147 Fun Facts About Entertainment

Which film won the very first Academy Award for Best Picture, at the 1929 ceremony?

Wings took Outstanding Picture at the first ceremony in May 1929; a second top prize, Unique and Artistic Picture, went to Sunrise that night and was dropped the following year.

Which 1937 release was the first cel-animated feature film produced in the United States?

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was nicknamed 'Disney's Folly' during its long, costly production; on release in December 1937 it was an immediate box-office sensation.

Who hosted NBC's The Tonight Show from 1962 to 1992?

Johnny Carson took over from Jack Paar in October 1962; when he retired in May 1992, NBC gave the desk to Jay Leno, which began Leno's long rivalry with David Letterman.

Which song opened MTV's broadcast on its first day in 1981?

Video Killed the Radio Star by the Buggles, a 1979 single, followed the words 'Ladies and gentlemen, rock and roll' when MTV went on air just after midnight on 1 August 1981.

Which album is the best-selling of all time worldwide?

Thriller, Michael Jackson's 1982 album, has sold more than 65 million copies; its title track almost stayed off the singles list because his label saw a song about monsters as a novelty.

Which show signed off in 1983 with the most-watched US series finale ever?

M*A*S*H ran for 11 seasons, far longer than the three-year Korean War it depicted; its finale, Goodbye, Farewell and Amen, drew about 106 million viewers on 28 February 1983.

Smells Like Teen Spirit was the lead single from which 1991 Nirvana album?

Nevermind, Nirvana's second album, was expected by its label to sell about 250,000 copies; in January 1992 it knocked Michael Jackson's Dangerous off the top of the Billboard 200.

Which 1995 release was the first feature-length computer-animated film?

Toy Story nearly died in November 1993, when Disney halted production over a story reel in which Woody had become, in Tom Hanks's words, 'a real jerk'; Pixar rewrote the script.

Which series holds the record as the longest-running American scripted primetime television show?

The Simpsons passed Gunsmoke's 635 episodes in April 2018; its family never ages, so Bart has stayed ten years old since the series began on Fox in December 1989.

Stranger Things takes place in the fictional town of Hawkins, in which state?

Hawkins is a fictional town in Indiana; the 1980s-set series was shot mainly around Atlanta, with Jackson, Georgia standing in for the town's main street.

Which film was the first non-English-language winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture?

Parasite won four Oscars in February 2020, including Best Director for Bong Joon-ho, although no South Korean film had ever been nominated for an Academy Award before it.

Which Broadway composer became the first person to win an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony?

Richard Rodgers completed the set in 1962 with an Emmy for scoring a Winston Churchill documentary series; the word EGOT came only in 1984, coined by actor Philip Michael Thomas.

Bohemian Rhapsody was the lead single from which Queen album?

A Night at the Opera, named after a Marx Brothers film, held a single that executives called too long at 5 minutes 55 seconds, until DJ Kenny Everett played it 14 times in two days.

Which director earned five Best Director Oscar nominations without ever winning the award?

Alfred Hitchcock was nominated for Rebecca, Lifeboat, Spellbound, Rear Window and Psycho but never won; Rebecca took Best Picture in 1941, and he received only the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award in 1968.

Which film matched Ben-Hur's record of 11 Academy Awards at the 1998 ceremony?

Titanic won 11 of its 14 nominations in March 1998, yet none for acting: Kate Winslet and Gloria Stuart, both nominated for playing Rose, went home empty-handed.

Adjusted for inflation, which 1939 film is the highest-grossing movie in history?

Gone with the Wind tops inflation-adjusted box-office lists; producer David O. Selznick's long public search for Scarlett O'Hara ended with Vivien Leigh, an English actress little known in America.

James Cameron's Avatar is set on which lush habitable moon?

Pandora is a moon in the Alpha Centauri system; Cameron wrote an 80-page treatment in 1994 but waited years for effects technology to catch up with what he had imagined.

The Beatles' first live US TV performance in 1964, seen by 73 million, was on which programme?

The Ed Sullivan Show had some 50,000 ticket requests for a 728-seat studio; manager Brian Epstein had accepted a minimal fee in return for top billing across three shows.

Which sitcom was pitched to NBC in 1993 under the title Insomnia Cafe?

