99 Fun Facts About 70s and 80s Pop Culture

Which singer's 1978 disco anthem 'I Will Survive' was first released as a B-side?

Gloria Gaynor's 'I Will Survive' was the B-side of 'Substitute' until club DJs flipped the record; it topped the US chart in 1979 and won the only Grammy ever awarded for Best Disco Recording.

Which visionary director helmed the 1982 science fiction blockbuster 'E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial'?

Steven Spielberg directed E.T. from his own idea of an imaginary friend after his parents' divorce; Melissa Mathison wrote the script, and the film overtook Star Wars as the highest-grossing film until Jurassic Park.

Leather-jacketed greaser Arthur 'The Fonz' Fonzarelli was a central character in which 1970s sitcom?

Fonzie, played by Henry Winkler, was a breakout character on 'Happy Days,' a sitcom that initially focused on Richie Cunningham and his family in the 1950s.

Which horror-film veteran speaks the rap on Michael Jackson's 'Thriller'?

Vincent Price recorded the rap in just two takes, reading lines that songwriter Rod Temperton had written in a taxi on the way to the studio.

What 1970s novelty 'pet' came in a cardboard box with straw and breathing holes?

The Pet Rock was dreamed up by advertising executive Gary Dahl in 1975 while friends complained about their pets; each rock came with a training manual for commands like 'sit' and 'stay'.

Which dancers' accessory became mainstream 1980s fashion after the films Fame and Flashdance?

Leg warmers were first worn by ballet dancers to keep their leg muscles warm and stop them cramping; the aerobics craze then helped carry them from studios into everyday 1980s wardrobes.

Which 1975 thriller overcame a constantly failing mechanical star to become the prototypical summer blockbuster?

Jaws was filmed at sea off Martha's Vineyard, where the mechanical sharks kept breaking down, so the film mostly suggests the creature through John Williams's ominous theme; the shoot ran well over budget and schedule.

Which 1985 console revitalized the video game industry after the 1983 crash?

The Nintendo Entertainment System was restyled to look like a video recorder and launched with R.O.B., a toy robot, to win over US retailers who had sworn off games consoles after the crash.

Which comedian hosted her own CBS sketch-and-music variety show from 1967 to 1978?

Carol Burnett closed every episode of The Carol Burnett Show by tugging her ear, a silent signal to the grandmother who raised her; she kept doing it after her grandmother died.

Which band is famously known for their power ballad "Don't Stop Believin'", released in 1981?

Journey released 'Don't Stop Believin'' on the 1981 album Escape; sung by Steve Perry, it reached No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 and found new life through The Sopranos finale and Glee.

Which exclusive New York disco, opened in 1977, became a byword for the era's excess?

Studio 54 opened in April 1977 at 254 West 54th Street, the address that gave it its name; co-owners Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager were jailed for tax evasion in 1980.

Which writer-director defined the 1980s teen film with The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Sixteen Candles?

John Hughes wrote the script for Ferris Bueller's Day Off in less than a week, racing to finish before a looming writers' strike; he went on to write Home Alone.

Which band released 'Bohemian Rhapsody' in 1975?

Queen released 'Bohemian Rhapsody' in October 1975 as the lead single from A Night at the Opera; it spent nine weeks at No. 1 in the UK despite its six-minute length and operatic middle section.

Which 1980s animated series pitted Prince Adam's alter ego against Skeletor?

Masters of the Universe began as a Mattel toy line in 1982, and the He-Man cartoon followed a year later to sell it; each episode closed with a short moral lesson.

Which activity boomed after Frank Nasworthy introduced polyurethane wheels in 1972?

Skateboarding boomed after Frank Nasworthy's Cadillac Wheels replaced hard clay wheels with grippy polyurethane in 1972; Skateboarder magazine relaunched in 1975 and purpose-built skateparks followed.

Which actor voiced Darth Vader in Star Wars (1977) but asked to go uncredited?

James Earl Jones dubbed over David Prowse, the man in the suit, whose West Country accent George Lucas thought wrong for the part; Jones saw his lines as mere 'special effects' and took no credit until 1983.

Which song opened MTV's very first broadcast on August 1, 1981?

Video Killed the Radio Star by The Buggles, a British hit from 1979 that had barely made the US Top 40, opened the channel at 12:01 a.m.; Pat Benatar's 'You Better Run' came second.

Which series ran from 1972 to 1983, eleven years for a three-year war, following an army surgical unit in Korea?

