98 Fun Facts About Famous Duos

Who created Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson?

Arthur Conan Doyle drew Holmes from Joseph Bell, his medical-school teacher, who could tell a stranger's occupation and recent movements just by looking at him.

Which two Cambridge scientists worked out the double-helix structure of DNA?

Watson and Crick shared the 1962 Nobel Prize with Maurice Wilkins; Rosalind Franklin, whose X-ray Photo 51 was key to their model, had died in 1958, so the prize passed her by.

Which Disney star do Chip 'n Dale torment in most of their cartoon shorts?

Donald Duck became their regular victim from 1947, though they first appeared, still unnamed, pestering Pluto in 1943; their names are a pun on the furniture maker Thomas Chippendale.

Which two comedians starred as Jake and Elwood in The Blues Brothers?

John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd created Jake and Elwood as a musical act on Saturday Night Live; the 1980 film sends them across Chicago on a 'mission from God', with Aretha Franklin and Ray Charles joining in.

What do lab mice Pinky and The Brain try to do every night?

To take over the world is The Brain's answer whenever Pinky asks what they will do tonight; the mice began as a segment on Animaniacs and were spun off into their own series in 1995.

Which comedy duo's catchphrase was 'Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into!'?

Laurel and Hardy's Ollie says it to Stan in film after film, but as a 'nice mess': the better-known 'fine mess' is a misquote that comes from the title of their 1930 short Another Fine Mess.

Which animation duo created Tom and Jerry at MGM before making The Flintstones at their own studio?

Hanna and Barbera directed 114 Tom and Jerry shorts at MGM; when the studio shut its cartoon unit they set up on their own in 1957 and turned to television with Huckleberry Hound and The Flintstones.

In the popular video game franchise, what is the profession of the brothers Mario and Luigi?

Plumbers since 1983's Mario Bros., a game set among underground pipes; in his arcade debut two years earlier Mario was a carpenter, because that game takes place on a building site.

What is the name of the spaceship flown by Han Solo and Chewbacca in Star Wars?

The Millennium Falcon was won by Han Solo from Lando Calrissian in a game of sabacc, and he boasts that it made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs.

On which long-running children's television show do the puppet characters Bert and Ernie reside?

Sesame Street has been home to Bert and Ernie since 1969; Ernie's bath-time song 'Rubber Duckie' became a real pop hit, reaching No. 16 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1970.

Which 1928 sound cartoon made stars of Mickey and Minnie Mouse?

Steamboat Willie opened in New York on November 18, 1928, the date Disney treats as Mickey's birthday; the pair's first cartoon, Plane Crazy, made without sound, had failed to find a distributor months earlier.

What are the first names of the hitmen played by John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction?

Vincent and Jules are Vincent Vega and Jules Winnfield; Tarantino long planned a prequel pairing Vincent with his brother Vic, Reservoir Dogs' Mr. Blonde, then dropped it as the actors aged.

Which twin brothers of Greek myth were placed in the sky as the constellation Gemini?

Castor and Pollux: in the best-known telling, when mortal Castor was killed, Pollux begged Zeus to let him share his immortality, so the twins alternate between Olympus and the underworld.

Meriwether Lewis and William Clark led which Army unit across the American West from 1804 to 1806?

Jefferson commissioned the Corps of Discovery in 1803 to cross the Louisiana Purchase and find a route to the Pacific; only one member, Sergeant Charles Floyd, died along the way.

Which husband-and-wife scientific duo pioneered radioactivity research and discovered polonium and radium?

Pierre and Marie Curie named polonium after her native Poland, which was then partitioned among foreign empires; they shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics with Henri Becquerel.

Which Spanish author gave Don Quixote his squire Sancho Panza?

Miguel de Cervantes was still writing Part Two when an impostor calling himself Avellaneda published a fake sequel in 1614; he finished his own the next year and mocked the forgery in its pages.

Which hobbit stays with Frodo all the way to Mount Doom?

Samwise Gamgee briefly takes the Ring himself, then carries the exhausted Frodo up the mountain on his back; Tolkien called him the 'chief hero' of the story.

Which French electronic music duo is famous for performing in robot helmets?

Daft Punk's robots were Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, who split in 2021 with a video of one of them exploding.

Which Philadelphia duo topped the US charts in the 1980s with 'Maneater' and 'Out of Touch'?

Hall & Oates first met in 1967 when gunfire broke out at a Philadelphia band contest and the two students, there with rival groups, escaped in the same service elevator.

What was the name of the raw garage rock duo made up of Jack and Meg?

The White Stripes told the press that Jack and Meg were brother and sister, but they were a divorced couple: Jack had taken Meg's surname when they married in 1996.

Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele, later an Oscar-winning writer for Get Out, made their name in what kind of comedy?

Sketch comedy: Key & Peele ran from 2012 to 2015, and its 'anger translator' for Barack Obama ended up on stage beside the real president at the 2015 White House Correspondents' Dinner.

Which classic comedy duo is renowned for their "Who's on First?" routine?

Abbott and Costello first performed 'Who's on First?' on radio in 1938, and a gold record of the routine has been on show at the Baseball Hall of Fame since 1956.

Which Las Vegas magic duo pairs a talkative giant with a partner who never speaks on stage?

Penn & Teller: Teller stopped speaking on stage as a young magician working college fraternity parties, where he found rowdy crowds heckled less when he said nothing; Penn Jillette does the talking.

Which two elderly Muppets heckle every act from their balcony box on The Muppet Show?

Statler and Waldorf are named after two grand New York hotels, the Statler Hilton and the Waldorf-Astoria.

On which desert planet do R2-D2 and C-3PO crash-land before being sold to Luke Skywalker's uncle?

Tatooine: Jawa traders capture the droids and sell them to Owen Lars; George Lucas took the planet's name from Tataouine, a town in southern Tunisia, the country where he shot the scenes.

In Disney's "The Lion King," what are the species of the comedic duo Timon and Pumbaa?

Meerkat and Warthog: Nathan Lane and Ernie Sabella were first asked to read together as hyenas, but they worked so well as a pair that the directors cast them as Timon and Pumbaa instead.

Which Mike Judge animated duo mocked music videos on MTV with crude humor?

Beavis and Butt-Head are both voiced by Mike Judge himself, and their deadpan classmate Daria was spun off into her own MTV series in 1997.

Which duo's long-running Las Vegas show featured white tigers and white lions?

Siegfried & Roy met working on a cruise ship: Roy, a bellboy, got himself into Siegfried's magic act by bringing along a live cheetah he had smuggled aboard.

Which pair star in Nickelodeon's famously bizarre gross-out cartoon series?

Ren and Stimpy pushed Nickelodeon so hard that in 1992 the network removed creator John Kricfalusi from his own show, after fights over missed deadlines and how crude the cartoon could be.

Which animated duo, a cynical alcoholic scientist and his anxious grandson, started out as a crude Back to the Future parody?

Rick and Morty began as Justin Roiland's crude short about 'Doc and Mharti' for Dan Harmon's Channel 101 film festival; the two men later reworked the characters into the Adult Swim series.

Garth Algar co-hosts which fictional public access show from a basement in Aurora, Illinois?

Wayne's World put Queen back in the charts: after the 1992 film's car singalong, 'Bohemian Rhapsody' climbed to No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100, higher than on its first release.

Which stop-motion duo pairs an eccentric inventor with his intelligent dog?

Wallace and Gromit began in 1982 as Nick Park's final film-school project; A Grand Day Out took so long that Aardman hired him before he had finished it.

Bill S. Preston, Esq. and Ted 'Theodore' Logan, played by Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves, take what kind of journey?

A time-traveling adventure in a phone booth, collecting Napoleon, Lincoln and Socrates for a history report.

In which Shakespeare tragedy do Rosencrantz and Guildenstern originally appear?

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are childhood friends of Prince Hamlet, summoned by King Claudius to find the cause of his apparent madness. Tom Stoppard later expanded their story in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.

What do Phineas and Ferb build in their backyard in the very first episode?

A rollercoaster: the pilot, itself titled 'Rollercoaster', previewed straight after High School Musical 2 in August 2007 and was later remade as a full musical episode.

What was Dick Grayson before Batman took him in and trained him as Robin?

A circus acrobat: Dick Grayson performed on the trapeze with his parents until gangsters sabotaged their equipment, leaving him an orphan; he first appeared as Robin in 1940.

Which comedian voices Donkey, the ogre Shrek's talkative sidekick?

Eddie Murphy's Donkey ends up married to Dragon, and by the end of Shrek 2 the pair have a litter of dragon-donkey hybrid babies, the 'Dronkeys'.

What kind of animal is Hobbes, Calvin's best friend in the comic strip?

Hobbes is a tiger: a living, philosophising companion to Calvin and a stuffed toy to everyone else, and Bill Watterson's strip never settles which is true.

Stoner pals Harold and Kumar spend a whole night trying to reach which burger chain?

White Castle is in the title, Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle; the chain backed the 2004 film with Harold and Kumar drink cups and inducted its two stars into its Cravers Hall of Fame.