Friends was pitched as Insomnia Cafe and scripted as Friends Like Us; ABC's sitcom These Friends of Mine was later renamed Ellen to avoid confusion with it.

Which series holds the drama record of 59 Primetime Emmy wins?

Game of Thrones won 59 Primetime Emmys over eight seasons, but Peter Dinklage, a four-time winner as Tyrion Lannister, was the only member of its cast ever to take one home.

Who co-created the NBC sitcom Seinfeld, 'a show about nothing', with Jerry Seinfeld?

Larry David wrote himself into the show: George Costanza was based largely on him, and he also supplied the voice of Yankees owner George Steinbrenner.

Which musical earned a record 16 Tony nominations in 2016?

Hamilton's 16 nominations passed the 15 shared by The Producers and Billy Elliot, but its 11 wins fell one short of the 12 The Producers took in 2001.

Which musical is the longest-running show in Broadway history and the first to reach 10,000 performances?

Phantom of the Opera passed 10,000 Broadway performances in February 2012; when its closing was announced, attendance surged and the last night was pushed back to April 2023, after 13,981.

Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats is based on a 1939 poetry collection by which writer?

T. S. Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (1939) supplied the Jellicle cats and most of the lyrics; his widow Valerie gave Lloyd Webber permission and the unpublished Grizabella fragment.

Which author sold Paramount the screen rights to The Godfather before he had finished writing it?

Mario Puzo took a $12,500 option on his unfinished manuscript, rising to $80,000 if it was filmed, against his agent's advice; by producer Robert Evans's account, he had gambling debts to pay.

Which actress holds the record for the most Academy Award nominations of any performer?

Meryl Streep had 21 nominations as of 2025; she won her first Oscar for Kramer vs. Kramer after pushing to rewrite her character's courtroom testimony.

Who holds the record for the most Academy Awards won by an individual, with 22?

Walt Disney won 22 competitive Academy Awards from 59 nominations, plus honorary awards including one in 1932 for creating Mickey Mouse, whom he voiced himself until 1947.

Which actress won a record four Academy Awards for Best Actress?

Katharine Hepburn won for Morning Glory, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, The Lion in Winter and On Golden Pond, yet her only appearance at the ceremony came in 1974, as a presenter.

Which Netflix series follows 456 debt-ridden contestants through deadly versions of children's playground pastimes?

Squid Game's 456 players chase a prize of 45.6 billion won; Hwang Dong-hyuk wrote the story in 2009 and found no backer for about ten years, until Netflix took it on.

Breaking Bad is set and was filmed in which city?

Albuquerque, New Mexico, is both setting and filming location; early scripts were set in Riverside, California, until the studio suggested New Mexico for its favourable financial terms.

Which 1950s sitcom was the first US show to end its run at the top of the ratings?

I Love Lucy was America's most-watched show in four of its six seasons and bowed out on top in 1957; its rebroadcasts drew such audiences that they effectively gave birth to the rerun.

Pac-Man designer Toru Iwatani has said the character's shape was inspired by what?

A pizza with a slice removed is Iwatani's best-known account, though he has also said he rounded out the Japanese character for mouth; he wanted a game that would appeal to women as well as men.

Tetris was created in the mid-1980s by a software engineer from which country?

The Soviet Union's Alexey Pajitnov wrote Tetris in his spare time on an Elektronika 60 at a Moscow computing centre of the Academy of Sciences; floppy copies spread freely before it reached the West.

The Oprah Winfrey Show was broadcast for 25 years from which city?

Chicago is where Winfrey took over the low-rated AM Chicago in 1984 and lifted it from last place to first within months; it went national in 1986, later from Harpo Studios, her first name spelled backwards.

Which TV personality created Jeopardy!?

Merv Griffin created Jeopardy! in 1964 after his wife Julann suggested giving contestants the answers, and wrote its Think! theme; Art Fleming hosted first and Alex Trebek took over the syndicated show in 1984.

Only Big Bird saw which Sesame Street character for years?

Mr. Snuffleupagus always shuffled off just before the grown-ups arrived, so they teased Big Bird about his imaginary friend until they finally met him in 1985.

Which 2012 song became the first YouTube video to reach one billion views?