M*A*S*H's fictional 4077th was loosely based on the real 8055th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital of the Korean War.

Which 1977 console found its killer app in a 1980 port of Space Invaders?

The Atari 2600 was sold as the Video Computer System until 1982; its Space Invaders port quadrupled sales of the console, but critics panned the Pac-Man port that followed two years later.

Tom Selleck turned down which film role when CBS would not release him from Magnum, P.I.?

Indiana Jones went to Harrison Ford only weeks before filming on Raiders of the Lost Ark; a Hollywood strike then delayed Magnum, P.I. for months, so Selleck could have made the film after all.

Which group contributed 'Stayin' Alive' and 'Night Fever' to the 1977 Saturday Night Fever soundtrack?

The Bee Gees joined Saturday Night Fever only in post-production: John Travolta had rehearsed his dance scenes to Boz Scaggs and Stevie Wonder. The soundtrack became the best-selling album ever until Thriller.

Which band's 'Hotel California' won the Grammy for Record of the Year in 1978?

The Eagles' 'Hotel California' began as an instrumental demo Don Felder recorded in a rented beach house in Malibu; Don Henley and Glenn Frey added the words, and Felder and Joe Walsh trade its closing guitar solo.

Which 1977 album, made as its band's two couples broke up, sold over 40 million copies and won Album of the Year?

Rumours turned its break-ups into songs: Lindsey Buckingham wrote 'Go Your Own Way' about Stevie Nicks, and her own song about the split, 'Dreams', became Fleetwood Mac's only US No. 1 single.

Which song won the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest for ABBA after they considered entering 'Hasta Mañana' instead?

Waterloo won at the Brighton Dome and launched ABBA worldwide; at Eurovision's fiftieth-anniversary show in 2005 it was voted the best song in the contest's history.

Which 1973 album charted for over 14 years on the Billboard 200 but topped it once?

The Dark Side of the Moon held No. 1 for a single week yet logged 741 weeks on the Billboard 200 by 1988; Pink Floyd took its spoken lines from roadies and Abbey Road staff answering Roger Waters's flashcard questions.

Which trio's 1979 debut 'Rapper's Delight' is credited with bringing rap to a mass audience?

The Sugarhill Gang (Wonder Mike, Big Bank Hank and Master Gee) were assembled by producer Sylvia Robinson; 'Rapper's Delight', built on Chic's 'Good Times' bassline, reached the US Top 40 in 1979-80.

Which producer co-wrote Donna Summer's 1977 hit "I Feel Love", built around a Moog synthesizer?

Giorgio Moroder co-wrote and produced 'I Feel Love' with Pete Bellotte for Summer's album I Remember Yesterday, whose closing track was meant to sound like 'the future'; Brian Eno called it the sound of the future.

Which punk band split after just one studio album?

Sex Pistols singer Johnny Rotten quit after the last show of a chaotic US tour, in San Francisco in January 1978, signing off 'Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?'; Never Mind the Bollocks was under three months old.

Which duo's 'Bridge over Troubled Water' swept the 1971 Grammys?

Simon & Garfunkel had already split by the time 'Bridge over Troubled Water' swept the 1971 Grammys; Paul Simon wrote it but gave the lead vocal to Art Garfunkel, a choice he came to regret.

Which president did Elvis Presley ask for a federal narcotics badge?

Richard Nixon received Elvis at the White House on 21 December 1970 after the singer wrote offering to become a 'Federal Agent-at-Large' against drugs; in the Oval Office he said he could get through to the hippies.

Elton John recorded Goodbye Yellow Brick Road at the château behind his album title Honky Château, in which country?

After the Jamaica sessions collapsed amid a bad piano, the Frazier-Foreman fight in Kingston and unrest, Elton John recorded Goodbye Yellow Brick Road at the Château d'Hérouville in France, where it grew into a double LP.

Live Aid on 13 July 1985 was staged simultaneously at Wembley in London and which US venue?

Live Aid's American half was at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia; billed as the 'global jukebox', it grew out of the Band Aid single, and Phil Collins played both venues by taking Concorde across the Atlantic.

Which 1984 film soundtrack held No. 1 on the Billboard 200 for 24 consecutive weeks?

