In the 1990s, kids were given a tasty incentive to pick up a book and read. The mission, should they choose to accept it, was to read a certain amount each month to earn a button, stickers, and a free personal pan pizza. Now, ’90s kids can offer this same challenge to their own children, because Pizza Hut’s BOOK IT Summer Reading Program has officially returned. The BOOK IT program is a free reading incentive tool for parents and teachers to help encourage youngsters to read recreationally during the summer. While back in the day participants manually filled out forms to track their progress, parents today can do so on an app. The app can also redeem rewards for free pizza throughout the summer. Enrollment begins on May 1, 2026. Brief History of BOOK IT Per The Takeout, the history of the BOOK IT program begins in the mid-1980s with then-president of Pizza Hut Arthur Gunther and marketing executive Bud Gates. As President Ronald Reagan encouraged businesses to promote education, Gunther wanted to participate. He was inspired by his son’s struggle with literacy as a child. With that in mind, he developed the program to reward young kids for reading. Kids from pre-K through sixth grade would get a free personal pan pizza if they reached certain monthly reading benchmarks. This not only encouraged kids to read for free pizza, but also got their parents to order food for themselves while they were there. The program would continue in various forms for 40 years, and has had a lasting legacy with many Millennials. Many enjoy remembering finishing up a Goosebumps, Encyclopedia Brown, or other book series of their youth to get a free one-topping six-inch pie. There are critics of the Pizza Hut BOOK IT program, though. Many argue that reading should be encouraged for its own sake. There is also understandable concern about linking a child’s education to a national fast food pizza chain. Others argue that, in an age when children’s reading skills are declining nationally, such incentive programs can still help. After all, many adults on social media today credit BOOK IT for making them readers. View this post on Instagram How to get kids to read more (pizza optional) There are other ways to boost a child’s literacy without pizza (though pizza goes well with everything). Aside from continuing story time with younger kids, parents can still bond with their elementary-aged children by playing word games with them such as Scrabble or Boggle.  Another way to join your child is to share their interests. If they want to read a young adult book they’ve picked out, consider reading it too. It’ll create something to bond over as a “family book club.” After you both finish it, you can discuss the novel over a fun dinner out, whether at Pizza Hut elsewhere. The post 90s kids rejoice as Pizza Hut’s BOOK IT! program returns for a new generation of readers appeared first on Upworthy.

Many old words, such as “fortnight” or “swashbuckle,” sound as archaic as they are. But some words that sound modern are surprisingly old. Scottish actor and writer Kenny Boyle shared that the word “wow” has been around a lot longer than people might think. While it may sound like slang from the 20th century, it actually dates back over 500 years to Scotland. “This is one of those anachronistic things,” Boyle said in a TikTok video. “If you were to read a historical fiction or something like that, and one of the characters were to say ‘Wow!’ you’d probably think, ‘Well, that’s weird. That’s a very modern word, isn’t it?’ The answer is actually no, at least not in Scotland.” @kennyboyleofficial A word that you didn’t know was Scottish. Wow, what a surprise! #scotland #scottishculture #scotslanguage #tradition ♬ original sound – Kenny Boyle Official We first see the written use of “wow” in 1513 Boyle explained that “wow” dates to the 1500s and meant basically the same thing it does now: an expression of disbelief or surprise. Babbel notes that the first known written use of “wow” appeared in 1513 in a Scottish English translation of Virgil’s Aeneid. The exact quote is, “Out on thir wanderand spiritis, wow! thow cryis.” It was possibly a modification (or perhaps even a typo) of the exclamation “Vow!”, which was an intensified version of “I vow!” “Wow” doesn’t really have a meaning in and of itself, but is rather a natural exclamation. The “W” sound is one of the easiest sounds to make, so we find natural exclamations similar to “wow” across different languages. Facial expressions also play a role Babbel explains that many natural exclamations relate to the facial expressions people make. “The facial expression associated with shock or surprise is an open, rounded mouth, which happens to coincide with how a human pronounces ‘wow,'” the video states. Other exclamations (also known as emotive interjections) that seem to coincide with facial expressions include “Ow!” and “Ouch!”, as well as “Yay!” and “Hooray!” When we say, “Wow!” it looks like we’re saying “Wow!” Photo credit: Canva “Hooray” and “hurrah” are thought to be modifications of “huzzah” or “huzza,” which we probably recognize as old terms. But interestingly enough, “wow” is even older than “huzzah.” (Not by much, but still surprising.) How “wow” became an everyday English exclamation According to Babbel, “wow” was commonly used by the 19th century, but it really took hold in the 1920s and 1930s. In 1920, however, “wow” was used as a noun, as in “This song is a wow.” Today, “wow” is rarely used as a noun but is often used as a verb. For example, “I was wowed by that song.” A more obscure meaning of “wow” from the 1930s referred to pitch distortions in audio recordings. But by far the most common usage today is simply the emotive interjection “Wow!” And then there’s always the sarcastic use of the word as well: “Wow. That’s really interesting.” Just changing the punctuation to periods instead of exclamation points gives it a whole different flavor. Thank you, 16th-century Scotland, for such a useful exclamation. You can follow Kenny Boyle on TikTok for more fun Scottish history and etymology. The post ‘Wow!’ may sound like a modern slang term, but it dates all the way back to the 1500s appeared first on Upworthy.