Gangnam Style passed one billion views on 21 December 2012; two years later YouTube said it had outgrown the site's 32-bit view counter, which topped out at 2,147,483,647, and moved to 64 bits.

Which song became the first YouTube video to pass 10 billion views, in 2022?

Baby Shark by Pinkfong passed 10 billion views in January 2022, having already overtaken Despacito as YouTube's most-viewed video in November 2020; the tune is a campfire song decades older than the video.

Which Canadian pop star joined Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee on the 2017 remix of 'Despacito'?

Justin Bieber asked to record a remix after hearing the song in a Colombian nightclub on tour, and sang in Spanish for the first time; it tied the Hot 100 record of the day with 16 weeks at No. 1.

The Sound of Music (1965) is set in which Austrian city?

Salzburg supplied locations such as Mirabell Gardens and Nonnberg Abbey; the real von Trapps did not climb over the Alps to Switzerland but simply left Austria by train for Italy.

Who directed Barbie (2023), co-writing it with her husband Noah Baumbach?

Greta Gerwig directed and co-wrote Barbie, which became 2023's highest-grossing film; Amy Schumer and then Anne Hathaway had been attached before the rights moved to Warner Bros. and Margot Robbie was cast.

Who won the first season of American Idol in 2002?

Kelly Clarkson beat Justin Guarini in the September 2002 final; her winner's single, A Moment Like This, then broke a 38-year-old Beatles record for the biggest leap to No. 1 on the Hot 100.

Survivor started life as Expedition Robinson, a 1997 show from which country?

Sweden's Expedition Robinson was the first version to reach television, although the format had been devised by British producer Charlie Parsons for a UK company; the US show followed on CBS in 2000.

Elvis Presley was born in Tupelo in which state?

Mississippi: Elvis was born in a small shotgun house in Tupelo in January 1935; the family left for Memphis, Tennessee, when he was 13, and he first recorded for Sun Records there in 1954.

Which 2019 film was the highest-grossing ever until a 2021 Chinese re-release of Avatar overtook it?

Avengers: Endgame took the record in 2019, helped by a June re-release with seven minutes of new post-credits footage; Avatar reclaimed it when it returned to Chinese cinemas in March 2021.

Which singer's 2011 album spent 24 weeks atop the Billboard 200, the most by a woman?

Adele named the album 21 after her age while she was making it, as she had with her debut, 19; she later called it her break-up record.

The Doctor's time machine in Doctor Who, the TARDIS, is disguised as what?

A British police box, the blue street kiosk common in 1960s London, is the TARDIS's fixed disguise because its chameleon circuit broke; TARDIS stands for Time And Relative Dimension In Space.

Which two producers founded Eon Productions in 1961 and launched James Bond with Dr. No?

Albert R. 'Cubby' Broccoli and Harry Saltzman formed Eon in 1961 and produced Dr. No in 1962 with Sean Connery; Saltzman sold his stake in 1975, and Broccoli's heirs Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli later ran the company.

Which Estes Park, Colorado, landmark inspired Stephen King's The Shining?

The Stanley Hotel put up King and his wife in 1974 as its only guests, the night before it closed for the winter; its empty corridors became the Overlook, and the 1997 miniseries was filmed there.

The mechanical shark in Jaws was nicknamed 'Bruce' after Spielberg's what?

Lawyer Bruce Ramer, Spielberg's attorney, lent the shark his name; the three pneumatic props malfunctioned so often that Spielberg chose mostly to suggest the shark instead of showing it.

The US version of The Office is set at a Dunder Mifflin branch in which city?

Scranton is real: John Krasinski visited the Pennsylvania city before filming and interviewed employees at actual paper companies.

Cheers bar owner Sam Malone was a former relief pitcher for which team?

Sam 'Mayday' Malone pitched in relief for the Boston Red Sox before drinking ended his career; Ted Danson's recovering alcoholic running a bar was a contradiction the show mined for eleven seasons.

How does the final scene of The Sopranos famously end?

It cuts to black mid-scene in Holsten's diner while Journey's Don't Stop Believin' plays; days after the June 2007 finale, creator David Chase said he had no interest in explaining or adding to what is there.

Oceanic Flight 815 crashes on a mysterious island in the opening episode of which series?

Lost opened with a pilot costing more than $10 million, the most expensive made up to then; Lloyd Braun, the ABC chief who conceived and approved it, was forced out soon afterwards.