What do 1970s TV duo Dave Starsky and Ken 'Hutch' Hutchinson do for a living?

Police detectives in fictional Bay City, California: the show made their red Gran Torino so well known that the carmaker sold its own limited-edition replicas in 1976.

The alien Wonder Twins, Zan and Jayna, touched fists to activate their powers on which Saturday-morning cartoon?

Super Friends brought in the shape-shifting twins and their space monkey Gleek in 1977 to replace Wendy and Marvin, two teenage sidekicks with no powers at all.

Which two 'Mystery Machine' occupants are known for cowardice and insatiable appetites?

Shaggy and Scooby-Doo: the four teenagers were modelled on the cast of the sitcom The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, with Shaggy taken from its beatnik, Maynard G. Krebs.

In Toy Story, which two toys begin as rivals to be Andy's favorite?

Woody and Buzz Lightyear: Woody was named after Western actor Woody Strode, and Buzz after Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin; Woody's pull-string came from a Casper doll John Lasseter owned as a child.

Which classic romantic drama features the iconic pairing of Rick Blaine and Ilsa Lund?

Casablanca gave Rick the line 'Here's looking at you, kid', but nobody in the film ever says the famous line 'Play it again, Sam'.

Under which alias does Walter White sell the meth he cooks with Jesse Pinkman in Breaking Bad?

Heisenberg: Walt borrows the name of the physicist Werner Heisenberg, first using it in season one when he walks in to confront the drug lord Tuco.

Which brilliant, unconventional TV diagnostician is longtime friends with oncologist Dr. James Wilson?

Dr. Gregory House is a medical Sherlock Holmes: his creator says the name plays on 'Holmes', he treats each diagnosis as a mystery, and his home address is 221B, like the detective's.

Which masked Western hero rides with Tonto and shouts "Hi-yo, Silver!"?

The Lone Ranger is the sole survivor of six ambushed Texas Rangers, hence the name; on TV his partner Tonto was played by Jay Silverheels, a Mohawk from Ontario's Six Nations reserve.

Which comedic duo, often loitering outside convenience stores, recur in Kevin Smith's 'View Askewniverse' films?

Jay and Silent Bob: Kevin Smith wrote the talkative clerk Randal for himself but found he couldn't memorize the lines, so he gave the part away and played the near-wordless Silent Bob instead.

Simon & Garfunkel's songs featured prominently in which 1967 Mike Nichols film?

The Graduate's one new song began life as a tune about Eleanor Roosevelt, until director Mike Nichols heard it and had the duo rename its heroine after the film's Mrs. Robinson.

In Thelma & Louise, which convertible do the two friends drive across the Southwest?

Ford Thunderbird: Louise's 1966 convertible ends the film sailing off a cliff at the Grand Canyon, a finale that was actually shot near Dead Horse Point in Utah.

In Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, to which South American country do the two outlaws flee?

Bolivia: Butch sells it as a robber's paradise, and the film ends on a freeze-frame as the pair charge out against Bolivian soldiers in a small town.

Which 1943 show was Rodgers and Hammerstein's first collaboration?

Oklahoma! opened on Broadway in March 1943; it tried out in New Haven under the title Away We Go! before the name was changed.

Which Gilbert and Sullivan opera features the 'Major-General's Song'?

The Pirates of Penzance opened in New York on the last night of 1879, not London: American law gave foreign works no copyright, and unlicensed productions had already cashed in on Pinafore.

Who is Jack Black's partner in the comedy rock duo Tenacious D?

Kyle Gass met Black in the Actors' Gang theatre troupe, where Gass, its resident musician, at first felt threatened by the newcomer; he ended up teaching Black guitar, and they formed the band in 1994.

In which city did Big Boi and André 3000 form Outkast in 1992?

Atlanta: the pair met as 16-year-olds at the Lenox Square mall; booed as they collected a prize at a 1995 hip-hop awards show, André told the crowd, 'The South got something to say.'

Who was George Michael's partner in the 1980s pop duo Wham!?

Andrew Ridgeley volunteered to look after the new boy at Bushey Meads School, the future George Michael; the two played in a ska band called the Executive before forming Wham! in 1981.

Which vocalist formed Eurythmics with Dave Stewart in 1980?

Annie Lennox met Dave Stewart at a London restaurant where she waitressed; they were a couple and bandmates in the Tourists before forming Eurythmics in 1980.

Whose 'I Got You Babe' wakes Bill Murray in Groundhog Day?

Sonny & Cher spent three weeks at No. 1 with it in August 1965; Sonny Bono, who wrote the song, went on to be mayor of Palm Springs and then a US congressman.

On which CBBC drama did Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly meet as child actors?