Purple Rain held the top spot from August 1984 into January 1985; three of its songs, the title track among them, were recorded live at an August 1983 show at First Avenue, the Minneapolis venue seen in the film.

a-ha, whose 'Take On Me' topped the US chart in 1985 with a pencil-sketch video, come from which country?

a-ha formed in Oslo, Norway, in 1982; Steve Barron's 'Take On Me' video used rotoscoping to trace live footage frame by frame, and the band had moved to London in 1983 to chase a record deal.

Which hip-hop group's 1986 collaboration with Aerosmith on 'Walk This Way' revived the rockers' career?

Run-D.M.C.'s version, on the album Raising Hell, had a video with the two bands breaking through a wall between their studios; Aerosmith had first charted the song in the 70s.

Which U2 album, produced by Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno, won the Grammy for Album of the Year in 1988?

The Joshua Tree got its title on a December 1986 photo shoot in the California desert, where photographer Anton Corbijn told U2 about the hardy yucca and suggested it for the sleeve; Bono adopted the name.

Whose 1986 album Licensed to Ill was the first rap LP to reach number one on the Billboard 200?

The Beastie Boys were booed night after night as the support act on Madonna's first tour in 1985; two years later Licensed to Ill, produced by Rick Rubin, topped the Billboard 200.

Which charity single did Band Aid record?

Do They Know It's Christmas? was written by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure after Geldof saw BBC reports on the famine in Ethiopia; it was recorded at Sarm West Studios on 25 November 1984 and led to Live Aid the following July.

Whose self-titled 1985 debut became the first debut album to produce three US number-one singles?

Whitney Houston's 1985 debut started slowly, then spent fourteen weeks at No. 1 in 1986 as 'Saving All My Love for You', 'How Will I Know' and 'Greatest Love of All' each topped the Hot 100.

Which 1987 debut album took off a year later on 'Welcome to the Jungle' and 'Sweet Child o' Mine'?

Appetite for Destruction sold slowly while MTV refused to air 'Welcome to the Jungle'; once Geffen Records talked the channel into a trial airing, it became MTV's most requested video and the album climbed to No. 1.

Which 1984 single, written by Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg, gave Madonna her first US number one?

'Like a Virgin' topped the Hot 100 for six weeks from December 1984; that September Madonna had sung it at the first MTV Video Music Awards in a wedding dress, rolling across the stage.

Which George Michael album won Album of the Year at the 1989 Grammys?

Faith was George Michael's first solo album after Wham!: he wrote and produced almost every track himself and played many of the instruments, and four of its singles reached No. 1 in the US.

Which company launched the Walkman portable cassette player in 1979?

Sony built the Walkman in 1979 after co-founder Masaru Ibuka asked for a way to hear music on long flights; early exports were sold as the Sound-about in the US and the Stowaway in Britain before the Japanese name won out.

The Rubik's Cube, released worldwide in 1980, was invented in 1974 by a professor from which country?

Ernő Rubik, a sculptor and architecture professor in Budapest, Hungary, invented the puzzle in 1974 and called it the Magic Cube; Ideal Toy licensed it and renamed it Rubik's Cube in 1980.

Which toys, each sold with adoption papers, set off store riots in the 1983 holiday season?

Cabbage Patch Kids grew out of Xavier Roberts's handmade Little People dolls; Coleco signed up to mass-produce them in 1982 and could not keep up with demand a year later.

Under what title was Pac-Man originally released in Japan in May 1980?

Namco released the maze game in Japan as Puck Man in May 1980; it was renamed Pac-Man for its North American release through Midway in October 1980, partly to stop vandals altering the P on cabinets.

The 1980 "Who shot J.R.?" cliffhanger belonged to which prime-time soap opera?

Dallas ended its third season in March 1980 with J.R. Ewing shot; the November 1980 episode revealing Kristin Shepard as the shooter drew about 83 million US viewers, one of the biggest TV audiences ever.

In early drafts of Back to the Future, which household appliance served as the time machine?

A refrigerator was dropped because the film's executive producer feared children might climb inside one to copy it; Robert Zemeckis then picked the DeLorean, whose gull-wing doors could pass for a spaceship in 1955.

Mork & Mindy, starring Robin Williams as an alien, was set in which Colorado city?

Mork & Mindy was set in Boulder, Colorado, with a real house on Pine Street as Mindy's home; Robin Williams had first played Mork as a one-off guest in another sitcom, and the response won him his own show.

The sitcom Cheers (1982-93) was set in a bar in which American city?

