Harrison Ford was born today, July 13^th, in 1942 and I thought I’d find some fascinating facts from the Indiana Jones franchise.

From Business Insider:
Tom Selleck nearly played Indiana Jones.

It’s hard to imagine anyone other than Harrison Ford donning the fedora and cracking the bullwhip, but the role almost went to Tom Selleck instead. The “Magnum P.I.” and “Friends” star was actually one of the first actors to be offered the role, and even did a screen test alongside “Blade Runner” actor Sean Young as Marion Ravenwood. But as Selleck explained in 2017, CBS wouldn’t let him take the role because he’d already shot the “Magnum P.I.” pilot for the network.

There were around 10,000 snakes in the “Well of Souls” scene.

There are plenty of bugs and reptiles in the whole franchise but the Well of Souls scene is arguably the one that makes many fans squirm because of the thousands of snakes that slither on screen to terrify Indy and Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen). In a behind-the-scenes featurette, Allen recalled that the original plan was to use “mechanical snakes” but they didn’t look realistic enough. And archival footage shows director Steven Spielberg bringing in numerous snake handlers to fill the set with snakes and glass lizards — which look like snakes. 

Harrison Ford even said: “We were working with, I think, around 8, 10,000 snakes.”

The cobra actually spat venom at Harrison Ford.

Although it sounds wild that there were thousands of snakes on the “Raiders” set, the filmmakers didn’t realize how serious the situation could be until one of them actually spat venom at Harrison Ford. Producer Kathleen Kennedy recalled how the cobra reacted to the actor in the scene where Indy comes face-to-face with the snake. Luckily, there was a sheet of glass separating them. She said: “At one point, it hooded and whipped its head off to the side and literally threw venom all over the glass. So that was something that caused everybody to sit up and take notice and recognize that this was not something to play around with.”

Harrison Ford got run over by a plane filming “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”

During the scene where Indy and Marion fight Nazis on the runway, Harrison Ford was actually run over by the plane and tore the ACL ligament in his knee. In a behind-the-scenes documentary, the star recalled: “At a certain point I slipped and fell, and the wheels rode up onto my knee, which resulted in me tearing my anterior cruciate ligament in my left leg in the middle of Tunisia. So rather than submit to any local medical care, we just wrapped it up and put ice on it, and I carried on.” 

It wasn’t the only time that Ford got injured on film sets, as he broke his leg years later filming “Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens,” and hurt his shoulder rehearsing a fight scene for “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.”

Willie Scott was named after Steven Spielberg’s dog.

While Indiana himself is named after George Lucas’ dog, his “Temple of Doom” love interest, Willie Scott (Kate Capshaw), was named after Steven Spielberg’s Cocker Spaniel.  Spielberg explained the name in a behind-the-scenes documentary for the sequel. He said: “Willie was the name of my dog, by the way. ‘Cause, since Indy was named after George’s dog, Indiana, and I had a dog named Willie, and then Short Round was the name of Bill and Gloria’s dog, so Ke was called Short Round. So in that sense, all three characters are named after our house pets.”

Harrison Ford taught Ke Huy Quan how to swim on a day off from filming.

Ke Huy Quan’s career has had a resurgence thanks to “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” but many theatergoers know him for his role as Short Round in “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.” One of the big reasons why his character works so well as comedy relief in the darker movie is because of the believable familial dynamic he has with Indy, and that comes from how Quan and Ford hung out together on set when they weren’t filming. The actor told The New York Times that Ford taught him to swim on a day off while they were in Sri Lanka. Quan said: “We were just hanging out at the swimming pool in Sri Lanka in our hotel, and he says, ‘Ke, do you know how to swim?’ I didn’t, so he says, ‘Come on, I’ll teach you.'” 

Kate Capshaw had to be taught how to scream for “Temple of Doom.”

“Temple of Doom” sees nightclub singer Willie Scott get swept along in the adventure after meeting Indy in Shanghai, and because she’s not used to the shenanigans that the archaeologist gets involved in, she’s understandably freaked out by all the action. Kate Capshaw had to be taught how to scream on set, as she explained: “I couldn’t scream, so Steven taught me how to scream. I mean, you know, screaming isn’t as easy as it looks.”

Steven Spielberg cut a scary snake scene for Kate Capshaw.

One of the scenes that didn’t make it off the page in “Temple of Doom” saw a snake descend around Willie Scott, but Kate Capshaw was terrified of the creature while filming in Sri Lanka. Capshaw explained that she was incredibly worried about the scene, and producer Frank Marshall took her to see the snake first to try and ease her into it. Capshaw recalled: “I went over and looked at it, and looking at it, I get tears in my eyes and I’m having a hard time breathing and I’m looking… I can almost work myself up right now. And I went over and I put my hand on the snake, and I lost it.” Spielberg added: “She was shaking and she was all white, and you could see right through her makeup. She had lost all of her color. And I said, ‘I’m not gonna put you through this. Let’s cut it out.’ And I cut the whole scene out of the movie. I think she probably years and years later, married me for that!”