Byker Grove, the BBC children's drama set in Newcastle, where they played PJ and Duncan; they later recorded pop singles under those character names.

Ernie Wise's comedy partner Eric Bartholomew took his stage name from which Lancashire seaside home town?

Morecambe: John Eric Bartholomew borrowed the name of the resort where he grew up, and the town returned the favour with a seafront statue of him, unveiled by the Queen in 1999.

What was the title of Cheech & Chong's first feature film, released in 1978?

Up in Smoke has the pair unwittingly drive a van built entirely out of marijuana from Mexico to Los Angeles; it was directed by the record producer Lou Adler.

Who played Agent Scully, Fox Mulder's partner in The X-Files?

Gillian Anderson was 24 when Chris Carter cast her as Dana Scully in 1993; the 'Scully effect' credits the character with drawing young women into science careers.

Which actor plays the tidy cop stuck with a slobbering Dogue de Bordeaux in Turner & Hooch?

Tom Hanks plays Scott Turner, who has to take in Hooch because the dog is the only witness to his owner's murder; the Dogue de Bordeaux who played him was really called Beasley.

Which actor played Roger Murtaugh opposite Mel Gibson's Martin Riggs in Lethal Weapon?

Danny Glover was only 40 when he first played Murtaugh, a sergeant who turns 50 as the film opens and keeps grumbling that he is too old for the job; he played him in all four films.

In which 1933 film were Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers first paired on screen?

Flying Down to Rio billed Rogers fourth and Astaire fifth, behind Dolores del Río; after their 'Carioca' dance, RKO gave them top billing in The Gay Divorcee, the second of their ten films together.

Which 1944 film first paired Humphrey Bogart with Lauren Bacall?

To Have and Have Not (1944), where the 19-year-old Bacall delivered her 'put your lips together and blow' line; she and Bogart began a romance during filming and married the next year.

In which Italian city is Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet set?

Verona, in the Veneto; the play opens with a street brawl between Montague and Capulet servants, and Prince Escalus threatens death for any further breach of the peace.

At which 31 BC naval battle were Antony and Cleopatra defeated by Octavian?

Actium, off western Greece in the Ionian Sea, on 2 September 31 BC; Octavian's fleet under Agrippa won, and Antony and Cleopatra killed themselves the next year.

Near which African lake did Henry Morton Stanley find David Livingstone in 1871?

Lake Tanganyika: Stanley, sent by the New York Herald to find the long-missing missionary, reached him at Ujiji on the lake's shore and, by his own account, greeted him, 'Dr Livingstone, I presume?'

News of Hillary and Tenzing's Everest climb broke in Britain on which day?

Coronation Day, 2 June 1953: a reporter at base camp sent word of the 29 May summit by runner in a prearranged code, and London heard the news on the morning of the ceremony.

The Wright brothers first flew a powered airplane in December 1903 near which North Carolina town, picked for its steady winds?

Kitty Hawk gets the credit, though the flight happened four miles south at what is now Kill Devil Hills.

In which California city is the garage where Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard started HP?

Palo Alto: the garage at 367 Addison Avenue is now a landmark billed as the birthplace of Silicon Valley; in 1939 the pair tossed a coin to decide whose name would come first.

What kind of renovated building housed Ben & Jerry's first ice cream parlor in 1978?

A gas station in Burlington, Vermont: Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield learned their trade from a university correspondence course in ice-cream making, then opened in the renovated building with $12,000.

Which luxury carmaker grew out of a 1904 meeting between a London car dealer and a Manchester engineer?

Rolls-Royce: car dealer Charles Rolls met engineer Henry Royce at Manchester's Midland Hotel on 4 May 1904 and soon agreed to sell every car Royce could build.

Who was the third co-founder of Apple alongside Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in 1976?

Ronald Wayne held a 10 percent stake, drew the first Apple logo and sold his share back within two weeks for $800; the partnership was founded on 1 April 1976.

In which Southwestern city did Bill Gates and Paul Allen found Microsoft in 1975?

Albuquerque was home to MITS, maker of the Altair computer, so Gates and Allen set up there to write its BASIC; Microsoft left New Mexico for Bellevue, near Seattle, only in 1979.

In which fictional town do Rocky the flying squirrel and Bullwinkle the moose live?

Frostbite Falls, Minnesota, is generally taken as a send-up of the real International Falls, a border town that bills itself as the 'Icebox of the Nation'.

What kind of sea creature is Patrick, SpongeBob SquarePants's best friend?

Patrick is a starfish; creator Stephen Hillenburg, a former marine biology teacher, chose the animal because starfish look dumb and slow but are in reality very active and aggressive.

