Interpol
Popculture always shows us Interpol agents dealing with stuff and the Interpol agency arresting people

That never happens in reality 🤣
There are no Interpol agents and they can't arrest people.
Interpol is just an international facilitator for police agencies in different countries.

Ah yes, like Inspector Jamal in THE CHIPMUNK ADVENTURE, who chases after international diamond thieves in a police cruiser - complete with sirens and flashing lights, and eventually arrests them.

Also, here's another thing: school dress codes, or lack thereof. More often than not, I see in fiction students dressed in manners that would never have been tolerated by school dress code policies in real life, the biggest thing being hats: unless specifically for medical and/or religious purposes, students were never allowed to wear hats in school, yet look at all of the characters who kept their hats on in school. Students were also never allowed to wear anything sleeveless, yet again, in fiction, you'd sometimes see girls wearing sleeveless tops of some kind (not so much boys wearing tank tops or something, but even so, those would violate dress codes too). On a related not, back in my day, students were also never allowed to wear anything skin-tight, which meant girls couldn't wear things like leggings or anything of the sort, yet I see school-aged girls in this day and age wear leggings and skinny jeans all the time. My middle school was also in the ghetto, so it wasn't uncommon to see some boys walking around with their pants worn down below their butts exposing their underwear, even though they were constantly told to pull their pants up.

Having taught in two schools with dress codes and uniforms, we spent a lot of time reminding the kids about their uniforms. Heck even in the Army you spend time trying to keep everyone in uniform.
See Mr. Roberts and Up Front with Willy and Joe for some true stories about military uniforms in WW2.

As for hats? I usually wore one in high school. Had a Star Wars Imperial trooper cap. In the military you can't wear any headgear indoors unless carrying a weapon. Another thing constantly reminding troops about. Yes, that's right Radar should never have had his jeep cap on indoors. But then it was wartime in a combat zone and you let that slide as you're all technically “under arms”.

Movies invariably get salutes wrong and when to make them. Did you know that only the British army has the palm up salute? The Royal Navy doesn't except in the movies. And did you know that some services don't salute indoors? Another thing movies invariably get wrong. Many current movies have Dale Dye and company as their military advisors. He's a Vietnam era Marine. A lot of things other services did or didn't do are overlooked.
Any number of period military films will have advisors who don't know the period practices so there will be plenty of anachronisms in weapons handling, wearing of gear and military courtesy.
The butt stock of a weapon in US services before Desert Storm was never carried above the crook of the elbow, but below. It was a practice that arose in the 1960s with the British adoption of the L1 FN rifle. It's very long so it was easier to get it into the shoulder to fire if carried above the elbow. Before that it was almost never seen in WW2 or especially WW1 yet troops are doing it in the movie 1917.

bravo1102 wrote:
In the military you can't wear any headgear indoors unless carrying a weapon. Another thing constantly reminding troops about. Yes, that's right Radar should never have had his jeep cap on indoors.

Ah yes, believe it or not, I seem to recall Sergeant Carter reprimanding everyone for having their “lids” on inside the hut on GOMER PYLE, U.S.M.C.

HOGAN'S HEROES is a uniquely different story; some of the characters usually kept their lids on at all times, such as Hogan, Newkirk, Kinch, and Carter (a different Carter, obviously), while others such as Klink and LeBeau ususally only wore theirs when they were outdoors. Then again, I don't know how strict POW camps were on military correctness, and HOGAN clearly wasn't an entirely accurate show in that respect anyway. The movie STALAG 17 on the other hand, I presume was a little more authentic, considering it was adapted from a Broadway play that was penned by a pair of actual WW2 POWs.

Movies invariably get salutes wrong and when to make them.

I have heard a lot about that, and it makes me think of this moment from THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW in which Barney Fife swore in Otis as a deputy, and gave him a step-by-step demonstration on how to properly salute:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Qea0jpiQIg

Not exactly sure how accurate that is either.

And did you know that some services don't salute indoors?

That I did know, if only because I remember Frank Burns yelled at Radar for saluting him indoors once, to which Radar defended his action by saying, “Just in case you don't see it outdoors, sir.”

Many current movies have Dale Dye and company as their military advisors. He's a Vietnam era Marine.

