10 Funny Drunk History Stories About Famous Creative Minds
Who says history isn’t funny? Since 2007, Drunk History has shared some of the funniest stories from the past, many about famous creative minds. Here are 10 funny Drunk History stories about famous creative minds.
Drunk History, by Derek Waters and Jeremy Konner, started as Funny or Die sketches and grew into an entire TV show on Comedy Central. In each episode, an inebriated narrator, joined by host Waters, struggles to recount an event from history, while actors enact the narrator’s anecdotes and also lip-sync the dialogue. In addition to Waters and celebrity guest narrators, the show’s re-enactment characters have been played by famous actors including Jack Black, Aubrey Plaza, Michael Cera, Courteney Cox, Bob Odenkirk, Octavia Spencer, Elijah Wood, Will Ferrell, and many more.
One day, famed novelist Agatha Christie seemingly disappeared into thin air, a mystery all too similar to those in her own books.
Creative Lessons
- “I don’t think necessity is the mother of invention. Invention arises directly from idleness, possibly also from laziness. To save oneself trouble.”
- “Fear is incomplete knowledge.”
- “You gave too much rein to your imagination. Imagination is a good servant, and a bad master. The simplest explanation is always the most likely.”
Mary Shelley first came up with the story of “Frankenstein” as part of a scary story contest between herself, Lord Byron and her husband, Percy Shelley.
Creative Lessons
- “There is something at work in my soul, which I do not understand.”
- “Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.”
- “No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.”
- “The beginning is always today.”
Dolly Parton wrote the song “I Will Always Love You” for her former manager Porter Wagoner, and she stayed true to that promise for decades afterward.
Creative Lessons
- “Find out who you are and do it on purpose.”
- “If your actions create a legacy that inspires others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, then, you are an excellent leader.”
- “The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain!”
- “If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one.”
Orson Welles’s classic film “Citizen Kane” was inspired by the life of powerful media baron William Randolph Hearst – but Hearst himself wasn’t very happy about its release.
Creative Lessons
- “Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn.”
- “The absence of limitations is the enemy of art.”
- “I passionately hate the idea of being with it, I think an artist has always to be out of step with his time.”
- “A writer needs a pen, an artist needs a brush, but a filmmaker needs an army.”
Hollywood star Marilyn Monroe’s deep admiration for legendary singer Ella Fitzgerald led to an incomparable friendship between the two women.
Creative Lessons
- “Keep smiling, because life is a beautiful thing and there’s so much to smile about.” ― Marilyn Monroe
- “Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.” ― Ella Fitzgerald
- “We should all start to live before we get too old.” ― Marilyn Monroe
- “Music is the universal language… it brings people closer together.” ― Ella Fitzgerald
Mark Twain started his writing career off by taking the powerful to task – until the fateful day he overheard a tall tale at a bar.
Creative Lessons
- “The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”
- “If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And If it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.”
- “Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.”
- “The man with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.”
Louis Armstrong grew up listening to music in the brothels of New Orleans and wound up becoming a jazz legend.
Creative Lessons
- “What we play is life.”
- “Musicians don’t retire; they stop when there’s no more music in them.”
- “Seems to me it ain’t the world that’s so bad but what we’re doing to it, and all I’m saying is: see what a wonderful world it would be if only we’d give it a chance. Love, baby – love. That’s the secret.”
- “If you have to ask what jazz is, you’ll never know.”
When Rufus Griswold publishes Edgar Allan Poe’s work in the very back of his new poetry anthology, Poe retaliates by writing a scathing review of the book.
Creative Lessons
- “Never to suffer would never to have been blessed.”
- “Believe nothing you hear, and only one half that you see.”
- “Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.”
- “Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality.”
Sam Cooke wrote his legendary song “A Change Is Gonna Come” at the height of the civil rights movement in response to the racial injustices he experienced in his own life.
Creative Lessons
- “I say, as a singer grows older, his conception grows a little deeper, because he lives life and he understands what he is trying to say a little more. And I think this gives. If a singer tries to find out what’s happening in life, it gives him a better insight on telling the story of the song he is trying to sing.”
- “It’s been a long time coming. But I know a change is gonna come”
- “It was something I enjoyed doing and decided to give it a couple years, though I’m not making a lot of money now either!”
Charles Dickens was already a world-renowned writer when he wrote “A Christmas Carol” and reinvigorated the concept of Christmas.
Creative Lessons
- “It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good-humour.”
- “A day wasted on others is not wasted on one’s self.”
- “From the death of each day’s hope another hope sprung up to live to-morrow.”
- “No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of it to anyone else.”
Zach is an international writer, photographer, filmmaker, martial artist, and creator of Creative Enso, the Zen art of creative living. His goal is to empower and inspire creatives to live healthier, happier, and more creative lifestyles.