David Simon's The Wire is set and was produced in which US city?

Baltimore: Simon had spent years as a police reporter at The Baltimore Sun, and each season examines a different institution in the city, from the port to the schools.

Agent Dale Cooper investigates whose murder in Twin Peaks?

Laura Palmer's body, found wrapped in plastic, opens the 1990 pilot; David Lynch wanted the mystery left open and blamed network pressure for naming her killer midway through season two.

Dairy farmer Michael Eavis charged £1, free milk included, at the 1970 start of which British festival?

Glastonbury began on Eavis's Worthy Farm the day after Jimi Hendrix died, with about 1,500 people; he had been inspired by the Bath blues festival a few months earlier.

Michael Jackson first performed the moonwalk on TV in 1983 during which song?

Billie Jean, an Epic release, was the only non-Motown song performed on the Motown 25 special, taped in March 1983 and aired that May; the moonwalk came midway through it.

Which song won ABBA the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest in Brighton?

Waterloo won at the Brighton Dome on 6 April 1974; the BBC was hosting only because Luxembourg, the winner two years running, declined to stage the contest again.

Live Aid in 1985 was staged at Wembley Stadium and a stadium in which US city?

Philadelphia's JFK Stadium hosted the American half on 13 July 1985; Phil Collins played both shows, flying by Concorde from London after his Wembley set to perform again that day.

Who directed and produced the original Super Mario Bros. for Nintendo in 1985?

Shigeru Miyamoto had created Mario for Donkey Kong, where the building-site setting made him a carpenter; he became a plumber in Mario Bros. because so much of that game takes place underground.

Which title is the best-selling video game of all time?

Minecraft began as Markus Persson's own project, first shown publicly in May 2009; by 2023 it had sold more than 300 million copies, and Microsoft had paid $2.5 billion for his studio, Mojang.

The Legend of Zelda games take place mainly in which fantasy kingdom?

Hyrule is the kingdom Link fights to save from Ganon, who covets the wish-granting Triforce; Princess Zelda gives the series its name but did not lead a main game herself until Echoes of Wisdom in 2024.

Which 1978 Taito arcade hit was designed by Tomohiro Nishikado?

Space Invaders ran on custom hardware Nishikado designed himself; he drew on Breakout, The War of the Worlds and Star Wars, and kept the invaders' speed-up as their ranks thin, an effect he had not planned.

Julie Taymor became the first woman to win the Tony for directing a musical with which Disney show?

The Lion King reached Broadway in October 1997; Taymor also designed its costumes and co-designed the masks and puppets herself, and took a second Tony that night for the costumes.

The musical Wicked is loosely based on a 1995 novel by which author?

Gregory Maguire retold Oz from the witch's side and named her Elphaba after the sound of the original author's initials, L. F. B.; Stephen Schwartz's musical followed in 2003.

Who is the youngest person ever to win a competitive Academy Award, aged ten?

Tatum O'Neal was 10 when she won Best Supporting Actress for Paper Moon in April 1974, acting opposite Ryan O'Neal, her real-life dad, and beating her own co-star Madeline Kahn to the award.

Anthony Hopkins became the oldest acting Oscar winner in 2021 for which film?

The Father won Hopkins Best Actor at 83 for playing a man with dementia; he was not at the ceremony, which ended abruptly when his name was read out as the night's final award.

Which film actually won Best Picture in 2017 after La La Land was wrongly announced?

Moonlight, Barry Jenkins's film, won after Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway had been handed a duplicate Best Actress envelope naming Emma Stone for La La Land, whose producers were mid-speech when the error surfaced.

Losing his home in the 1991 Oakland firestorm helped inspire Will Wright to create which game?

The Sims took shape as Wright replaced everything he owned, from toothpaste and socks to furniture, and began asking what people actually need.

In E.T., Elliott lures the alien home with a trail of which candy?

Reese's Pieces got the part after Mars declined to let M&M's be used; Hershey agreed, and sales of the candy reportedly jumped sharply after the film's 1982 release.

Which film was the first sequel to win the Academy Award for Best Picture?

The Godfather Part II won in April 1975; Robert De Niro, speaking almost entirely in Sicilian, took an Oscar as the young Vito Corleone, the role that had already won one for Marlon Brando.

