Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), the first film featuring the character Indiana Jones, was crawling with four-, eight-, and no-legged creatures: 7,500 cobras and pythons were used in the film, and 50 tarantulas. The name, Indiana Jones, was derived from producer George Lucas' pet Malamute.

Twentieth Century-Fox studio cut all scenes showing physical contact between America's curly-haired darling Shirley Temple and Bill "Bojangles" Robinson in "The Little Colonel" in 1934 to avoid social offense and to assure wide U.S. distribution. Pre-release showings of the film, particularly in the southern U.S., shocked audiences when the two actors touched fingers during their famous staircase dance sequence.

Muppets creator Jim Henson first created Kermit in 1955 - as a lizard. He was made from Henson's mother's coat and two halves of a Ping-Pong ball - no flipper feet or eleven-point collar.

The person who performs the Muppets - Miss Piggy, Fozzie, Animal, and Grover is Frank Oz. Oz is also the voice of Star Wars Yoda. By the way, his real name is Frank Oznowicz.

Of the six men who made up the Three Stooges, three of them were real brothers: Moe, Curly and Shemp.

The writers of The Simpsons have never revealed what state Springfield is in.

A movie house manager in Seoul, Korea felt that The Sound of Music was too long, so he shortened it by cutting out all the songs.

Bruce was the nickname of the mechanical shark used in the Jaws movies.

The original title of the musical, Hello Dolly! was, Dolly: A Damned Exasperating Woman.

Donald Duck comics were banned from Finland because he doesn't wear pants.

A two hour motion picture uses 10,800 feet of film. Not including the previews and commercials.

For many years, the globe on the NBC Nightly News spun in the wrong direction. On January 2, 1984, NBC finally set the world spinning back in the proper direction.

In the Mario Brothers movie, the Princess' first name is Daisy, but in Mario 64, the game, her first name is Peach. Before that, it's Princess Toadstool.

60 Minutes is the only show on CBS that doesn't have a theme track.

Dooley Wilson appeared as Sam in the movie Casablanca. In real life Dooley was a drummer, not a pianist. The man who played the piano in Casablanca was a Warner Brothers staff musician who was at a piano off camera during the filming.

In the movie Now and Then, when the girls are talking to the hippie and they get up to leave, Teeny puts out her cigarette twice.

In Hitchcock's movie, Rear Window, Jimmy Stewart plays a character wearing a leg cast from the waist down. In one scene, the cast switches legs, and in another, the signature on the cast is missing.

In the movie, Two Jakes, which is set in the 1940's, Jack Nicholson walks right by a BankOne ATM. Can't imagine there were too many of them around in the 1940's.

In the movie Bustin' Loose, where Richard Pryor and Cicely Tyson take a group of underprivileged kids to the west coast, the car in which Cicely Tyson's boyfriend is pursuing them changes interior color from red to white and then back to red several times.

In the movie, Ghost, when Demi is making something on the pottery wheel her hands are covered in clay. But when her husband comes up behind her to give her a kiss she turns around and her hands are completely clean.

In Forrest Gump, when Forrest goes to see Jenny toward the end, in one scene, in Jenny's apartment, the iron is up, but later it is faced down and steaming.

In the Disney movie Aladdin, when Aladdin is talking to Jasmine just before taking her on a carpet ride, Rajah attacks him. Aladdin says, 'Get back, kitty' or something like that. Then he whispers to Jasmine telling her to take off her clothes.

Danny Kaye was the third choice to play opposite Bing Crosby in the film, White Christmas, (1954). Fred Astaire, who had co-starred with Crosby in the earlier hit, Holiday Inn, was the original choice for Phil Davis, but he turned it down because, at age 55, he felt he was too old for the part. Donald O'Connor was next selected for the sidekick role, but he injured his back and couldn't dance for months. Kaye was quite miffed about being third in line, and also resented playing second fiddle to Crosby. The atmosphere on the film set was professional, but frosty.

David Niven and George Lazenby played James Bond once only.

In "Cliff Hanger" when the girl is dangling off Stallone's arm, the camera flashes to the chopper and the old man in the picture is laughing.