Cheers was set in Boston, with the real Bull & Finch Pub on Beacon Street as its exterior; the sitcom finished near the bottom of the ratings in its first season and was almost cancelled, then ran for eleven.

In The Cosby Show, the Huxtable family lived in a brownstone in which New York borough?

The Huxtables lived in Brooklyn Heights at the fictional address 10 Stigwood Avenue, but the facade shown on screen was a townhouse at 10 St. Luke's Place in Manhattan's Greenwich Village.

Which character did Don Johnson play in Miami Vice?

Don Johnson played Detective James 'Sonny' Crockett, partner of Philip Michael Thomas's Rico Tubbs; his sockless loafers, T-shirt and pastel jacket became a fashion template, and he lived on a sailboat with a pet alligator named Elvis.

Who sang the chart-topping theme song from the 1984 film Ghostbusters?

Ray Parker Jr.'s 'Ghostbusters' spent three weeks at No. 1 in August 1984 and earned an Oscar nomination; Huey Lewis later sued over its resemblance to 'I Want a New Drug'.

The Simpsons first appeared in 1987 as animated shorts on which TV series?

The Simpsons debuted as shorts on The Tracey Ullman Show in April 1987; Dan Castellaneta and Julie Kavner were already in that show's cast, which is how they became Homer and Marge.

In Grease (1978), Danny and Sandy attend which high school?

Rydell High was named after Bobby Rydell, a real teen idol of the years the story is set in; its school dance goes out live on the TV show National Bandstand, and exteriors were shot at Venice High School in Los Angeles.

Who hosted the very first episode of Saturday Night Live in October 1975?

George Carlin hosted the 11 October 1975 premiere, then titled NBC's Saturday Night, but appeared in none of its sketches, performing stand-up monologues between them instead.

After US networks passed, The Muppet Show (1976-81) was taped at Elstree Studios in which country?

England's ATV Elstree Studios in Borehamwood hosted all 120 episodes because British producer Lew Grade agreed to back the show after the American networks had turned Jim Henson down.

Which Japanese company developed the 1978 arcade hit Space Invaders?

Taito's Tomohiro Nishikado spent a year designing both the game and its hardware, drawing on Breakout, The War of the Worlds and Star Wars; Midway licensed Space Invaders for North America.

In the 1981 arcade game Donkey Kong, what was the hero later renamed Mario first called?

The hero was called Jumpman in Donkey Kong's materials before being renamed Mario after Nintendo of America's landlord, Mario Segale; designer Shigeru Miyamoto drew on Popeye and King Kong.

Alexey Pajitnov created Tetris while working at a computing centre in which country?

Pajitnov wrote Tetris in Pascal on an Elektronika 60 at the Soviet Union's Academy of Sciences Computing Centre in Moscow; the machine had no graphics, so the blocks were drawn with brackets.

Who directed Apple's '1984' Macintosh commercial, shown during Super Bowl XVIII?

Ridley Scott, fresh from Blade Runner, cast athlete Anya Major as the hammer-thrower; the ad had just one national airing, and George Orwell's estate sent Apple a cease-and-desist letter that April.

Who played Dr Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), his film debut?

Tim Curry had played Frank-N-Furter in the original 1973 London stage production; most of that cast came to the film, and he declined to return for the proposed sequel Rocky Horror Shows His Heels.

In 1985 Wham! became the first Western pop group to tour which country?

China let Wham! play Beijing's Workers' Gymnasium and a second show in Canton in April 1985; manager Simon Napier-Bell devised the visit as a publicity coup, and director Lindsay Anderson filmed it.

'Karma Chameleon', the best-selling UK single of 1983, was a hit for which band?

Culture Club's 'Karma Chameleon' was Boy George's warning against trying to please everybody: if you don't act like you feel, he said, you get 'karma-justice'. It spent six weeks at No. 1 in the UK.

In Dirty Dancing (1987), what is the name of the Catskills resort where Baby spends the summer?

Kellerman's, run by Max Kellerman, is a Catskills resort only on screen: the film was shot hundreds of miles south, at Lake Lure in North Carolina and at Mountain Lake in Virginia.

Which band performed 'Take My Breath Away', the Oscar-winning song from Top Gun (1986)?

Berlin, a Los Angeles new-wave band fronted by Terri Nunn, took 'Take My Breath Away' to No. 1 in the US and saw it win the Oscar for Best Original Song in 1987, the same year the band broke up.

Which 1981 Blondie number one name-checks Fab 5 Freddy and Grandmaster Flash?