The Nazi uniforms in “The Last Crusade” were apparently genuine.

Costume designer Anthony Powell explained in the “Last Crusade” making-of documentary that the Nazi uniforms worn by the hundreds of extras in the film were genuine. He said: “We had a lot of Nazis in the film. All of those uniforms, I think, were genuine ones that I found in Eastern Europe somewhere. Joanna Johnston worked with me on the two last ‘Indiana Jones’ pictures. I’d give her research pictures and sketches and drawings and things, then she’d go out and find it all.”

2,000 rats were bred for just one sequence in “The Last Crusade.”

“Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” sees Indy and his father, Dr. Henry Jones Sr. (Sean Connery), hunt for the Holy Grail, and the search takes the hero to Venice with Elsa Schneider (Alison Doody).  Unfortunately, when they end up in the catacombs, Schneider is confronted with thousands of rats. It turns out that the crew bred 2,000 of the little critters just for that sequence.  In the making-of documentary, Spielberg explained: “In order to have rats that aren’t infected with some virus or disease, you have to basically cultivate them from living births. So our animal handlers gave birth to something like 2,000 living rats. And they were everywhere! The set was half-water, it was like an aqueduct. We had rats walking the very narrow lips of the aqueduct and coming out of holes, rats in poor Alison Doody’s hair.” Thankfully, Ford wasn’t as bothered by all the rats, as he admitted to keeping “black hooded rats” as pets when he was a “nature counselor” as a teenager.

Sean Connery and Harrison Ford filmed a scene together without wearing pants.

Yes, you read that right. Sean Connery and Harrison Ford decided not to wear pants during a conversational scene on the zeppelin in “The Last Crusade.” During the documentary, Connery explained: “The passengers were wearing fur coats and hats, it was supposed to be the wintertime, and I played it without my trousers. Harrison said: ‘You’re not gonna play the scene without your trousers?’ I said, ‘If I don’t, I’ll be stopping all the time because I sweat enormously. I sweat very easily.’ Well, he did the same.” Like father, like son.

Cate Blanchett picked her “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” haircut by looking at high school yearbooks from the 1950s.

Fast-forward to 2008, and a new “Indiana Jones” movie reared its (crystal) head with “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.” The film sees the adventurer race against Russian villain Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett) to find a mythical city in South America. But when it came to Spalko’s intimidating look, Blanchett got inspiration from 1950s high school yearbooks. She explained in the making-of documentary: “I had a look at yearbooks of people’s high school photos in the ’50s, and I found a couple of photos. One of a Russian girl, and one of an American girl with an incredibly short fringe, and I just thought that really emphasized the eyes, so that’s in the end what we went with.”

“Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” carries on the tradition of including a “Star Wars” Easter egg.

When Steven Spielberg and George Lucas made “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” the duo couldn’t resist including a sneaky reference to “Star Wars” on the walls of the Well of Souls scene, with a tile showing R2-D2 and C-3PO.  And production designer Guy Hendrix Dyas continued that tradition in the main temple of Akator in the 2008 film’s climax, with R2-D2 and C-3PO being included on a golden tile. He also took it a step further and included the titular alien from Spielberg’s “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.”

Shia LaBeouf trained for six weeks to film the bike chase in “Crystal Skull,” but found it hard because Harrison Ford kept moving on the back of it.

Early on in the film, Indy unwittingly meets his long-lost son, Mutt Williams (Shia LaBeouf), and they wind up having to flee Marshall University when the Soviets show up. Stunt coordinator Gary Powell explained that they started off with a “smaller bike” before giving the actor the Harley Davidson, and then they practiced the chase scene for six weeks. But LaBeouf found it hard because Harrison Ford kept moving while sitting on the back of the bike.  He said: “The bike was tough, only because when you have somebody moving on the back of a bike. It’s very different than just having someone hold you on the bike. But we’re shooting a movie and Harrison has to animate his character! And we’re on a bike through a lot of it, so a lot of it is the movement. All that stuff was pretty tough.”

SOURCE: BUSINESS INSIDER

Eammon Jacobs

Fact: Only a quarter of the Sahara Desert is sandy

Most of it is covered in gravel, though it also contains mountains and oases. And here’s another geography fact that everyone gets wrong: It isn’t the world’s largest desert. Antarctica is.

Fact: Bananas grow upside down

Or technically, we peel them upside down. Naturally, they grow outward from their stems, but that means their bottoms actually face the sky. As they get bigger, the fruits turn toward the sun, forming that distinctive curve.

Fact: There were active volcanoes on the moon when dinosaurs were alive

Most of the volcanoes probably stopped erupting about a billion years ago, but NASA findings have suggested there might still have been active lava flow 100 million years ago, when dinosaurs were still roaming.

Fact: Dogs sniff good smells with their left nostril

Dogs normally start sniffing with their right nostril, then keep it there if the smell could signal danger, but they’ll shift to the left side for something pleasant, like food or a mating partner.