Yes, I'm quite familiar with him, I tend to see him pop up a lot whenever documentaries are made about certain war movies that he may have served as an advisor on, or about the actual wars that the movies focused on.

I remember he talked about when he worked on SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, both Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg often went back to the show COMBAT! to use as an example of a certain type of shot or action they were wanting to get, and how Dye noted that COMBAT! essentially became what he called the base-line reference for them, a common language, if you will, that they could use to communicate exactly what it is they wanted to convey while they were filming.

I've seen very little of COMBAT!, however I do see that it's often praised for being a far more accurate and respectful depiction of wartime action than any of your typical service comedies like HOGAN'S HEROES, McHALE'S NAVY, or F-TROOP.

Interestingly, M*A*S*H co-creator/producer Gene Reynolds worked on all of those shows, and in fact, it was Jamie Farr's guest appearance on F-TROOP as an Indian stand-up comedian that lead to his getting the role of Corporal Klinger in the first place, as Reynolds happened to have directed that specific episode with Farr, and he was who immediately sprang into mind when he and Larry Gelbart were thinking of who they could get to pull off such a character when he was first written.

COMBAT is on YouTube. I've been watching it to pass the time at work. I'd forgotten how accurate it was in many ways. They never say “over and out” which no one ever says. “Over ” is short for “over to you” for the other person to reply. “Out” means it's done and don't reply. So how can you ask for a reply and then say don't reply?

Keeping your headgear on indoors is actually considered disrespect. So of course Hogan's Heroes kept theirs on. ;) The Germans wearing theirs inside are usually carrying a weapon, that is, under arms where you do keep your hat on. Like good old Major Hochstetter has a pistol so his hat is usually on. We're always quoting Hogan's Heroes at work and have a picture of Major Hochstetter posted. One time after our area manager was screaming the site captain said how much he sounded like Hochstetter and it stuck. Since I know nothing and see nothing and hear nothing I'm Sergeant Schultz.
Some of the people later involved with M*A*S*H who worked on Hogan's Heroes had previously worked on McHale's Navy. That along with Sergeant Bilko are the two greatest service comedies. Bilko parodies the various types in the Army wonderfully and McHale's Navy as well. Star Trek: Lower Decks owes a lot to McHale's Navy. It's the service comedy version of Star Trek I've wanted for a long time.

J_Scarbrough wrote:
HOGAN'S HEROES is a uniquely different story; some of the characters usually kept their lids on at all times, such as Hogan, Newkirk, Kinch, and Carter (a different Carter, obviously), while others such as Klink and LeBeau ususally only wore theirs when they were outdoors. Then again, I don't know how strict POW camps were on military correctness, and HOGAN clearly wasn't an entirely accurate show in that respect anyway. The movie STALAG 17 on the other hand, I presume was a little more authentic, considering it was adapted from a Broadway play that was penned by a pair of actual WW2 POWs.

It's also important to remember that most of the stars of Hogan's Heroes served in WW2, some were former POWs and many of the Germans were played by Jews, so whatever inaccuracies in there are earned and might not actually be as inaccurate as they seem :)
McHale's Nave also had veterans in it.

One of the weird things about the military and pop-culture is that now-days everyone says “thankyou for your service” and all that simpering bullshit, which is pretty modern, back then they didn't do that because “service” was so ubiquitous and those old shows didn't need to bother with advisors because there would ALWAYS be veterans in the cast and crew.

Werner Klemperer was a German-born Jew, John Banner and Leon Askin were Austrian-born Jews, Robert Clary was a French-born Polish Jew, and Howard Caine was a banjo-pluckin' Jew from my home state of Tennessee, lol. As a matter of fact, I believe it was Banner who once remarked, “Who better to play the Nazis than we Jews?”

There was also a Russian POW in the series' black-and-white pilot episode, whose actor was an actual Russian Jew, but unlike the other Jewish actors, he did not respond well to how lightly HOGAN'S HEROES seemed to portray and depict the Nazis, so when the pilot got picked up and went to series, he did not sign on, so Carter (who was merely an expendable guest character in the pilot) was brought in to fill his place in the series.

