27 Fun Facts About Fun - mental_floss on YouTube (Ep.53)

Hi, I'm John Green. Welcome to my salon. I have a bit of a cold today, so I'm coming

to you with my husky voice. Anyway, did you know that mini golf was invented in Victorian

England? Apparently women weren't supposed to raise a club above their shoulder on a

backswing, and now we're all doomed to watch fictional, cheesy mini golf dates in romantic

comedies. And that's the first of many facts about fun that I'm going to share with you

today in this video presented by Geico. No, I'm not talking about the band Fun, by the

the way. You guys have already heard that song enough. I'm talking about like games

theme parks, Harry Potter. We've got you covered. Speaking of mini golf, in the 1950s dyed goat hair was used for mini golf putting greens instead

of grass. How is that easier than just using grass? Also, lest you think that mini golf isn't

serious business. There's a literal world mini golf sport federation. It's headquartered

in Sweden, naturally, and the federation handles all official mini golf tournaments and competitions

I wonder if they also have regulations for, like, the size of the clown's mouth or the speed of the windmill. Regardless, I don't like mini golf. Meredith, I thought this video

was supposed to be about fun. But you know what is fun? Lincoln Logs. What's that? They

aren't named for Abraham Lincoln? Lincoln Logs were created by John Lloyd Wright, who

was the son of America's most famous architect, Frank Lloyd Wright. And they weren't named for Abraham Lincoln

Frank's name before his parents broke up was Frank Lincoln Wright. So that's probably where the Lincoln comes from

The design for Lincoln Logs was inspired by an earthquake-proof hotel in Tokyo

And after he sold the idea for $800, John Lloyd Wright hoped that lightning would strike twice

So he built another set of building blocks, Wright Blocks, which did not take off

I guess really they should have been called Wrong Blocks. Anybody? Anyone? No

Speaking of building toys, the idea for K'nex came to Joel Glickman while he was playing with drinking straws at a wedding

and the name Lego comes from the Danish words leg and gott, which together mean play well

It was only later that the company learned that in Latin, Lego means I put together

Moving on to roller coasters the first ones were Russian ice coasters in the 17th century These were built for Catherine the Great behind her palace They were five stories high and built at a ridiculously steep 50 degrees Now I can get halfway

through Space Mountain without screaming, stop the roller coaster, it's an emergency

But these Russian ice coasters were very popular and they were then exported to France where

they were known as Russian mountains. In 1884, one of the first roller coasters was built

on Coney Island. It was created by Lamarcus Thompson, who's known today as the father

of the Gravity Ride. It wasn't actually that thrilling. It was a slightly sloped ride that

went six miles an hour, which sounds perfect to me, but it was really lucrative. He made the

equivalent of $31,000 in three weeks. Now, today's roller coasters may seem quite dangerous, but in

fact, a 2001 study done by the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions

found that you're more likely to be injured while using a folding lawn chair than while riding a

roller coaster. I don't care. I'm still not doing it. But on the topic of Coney Island

when Sigmund Freud and his protege Carl Jung visited the United States

Freud declared that Coney Island was the only part of America that interested him

And Beyoncé once filmed a music video there, which means that both the 20th century's most important psychologist

and human history's most important individual dug Coney Island. That ain't bad

Beyoncé isn't the only celebrity who spent time at Coney Island. Cary Grant used to be a stilt-walker there. He learned this skill while touring with a vaudeville group in England

Now let's move on to kickball. The original kickball had some crazy rules. including 30 players could play at once, there was no pitcher, people just placed the ball and kicked it

and people stood 20 feet away from home plate, and if the ball didn't reach them, the kicker was automatically out

And the craziest original kickball rule is that there was only one base. It was like cricket, I think. I don't actually know the rules of cricket

And 14 people could be on that one base at the same time, but if they didn't run home by the time the 15th person batted, they were all out

In 1950, the Etch-A-Sketch was invented in France, and it was originally called the Telecrayon and was operated by joystick

