10 Insane TV Details You Never Noticed
7. All The Secret HD Widescreen Gags - My Name Is Earl
From the late '90s through to the early '00s, the adoption of widescreen TVs surged throughout the world, and so TV shows slowly began to start shooting in an "HD" 16:9 ratio, effectively future-proofing themselves for a time when everybody would be watching everything in widescreen.
Though it was initially viewed by most audiences in 4:3, the entirety of My Name Is Earl was filmed in 16:9, and the producers decided to have a little fun with this by hiding gags in the widescreen frame which would be cropped out by 4:3 TVs.
In season one, this included labelling a beer bump "HD Draft", having Randy (Ethan Suplee) hold up a sign reading "High def rocks!," and displaying the sign "Carl Hickey loves high def."
A few years later in season four, when considerably more viewers had HDTVs, a newspaper title was displayed which read, "Losers with old televisions miss out on high definition jokes." Genius.