In White Christmas, there are 2 scenes with bloopers- first when the 2 sisters are talking, Rosemary Clooney pours coffee, then puts the pot down and the next time they show her she's pouring it again. And later, when the General and his granddaughter step into the ballroom, the granddaughter steps back out of the spotlight then a second later, she does it again.

The most popular sport as a topic for a film is boxing.

Scooby Doo's first real name is Scoobert.

The studios wanted Matthew McConaughey, the newest heartthrob in the industry, cast as hero Jack Dawson in the 1997 box office hit Titanic, but director James Cameron insisted on Leonardo DiCaprio.

According to lead Munchkin Jerry Maren, the little people on the set of The Wizard of Oz (1939) were paid $50 per week for a 6-day work week, while Toto received $125 per week.

In an episode of The Simpsons, Sideshow Bob's Criminal Number is 24601, the same as the Criminal number of Jean Valjean in Les Miserables.

Actress Halle Berry turned down the role of Annie, and Stephen Baldwin turned down the role of Jack in the 1994 movie, Speed. The blockbuster film catapulted Sandra Bullock as a major film actress, and greatly improved upon Keanu Reeve's box office appeal.

During the chariot scene in Ben Hur, a red car can be seen in the background, and a can of Coke sitting on a wall in the race scene.

In El Cid, a sound technician can be seen in a crowd scene.

Because metal was scarce, the Oscars given out during World War II were made of wood.

The first toy product ever advertised on television was Mr Potato Head.

The longest film ever released was ****, by Andy Warhol, which lasted 24 hours. It proved, not surprisingly, an utter failure, except possibly to its creator. It was withdrawn and re-released in a 90-minute format as, The Loves of Ondine.

The first far eastern country to permit kissing in films was China. The first oriental screen kiss was bestowed on Miss Mamie Lee in the movie, Two Women in the House (China, 1926).

The first female monster to appear on the big screen was, Bride of Frankenstein.

The first black and white motion picture to be digitally converted to colour was, Yankee Doodle Dandy, the 1942 biography of George Cohen.

For the movie, Mission To Mars, director Brian DePalma and crew needed to re-create the surface of the planet Mars. They chose the more than two million square feet of a 45-acre sand dune in Vancouver, Canada. To give the sand dune the colour of the planet Mars, they covered it with over 15,000 gallons of red paint.

The Pentagon was allowed to choose some of the clothes that John Travolta wore in the movie, Broken Arrow, so that the military would be portrayed positively.

Some of the Bond girls, Ursula Andress, Shirley Eaton, Eunice Gayson, and Claudine Auger, were unable to match an alluring voice to their sexy physical attributes. For each of them, their lines were dubbed by aspirant actress Nikki van der Zyl, who later left the film industry to practice as a legal professional. In the first Bond movie, Doctor No, van der Zyl dubbed every female voice except Miss Moneypenny and a Chinese girl. She also dubbed Raquel Welch's grunting in, One Million Years B.C.

In 1952, CBS made history by being the first station to use a computer, the UNIVAC I, to forecast the U.S. presidential election.

In, The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy's last name is Gale.

The name of the Vulcan's heaven is Sha Ka Ree.

The last female to occupy the Number 1 spot on the Top Ten Box Office list was Julie Andrews in 1967; the top position has been filled by a female film performer only 12 times (by six actresses) since 1932, when the list was established. The other five females to hold the Number 1 box office position are Shirley Temple (four times), Doris Day (twice), Marie Dressler (twice), Betty Grable (once), and Elizabeth Taylor (once). Andrews was ranked Number 1 twice.

In the film, Star Trek: First Contact, when Picard shows Lilly she is orbiting Earth, Australia and Papua New Guinea are clearly visible, but New Zealand is missing.

More than 150,000 feet (28+ miles) of film was used by David Selznick just to film the screen tests of potential actresses for the lead role of Scarlett O'Hara in his 1939 epic, Gone With the Wind.

