Some Trekkies didn't care too much about the moon landing, and 20 other fandom facts

The Starship Enterprise — (Image credit: iStock)

You'd think Star Trek fans would be thrilled to watch NASA send an astronaut to the moon — but you'd be wrong.

In this week's video from our sister site, Mental Floss, host Mike Rugnetta explains that in 1969, 15 Trekkies called a Canadian TV station to complain that the moon landing was being shown in place of Star Trek. "They didn't want their sci-fi show interrupted by the real first people ever landing on the moon," Rugnetta says dryly.

That's just one of 21 strange facts about fandom in the video. Among the others is an interesting tidbit about Sherlock Holmes. As the story goes, Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes series, intended for Sherlock's death to be the end of his story, but after much persistence from fans, he brought the character back to life. It turns out one of those ardent Sherlock fans was none other than Doyle's mother herself — when Doyle wrote to her that he was considering killing Sherlock, she responded, "You won't! You can't! You mustn't!" And fans of NBC's Chuck can thank Subway — Josh Schwartz, the show's creator, said that the show would likely have been canceled if it weren't sponsored by the sandwich chain. Check out all of the fandom facts in the video below. —Meghan DeMaria

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