Now, onto another subject, and this is one that a friend of mine who has a curious fascination with things like this once pointed out in an old YouTube Poop of his: have you ever noticed that much of the time in film and television, traffic signals seem to always omit the yellow light altogether, and just switch between red and green? I think waaaay back in the older days of such, that was probably more common (such as the ones that also included those “Stop” and “Go” signs that would slowly raise and retract for light changes), but even in some modern media today, you only see red and green lights, never yellow.

Then again, in reality, nobody ever obeys the yellow light anyway; people will just keep rolling through without stopping, even if the light actually turns red while they do so . . . or, in other cases, people see the yellow light, then push the pedal to the metal to avoid having to wait at the red light, as opposed to slowing to a stop as traffic laws require.

bravo1102 wrote:
I love the furniture and doors protecting against bullets one. There is cover and there is concealment. Cover is something that can keep you from getting hurt and concealment is just hiding.

There have been a bunch of movies lately showing higher powered weapons killing through walls and doors. A solid wooden door or table may deflect rounds but won't stop them, but it will stop shrapnel. It all depends on the power and size of the round and range. As far as walls go there's always the hope that the bullet will hit the frame and not just the drywall. But it varies so much. Something like Rambo or The Expendables are absurd whereas the old TV show Combat is reasonably accurate.

But then a lot of it is servicing the plot and not depicting reality. That drywall didn't stop the bullet, it was the plot armor. 😉 ;)

It amuses me how in the same film a mattress can stop bullets from a sniper rifle and act as a silencer for a pistol. They aren't just wrong, they're inconsistent with their wrongness.

Once upon a time when they had the signals with the tags outside with the “stop” and “go” they didn't have yellow lights. They didn't become common until the 1940s and that was in urban areas. Caution lights were originally only the blinking lights for proceed with caution and only later added to the standard traffic light.
This is in New Jersey. The history of traffic signals differs from state to state as there was a lot of experiment to before they were finally able to automate them.
New Jersey was one of the first states to have automated traffic signals with yellow lights. Before that it was often the yellow and red flashing lights and before that the red and green signals. I've read that the yellow caution light was added because of hand brakes being phased out on cars.

The history of Germans in Hollywood is fascinating beyond how a full third of all the technical people came to Hollywood during the 1930s because of the Nazis. Many came because of how the Jews were being treated whether or not they were Jewish themselves.

I remembered another thing- maybe most people know this already but I don't know:

The whole idea we have of historical Scottish people is bullshit…
In “Braveheart's” time they didn't wear kilts, that was a later thing, part of a nationalistic costume they just stated wearing as part of a rebellion movement. They weren't tartan either, they were orange.

No one painted their faces, that's from ancient people in the region.
Earlier Celtic tartan was made into trousers and cloaks, not kilts.

Clan tartans were from the 18th century, part of another weird nationalistic thing. I think it was also guided by English Scottish families who were all being proud of their roots and such… The 18th and 19th Centuries were a toxic time for historical warrior myth origins for every culture.

The Scottish accent wasn't very unique in the British Isles historically- that's basically what the English used to sound like too before things began to shift- which you can wear when people recite Old English and things like Shakespeare and the Canterbury tales in the correct way.

The Claymores that everyone goes on about are totally wrong. A Scottish Claymore is actually the big basket hilted swords from the 18th century.
What people think of as a “claymore” are just the earlier long-swords used in the region, they weren't called claymores, but they did use a Gaelic word for “big sword” to describe them that sounds similar- but it wasn't what they were called.

Much like the viking myths, it's all tied up with nationalism and cultural identity and its still being created, but in reality it's pretty constructed, like all warrior based myths from American Indian, to samurai, to Maori, to Malays, to viking, to Hoplites, Sikh warriors etc.
Whenever people have a warrior myth central to their identity you can bet the historical version was very different.

