23 Surprising Facts You Never Knew About 'Dallas'

If you’re a million years old, like me, you might just remember the 80’s nighttime soap opera, “Dallas.” Starring Larry Hagman and several other mullet-ridden actors, Dallas was watched and loved by over 100 million people internationally. Let’s go back in time and delve into the set’s greatest secrets. 1. Dallas Had Nothing To Do With It Instead, it was supposed to be Houston, and when the director changed the script, people were relieved. Dallas and Houston are both terribly unflattering words, so they chose the best out of the worst. 2. Dallas Had A Cooler Older Sister And its name was “Dynasty.” “Dynasty was perhaps the most extravagantly produced series in the history of episodic television…and was widely viewed as the classier of the two shows,” said Creator David Jacobs. 3. They Were All A Bunch Of Alcoholics But mostly just Larry Hagman and Patrick Duffy. “I was drinking five bottles of champagne a day , but I was never drunk,” Hagman commented. 4. Sue Ellen Was Originally Irrelevant No one thought that she would end up becoming a major role. But when they turned the character into a raging alcoholic, she was out. Ain’t nobody got time for that. 5. J.R Wasn’t A Bad Guy For someone reason, they felt the need to defend a fictional character’s moral ground. “J.R wasn’t that bad…I wouldn’t call him bad; he was just an oil man,” said Hagman. Little did they know that no one actually cared. 6. Communism Fell Because Of Dallas When Russians and Romanians started taking an interest in the show, things snowballed real quick. And now, Dallas takes credit for the fall of communism. Questionable, but okay. 7. The Romanians Went Overboard Even after the communist drama, Romanians still LOVED the show. So they decided to name a hotel called Southfork, or Southforkscu. They even bought identical furniture an Eiffel Tower to make things extra kitschy. 8. The Plotline Was Weirdly Intertwined When big cliffhangers took place in the script, it was all in response to what was going on in real life. Should we kill off this character because he’s requesting too much money?” type stuff. The awkward part, though, was that everyone knew about it. 9. Duffy’s Big Return When Duffy decided to leave the show, he thought he had made the right choice. But when they finally asked him to return, he was so happy to be reunited with his best friends. When he returned, the show’s fans were so thrilled that they named the season the “Dream Season”. 10. Victoria Is A Little Cray Victoria Principal, who played Pamela, left the show for good after realizing that her on-set relationship with Bobby just didn’t seem real anymore. So, she essentially gave up her entire career because her fake persona no longer seemed believable. Whatever, Victoria. 11. A Song Titled “This Ain’t Dallas” Hank Williams wrote a song for the show: “This ain’t Dallas and this ain’t Dynasty / This is a real-life two-job working family / And I ain’t J.R., you ain’t Sue Ellen…” 12. But He Was Based On A Real Person Maybe they felt the need to defend him because he was based on a real person that Hagman worked for. Since he grew up in Texas working for real oil families, he saw a lot of the “behind the scenes” oil rig life. 13. There’s A Video Game Of The Show It was called “The Dallas Quest” and it was built for Commodore 64 computer. Lol. 14. The Remake Started A Real Kerfuffle When they decided to remake the show in 2012, there was a lot of drama over the direction it would take. Looks like it ended up okay. 15. It Was Popular Around The World This show was so popular that it was dubbed into 67 languages in over 90 countries! 16. Hagman Was Hooked Larry Hagman’s JR’s character was the only one to have been in every episode. It was 357, if you were wondering. 17. It’s Actually Pretty Embarrassing Which is really ironic, because the directors didn’t even want Hagman to have the role in the beginning. Instead, they wanted Robert Foxworth, who turned it down. 18. Knots Landing For The Win The show that ended up being Dallas’ spinoff, “Knots Landing,” was actually written before Dallas. But no one had an interest in it until Dallas finished, which is why they finally aired it afterward. 19. Overboard, But Ok JR Ewing’s signature hat lives in a very special place – at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. Yes, this is real. 20. Beating World Records One of their episodes attracted 90 million American viewers, beating its record at that time. 21. It Went On For Way Too Long The show aired over 13 seasons between 1978 and 1991, which was unheard of for its time. Viewers around the world just couldn’t get enough of it. 22. And Then There Were Three When the show finally ended, only three of the original characters were still there. The rest had been killed off and/or fired. 23. Everyone Has Money Problems One of the reasons that they killed so many people off was because of budget cuts on set. V embarrassing. Credits: dailydisclosure