Titanic was originally supposed to open in the summer of 1997, but the movie went over schedule and was delayed until December of '97. This advance poster, which was created for its summer release date, marketed the film more in the style of an action summer blockbuster:
James Cameron had a 2/3 scale of the Titanic built for the movie in Mexico. These images show just how huge the ship set was:
Coincidentally, CBS aired a two-part made-for-TV movie titled Titanic a little bit over a year earlier, in November of '96. The movie starred a then-unknown Catherine Zeta-Jones, Tim Curry, Peter Gallagher, George Scott, and Marilu Henner as Molly Brown:
Here's a behind-the-scenes photo of Dave Prowse in the Darth Vader costume, trying to cool off during the filming of Star Wars: A New Hope:
The very first Star Wars spoof was on the Season 3 premiere of the Donny & Marie show in September of 1977 (the film, which opened in May, was still the No. 1 movie in theaters then, and Star Wars mania was in full swing). It featured Donny and Marie as Luke and Leia, Kris Kirstofferson as Han Solo, and Redd Foxx as Obi-Wan Kenobi, and featured dancing Stormtroopers, cheesy jokes, and Chewie hugging Darth Vader:
The spoof was made with the approval of George Lucas, who allowed the show to use the original Stormtrooper and Darth Vader costumes. Along with the authentic costumes and props (including the actual R2-D2 used in the movie), Anthony Daniels played C-3PO, and Peter Mayhew played Chewbacca:
Revenge of the Jedi was the original working title of Return of the Jedi, the change in the name was so last-minute that a (now rare) pre-release poster and teaser trailer for the movie both had the title Revenge of the Jedi in it:
Here's a promotional photo taken of Jonathan Taylor Thomas while he was recording the speaking voice of Young Simba for The Lion King:
Gone With the Wind is a classic and considered one of the greatest films of all time. The film also did a lot of firsts, including being the first color movie to win the Best Picture Oscar and having the first Black actor to be nominated and win an Oscar — which was Hattie McDaniel for Best Supporting Actress. However, one first you might not know is that it was the first film to have its premiere televised (and yes, TVs existed back in the '30s, but they were EXTREMELY rare). Gone With the Wind's New York premiere was televised, and below is a photo from the premiere announcing it:
The original opening credits for I Love Lucy throughout its run were actually animated. They were changed to the classic satin and heart credits when the show was syndicated (put into reruns), as the animated credits wouldn't work because they incorporated whichever brand was sponsoring that week's episode:
The very first issue of TV Guide, released on April 3, 1953, featured Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz's newborn son, Desi Arnaz Jr., on the cover:
In 1977, 26 years after first costarring together on I Love Lucy, Vivian Vance and Lucille Ball would costar together one last time in the TV special Lucy Calls The President:
Before Kermit the Frog became famous as the leader of The Muppets, he was actually well-known for his drag act! He went by "Kermina" and performed a lipsync-comedy act to Rosemary Clooney's "I've Grown Accustomed to Your Face." Here's a screenshot of him performing it on The Steve Allen Show in 1956:
And here is a screenshot of Kermit performing the lipsync-comedy act on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1967:
Here is a rare color photo of Coco Chanel at her 1958 Chanel Spring-Summer collection show:
This is what the set of the Petries' living room on The Dick Van Dyke Show looked like in color:
The iconic Hollywood sign was actually built in 1923 to advertise the Hollywoodland real estate development in the hills below it. The sign was originally only supposed to be up for 18 months, but it became a visual symbol of Los Angeles. Throughout most of the Golden Age of Hollywood the Hollywood sign read "Hollywoodland," with the "land" part only being removed in 1949:
If you look at this photo of Hollywood (looking up Vine St.) from 1949, you can see that the sign still spells out "Hollywoodland" in the distance:
In 1992, a seductive 75-foot cartoon cutout of the character of Holli Would from the movie Cool World was placed on top of the "D" in the Hollywood sign as part of the publicity stunt for the film. People who lived in the area were not happy:
The movie was an adult animated/live-action film, in the vein of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and starred Brad Pitt and Kim Basinger as Holli Would:
This is what the Bayside High set from Saved by the Bell looked like behind-the-scenes (which, TBH, looks a lot smaller than I imagined):
Also, Saved by the Bell didn't use canned laughter; it was filmed before a live studio audience:
Jean Stapleton and Carroll O'Connor were actually not that old when All In The Family premiered in 1971. Stapleton was 48, and O'Connor was 46 — for context, Reese Witherspoon is currently 48, and Ashton Kutcher is 46:
This is what a 20-year-old Madonna looked like in 1978, when she first moved to New York:
While filming Scooby-Doo, the actors employed various methods to help them act opposite a CGI Scooby. One method was to memorize exactly where (the creepy) Scooby's head on a stick — which was used for camera placement — was during the set-up:
In case you were wondering, the scene in the airport where Scooby is in disguise as a grandma was filmed using a man dressed in costume and wearing a green screen hood:
Here's Cameron Diaz...
And Eddie Murphy recording their lines for Shrek:
Michael Keaton's Batman wears Nike shoes in Batman and Batman Returns, but there are contradictory reasons why that came to be. According to the assistant costume designer on the 1989 Batman film, one of the producers had struck a product deal with Nike and needed them in the movie, and because they didn't fit stylistically with any of the other characters or background actors, they incorporated them into Batman's costume. While the lead costume designer on the 1989 movie remembers Nike gifting it to them without a tie-in:
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Come to think of it...maybe its sophistication and useful knowledge is why no one else commented on this after being posted a full day ago...there's nobody to insult here.