'Rapture' was the first US No. 1 single to feature rap vocals; Fab 5 Freddy had introduced Debbie Harry and Chris Stein to the Bronx hip-hop scene, and he appears in the video.

Which 1984 album produced seven US top-ten singles?

Born in the U.S.A. matched the seven top-ten singles of Michael Jackson's Thriller; the first, 'Dancing in the Dark', was written overnight after manager Jon Landau told Bruce Springsteen the album still lacked a hit.

Drummer Rick Allen lost his left arm in a 1984 car crash but kept playing with which band?

Rick Allen stayed with Def Leppard, returning at the 1986 Monsters of Rock festival at Castle Donington on an electronic kit whose foot pedals triggered the parts his left arm used to play; Hysteria followed in 1987.

Which 1984 single was Van Halen's only US number one?

'Jump' topped the Hot 100 for five weeks in early 1984, built on an Oberheim OB-Xa synthesizer riff Eddie Van Halen had pushed for years before David Lee Roth agreed to sing on it.

Whose 1983 debut, with 'Time After Time', made her the first woman with four US top-five hits from one album?

Cyndi Lauper's album She's So Unusual also sent 'Girls Just Want to Have Fun', 'She Bop' and 'All Through the Night' into the top five; her own mother and wrestler Captain Lou Albano played her parents in the first one's video.

Which British band topped the US chart in 1985 with 'Shout'?

Tears for Fears were Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith, who met as boys in Bath; the name came from Arthur Janov's primal therapy, and the album title Songs from the Big Chair from the TV film Sybil.

The Carrington family of the prime-time soap Dynasty lived in which US city?

Dynasty's Carringtons were Denver oil millionaires; Aaron Spelling produced the show, and Joan Collins's Alexis arrived in the second season, driving it to No. 1 in the ratings for 1984-85.

Which A-Team character did Mr. T play?

Mr. T played Sergeant Bosco 'B.A.' Baracus, the team's mechanic with a fear of flying; the part was written for him after his turn as Clubber Lang in Rocky III, where 'I pity the fool' originated.

Which actor played Louie De Palma, the tyrannical dispatcher in the sitcom Taxi (1978-83)?

Danny DeVito won the part by opening his audition with an insult about the script and throwing it on the table; his Louie then bullied the drivers of the Sunshine Cab Company from a caged-in dispatch office.

Three's Company (1977-84) was an American remake of which British sitcom?

Three's Company adapted Thames Television's Man About the House (1973-76); the American show copied its spin-offs too — The Ropers mirrored George and Mildred, and Three's a Crowd mirrored Robin's Nest.

George Jefferson's fortune in The Jeffersons came from a chain of what kind of business?

Dry cleaners: the success of George's chain, Jefferson Cleaners, let the family 'move on up' from Queens to a Manhattan high-rise; the show was the second spin-off of All in the Family, after Maude, and the longest-running.

John Travolta's breakthrough role was which Sweathog in Welcome Back, Kotter?

Travolta's Vinnie Barbarino was the cocky leader of the Sweathogs at James Buchanan High in Bensonhurst; by the show's final season in 1979 he was already a film star after Saturday Night Fever and Grease.

Who played Tattoo, the assistant who shouted 'De plane!' at each new arrival on Fantasy Island?

Hervé Villechaize was dropped before the final season after demanding pay equal to Ricardo Montalbán's; his replacement, a butler named Lawrence, rang the bell by pressing a button instead of climbing the tower.

Who played motorcycle cop 'Ponch' Poncherello in CHiPs?

Erik Estrada played Frank 'Ponch' Poncherello alongside Larry Wilcox's Jon Baker; the two did much of their own riding, and Estrada held out in 1981 over syndication money, with Bruce Jenner filling in.

Trivial Pursuit, a 1980s craze, was invented in 1979 by two journalists from which country?

Canada was home to both men: Chris Haney, a photo editor at Montreal's Gazette, and Scott Abbott, a sports editor at The Canadian Press, devised the game in Montreal in December 1979, by most accounts over a game of Scrabble.

Which company launched the electronic memory game Simon in 1978?

Milton Bradley launched Simon in 1978 after Ralph Baer and Howard Morrison reworked Atari's arcade game Touch Me, which Baer thought a nice idea badly executed; its four tones were modelled on the notes of a bugle.

In Alien (1979), what is the name of the commercial space tug whose crew is hunted?