Which film won every one of its 11 Oscar nominations, the biggest clean sweep ever?

The Return of the King went 11 for 11 at the 2004 ceremony, passing the nine-for-nine sweeps of Gigi and The Last Emperor, yet not one of its nominations was for acting.

Which 2008 film was the first in the Marvel Cinematic Universe?

Iron Man's cast made up much of their own dialogue on set, because pre-production had gone on story and action; a post-credits cameo by Nick Fury hinted at a bigger universe to come.

Heath Ledger won a posthumous Oscar for playing which character?

The Joker's voice came out of weeks Ledger spent shut away in a hotel room, keeping a diary in character; he died in January 2008, six months before The Dark Knight reached cinemas.

SpongeBob creator Stephen Hillenburg worked in which field before animation?

Marine biology was Hillenburg's first career: he taught at the Ocean Institute in Dana Point, California, where he drew The Intertidal Zone, a comic about tide-pool creatures that evolved into the show.

Which voice actor first asked 'What's up, doc?' as Bugs Bunny in the 1940 short A Wild Hare?

Mel Blanc voiced Bugs in A Wild Hare, the Tex Avery short in which the rabbit's definitive character debuted; Avery said the line was just a common expression in his native Texas.

Scooby-Doo is a talking dog of which breed?

Great Dane: designer Iwao Takamoto took notes from a colleague who bred the dogs, then gave Scooby the opposite of a show winner, with bow legs, a sloping chin and a sloped back.

Studio 8H at 30 Rockefeller Plaza has been home to which show since 1975?

Saturday Night Live broadcasts from what was the world's largest radio studio when it was built in 1933; it housed Arturo Toscanini's NBC Symphony Orchestra before being converted for television in 1950.

Johnny Logan, the first performer to win Eurovision twice, represented which country in 1980 and 1987?

Ireland's Johnny Logan won as a singer in 1980 and 1987 and wrote the 1992 winner for Linda Martin; no other performer won twice until Loreen in 2023.

Who created and presented the original Twilight Zone anthology series on CBS?

Rod Serling wrote or co-wrote 92 of its 156 episodes; tired of networks and sponsors editing his realistic plays, he reckoned a science-fiction setting would let controversial ideas through.

What is the registry number of the USS Enterprise in the original Star Trek?

NCC-1701 is painted on the saucer of the Constitution-class starship; Gene Roddenberry's series ran only three seasons from 1966, but syndication turned it into a lasting franchise.

In the Cheers spin-off Frasier, Dr. Crane hosts a radio show in which city?

Seattle put Frasier about as far from the Cheers bar as the producers could get, so that NBC could not demand guest spots for the old cast; there he gives advice on KACL radio.

Which Elton John single is the best-selling in UK chart history?

Candle in the Wind 1997, rewritten from a tribute to Marilyn Monroe for Princess Diana's funeral, has sold over 4.9 million copies in the UK; Elton John has sung it in public only once, at that service.

Who wrote and first recorded 'I Will Always Love You', later a Whitney Houston smash?

Dolly Parton wrote it in 1973 as a farewell to mentor Porter Wagoner when she left his show, and declined Elvis's request because Colonel Parker wanted half the publishing; it topped the country chart in 1974.

Which musician was awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature?

Bob Dylan was cited 'for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition'; he skipped the December ceremony, sent a speech, and delivered his Nobel lecture by audio in June 2017.

Which Agatha Christie play holds the record for the longest run of any play in the world?

The Mousetrap opened in London in November 1952 and passed 25,000 performances in 2012; Christie herself had expected it to last about eight months.

The musical Rent is loosely based on which Puccini opera?

La bohème's Parisian bohemians became struggling artists in New York's East Village in the shadow of AIDS, with Mimì and Musetta reworked as Mimi and Maureen; Jonathan Larson died the night before the first preview in 1996.

The reality format Big Brother was first broadcast in 1999 in which country?

The Netherlands' Veronica channel aired the first series in 1999; creator John de Mol's title comes from the all-seeing ruler of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, since cameras watch the housemates constantly.

Which host fronted ABC's Who Wants to Be a Millionaire when the British quiz reached America in 1999?

