{"product_id":"sh-t-for-brains-isbn-9780593538296","title":"Sh*t for Brains","description":"\u003cb\u003eA compendium of truly outrageous, surprising, and (sometimes) gross facts.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDid you know that Big Bird was originally supposed to fly on the doomed \u003ci\u003eChallenger\u003c\/i\u003e Space Shuttle? Or that smelling your own farts was considered a cure for the bubonic plague? Now those are things you can’t unlearn.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eBorn out of love for trivia and hatred for boring, bland facts, \u003ci\u003eSh*t for Brains\u003c\/i\u003e is the ultimate wild ride of truth—from hilarious pop culture factoids to little-known insights from history, this twisted trivia book will make you laugh, cry, and maybe even cringe.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eA great gift for tweens, teens, and your bar trivia pals, \u003ci\u003eSh*t for Brains\u003c\/i\u003e is not-so-average trivia for not-so-average people.\u003cb\u003eHarebrained Inc.\u003c\/b\u003e is the author duo of Anthony Hall (company founder), Amanda Barber, and illustrator Jesse Sanz. Founded in 2008, the company offers anything and everything awesome, with merch ranging from novelty items to their popular tabletop game Shit for Brains.\u003cbr\u003e 1\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBad\u003cbr\u003eCompany\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMouthing Off\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDuring World War I, the United States Radium Corporation employed women to paint glow-in-the-dark dials with radioactive paint, instructing them to shape the brushes with their lips and fingers. Once women's jaws started to erode from radiation poisoning, the company covered it up by alleging that the workers were afflicted with syphilis.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCock Rock\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter record label DGC wanted to censor the nude baby on the cover of Nirvana's 1991 album Nevermind, the band suggested covering the offending image with a sticker that said, \"If you're offended by this, you must be a closet pedophile.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUnderwater on Their Cable Bills\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the wake of 2008's Hurricane Ike, Comcast continued to bill South Texas residents for \"unreturned equipment,\" despite that very equipment being destroyed by the hurricane.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSwindler's List\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAuthor and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel lost millions from both his personal fortune and his foundation to late Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNot Down to Clown\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter getting orders from their parent company, Disney, Hollywood Records didn't just stop production on Insane Clown Posse's 1997 breakthrough horrorcore album The Great Milenko, but actually recalled the 100,000 copies that had already shipped, claiming that the material didn't \"fit the Disney image.\" This for sure had nothing at all to do with the Southern Baptist Convention's call for a boycott of all things Disney after the parks started hosting \"Gay Days.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSaucy Link\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 2015, Heinz unknowingly allowed a QR code on their ketchup bottles to direct to an expired URL, which by then was home to a porn site.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrom One Loser to Another\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter a trader known as the London Whale lost JPMorgan Chase 6 billion dollars in a 2012 trading scandal, CEO Jamie Dimon received a pep talk phone call from NFL star Tom Brady. I'm sure the pep talk helped when Dimon found out that his annual bonus was cut in half to a measly $10.5 million.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe Depreciate Your Business\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn case you ever think that you're bad with money, just remember that Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation bought Myspace for $580 million in 2005, only to sell it six years later for $35 million.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJingles All the Way\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 2009, the ABC network cut over two minutes from A Charlie Brown Christmas, a beloved TV special that warns against the commercialization of the holiday, in order to give more airtime to commercials.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYacht Rocked\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDuring the 1983 Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race, Rupert Murdoch's boat rammed into a boat sponsored by rival media mogul Ted Turner only ten kilometers from the finish line, sinking it, so that he was unable to complete the race. Turner followed up by challenging Murdoch to a fistfight.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKiddie Cocktail\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eApplebee's has gotten in trouble a few times for serving underage patrons, like the time they served a Long Island iced tea to a five-year-old New Yorker, a margarita to a California toddler, and a spiked apple juice to a Detroit fifteen-month-old.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e4 Out of 5 Racists Recommend\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 1985, Colgate acquired a company that offered a toothpaste called Darkie to many Asian countries. If the name wasn't suspect enough, Darkie's logo was an Al Jolson-esque performer in blackface. It took executives until 1989 to change the name of the product to Darlie and update the packaging, although the Chinese name of the brand still translates to \"black person toothpaste.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDying for a Smoke\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMarlboro Red cigarettes earned the nickname Cowboy Killers after five of the seven Marlboro Men died of smoking-related illnesses.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eChallenge Accepted\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIntroduced in 1969, Nerf balls were marketed as \"the first indoor ball\" and had the extremely catchy and not at all buzzkilling slogan \"You can't hurt babies or old people.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou've Come a Wrong Way, Baby\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBMW was forced to recall their female-voiced navigation system in the '90s after a bunch of German men complained that they wouldn't take directions from a \"woman.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDid Nazi That Coming\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 2016, Microsoft introduced an AI chatbot to Twitter with the hopes of helping it improve its language skill. After less than twenty-four hours in Twitter's toxic mire, the bot was tweeting things like \"I fucking hate feminists\" and \"Hitler was right.\" Unsurprisingly, the project was promptly canceled.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlmost Lost the Pharma\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eInsufferable Pharma Bro Martin Shkreli started his first hedge fund in 2006 and after just a year lost a $2.3 million lawsuit to Lehman Brothers. They failed to collect before going bankrupt in 2008.