Netflix is celebrating its 25th anniversary on Monday by sharing fun facts about the company, which transformed the entertainment industry — and all of our lives.
Many of us remember that after Netflix launched in 1997, it provided rental DVDs to subscribers through the mail. Within a decade, the ever-expanding service introduced streaming media and videos on demand.
A few years later, Netflix began creating its own content, debuting its first series, the political drama "House of Cards," in 2013.
Of course, these days Netflix, which boasts more than 220 million subscribers around the world, faces competition from Hulu, Amazon Prime and countless other streaming services.
Netflix honored its birthday on Monday by tweeting several interesting facts about its origins:
- The first DVD that Netflix ever shipped? It was "Beetlejuice," Tim Burton's spooky 1988 comedy starring Michael Keaton, Alec Baldwin, Geena Davis, Catherine O'Hara and Winona Ryder. Netflix mailed the movie on March 10, 1998.
- Netflix originally had a placeholder name of Kibble — like the dog food. The company included a mockup of what the Kibble label would have looked like.
- Speaking of Kibble, the company's previous idea for its signature sound was also animal-themed. It considered using a bleating goat noise before landing on its perhaps more soothing tudum.
- The service's earliest envelope was actually white and not red.
- The most popular profile pic used around the world? The Boss Baby icon. A whopping 11 million profiles have opted for the image.
- The show on Netflix with the most MyLists Adds is "Money Heist."
Netflix also created a nostalgia-packed video to celebrate its anniversary.
The short clip began by thanking subscribers for the company's success, then flashed back to how it all began, with DVDs being sent in the mail.
The video then flashes the titles of some of Netflix's most beloved original programming, including the shows "Orange Is the New Black," "The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt" and "Grace and Frankie," which became its longest-running series.
The entertainment giant also toots its own horn a bit, taking credit for changing minds around the world by introducing viewers to new cultures, new foods, new trends and new ideas.
"Crazy things happen when the world watches stuff together," explains the video's narrator.
The clip ends with the narrator once again thanking viewers for helping to turn Netflix into "something incredible."