In the Netherlands version of Sesame Street, instead of Big Bird, they have a bluebird named Pino. He was later established as Big Bird’s cousin.
100 Mind-Blowing Street Facts
The book 3 SHADES OF BLUE: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, and the Lost Empire of Cool by James Kaplan notes that when Miles Davis moved to New York City at 18, he spent his first few weeks attending classes at Julliard and going to Harlem to see performances at Minton’s Playhouse and the Savoy Ballroom, as well as clubs on 52nd Street.
“Fancy riding” on bikes is illegal in Illinois. That includes riding without hands or taking your feet off the pedals when you’re on the street.
Not sporty? Try aggressive sitting. Ok, it’s not as tame as it sounds – think skateboard tricks but with a stool. Sporthocking is a unique German street sport created in 2007. It combines the principle of skateboarding with a distinct rubber-lined funnel stool instead of a board. Participants can spin, kick, throw, juggle, and slide. However, the hocker rule of thumb is they always have to slam their bottoms down on the stool to signify the end of each trick.
Over 70% of people would reveal their passwords for chocolate. In a 2004 study, 71% of office workers stopped on the street agreed to give up their computer passwords for a chocolate bar. Who could blame them?
Crushed vitamins have been used for cocaine scenes in movies. For The Wolf of Wall Street, the actors inhaled crushed B vitamins in cocaine-snorting scenes. In fact, after so much inhaling, Jonah Hill contracted bronchitis and had to be hospitalized.
One species of ants can only be found in Manhattan, New York. Biologists discovered a new ant species between 63rd and 76th Street in Broadway. This ant species was found to have a higher concentration of carbon in their bodies which was linked to a high corn-syrup diet.
Termites and ants are roasted and eaten like popcorn in South Africa. Eating insects is a common occurrence in South Africa. This is also a common street food you can find in parts of Africa.
French fries were invented in Belgium. Historians claimed that the first instances of potatoes being cut and fried began in the late 1600s. Street vendors would often sell this before the outbreak of the French Revolution.
In the Netherlands’ version of Sesame Street, there’s a bluebird named Pino instead of Big Bird. Pino was later introduced as Big Bird’s cousin.
Sesame Street’s Oscar the Grouch was originally orange.
Cookie Monster isn’t eating cookies on Sesame Street – they’re painted rice cakes!
The Muppet vampire, Count von Count from Sesame Street, is based on an actual vampire myth. One way to supposedly deter a vampire is to throw seeds outside a door. Vampires are compelled to count the seeds, delaying them until morning.
A chimpanzee was once ranked as the 22nd most successful money manager in the US. In 2009 Raven the chimpanzee was listed in the Guinness World Records book as the most successful chimpanzee on Wall Street. Raven chose her stocks by throwing darts at a board with 133 different Internet companies listed on it and achieved a 233% gain in 1999. She was so good that she performed better than 6,000 professional Wall Street brokers!
In 2003, street artist Banksy put his work on the wall at the Tate Modern Museum in London. The prank lasted several hours.
The water-repellent liquid spray called “NeverWet” can be used to create invisible-ink street graffiti that only appears when it rains.
Street art and graffiti are not the same thing. Street art is usually painted with permission and is image-based; graffiti is more rogue and word-based.
The first known graffiti artist was Mr. Darryl McCray, a street named Cornbread. In the late 1960s, he and a group of friends started tagging their nicknames on walls around Philadelphia, which instigated the modern graffiti movement.
There is a difference between graffiti and street art. In graffiti, the writers are generally not interested in the public understanding their work; instead, they use it to speak to other writers. Street art is used to engage everyone.
Graffiti as it’s known today began in the late 1960s in Philadelphia. It was primarily used to make political statements and mark street gang territory.
Many graffiti artists tag their work. “Tagging” is a way for street artists to sign their names anonymously. They often use random words or symbols and then embellish them with stars or crowns.
Police state. The Metropolitan Police Act of 1839 criminalised a range of nuisances. Knocking on a door and running away, flying kites, singing obscene ballads, sliding on ice in the street. Technically all of these activities are still offences within the Metropolitan police area of London. You can be given a fine of up to £500.
Two significant car crashes. On 13 December 1931, Winston Churchill was struck by a car while crossing Fifth Ave in New York City. He had looked the wrong way before crossing the street and was dragged for several yards, sustaining bruises, sprains and cuts. In the same year, a 19-year-old British aristocrat named John Scott-Ellis was driving a red Fiat in Munich and almost hit the future Führer, Adolf Hitler. Scott-Ellis jumped out of his car and apologised, and Hitler only suffered minor bruises. They shook hands, and Scott-Ellis later remarked, ‘For a few seconds, perhaps, I held the history of Europe in my rather clumsy hands. . . [Hitler] was only shaken up, but had I killed him, it would have changed the history of the world.’
Meat processing company JBS was the victim of a ransomware attack that shut down beef and poultry processing plants on four different continents. (Wall Street Journal)
The first ATM launched in 1967 in London: John Shepherd-Barron is credited with the invention of the Automated Teller Machine (ATM). The first ATM was set up at a branch of Barclay’s Bank on a street in Enfield, London in June 1967. The first ATM in the US was launched in September 1969 at the Chemical Bank branch in Rockville Centre in New York. In 1970, a British engineer called James Goodfellow created the concept of a personal identification number (PIN).