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFather Sold Separately\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBarbie needed a friend, so Mattel introduced Midge in 1963. She landed with a thud, and was soon pulled off the shelves. She appeared back on the scene in the 1980s, fully pregnant, as part of the Happy Family line. Poor Midge couldn't catch a break, as some retailers refused to carry her because she was packaged separately from the baby's father.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI Think We're Getting Zipped Off\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 2007, the leading zipper brand YKK was fined 150 million euros for running four zipper price-fixing cartels.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFast Food, Slow People\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBecause Americans suck at math and think that a third is less than a quarter, A\u0026amp;W's Third Pounder was unable to compete with McDonald's Quarter Pounder and was dropped from the menu.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBlowing Smoke\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePhilip Morris published a report in 2001 saying that they saved the Czech government money because smokers often die before retiring. They then sued the Uruguayan government after it passed anti-smoking legislation, claiming that the restrictions would cause irreparable damage to the brand.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBlood Money\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrom the late 1970s to 1985, Bayer sold contaminated blood products to hospitals, causing twenty thousand people to contract HIV. After they found out, they pulled the products off the US and European shelves but continued to sell them in Asian and Latin American countries.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eReich Father, Reich Sons\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBest known for their massive influence on American conservative politics, the Koch brothers inherited much of their initial wealth from their father, who helped establish oil refineries for the Nazis in the lead-up to World War II.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCola Wars\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 1990, PepsiCo briefly had the sixth-largest navy in the world after trading their products with the USSR for vodka and a small fleet of warships.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCompact, Yet Womby\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 2001, Honda was about to release a car called the Fitta (its tagline was \"Small on the outside, big on the inside\"), when it realized that fitta was a vulgar Swedish term for vagina.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNew and Unproved\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCigarette company Philip Morris discovered the fire-safe cigarettes they introduced in 2002 were actually much more likely to cause fires. They responded by firing the scientist who ran the risk analysis testing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBet Your Bottom Dollar\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 1974, the owner of FedEx gambled the company's last $5,000 on blackjack and managed to save the company from bankruptcy.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFlying Their Freak Flags\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAll of the American flags at Disney's Magic Kingdom are missing a stripe or star so that they don't have to be taken down at night or in bad weather.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSkrilla in Manila\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 1993, Pepsi ran a contest in the Philippines giving the lucky person who found the number 349 under their Pepsi cap one million pesos ($40,000). They accidentally printed 800,000 winning caps, which led to riots, firebombs, and at least five deaths.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTrumped-Up Kicks\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSkechers Shape Ups shoes claimed that they would help people lose weight and tone their butt muscles without having to go to a gym. They even had a real live chiropractor endorse them! Unfortunately, after it was discovered that the chiropractor was married to a Skechers marketing executive, the shoe company had to pay a $40 million class action lawsuit.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eChili Con Carnage\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 2004, the Mexican restaurant chain Chi-Chi's decided to close all their locations and file for bankruptcy after four customers died and another 660 fell ill from a Hepatitis A outbreak.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGet Rich or Lie Trying\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter Coca-Cola was sued by a consumer protection agency for overstating the health benefits of Vitaminwater, they defended themselves with the argument that \"no consumer could reasonably be misled into thinking Vitaminwater was a healthy beverage.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDon't Mess with Taxes\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith businesses eager to take advantage of the state's tax loopholes, there is a drab, two-story building in Delaware that serves as the legal address to more than 285,000 US companies, including Coca-Cola, American Airlines, JPMorgan Chase, Ford, Apple, Google, and Walmart, to name a few.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIce Ice Maybe\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIce cream company Breyers changed some of their recipes in the mid-2000s and included so many additives that they can no longer be labeled \"ice cream\" in the US and Canada.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAn Offer They Shouldn't Refuse\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 2000, Netflix's founders were laughed out of Blockbuster's headquarters when they offered to sell the company for $50 million. Ten years later, Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSmoke Screen\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Type A\/B Personality Theory was invented by the cigarette industry in the 1950s to prove that coronary heart disease and cancer were symptoms of high-stress personality types rather than tobacco use.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMinimum Rage\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor several months in 2013, one perk of working at McDonald's was access to a website that offered advice on how to stretch your paycheck with recommendations like: breaking food into smaller pieces to feel full, returning holiday gifts for cash, and getting a second job. The McResources website also suggested, \"Stop complaining, as stress hormones rise by 15% after ten minutes of complaining.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSeeing the Light\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe inventor of Keurig K-Cups regretted all the environmental waste from his invention so much that he left Keurig and started a solar panel company.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTrouble Brewing\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere are two beer companies called Budweiser-one in America and another in the Czech Republic. They have been fighting over the name since 1907.