History Trivia / TheyMightBeGiants

* BlackSheepHit: Thoroughly {{averted|Trope}}. The band's biggest mainstream hits ("Birdhouse in Your Soul" and "Istanbul" (from ''Music/{{Flood|TheyMightBeGiants}}''), "Boss of Me") remain fan favorites.

* NoHitWonder: Never hit the Billboard Hot 100 in the US, though they scored hits in the UK and Australia. They also didn't have a Top 40 album until ''Join Us'' in 2011, 25 years after their debut album.

** One of the first music videos that the band made, for the song "Rabid Child", has never been made available to the public in its entirety. The one brief clip that's surfaced, in the ''Gigantic: A Tale of Two Johns'' documentary years later, has Flansburgh lip-syncing in an apartment, with Linnell playing accordion in the background, and it honestly doesn't look any worse than any other low-budget DIY indie rock video from TheEighties, leading fans to wonder why it's been suppressed for so long.

** The music video for "Rabid Child," [[MissingEpisode which was never shown publicly]] (outside of a brief clip in a documentary) and the Johns won't even discuss. No one is exactly sure why, as it seemingly consists of little more than Flans lip-synching the song while standing in his apartment.

** One of the first music videos that the band made was a video for the song "Rabid Child" that was never released to the public, except for a clip in ''Gigantic: A Tale of Two Johns'' years later.

** The music video for "Rabid Child," [[MissingEpisode which was never shown publicly]] (outside of a brief clip) and the Johns won't even discuss. No one is exactly sure why, as it seemingly consists of little more than Flans lip-synching the song while standing in his apartment.

* MisattributedSong: This one works both ways. While not the most common band misattributed, quite a few songs on file-sharing services are mistakenly labeled as being by They Might Be Giants ("88 Lines About 44 Women," by The Nails, a 1984 song that fits the same rough outline as early TMBG--unorthodox AlternativeRock built around simple synth and drum machine sounds with satirical lyrics--but otherwise sounds nothing like them, seems to be the most common one). On the flip side, some of their tracks are labeled as belonging to other bands, particularly remixes (you'll find some people distributing the Brownsville Remix of "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" as a Music/WeirdAlYankovic song, although it was a B-side for the single for the original).

* BreakupBreakout: The band itself, for John Linnell. In the years prior, he was part of a Rhode Island group called The Mundanes, a Music/NewWave group in the Music/{{Blondie}}/Motels/Waitresses mold. They built a local following, tried and failed to get a major record deal, and then broke up in 1983.

* MisattributedSong: This one works both ways. While not the most common band misattributed, quite a few songs on file-sharing services are mistakenly labeled as being by They Might Be Giants ("88 Lines About 44 Women," by The Nails, seems to be the most common, despite sounding utterly nothing like TMBG outside of coming from the same off-the-wall satirical 80s AlternativeRock scene as early TMBG). On the flip side, some of their tracks are labeled as belonging to other bands, particularly remixes (you'll find some people distributing the Brownsville Remix of "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" as a Music/WeirdAlYankovic song, although it was a B-side for the single for the original).

* MisattributedSong: This one works both ways. While not the most common band misattributed, quite a few songs on file-sharing services are mistakenly labeled as being by They Might Be Giants ("88 Lines About 44 Women," by The Nails, seems to be the most common, despite sounding utterly nothing like TMBG). On the flip side, some of their tracks are labeled as belonging to other bands, particularly remixes (you'll find some people distributing the Brownsville Remix of "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" as a Music/WeirdAlYankovic song, although it was a B-side for the single for the original).

** A compilation called ''Superfueled Freaksickle'' [[note]](or ''Superfueled Freaksicle'', or even ''Superfueled Freakcicle'' - official sources varied on the intended spelling)[[/note]] was first announced in 1994: First mentioned as a DVD/VHS music video compilation, it somehow turned into a second BSide album (following up ''Miscellaneous T''). The release was officially canceled in 1997, in part because its intended release date was right around the time TMBG were releasing ''another'' compilation, ''Then: The Earlier Years''... [[http://tmbw.net/wiki/Superfueled_Freaksickle So fans started coming up with their own track-listings and album artwork instead]].