There's actually a whole popular mythology about World War 2. Much of the original data on the Germans in WW2 was based on Allied intelligence manuals and German memoirs.
The Allied manuals contained a lot of mistaken information and the German memoirs had all sorts of omissions and exaggerations. Many officers downplayed their Nazi involvement and claimed they knew they were defeated as early as 1942. That is hindsight and not born out by wartime documents. Much of thd German performance on the Eastern front was whitewashed and exaggerated simply because Russian sources weren't available.
No one bothered to check actual US after action reports or US evaluations of their own and enemy performance. Much was based on British sources who had a different experience.
Sherman tanks were never actually referred to as Ronson after the lighter. Documents show the Germans called their own Panzer IV tank a Ronson because of it's hull ammunition storage and relatively thin side armor. The term was misattributed in wartime reports. The Sherman was not the flammable death trap as that book is full of inaccuracies. In US use the Sherman was very successful at killing German tanks and tactics were figured out for defeating the heaviest of the vaunted German tanks. In fact, US tank crew had the lowest casualty rate of US combat troops in the ETO which you'd never guess from movies and many older works.

bravo1102 wrote:
In fact, US tank crew had the lowest casualty rate of US combat troops in the ETO which you'd never guess from movies and many older works.

Yes, I remember reading the memoirs of that Russian colonel who commanded a bunch of Shermans as part of the lend-lease program. He said they were great and what was better was that they'd send factory representatives over to take suggestions and fix things!

The negatives from what I remember were that in the freezing conditions vertically mounted radial aircraft engines in them would blow a constant stream of cold air up you bum. And the rubber blocks in the narrow tracks would harden so that the tanks would handle like drunk cows on frozen slippery roads.

Ozoneocean

The negatives from what I remember were that in the freezing conditions vertically mounted radial aircraft engines in them would blow a constant stream of cold air up you bum. And the rubber blocks in the narrow tracks would harden so that the tanks would handle like drunk cows on frozen slippery roads.

Which is why after the first shipment the Russians got the diesel engined M4A2 with steel tracks. Those factory reps paid attention and updated the vehicles. His tank was an M4A2 76mm armed tank that could handle nearly all German tanks from the flank and rear and all except Tigers from the front at standard engagement ranges.
I've read the memoir of a US 2nd AD gunner and the recent detailed unit history of a British Yeomanry armoured unit. I have a graduate thesis on the US evaluations of tank performance in the ETO on my phone.

There have also been similar myth busting about the Battle of Midway, D-Day and the Battle of Kursk.

But don't try to convince anyone about the myths of the Native Americans. They get awfully nasty with the usual torrent of accusations of racism if you don't adhere to the totally skewed Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee narrative.

In night scenes, everything is always bathed in a blue light that doesn't exist in nature.

Except for that one time when I was a kid in the winter of 1998/1999, when we had a literal Blue Moon, and it was incredible - stepping outside and the night being bathed in a bright blue light was such a magical experience that I have never forgotten. I've tried telling people about it, but my experience is always dismissed as a fairy tale, and some have even questioned if I was on drugs, or if I'm mentally ill . . . but I have photographic proof of the literal Blue Moon from that night:



This picture has in no way been altered, edited, manipulated, or doctored. It is a scan of a 35mm film print that was developed from a disposable camera (as those were very common in the 90s and 2000s) and it was taken from our kitchen window. You see that blue dot in the sky? That was the literal Blue Moon. It really happened. So don't tell me, “Blue moons aren't actually blue, stop taking viagra you retard,” because I have witnessed a literal blue moon once before.

Here's another one . . . why is it in fiction, whenever people leave their doors or windows open in warm weather, we never see an onslaught of flying insects swarm into the house? Honestly, the second you open your door in real life, flies seem to interpret such as an open invitation to just zoom right in.

In cartoons, bombs always look like black bowling balls with a fuse protruding from within (and sometimes, they even have the three holes drawn on them for comedic effect). Similarly, wedges of cheese in cartoons are always drawn with holes like Swiss, even if they're more orangish cheeses like cheddar or American.

Another thing that is only seen in pop culture is the exciting trial

before the oj trial we had all the theatrics and bad legal theater with lawyers yelling and witnesses being sassy or outrageous.

in real life most trials are boring, i have seen court cases on tv and seen some in person and the major emotion that gets expressed the most is sadness. A witness will break down recounting something sad like a death but for the most part people just answer questions monotone.

you will get a laugh or two sometimes from a question. the lawyers are not super charismatic either. slides and evidence are not entered into evidence surprisingly on the spot. the lawyer usually reads a number and the court record keeper accepts it and asks the defense lawyer that also accepts.