong blasts of wind.”

As if this all wasn’t uncomfortable enough, Edwards also decided to bring out a special guest in the form of Captain Robert Lewis: co-pilot and aircraft commander of the Enola Gay, the B-29 Superfortress that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. Tanimoto and Lewis then awkwardly shake hands as the studio audience applauds, and Edwards allows Lewis to recount his experience on the morning of August 6. Prior to exiting the stage, Lewis shares with Tanimoto six chilling words he later wrote in his logbook: “My God, what have we done?”

You can check out the whole bizarre spectacle for yourself below.

The post This 1950s TV Show Put a Hiroshima Survivor Face-to-Face With One of the Men Who Dropped the Bomb appeared first on VICE.

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On December 16, 2016, A&E announced it was launching a new documentary series about the Ku Klux Klan entitled Generation KKK. The show, which was set to premiere on January 10 of the following year, revolved around four Klan-affiliated families, each with a member seeking to leave the infamous hate group. Among the reported subjects of Generation KKK were an Imperial Wizard who was grooming his young daughter to take his position in the Klan and an Iraq War vet raising his son to adopt the group’s views. This was in addition to the series covering various anti-hate groups and their attempts to lead members away from the KKK.

“This series gives viewers an unprecedented look at what it is like to be born into hate,” Rob Sharenow, A&E EVP and general manager, said at the time. “Our producers gained access to Klan families, allowing for full immersion into this secret world and its impact on the next generation.” Sharenow went on to say, “Generation KKK brings viewers inside the places where hatred and prejudice are born and bred, and carried forward or not.”

The Controversial KKK TV Series That Never Made It to Air

The announcement was met with immediate backlash, and within a week, A&E decided to change Generation KKK’s title. To make it clear that this wasn’t a reality show made for entertainment purposes, the network revealed that they were now calling the project Escaping the KKK: A Documentary Series Exposing Hate in America. Furthermore, they explained that they were adding segments featuring civil-rights leaders to provide context for viewers. Those portions were to be interspersed with the rest of the footage the showrunners had already captured.

However, on December 24, the network pulled the plug on Escaping the KKK after making an unfortunate discovery. “A&E learned last night from third-party producers who made the documentary that cash payments—which we currently understand to be nominal—were made in the field to some participants in order to facilitate access,” reads a statement posted on their official website. “While we stand behind the intent of the series and the seriousness of the content, these payments are a direct violation of A&E’s policies and practices for a documentary,” it continued. “We have now decided not to move forward with airing this project.”

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