Regis Philbin's version began as a two-week event in August 1999, when ABC sat third in the ratings, and became the most-watched prime-time series of that television season.

Who won 74 consecutive games of Jeopardy! in 2004?

Ken Jennings won more than $2.5 million before Nancy Zerg beat him in his 75th game; the run was possible only because the show had scrapped its five-win limit on champions in 2003.

Which Hayao Miyazaki film won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature in 2003?

Spirited Away, the first hand-drawn and first non-English-language winner of the award, grew from Miyazaki's wish to make a film for the ten-year-old daughter of a friend who visited every summer.

Which film won the inaugural Academy Award for Best Animated Feature in 2002?

Shrek won the first award in March 2002; Chris Farley had recorded most of the ogre's lines before his death in 1997, and Mike Myers, hired to replace him, gave the character a Scottish accent.

Lalo Schifrin wrote which spy-series theme in five-beat meter?

Mission: Impossible's theme, in 5/4 time, was written for the 1966 series; a dance version by U2's Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr. for the 1996 film reached the top ten in Britain and America.

The Emmy Award takes its name from 'immy', TV slang for what piece of equipment?

A camera image tube, the image orthicon, was nicknamed the 'immy'; the Television Academy later softened the name to Emmy to suit its statuette, a winged woman holding an atom.

Pong was built by Allan Alcorn as a training exercise set by which Atari co-founder?

Nolan Bushnell had seen a similar tennis game on the Magnavox Odyssey; the first Pong prototype, set up in a local bar, stopped working only because its coin box had overflowed with quarters.

What did the Hollywood Sign spell out when it was erected in 1923?

Hollywoodland advertised a real-estate development on Mount Lee and was meant to stand about 18 months; the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce removed the last four letters in 1949 when it restored the sign.

Dorothy's ruby slippers in the film The Wizard of Oz were which color in L. Frank Baum's original novel?

Silver shoes carry Dorothy home in the 1900 book; the filmmakers turned them red to show off the new three-strip Technicolor process.

Which 1960 horror film used chocolate syrup as blood and a stabbed melon for sound in its shower scene?

Psycho was shot in black and white, where chocolate syrup photographed better than stage blood. The knife sounds came from puncturing a melon.

The phrase 'jumping the shark' comes from a 1977 episode of which sitcom, in which Fonzie water-skis over one?

Happy Days sent Fonzie over a shark in his leather jacket, and in 1985 Jon Hein coined the phrase for the moment a hit runs out of ideas.

The plot of the 1994 animated film The Lion King draws heavily on which Shakespeare tragedy?

Hamlet supplied the king murdered by his own brother, and executive Jeffrey Katzenberg told the writers to "put in as much Hamlet as you can".

Which member of Queen completed a PhD in astrophysics in 2007, more than 30 years after starting it?

Brian May abandoned his thesis on zodiacal dust when the band took off in 1974, then went back and finished it at Imperial College London more than 30 years later.

Satoshi Tajiri's childhood hobby of collecting and swapping insects inspired which video game franchise?

Pokémon grew out of the bugs Tajiri caught as a boy; seeing two Game Boys joined by a link cable gave him the idea of trading creatures.

Which actor voiced Darth Vader in the original Star Wars films while David Prowse wore the costume?

James Earl Jones supplied the menace from a recording booth and, at his own request, went uncredited on the first two films.

Which puppeteer built the first Kermit the Frog from his mother's old coat and a halved ping-pong ball?

Jim Henson made that prototype in 1955 for his local puppet show Sam and Friends, when Kermit was still a vague lizard-like creature and not yet a frog.

Which pop star, born Stefani Germanotta, wore a dress made of raw beef to the 2010 MTV VMAs?

Lady Gaga's flank-steak outfit was later preserved by taxidermists as a kind of jerky and put on display at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Which games console grew out of a CD-ROM add-on for Nintendo's Super NES that was never released?

PlayStation began as Sony's "Play Station" drive for the Super NES; when Nintendo walked away to deal with Philips, Sony built a rival machine of its own.

In Pixar's Finding Nemo, Marlin and his son Nemo are which kind of fish?

Clownfish got the part after director Andrew Stanton saw a photo of two peeking out of an anemone; forgetful Dory, by contrast, is a regal blue tang.

