DID GEORGE HARRISON PLAGIARIZE ‘MY SWEET LORD?

1. Boomer children wanted to wear dead raccoons on their heads after seeing a 1954 Disney production starring Fess Parker as Davy Crockett. Most kids wore faux fur, but even so, by the mid-’50s, coonskin caps were so popular that they led to a shortage of raccoons, forcing a shift to muskrats, rabbits and foxes. The caps were part of a brief mania for all things Crockett.

2. As far as we can tell, only two people have been nominated for an Oscar for playing something other than a human.

Jeff Bridges was nominated for playing an alien in Starman, while Walter Huston was nominated for his role as Mr. Scratch (the Devil) in The Devil and Daniel Webster.

3. Imagine the Matrix movies, but with Will Smith in the starring role. He was offered the part of Neo, in fact, but passed.

Looking back, he says: “I would have absolutely messed up The Matrix. At that point I wasn’t smart enough as an actor to let the movie be, whereas Keanu was.” Will’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, was in the Matrix series, though.

4. George Harrison was the first Beatle with a solo No. 1 hit, thanks to My Sweet Lord. But Bright Tunes Music thought it sounded like He’s So Fine, an old Chiffons song it owned.

A judge agreed, saying Harrison had subconsciously plagiarized the tune. Harrison eventually just bought the rights to He’s So Fine, but in the meantime, the Chiffons recorded their own version of My Sweet Lord.

5. It was originally just a marketing gimmick. Scott Paper wanted to promote the strength of its toilet paper and tissue paper by selling women paper dresses. Women ordered a half million of them.

You could even wash them, but, sadly, this made them more likely to catch fire.