The musical, Cats, was based on fourteen poems of T S Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber. The original production opened at the New London Theatre, in the West End on May 11, 1981. Eight years later it celebrated both its birthday and another important milestone: it had become, after 3358 performances, the longest running musical in the history of the British theatre. On Thursday, June 19, 1997, Cats became the longest running show in the history of Broadway, with its 6138th performance surpassing A Chorus Line, which staged the last production in April 1990.

The concept of a countdown before a rocket launch originated as a tension-building device in the 1929 movie, The Woman on the Moon.

Bambi was originally published in 1929, in German.

The first crime mentioned in the first episode of, Hill Street Blues, was armed robbery.

Breath, by Samuel Beckett, and first performed in April, 1970, must be the briefest and oddest play on record. The play lasts thirty seconds, has no actors, and no dialogue.

Before Mickey Mouse, Felix the Cat was the most popular cartoon character.

In the movie, Speed, twelve buses were used, including two which exploded; one for the freeway jump; one for high-speed scenes; and one used solely for 'under bus' shots.

In, Saturday Night Fever, at the, How Deep Is Your Love, rehearsal scene, the camera crew is reflected in the dance hall mirror.

When Walt Disney Productions released, Return to Oz, in 1985, it represented the longest time span that had ever occurred between the original and the remake of a film.

Skull island is the jungle home of King Kong.

At one time the line, "Let's get outta here," had been used in 84% of Hollywood movie productions.

The largest outdoor film set ever built was the Roman Forum used in, The Fall of The Roman Empire (1964). It was 1,312 feet long by 754 feet wide, took 1,100 workers seven months to construct, and rose some 260 feet in the air.

The largest indoor film set ever built was the landing site for the UFO in, Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). Constructed inside a 10 million cubic foot hangar in Mobile, Alabama, it was 450 feet long by 250 feet wide, and 90 feet tall.

Charlie Chaplin once reshot a scene in, City Lights (1931), some 342 times before he felt he had it right. In, Some Like It Hot (1959), Marilyn Monroe required 59 takes on a scene in which her only line was, "Where's the Bourbon?" Similarly, Stanley Kubrick required Shelley Duval to redo a scene 127 times in, The Shining (1980).

The identification number of the Starship Enterprise is NCC-1701.

The most common telephone exchange number on television is 555.

Batman and Robin live in Gotham City.

An anchor is tattooed on Popeye's arm.

Mr Spock was second in command of the Starship Enterprise.

The 1st time the f-word was spoken in a movie was by Marianne Faithfull in the 1968 film, I'll Never Forget Whatshisname. In Brian De Palma's 1984 movie, Scarface, the word is spoken 206 times - an average of once every 29 seconds.

Screenwriter Joe Ezterhas was paid $3 million for his script, Basic Instinct, the highest amount ever paid to a screenwriter.

John Hughes wrote the script for, Wierd Science (1984), in two days. He wrote, The Breakfast Club (1984), in three days and, National Lampoon's Vacation (1983), in four days.

Sherlock Holmes is the most portrayed character on film, having been played by 72 actors in 204 films. The historical character most represented in films is Napoleon Bonaparte, with 194 film portrayals. Abraham Lincoln is the U.S. President to be portrayed most on film, with 136 films featuring actors playing the role.

Dr No, was the first James Bond movie.

MASH stood for Mobile Army Surgical Hospital.

Felix Leiter is James Bond's CIA contact.

The movie, Cleopatra, cost $28 million to make in 1963.

TV's top rated series from 1957 to 1961 was, Gunsmoke.
The name of Popeye's adopted son is Swee'pea.

According to the Disney crew, there are 6,469,952 spots painted on dogs in the original, 101 Dalmatians.

Composer Richard Wagner was known to dress in historical costumes whilst writing his operas. He wasn't the only composer with quirks: Christopher Gluck would only write whilst seated in the middle of a field. And Gioacchino Rossini reportedly could only find inspiration by getting profoundly drunk.

The characters in The Addams Family, did not have names in the original New Yorker cartoons; Charles Addams created their names when the television series in the 1960s was developed.

Steve Martin's first movie was, The Jerk.

Smithee is a pseudonym that filmmakers use when they don't want their names to appear in the credits.