The Nostromo's seven-person crew was travelling in stasis with the ship's cat, Jones, when it was diverted to LV-426; Ripley blows the vessel up and escapes in its shuttle, the Narcissus.

Which 1973 film was the first horror movie nominated for the Best Picture Oscar?

The Exorcist left some viewers fainting or vomiting in their seats, and several cities tried to ban it; it still earned ten Oscar nominations and won two, for its screenplay and its sound.

Which Woody Allen film beat Star Wars to the Best Picture Oscar for 1977?

Annie Hall began as a murder mystery with a romantic subplot and was reshaped in the editing room into the love story that beat Star Wars to Best Picture; Diane Keaton won Best Actress.

Atari's Pong (1972) copied a table-tennis game found on which early home console?

Nolan Bushnell played the Magnavox Odyssey's table-tennis game at a Burlingame, California, dealer demonstration in May 1972; Magnavox later sued Atari for patent infringement and Atari settled.

Disco Demolition Night, the 1979 record-burning riot, took place at which ballpark?

At Comiskey Park on 12 July 1979, Steve Dahl's stunt of blowing up disco records drew a field invasion so destructive that the White Sox forfeited the second game of the doubleheader to the Tigers.

The 1977 miniseries Roots, which followed Kunta Kinte, was based on a novel by whom?

Alex Haley won a special Pulitzer Prize for Roots in 1977, but the next year he paid Harold Courlander $650,000 to settle a claim that passages came from Courlander's novel The African.

The furry sitcom alien ALF crash-landed on Earth from which planet?

ALF, real name Gordon Shumway, came from Melmac, which blew up in a nuclear war; he survived because he was away with the Orbit Guard, and he crash-landed in the Tanners' garage.

Outside which Manhattan apartment building was John Lennon shot in December 1980?

Lennon was shot in the archway of the Dakota, at 72nd Street and Central Park West, on 8 December 1980; Mark David Chapman, who had got him to sign Double Fantasy that afternoon, fired five shots, four of which hit.

Whose 1981 hit 'Bette Davis Eyes', first recorded by Jackie DeShannon, spent nine weeks at US number one?

Kim Carnes's version won Grammys for Record and Song of the Year; Bette Davis, then 73, wrote to thank her and the songwriters for the hit.

Which synth-pop duo's 1981 hit 'Tainted Love' was a cover of a Gloria Jones B-side from the 1960s?

Soft Cell's Marc Almond and David Ball knew the song from Britain's Northern soul clubs, where Gloria Jones's flop B-side had become a dance-floor favourite years after its release.

Which Village People single topped the UK chart but stalled at No. 2 in the US?

Y.M.C.A. was kept from the US top spot by Chic and Rod Stewart; its arm-spelling dance began with the studio audience when the group played American Bandstand in January 1979.

Which Frankie Goes to Hollywood single hit UK number one after a BBC ban?

Relax was already climbing when Radio 1 DJ Mike Read complained on air about its lyrics and sleeve; the BBC ban that followed helped it to No. 1, where it stayed for five weeks.

Airplane! (1980) lifted its plot from which 1957 drama its writers had taped off TV?

Zero Hour!, a 1957 drama co-written by Arthur Hailey, supplied Airplane!'s plot almost scene for scene; its three writers taped it by chance while recording late-night TV for the commercials, then bought the remake rights for about $2,500.

Which 1980s police drama made a catchphrase of its roll-call sign-off, 'Let's be careful out there'?

Hill Street Blues gave the line to Sergeant Phil Esterhaus, played by Michael Conrad; after Conrad died during the fourth season the roll call passed to other sergeants, and the show went on to win 26 Emmys.

Which cartoon heroes began in 1984 as a self-published black-and-white comic?

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles began as a single issue from Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird's own Mirage Studios, paid for with a tax refund and a loan from Eastman's uncle; the children's cartoon followed in December 1987.

Which future prime-time soap star voiced the unseen Charlie Townsend in Charlie's Angels?

John Forsythe was a last-minute stand-in: first choice Gig Young was too drunk to read his lines, so producer Aaron Spelling called in Forsythe to voice the unseen boss instead.

In Footloose (1984), Ren McCormack moves from Chicago to which small town that has banned dancing?

Bomont is the fictional town where Reverend Shaw Moore, played by John Lithgow, has had dancing banned; the students get around it by holding their prom in a grain mill just over the county line.