In Adventure Time, what special power does Finn's best friend Jake the Dog have?

Stretching his body: Jake can shrink, grow or mold himself into almost any shape, a power that traces to a shapeshifting creature that bit his father Joshua.

In the Rare video games, what kind of animal is Banjo, who carries Kazooie on his back?

A bear: Banjo carries the bird Kazooie in his backpack, and he actually made his debut a year before their 1998 game, as a racer in Diddy Kong Racing.

Which gaming duo pairs a Lombax with a robot?

Ratchet and Clank: Insomniac first imagined Ratchet as a space-travelling reptile, but over successive drawings he turned into the furry, cat-like Lombax.

Why does Asterix's friend Obelix never need Getafix's magic potion?

He fell in the cauldron as a baby, so the potion's effect on him is permanent and Getafix refuses him any more, which is why he can carry menhirs around like parcels.

What breed of dog is Snowy, Tintin's constant companion?

Snowy is a white Wire Fox Terrier; in the original French he is called Milou, a nickname of Hergé's first girlfriend, Marie-Louise Van Cutsem.

Hansel and Gretel was published in 1812 in whose collection of fairy tales?

The Brothers Grimm included it in the first volume of their Children's and Household Tales in 1812; later editions changed the mother who abandons the children into a stepmother.

In which city's Shotz Brewery did Laverne and Shirley work as bottle-cappers?

Milwaukee: the Happy Days spin-off kept them at the fictional Shotz Brewery until season six, when automation cost them their jobs and they moved to Burbank, California.

In which city did Burke and Hare commit their sixteen murders in 1828?

Edinburgh: they sold the corpses to anatomist Robert Knox; Burke was hanged in January 1829 and his skeleton was given to the University of Edinburgh's anatomy museum.

Which playwright created the waiting tramps Vladimir and Estragon?

Samuel Beckett wrote Waiting for Godot in French in 1948–49 and translated it into English himself; the critic Vivian Mercier summed it up as a play in which 'nothing happens, twice'.

To which Colorado ski town do Lloyd and Harry drive in Dumb and Dumber?

Aspen: they set out from Providence, Rhode Island, in a dog-shaped van to return Mary Swanson's briefcase, which is actually ransom money.

Gene Siskel wrote for the Tribune; which rival paper employed Roger Ebert?

The Chicago Sun-Times kept Ebert as its film critic from 1967 until his death in 2013; when cancer surgery took his voice in 2006, he carried on reviewing in print and online.

For which newspaper did Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein report on Watergate?

The Washington Post reporters were guided by a secret informant they called 'Deep Throat', who stayed anonymous until former FBI deputy Mark Felt identified himself in 2005.

To which Ravel piece did Torvill and Dean skate their perfect-score 1984 Olympic free dance?

Boléro: the shortest workable cut of the music ran 18 seconds over the limit, so they kept their blades off the ice for the opening, since the clock only started once they began to skate.

Which Scottish author wrote Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde in 1886?

Robert Louis Stevenson had been drawn to double lives since his teens, when he drafted a play about William 'Deacon' Brodie, a respectable town councillor by day and a burglar by night.

Which singer does Lilo hold up as Stitch's model citizen?

Elvis Presley: after a social worker orders Lilo to make Stitch, the lab-made Experiment 626, behave, she drills him in her idol's ways, and the film is packed with his songs.

Which award was stripped from Milli Vanilli after their lip-syncing scandal?

The Best New Artist Grammy they won in February 1990 was revoked that November after producer Frank Farian admitted the duo had not sung on their records.

Who was Odie's original owner before the dog ended up with Garfield's Jon Arbuckle?

Lyman, Jon's roommate, brought Odie into the strip in 1978 and then vanished; Jim Davis has offered a variety of humorous explanations for his disappearance over the years.

Who wrote the play The Odd Couple, featuring roommates Oscar Madison and Felix Ungar?

Neil Simon is said to have taken the idea from his older brother, who moved in with another newly divorced man after his own marriage ended; on Broadway, Walter Matthau played Oscar opposite Art Carney's Felix.

What car is the General Lee, driven by Bo and Luke Duke in The Dukes of Hazzard?

A 1969 Dodge Charger painted orange with '01' on the doors; it appears in every episode except season one's 'Mary Kaye's Baby', and the show wrecked hundreds of Chargers filming its jumps.

Matt Damon and Ben Affleck won the Best Original Screenplay Oscar for which 1997 film?

Good Will Hunting grew out of a script Matt Damon began for a Harvard playwriting class; it earned nine Oscar nominations, and Robin Williams won Best Supporting Actor.