Which fictional African kingdom, rich in the metal vibranium, is ruled by Marvel's Black Panther?

Wakanda first appeared in a 1966 Fantastic Four comic by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, its wealth coming from a meteorite that crashed there long ago.

Which composer wrote both the menacing two-note theme of Jaws and the brassy score of Star Wars?

Steven Spielberg is said to have laughed when John Williams first played him the Jaws motif on a piano, thinking it was a joke.

Which Beatles album cover shows the four band members walking in single file outside their London recording studio?

Abbey Road got its cover in a hurry: the photographer had ten minutes on a step-ladder while a policeman held up the traffic.

Beyoncé rose to fame in which girl group, managed by her father Mathew Knowles?

Destiny's Child began as Girl's Tyme, and her father took over as manager only after the girls lost on the TV talent contest Star Search.

Which star of The Hobbit films played Dr John Watson opposite Benedict Cumberbatch in the BBC's Sherlock?

Martin Freeman's Watson is an army doctor just back from Afghanistan, a detail lifted straight from Arthur Conan Doyle's Victorian original.

Which green dinosaur first appeared in Super Mario World as a rideable companion for Mario and Luigi?

Yoshi swallows enemies with his long tongue and turns them into eggs, and he soon became the title character of a series of his own.

The Jets and the Sharks are rival New York street gangs in which Leonard Bernstein musical?

West Side Story moves Romeo and Juliet to 1950s Manhattan; in early drafts the Catholic Jets faced a Jewish gang called the Emeralds.

Bollywood, the world-famous Hindi-language film industry, is based in which Indian city?

Mumbai was long known as Bombay, and the industry's nickname simply splices that old name onto Hollywood.

FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully chase aliens and monsters in which 1990s sci-fi series?

The X-Files creator Chris Carter flipped the usual roles on purpose, making Mulder the believer and Scully, a medical doctor, the skeptic.

Which Steven Spielberg film is shot in black and white except for a few touches such as a girl's red coat?

Schindler's List was filmed to feel like documentary footage of the era, and Spielberg refused a salary for it, calling the pay "blood money".

In which Quentin Tarantino film do two hitmen recover a glowing briefcase whose contents are never revealed?

Pulp Fiction never shows what gangster Marsellus Wallace wants back so badly, though the case's lock opens at 666, the Number of the Beast.

Which rock band's tongue-and-lips logo was designed in 1970 by art student John Pasche for a fee of £50?

The Rolling Stones got the idea from Mick Jagger, who suggested the outstretched tongue of the Hindu goddess Kali.

Which band did Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl start as a one-man project, naming it after a wartime UFO term?

Foo Fighters was a name Grohl picked so listeners would assume several people made the recordings; he later called it the stupidest band name in the world.

Which silent-film comedian created the Tramp and co-founded the distributor United Artists in 1919?

Charlie Chaplin threw the costume together for only his second film, adding a small moustache to look older without hiding his expression.

Which prime-time soap had millions asking 'Who shot J.R.?' after a cliffhanger broadcast in March 1980?

Dallas kept viewers waiting eight months for the answer: Kristin Shepard, the oil baron's scheming sister-in-law and mistress.

What is the real name of the character in The Mandalorian whom fans nicknamed 'Baby Yoda'?

Grogu went unnamed for more than a season; the reveal came in an episode that also showed he was raised at the Jedi Temple on Coruscant.

The musical Les Misérables, with songs such as 'I Dreamed a Dream', adapts an 1862 novel by which French author?

Victor Hugo's novel struck lyricist Alain Boublil as a musical during a London staging of Oliver!, when the Artful Dodger reminded him of the urchin Gavroche.

Vice City, the neon-lit 1980s setting of a hit Grand Theft Auto game, is modelled on which American city?

Miami supplied the beaches and the drug wars, and the developers borrowed heavily from Scarface and the TV cop show Miami Vice.

Which Oscar-winning star of Rear Window gave up Hollywood in 1956 to marry Prince Rainier III of Monaco?

Grace Kelly was only 26 when she became Princess of Monaco, with a Best Actress Oscar for The Country Girl already to her name.

Which actor-director's 1938 radio play The War of the Worlds told its Martian invasion as breaking news bulletins?

