My Mind Is Absolutely Blown By These 12 Facts That I Just Learned And That Sound Very Fake But Are Actually 100% Real

Posted 3 minutes agoSubscribe to BuzzFeed Daily NewsletterCaret DownMy Mind Is Absolutely Blown By These 12 Facts That I Just Learned And That Sound Very Fake But Are Actually 100% RealTIL that Animaniacs could have been a very, very different show.by Brian GalindoBuzzFeed StaffFacebookPinterestLink 1. The Sims was almost canceled, and in fact only gained interest after a journalist witnessed a lesbian kiss during a demo run at E3. EA Games / Via youtube.com It's hard to believe that one of the most popular games of all time was actually almost canceled during its development because EA Games had no faith in it. In fact, when The Sims was first shown at E3 in 1999, most people walked right past it. The game didn't look like much compared to the flashier titles on the floor, and early reactions from executives were lukewarm at best. During one demo, two female Sims seated at a wedding flirted and kissed because the AI system didn't block same-sex interactions. It was supposed to block it because there had been an internal debate about whether same-sex relationships should be available in the game or not, as originally the game was going to allow it, but the heads of EA said not to allow it (it was the late '90s). However, the game engineer who implemented the same-sex interactions feature started after that mandate had been sent out, but not updated in the game's building features instructions, so they never knew to remove it. A journalist happened to see the kiss, stopped in his tracks, and asked the team to show him more. He wrote about how strange and interesting it was to see a game where characters behaved like real people instead of scripted avatars. His article drew attention from other reporters, who began crowding the booth and asking for demos. That sudden wave of interest helped convince EA that the project was worth keeping alive. 2. The character of Aunt Gladys in Weapons was actually written for another movie. Warner Bros. / Via youtube.com Weapons writer-director Zach Cregger said the idea for Aunt Gladys actually came from an earlier, shelved screenplay in which a strange woman picks up a child from school and takes him home after she "subsumed his parents." When he began writing Weapons and got stuck on how to explain the disappearance of 17 schoolchildren, he realized he could reuse that earlier kernel of the Gladys story.

Cregger also says that Aunt Gladys's character is deeply personal - she partially reflects his experience growing up with a parent battling alcoholism. 3. Jennifer Lopez was not the first celebrity to wear the iconic green Versace dress. Scott Gries / Getty Images, Alain BENAINOUS / Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images It was actually Donatella Versace who wore it first to the Met Gala in December 1999 (yes, the Met Gala used to take place in different months, usually in November and December, prior to 2005). But, it was Geri Halliwell (aka Ginger Spice) who wore it first after Donatella, when she wore it to the NRJ Music Awards in Cannes, France, in January 2000, while J.

Lo would wear the dress similarly styled to the Grammys in February 2000.

In fact, last year, J.

Lo revealed she almost didn't wear the dress because her then-stylist told her that another celeb had already been photographed wearing the dress. According to her, she told her stylist, "'Well, you bought it, and it looks the best, so I'm going to wear it.' And so I did. And it caused quite a stir." It caused such a STIR that it led to the creation of Google Images. 4. L. Frank Baum never planned to write sequels to The Wizard of Oz: Interim Archives / Getty Images, Culture Club / Bridgeman via Getty Images After the first book became a hit, he wrote a sequel but announced in its ending that Oz's story was finished. He wanted to move on to new fantasies and wrote several other novels he hoped would take off. None of them sold anywhere near as well as the Oz books, and publishers kept reminding him which stories actually brought in readers. At the same time, children from all over the country kept sending him letters begging for more adventures in Oz. The pressure from fans and the financial reality of his other books underperforming pushed him back into the series. He eventually wrote more than a dozen Oz novels, even though he had once tried to close the door on the world entirely. 5. Gregory Maguire, who wrote the book Wicked, on which the musical and movie are based, was inspired to write the book by tragic real-life events. Lisa Macfarlane / FilmMagic Maguire grew up loving The Wizard of Oz, but he always wondered why some characters were labeled good while others were written off as evil. In the early 1990s, while living in the UK, he began thinking about this more seriously after the murder of a toddler named James Bulger by two older kids, a crime that sparked conversations about whether people are born bad or shaped by the world around them. That tragedy stayed with him and pushed him to explore how society dec