But then, ten years later, Henry Winsler of the Ohio Art Toy Company licensed it for American use

and among Winsler innovations was replacing the joystick with two white knobs to make the Etch look more like a hot new adult toy television Let move on to a fun book Harry Potter When J Rowling was trying to come up with the name for Quidditch she listed out five pages of words that started with Q until she found

one that she really liked. Of course, in the Harry Potter world, King's Cross Station is where

students catch the train to Hogwarts, but that station has special meaning to J.K. Rowling

Her parents met there. Just like Harry and Ron, so fan fiction writers, you know, do your thing

Rowling recently admitted that she kind of wishes that Harry and Hermione had ended up together

but she's admitted to some less controversial mistakes as well. Snowy owls, for instance

do not hoot or make conversational sounds the way they do in the book

And now that you've learned that J.K. Rowling lied about birds, you may want to skip the Wizarding World of Harry Potter and head to a different amusement park, like, I don't

know, Tivoli Gardens in Denmark. It's one of the oldest operating amusement parks in

the world. It opened in 1843 and reportedly inspired Walt Disney when he was thinking about Disneyland

The first proprietor of Tiffley Gardens, Georg Karstensen, sold the idea to the king by saying

when the people are amusing themselves, they do not think about politics

Santa Claus Land in the town of Santa Claus, Indiana might be the first ever theme park

Spoiler alert, the theme is robots. No, I'm just kidding, it's Santa

Anyway, Santa Claus Land is widely considered to be the first park that had some kind of recurring motif

instead of just a random jumble of rides and attractions. On to a few toys that Santa often brings. The Super Soaker, invented by NASA engineer Lonnie Johnson, was originally called the Power Drencher

Another fun name is Crayola, which means oily chalk in French. According to the Crayola company, the average kid wears out over 700 crayons by their 10th birthday

which actually seems kind of low to me because I recently went out to dinner with my family and we broke at least 100 crayons just in an hour

The real name of Monopoly mascot, Rich Uncle Pennybags, is Milburn Pennybags

Also, one time a big Monopoly marathon in Pittsburgh ran out of Monopoly money

so Parker Brothers filled an armored car with game money and rushed it over

That's a great heist movie waiting to happen. Like, the stakes get higher and higher and higher, and oh, Monopoly money

Mark Twain invented a board game. It was like an early, more boring version of Trivial Pursuit

called Mark Twain's Memory Builder, a game for acquiring and retaining all sorts of facts and dates Nice try Mark but I think I going to stick to Mousetrap I don understand why novelists think they can do things other than write novels What do you think you full of facts so you can just host some trivia show

Some real-life people who have been G.I. Joe figurines? Teddy Roosevelt, Buzz Aldrin, Rowdy Ronnie Piper, and football player Refrigerator Perry

During the 14th century, a hula-hooping craze swept England, and doctors blamed the fad for increasing rates of dislocated backs and heart attacks

So, don't hula hoop. And going back even earlier in time, a Greek vase from 500 BCE shows a kid playing with

a yo-yo. And now we return to my salon so that I can tell you that this is a cozy coupe

Almost 500,000 of these are sold every year. In fact, in 2008, they were the best-selling car in America by a wide margin

I know you want me to get into it. I'm going to try. Could you get into this, Mark? Oh

Oh boy. Oh boy. Got to get on the other side of the steering wheel there

It's really, it's the, it's the roof. Oh. The first one of these was sold in 1979, making the car nearly 35 years old

The inventor, Jim Mariel, came up with the idea while wheeling around his office in a desk chair

I don't understand why he couldn't have just invented a desk chair. I'm never going to get out of this thing

Thanks for watching Menoplast here on YouTube, which is made with the help of all of these nice people, and again presented by our friends at GEICO

Every week I endeavor to answer one of your mind-blowing questions. This week's question comes from Melissa Benson, who asks, when was bubble gum invented

Well, Melissa, even though chewing gum has existed for thousands of years, bubble gum was technically invented in 1906 for the Fleer Company, you know, the baseball card people

But it wasn't actually sold until the formula was perfected in 1928

That became Double Bubble. If you want to leave a mind-blowing question, you can do so in comments

Thanks again for watching, and don't forget to be awesome. Henry gets into this thing so effortlessly

Good party