Actor Matthew Lillard can trigger Millennial nostalgia like few others. He was perfectly cast in the popular Scooby-Doo films of the early aughts as Norville “Shaggy” Rogers and appeared as Stu Macher in the original Scream (1996). He also had memorable roles in She’s All That (1999), Thirteen Ghosts (2001), and Without a Paddle (2004). Lillard’s career began to cool down in the late ‘00s. Although he never went away, he transitioned from a comedic performer to starring in dramatic roles, most notably in 2017’s Twin Peaks: The Return. However, now, after the lead role in the massive 2023 horror hit, Five Nights at Freddy’s, Lillard is in the midst of a comeback, starring in Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 (2025), The Life of Chuck (2024), and the Marvel series Daredevil: Born Again. Lillard talked about his recent success with a refreshing sense of gratitude and humility on a recent episode of the Phase Hero podcast, hosted by Brandon Davis. “Scooby-Doo one and two are more popular now than they ever were when they came out,” Lillard said. “So I do think there’s a weird nostalgia thing happening in our industry and in the zeitgeist, because I think that people are longing for ye olde times.” “I think that’s one of the reasons I’m having this moment, to be honest, is because I was identified in that moment, so people are hiring me again,” he added. “That’s why I’m working. I don’t think anyone really likes me. They just missed the old times. ‘Who should we get? Who’s old and relatively warm and fuzzy feeling? Let’s get Matthew Lillard. Talented? No. But do we like him? Yes.’” Matthew Lillard says Quentin Tarantino dissing him "sucked" and felt like he got "punched in the mouth" “It felt like I had died and was in heaven watching everyone send out their RIP tweets, sort of living through nice things people say after you die.”pic.twitter.com/euNqCZK6bl— Emir Han (@RealEmirHan) February 23, 2026 The 56-year-old actor’s self-awareness was also on display in how he gracefully handled some very blunt criticism from director Quentin Tarantino. Last December, Lillard was brought up in a conversation in which Tarantino criticized actor Paul Dano’s performance in There Will Be Blood. “I’m not saying he’s giving a terrible performance,” Tarantino said. “I’m saying he’s giving a non-entity [performance]. I don’t care for him. I don’t care for Owen Wilson, I don’t care for Matthew Lillard.” View this post on Instagram A post shared by Matthew Lillard (@matthewlillard) The very public diss inspired many of Lillard’s colleagues to sing his praises. “It felt like I had died and was in heaven watching everyone send out their RIP tweets. I mean, it was really being a part of your own wake, sort of sitting there living through all the nice things people say after you die,” Lillard told People. “Everyone, from the people at the mall this weekend with my kids to George Clooney and James Gunn and Mike Flanagan, I mean, people have sort of been really generous with telling me how much they loved me and liked my work.” Lillard’s response to his sudden success is a great example of someone who has been in the industry for decades and has learned how to keep his head on his shoulders. There are going to be highs and lows, but when your feet are firmly planted in reality, you can make it through them all. The post Matthew Lillard had a surprisingly humble explanation for his recent Hollywood comeback appeared first on Upworthy.

