Curtis Mayfield had already lived several musical lifetimes by the time fate intervened. He’d helped invent socially conscious soul, soundtracked the civil rights movement, and quietly influenced generations of artists who followed. Then, in 1990, a falling stage light changed everything. What came next wasn’t a dramatic comeback or a victory lap—it was a slow, stubborn refusal to stop creating. This is how Curtis Mayfield kept making music when almost nothing worked the way it used to.

Before theme songs became skip buttons and recaps started explaining things you absolutely already knew, TV shows had one precious chance to grab your attention. Enter the cold open—the pre-credits moment designed to hook you, delight you, or completely derail your expectations before the story even begins. Let’s journey through some of the most iconic cold opens in TV history.

American remakes of British TV have a reputation—and not always a flattering one. For every awkward cultural transplant, there’s a reinvention that somehow clicks harder, lasts longer, and embeds itself into pop culture in a way the original never quite managed. Sometimes it’s a cast change, sometimes it’s pacing, and sometimes it’s just the confidence to go bigger, louder, and messier.

Hollywood loves a test screening. Dim the lights, hand out comment cards, and let a roomful of strangers decide a movie’s fate. Sometimes that feedback saves a project. Other times, it nearly buries films that would later be crowned untouchable classics. From endings that were completely rewritten to tones that were wildly misunderstood, these movies all faced brutal early reactions—and survived anyway.

20 films that began as jokes, parodies, or risky concepts and unexpectedly became cinematic masterpieces through bold storytelling, emotional depth, and cultural impact.

A look at Malcolm Young’s quiet leadership in AC/DC, his heartbreaking decline, and why his absence hit the band harder than any lineup change.