Little-Known Facts: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

'''Linus''': Lucy, why is Charlie Brown [[Head Desk|banging his head against a tree]]?<br />

'''Lucy''': To loosen the bark so the tree will grow faster. Come along, Linus.|''[[You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown (Theatre)|You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown]]'', "Little Known Facts"}}

== [[Comic Books]] ==

* ''[[Transmetropolitan]]'' takes place far in the future. [[Future Imperfect|A lot of knowledge has either been lost or is no longer known commonly.]] After procuring some of Hitler's urine to do drugs to, one person explains to a friend the history of the man.

"Rock star. He was in Led Zeppelin. [[But You Screw One Goat!|Fucked goats]] and wrote the old national anthem. Blew up Auckland in the Blitz."<br />

"Wasn't all bad, then, was he?"<br />

** The joke actually came from a DVD commentary for ''[[Spaced]]''. Nick Frost genuinely did believe that dogs can't look up.

* Otto apparently did this a lot in ''[[A Fish Called Wanda]]''.

 

 

== [[Literature]] ==

* The comedy book ''Great Lies To Tell Your Kids'' consists of these:

"Slugs are snails that couldn't afford the rent." }}

* Luna in ''[[Harry Potter]]'' was full of these, mostly focusing on bizarre animals.

* [[Dave Barry]], in his "Mister Language Person" columns, gives out ridiculously bad advice about grammar, spelling and writing style, throwing in some choice [[Little-Known Facts]] on other subjects:

A. They are parts of a ram, and they were considered a great delicacy in those days. People used to [[wikipedia:The Star-Spangled Banner|watch o'er them]]. }}

* ''[[The Areas of My Expertise]]'' is full of this, especially in the "Were You Aware Of It?" segments. Among other things, there's a fifty-first state inhabited by thunderbirds, and hobos tried to conquer the United States during the Great Depression.

** There's also Deuce Loosely, a one-off character who annoys Sifl And Olly with little known facts about [[Pandaing to the Audience|pandas]] ("Like the shark, the panda has millions of teeth which it uses like a hacksaw to cut through bone, candy, and fences. The Chinese believe that if you find a discarded panda tooth, you have the power to summon [[Godzilla]].")

* During the final round of ''[[Talkin Bout Your Generation]]'', the host [[Shaun Micallef|Shaun]] prepares some "interesting" "facts" to share with the teams, claiming to source all of his information from [[Critical Research Failure|Wikipedia]].

* ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'' had a [[Game Show]] sketch called "Common Knowledge" where the "correct" answers (that is, the answers the judges were looking for) were this. In the sketch, giving the actual correct answer counted as getting the question ''wrong'' (since "correct" was defined as "whatever [[Take That|a majority of high school seniors thought was the right answer]]"). This allowed a teenaged stoner to beat former UN Ambassador Jean Kirkpatrick at the game.

* ''[[Top Gear]]'': This trope crops up on occasion. For example, the cup holders on a Ford Fiesta are the perfect fit for holding smoke grenades during a beach assault.

== [[Newspaper Comics]] ==

* Calvin's dad was notorious for these in ''[[Calvin and Hobbes]]''. Thanks to him, Calvin learns about the world only turning color in the 1930s (and pretty grainy color for a while, too), the sun setting every night in Flagstaff, Arizona ([[Depth Deception|Hold up a quarter, the sun's about the same size]]), wind being caused by [[Epileptic Trees|trees sneezing]] (not really, but the real answer is much more complicated), and babies being bought at Sears, as a kit (Calvin was a Blue Light Special from K-Mart, however. "Much cheaper, and almost as good"). Calvin's mom is usually around to correct things, though.

'''Mum''': Dear, if you don't know the answer, just tell him! }}

** What makes this even funnier is that Calvin's dad works as a patent lawyer, a job which requires a good deal of knowledge of technology and science, and as such could explain these things to Calvin if he really wanted to. Not to mention the fact that Calvin is [[Little Professor Dialog|likely to understand it]]. He won't tell you how a carburetor works, though. It's a secret.

== [[Video Games]] ==

* The Fact Sphere in ''[[Portal 2]]'' exists solely to spit these out, including such gems as:

Humans can survive underwater, [[Captain Obvious|but not for very long]]. }}

** His fact regarding the melting point of tungsten ''is'' accurate, though. Well, it's only off by about a dozen degrees. Good enough, right?

* Sir Miur in ''[[Harkovast]]'' is either using these, or just a [[Cloudcuckoolander]].

* This was a [[Running Gag]] in ''[[The Parking Lot Is Full]]'', and even ended the comic itself:

* [http://xkcd.com/826/ This] ''[[Xkcd]]'' guest comic features "the Smithsonian Museum of Dad-Trolling, an entire building dedicated to deceiving children for amusement", with exhibits such as the Hall of Misunderstood Science ("DNA only has four letters because the alphabet was smaller back then") and the Conservatory of Poorly-Remembered History ("Ghengis Khan: Victory Through Dragons").

 

== [[Web Original]] ==

* Via ''[[Loading Ready Run]]'':

Paul: "Well I know it. And I know it well. So it's a well-known fact." }}

* Numerous lists of these "facts" circulate the web. They almost invariably claim "A duck's quack [http://www.snopes.com/critters/wild/duckecho.asp doesn't echo,] and nobody knows why."