Fact: Avocados were named after reproductive organs

You’ll never look at avocados the same way again. Indigenous people of Mexico and Central America used the Nahuatl word āhuacatl to mean both “testicles” and “avocado.” The fruits were originally marketed as “alligator pears” in the United States until the current name stuck.

Fact: T. S. Eliot wore green makeup

No one is sure why the poet dusted his face with green powder, though some guess he was just trying to look more interesting.

Fact: The word “fizzle” started as a type of fart

In the 1400s, it meant to “break wind quietly,” according to the English Oxford Living Dictionaries.

Fact: Human noses and ears get bigger as we age

It’s pretty common to see the claim that our nose and ears are the only parts of our body that keep growing as we age, but that’s not exactly true. Our nose and ears stop growing along with the rest of our body, but thanks to the weight of gravity, both parts continue to lengthen over time, according to the Discovery Channel.

Fact: No number before 1,000 contains the letter A

But there are plenty of E’s, I’s, O’s, U’s, and Y’s.

Fact: The # symbol isn’t officially called hashtag or pound

Its technical name is octothorpe. The “octo” means “eight” and refers to its points, though reports disagree on where “thorpe” came from. Some claim it was named after Olympian Jim Thorpe, while others argue it was just a nonsense suffix.

Fact: The French have their own name for a French kiss

Something extra interesting about this kissing fact? The word hasn’t been around for long. In 2014, galocher—meaning to kiss with tongues—was added to the Petit Robert French dictionary.

Fact: You can thank the Greeks for calling Christmas “Xmas”

In Greek, the word for “Christ” starts with the letter Chi, which looks like an X in the Roman alphabet.

Fact: Movie trailers originally played after the movie

They “trailed” the feature film—hence, the name. The first trailer appeared in 1912 and was for a Broadway show, not a movie.

Fact: Mercedes invented a car controlled by a joystick

The joystick in the 1966 Mercedes F200 showcase car controlled speed and direction, replacing both the steering wheel and pedals. The car could also sense which side the driver was sitting in, so someone could control it from the passenger seat.

Fact: H&M actually stands for something

This is one of those interesting facts you’ve probably never thought about before. The clothing retail shop was originally called Hennes—Swedish for “hers”—before acquiring the hunting and fishing equipment brand Mauritz Widforss. Eventually, Hennes & Mauritz was shortened to H&M.

Fact: The U.S. government saved every public tweet from 2006 through 2017

Starting in 2018, the Library of Congress decided to only keep tweets on “a very selective basis,” including elections and those dealing with something of national interest, like public policy.

Fact: Theodore Roosevelt had a pet hyena

Its name was Bill, and it was a present from the Ethiopian emperor. Roosevelt was famous for his many pets, including a one-legged rooster, a badger, a pony, and a small bear.

Fact: The CIA headquarters has its own Starbucks, but baristas don’t write names on the cups

Its receipts say “Store Number 1” instead of “Starbucks,” and its workers need an escort to leave their work posts.

Fact: Giraffe tongues can be 20 inches long

Their dark, bluish-black color is probably to prevent sunburn.

Fact: There’s only one U.S. state capital without a McDonald’s

Montpelier, Vermont, doesn’t have any of those Golden Arches. It also happens to have the smallest population of any state capital, with just 7,500 residents.

Fact: Europeans were scared of eating tomatoes when they were introduced

Scholars think Hernán Cortés brought the seeds in 1519 with the intent of the fruits being used ornamentally in gardens. By the 1700s, aristocrats started eating tomatoes, but they were convinced the fruits were poisonous because people would die after eating them. In reality, the acidity from the tomatoes brought out the lead in their pewter plates, and they actually died of lead poisoning.

Fact: Humans aren’t the only animals that dream

Studies have indicated rats dream about getting to food or running through mazes. Most mammals go through REM sleep, the cycle in which dreams occur, so scientists think there’s a good chance they all dream.

Fact: The inventor of the microwave appliance received only $2 for his discovery

Percy Spencer was working as a researcher for American Appliance Company (now Raytheon) when he noticed that a radar set using electromagnetic waves melted the candy bar in his pocket. He had the idea to make a metal box using microwaves to heat food, but the company was the one to file the patent. That was in 1945, and he received a $2 bonus but never any royalties.

Fact: The Eiffel Tower can grow more than six inches during the summer

The high temperatures make the iron expand.

Fact: Glitter may have originated on a ranch

According to local lore, a man by the name of Henry Ruschmann from Bernardsville, New Jersey, invented glitter by accident in 1934 while working on a cattle ranch. The New York Times reports that in the popular origin story, Ruschmann, a machinist, was trying to find a way to dispose of scrap material by crushing it into tiny pieces. Plastic went in, glitter came out, and the rest is commonly accepted as history.

SOURCE: Reader’s Digest: Elizabeth Yuko