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow with Extra Poison\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 1952, Kent cigarettes introduced a filter made from the latest cutting-edge technology: asbestos. You know, that toxic material that causes lung cancer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eInsult to Injury\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs automobiles became more popular, there was a huge spike in pedestrian deaths and it outraged the public. The automobile industry successfully shifted the blame to the victims, asserting that they didn't know how to behave in traffic. In fact, the industry coined the term \"jaywalking,\" with \"jay\" meaning hick or rube.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCell Service\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAll US prison phone service is dominated by two private companies, Global Tel Link and Securus, who make billions of dollars a year. Due to their exclusive contracts, they can now charge inmates and their families $1 a minute, huge \"connection\" fees, and have lobbied against in-person visitation.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAvoiding Taxes by Design\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDespite averaging $40 billion in global sales, Ikea is actually a nonprofit company \"dedicated to furthering the advancement of architecture and interior design.\" Not coincidentally, the designation also gives them a 3.5 percent tax rate.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eStart Making Cents\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA bottle of Coke had been five cents since launching in 1886, and after more than seventy years they finally needed to raise the price. Coca-Cola lobbied the US Treasury to mint a 7.5-cent coin, since they felt a dime was too much to charge.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBullshit Detector\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAdvanced Tactical Security \u0026amp; Communications Ltd, a UK company, sold a fake bomb detector device to twenty countries in the middle East and Asia for $60,000 apiece. After Iraq spent $78 Million on them, it was revealed that the device was nothing more than a dowsing rod and the company owner went to jail for fraud.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCancer Culture\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNonprofit Susan G. Komen for the Cure has sued hundreds of smaller nonprofits for using the words \"for the cure\" or the color pink.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMandatory Training\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen 1,300 miners went on strike in 1917, American mining company Phelps Dodge, along with the local sheriff and a two-thousand-strong deputized posse, kidnapped the miners and union organizers at gunpoint, loaded them into train cars, and dropped them two hundred miles away. They also had the town's phone and telegraph lines cut to prevent the story from getting out.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMiss Information\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 2012, Miss America claimed to make $45 million of scholarship money available to women annually, but in actuality only gave out $500,000.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhere There's Smoke, They're Fired\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 1993, Dateline NBC strapped model rocket engines to GM trucks so the trucks would explode on impact for a televised crash test. After GM sued, three producers were fired.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI Find Your Lack of Faith Disturbing\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e20th Century-Fox had so little confidence in Star Wars that they traded away all movie licensing and merchandising rights to director George Lucas in exchange for his $500,000 directorial payment. The deal made Lucas a billionaire.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWurst Name Ever\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDespite its name, the American fast-food chain Der Wienerschnitzel is about as authentically German as its food. They serve hot dogs and burgers, the masculine der is incorrect, and a missing space suggests that the food is made from people from Vienna.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis Stinks\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAxe Body Spray marketed their product to horny, insecure young men, and it worked so well that they became the number one men's deodorant brand. The company took a step back from this approach after their brand gained a reputation as a spray used only by horny, insecure young men.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSacked\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 2010, Frito-Lay created an environmentally friendly, 100 percent compostable chip bag but had to stop using them after eighteen months because people complained that the bags were too noisy.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFinishing Move\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter being outed as gay in one of their stories, PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel funded Hulk Hogan's lawsuit against Gawker Media, which ultimately bankrupted it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSeeping Through the Cracks\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAmerica's love affair with Procter \u0026amp; Gamble's fat substitute Olestra came to an abrupt end in the late '90s after it was found to cause anal leakage.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFumbld the Bag\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSocial networking site Tumblr was bought by Yahoo! for $1.1 billion in 2013, banned adult content in 2018, and was sold to the owner of WordPress for $3 million in 2019.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSupply on the Side Economics\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEngineer John Delorean helped develop some all-time classic American cars, including Pontiac's GTO and Grand Prix, and eventually went out on his own to work on his passion project: the Delorean, aka the bitchingest car in the Back to the Future cinematic universe. His new venture wasn't working out financially, though, and he resorted to some drastic measures to keep it funded. He was later arrested and charged with conspiracy to obtain and distribute fifty-five pounds of cocaine, valued at $24 million.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSee What Condition My Roast Chicken Is In\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSinger Kenny Rogers started a restaurant chain in 1991 called Kenny Rogers Roasters and went on an episode of Late Night with Conan O'Brien to promote it. On the episode, Kenny failed a blind taste test, choosing chicken from the NBC cafeteria rather than his own. A year later Kenny Rogers Roasters filed for bankruptcy.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou Gotta Fight for Your Right to Poultry\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBefore he became a beloved and enduring fast-food mascot, \"Colonel\" Harland Sanders tanked his law career by getting in a courthouse fistfight with his own client and wounded a rival business owner in a shootout.","brand":"Tarcher","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46301264871653,"sku":"NP9780593538296","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780593538296.jpg?v=1767736410","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/sh-t-for-brains-isbn-9780593538296","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}