With the latest Michael Jackson biopic taking the box office by storm, the late singer and his work are back in the pop culture zeitgeist. Now, even more lore has been added to the conversation, courtesy of Jackson’s longtime personal sound engineer, Matt Forger. In an interview with Anthony Marinelli, Forger revealed the inspiration behind the character Annie in “Smooth Criminal,” saying that while on tour with the Jackson 5, each of the brothers took a CPR class, where they practiced on a Resusci Anne doll. Part of the protocol was asking, “Annie, are you okay? Are you okay, Annie?” to check a patient’s condition. A nod to genius “That catchphrase sort of stayed in his memory,” Forger said, noting it as one of many examples of Jackson’s innate gift for songwriting. Like many of the greats, Jackson was able to expertly pinpoint hooks with the most emotional punch and build out full-blown stories from there. In the song lyrics, we get a story of a woman attacked in her apartment by a “smooth criminal,” who breaks in through the window and then violently strikes the victim. By the second verse, Annie is being resuscitated, seemingly to no avail. The doll has a fascinating, dark history Anne’s story began in France in the late 1880s, when the body of an unidentified teenage girl was found in the River Seine. Unlike the case in “Smooth Criminal,” there was no evidence of violence at the scene. Presumably, the girl had taken her own life. Death masks were still a common ritual, and one was created for her to immortalize the eerily calm expression she left behind, as some legends say. It became so popular that it was mass-produced. Fast forward to the late 1950s, when Norwegian toy maker and publisher Åsmund S. Laerdal was commissioned to create a realistic, life-sized manikin for training people in the new mouth-to-mouth resuscitation method. He recalled seeing one of these masks in his in-laws’ home and felt it was the perfect expression for the dummy. Today, Resusci Anne is also known as “the most kissed girl in the world”  since millions of trainees have performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on her over the decades.  Viewers react You would think this connection is well known among those who have learned CPR. But judging from the comments on Forger’s interview, it’s still a largely buried fact: “Wow, too many times I have said, ‘Annie are you ok” and proceeded to give compressions and then 3 breaths. I never made the connection.” “I studied CPR last year and the mannequin was called Annie but I thought it was because of the song, didn’t realise the mannequin Annie came first.” “I took CPR but never put that together about this song.” Whether you’re into obscure history, pop music, or fun explainers, this story has just what you’re looking for. It also goes to show just how deeply interconnected our world is. Thanks to a bit of human creativity, a tragic mystery from 19th-century France turned into a life-saving training tool, followed by one of pop’s most iconic songs. There really is an endless supply of inspiration. The post Michael Jackson’s sounds engineer reveals the genius origins of ‘Annie’ from ‘Smooth Criminal’ appeared first on Upworthy.

It’s never easy when a restaurant closes its doors. These beloved establishments become the place where families gather for special meals and celebrations. Regular customers get to know the employees, and they become more than just acquaintances. Sometimes, they build true friendships with their clientele. People go to these places to enjoy the food and the company. Sadly, all good things must come to an end, and for fans of the BBQ chain Smokey Bones, that time is now. The restaurant announced its immediate closure on April 27, 2026, leaving employees and customers shocked. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Smokey Bones (@smokeybonesbar) Smokey Bones Operated for Nearly Three Decades According to a message posted on the Smokey Bones website, the restaurant was in business for 27 years. “This isn’t just the end of a restaurant—it’s the closing of a chapter filled with shared meals, celebrations, traditions, and countless memories. From first bites to final toasts, you made this place more than just BBQ—you made it home.” “We are deeply grateful for every visit, every smile, and every moment you chose to spend with us. Serving this community has been an honor we’ll never forget.” “While the smokers have cooled and the doors are closed, the spirit of what we built together will always stay with us,” the announcement reads. The news of Smokey Bones’ closure upset many who went to the restaurant’s Facebook page to share words of encouragement to those who lost their jobs. “I can’t believe they shut this down. Mentor’s team of Managers, cooks and servers are THE BEST,” someone wrote. “They deserved better! I wish each and everyone of you the best and if you ever need a reference and you know who you are.. Reach OUT to us! We loved you all!!” “noooooooo, they coulda given us a weeks notice to get those delicious smoked wings one last time,” another fan added. “especially sorry to all the workers.” This story’s featured image can be found here