Dr. Pepper Debate

One of the most infamous anachronisms is Shakespeare having a clock tower chime in Julius Caesar, set in a time period where there of course were no gonging bell towers.  (Sorry, Marty McFly.)  Shakespeare's error was written in 1599.  A more minor one occurred in 2009 on an episode of Mad Men with Dr. Pepper.

Dr. Pepper Cherry 2012

The debate is whether a Dr. Pepper machine could really have been in a hospital waiting room in 1963.  Experts weighed in (because this is a massive question of high cultural importance) and the verdict was it could have been there, although highly unlikely.  The kicker is of course that it doesn't really matter anyway, since Canada Dry, made by Dr. Pepper, was sponsoring Mad Men that season.  They supplied the vintage Dr. Pepper props.  So I guess the unlikelihood was given a little leeway in the name of commercial sponsors.  Which means, of course, that perhaps Billy Shakes didn't make a mistake either; maybe the production of Julius Caesar was sponsored by an Elizabethan clock maker.