** They Might Be Giants was actually the group's second name, after one so embarrassing that John and John [[NeverSpeakOfThisAgain refuse to disclose it]], even to their children.

** They don't believe the album version of "She's Actual Size" stands up so well anymore, especially compared to the live versions they've performed since then.

* HarsherInHindsight: The band has numerous songs that feature car accidents as a motif in various ways, including "The End of the Tour," "Mink Car," "Subliminal," and others. This may feel a bit more uncomfortable since John Flansburgh was badly injured when his ride-share was T-boned by a drunk driver in 2022.

* HarsherInHindsight: The band has numerous songs that feature car accidents in various ways, including "The End of the Tour," "Mink Car," "Subliminal," and others. This may feel a bit more uncomfortable since John Flansburgh was badly injured when his ride-share was T-boned by a drunk driver in 2022.

* CreatorBacklash:
** They're noted for digging deep into their catalog in live shows, but they haven't played "I've Got a Match" since 1989, a few months after its parent album ''Lincoln'' was released. They've even skipped it in more recent shows devoted to playing songs from ''Lincoln''. According to John Flansburgh, they just got burned out on playing the song and aren't eager to revisit it.
** Flansburgh has also said that another ''Lincoln'' song, "You'll Miss Me", ended up as a disappointment. A song dating back to their earliest days, it had always gotten a good response in live shows, but it proved to be a struggle to translate the song's live energy to the studio recording.
** He'd previously said the same, to a lesser extent, of "She's Actual Size," calling the studio version "timid" and less confident in comparison to later live versions.

* TheWikiRule: [[http://tmbw.net/wiki/Main_Page This Might Be A Wiki]]. It's been approvingly (though a bit backhandedly) [[AscendedMeme cited]] by both Flansburgh and Linnell, who [[http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/474135/they-might-be-giants-qa-in-the-studio-with-the-nerd-rock-kings referred to it in an interview]] as "the site that tracks all our crap".

** The Dial-A-Song exclusive "I Need Some Lovin" was once believed by some fans to be a remix of a song found on a free cassette tape included with a ''{{WesternAnimation/Jem}}'' doll. The female vocalist is actually a friend of the band's named Jennifer Neff, and in the full Dial-A-Song recording (which played it back to back with another exclusive called "I Find It Hard to Believe") Linell introduces her by name.

* PopCultureUrbanLegends: The Dial-A-Song exclusive "I Need Some Lovin" was once believed by some fans to be a remix of a ''{{WesternAnimation/Jem}}'' cassette tape. The female vocalist is actually a friend of the band's named Jennifer Neff, and in the full recording Linell introduces her by name.

** When the band were contacted to submit a song to the ''Film/AustinPowersTheSpyWhoShaggedMe'' soundtrack, it was suggested they should parody their own "Dr. Worm" as "Dr. Evil". They didn't like the idea, so they composed a new song in the style of a Bond theme, with guest vocalist Robin Goldwasser imitating Music/ShirleyBassey. The song was nearly rejected, but Creator/MikeMyers heard it and wanted it to be used, so it was. The decison was last-minute enough that, despite being the first song heard in the movie, it wasn't licensed in time to be on the first soundtrack album, appearing on the followup ''More Music from the Motion Picture Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me'' later the same year instead.

** "Bangs" was considered for a UK-exclusive single from ''Music/MinkCar'': The song was produced by English RecordProducer team Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley, who previously worked on "Birdhouse In Your Soul", the band's biggest hit in the UK, so it was thought it could have similar success in that territory. The band scrapped the idea when they learned that in the UK, the title hairstyle is instead called a fringe, so [[SeparatedByACommonLanguage the target audience wouldn't be able to make sense of the lyrics]].

* {{Defictionalization}}: [[http://www.thinkgeek.com/homeoffice/lights/e791/ Blue canary in the outlet by the light switch.]] They also sold blue nightlights as promotional material for ''Flood'', but they didn't really look like canaries.