Orson Welles was 23 when the Halloween broadcast went out, and the next day he was telling reporters he had never meant to cause a panic.

HBO's Game of Thrones is adapted from which series of fantasy novels by George R. R. Martin?

A Song of Ice and Fire was first planned as a trilogy, and its opening volume, published in 1996, lent the TV adaptation its title.

Which actress played the young Queen Elizabeth II in the first two seasons of Netflix's The Crown?

Claire Foy handed the role to Olivia Colman and then Imelda Staunton as the Queen aged, but came back for flashback cameos in later seasons.

Which rapper won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Music for the album Damn, a first for any hip-hop artist?

Kendrick Lamar was the first winner from outside classical music and jazz in the history of the prize.

Which Taylor Swift album became the first of her re-recorded 'Taylor's Version' releases in April 2021?

Fearless led off her plan to re-record her early albums, launched after a 2019 dispute over who owned the master recordings of her back catalogue.

The Palme d'Or, a golden palm leaf first awarded in 1955, is the top prize at which European film festival?

Cannes took the palm from its own coat of arms; before 1955 the festival's top award was simply called the Grand Prix.

The Stephen King novella behind the film The Shawshank Redemption names which Hollywood actress in its title?

Rita Hayworth is the first pin-up Andy Dufresne asks for in the 1982 story, and the posters on his cell wall hide the tunnel he digs to freedom.

Which Canadian singer won the 1988 Eurovision Song Contest for Switzerland by a single point?

Céline Dion, then 20, beat the United Kingdom by 137 points to 136 with a song performed in French, the win that first made her name across Europe.

Who became the first woman to win the Academy Award for Best Director, for the Iraq War drama The Hurt Locker?

Kathryn Bigelow won in 2010 over a field that included her ex-husband James Cameron, nominated that night for Avatar.

Which Broadway composer and lyricist wrote Sweeney Todd, Company and Into the Woods?

Stephen Sondheim learned the craft as a boy from his neighbor Oscar Hammerstein II, who became a surrogate father to him.

Which Hampshire country house, home of the Earls of Carnarvon, stands in for Downton Abbey on screen?

Highclere Castle has a second claim to fame: its 5th Earl bankrolled Howard Carter's search for the tomb of Tutankhamun.

Which 1927 Al Jolson film, the first feature with synchronized music and speech, launched the era of the talkies?

The Jazz Singer is mostly silent, but Jolson's first spoken words, "Wait a minute, wait a minute, you ain't heard nothin' yet", were patter from his stage act.

Which drama starring Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman is the only X-rated film ever to win Best Picture?

Midnight Cowboy was first judged an R; United Artists took the X on a psychologist's advice, wary of the story's "homosexual frame of reference".

Which pseudonym did Hollywood directors use from 1968 to 2000 to disown films taken out of their control?

Alan Smithee was retired after a 1997 comedy about a director with that very name, whose real director disowned it and so became Alan Smithee himself.

Which hospital drama ended in 1988 with a scene implying a boy with a snow globe had imagined everything?

St. Elsewhere closes on Tommy Westphall, the autistic son of one of its doctors, shaking a snow globe that holds a tiny replica of the hospital.

Which American food brand's 'Bake-Off' trademark forces The Great British Bake Off to air under another title in the US?

Pillsbury has run its own Bake-Off cooking contest since 1949, so Americans know the tent as The Great British Baking Show.

Which Polish author's tales of the monster hunter Geralt of Rivia became The Witcher games and TV series?

Andrzej Sapkowski wrote the first tale on a whim in 1986 to enter a contest run by the Polish fantasy magazine Fantastyka.

Which Radiohead album was released in 2007 as a download that fans could pay any price for, even nothing?

In Rainbows was the band's first release after their EMI contract ended, and the first pay-what-you-want album from a major act.

Which stock sound effect, recorded for the 1951 film Distant Drums, is named after a soldier shot with an arrow?

The Wilhelm scream owes its fame to sound designer Ben Burtt, who found it on a studio archive reel and slipped it into Star Wars.

Which 1982 Ridley Scott film sends Harrison Ford to hunt rogue androids called replicants through a future Los Angeles?

Blade Runner underperformed in cinemas and only later became a cult favorite; Rutger Hauer rewrote his own dying "tears in rain" speech.