40 Fun Facts About Famous Foursomes

Which member of Scooby-Doo's mystery-solving gang was given the first name Norville?

Shaggy is the nickname of Norville Rogers, the gang's biggest coward after his dog. Both can be bribed into facing a monster with Scooby Snacks.

Which actress was first lined up to play Blanche in The Golden Girls before swapping roles with Rue McClanahan?

Betty White had already played the man-hungry Sue Ann Nivens on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, so she took naive Rose instead to avoid being typecast.

Which drummer joined the Beatles in August 1962, replacing Pete Best weeks before the recording of Love Me Do?

Ringo Starr quit Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, another Liverpool group, to take the job. Producer George Martin, unsure of him, still booked a session drummer for the single.

Which president's face sits between Jefferson and Lincoln on Mount Rushmore, the last of the four dedicated?

Theodore Roosevelt was chosen to represent the nation's development. George Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln stand for its foundation, expansion and preservation.

Which Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle wears a purple mask, fights with a bo staff and is the smartest of the four?

Donatello, like his three brothers, is named after an Italian Renaissance artist. The creators had considered Japanese names before settling on the quirkier choice.

Which of South Park's four main boys dies a gruesome death in most episodes of the first five seasons?

Kenny McCormick returns alive and well in the next episode with little or no explanation. His muffled speech is the result of a parka hood covering his mouth.

Which of the four tennis Grand Slam tournaments is the only one still played on grass courts?

Wimbledon has been held since 1877 and keeps the sport's traditional surface. The Australian Open switched from grass to hard courts in 1988, and the US Open gave up grass in 1975.

Which US state meets Utah, Colorado and New Mexico at the Four Corners Monument in the desert Southwest?

Arizona completes the only point in the United States shared by four states. The Navajo Nation maintains the monument as a tourist attraction.

In English playing cards, which suit's ace bears an ornate design, a relic of a stamp duty that lasted until 1960?

Spades got the decorated ace because one card in each pack was stamped to show the duty had been paid. A forger of the ace was hanged in 1805.

Which character in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz asks the Wizard for a heart?

The Tin Man is already the most tender and emotional of Dorothy's companions. The Wizard gives him a heart made of silk and stuffed with sawdust.

Which of the four Hogwarts houses has a badger as its mascot and Pomona Sprout as its Head of House?

Hufflepuff values hard work, patience, justice and loyalty, and its colours are yellow and black. J. K. Rowling has linked the house to the element of earth.

Which of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse rides a black horse and carries a pair of scales?

Famine is the third rider, and the scales show how bread would be weighed out in hungry times. A voice cries out prices that set a whole day's wages against wheat for one person.

Which of the four friends in Sex and the City is a Harvard-educated lawyer played by Cynthia Nixon?

Miranda Hobbes is the pragmatic, career-focused cynic of the group. Cynthia Nixon went on to run for governor of New York in 2018.

Which Seinfeld character's first name, Cosmo, stays a secret until George meets his estranged mother?

Kramer was nearly a Conrad: an episode that would have revealed that name was never filmed. Larry David took Cosmo from a boy who lived in his apartment building.

Which of the four March sisters in Little Women marries Laurie, the boy next door, after another sister refuses him?

Amy and Laurie marry before leaving Europe, after Jo declines his proposal at home in Massachusetts. Meg, the eldest, marries his tutor.

Which of the four ghosts in Pac-Man is the orange one, given the character name Pokey in the American release?

Clyde breaks the rhyme of his three partners. The designers gave each ghost its own way of moving so the game would be neither impossibly difficult nor boring.

Which of men's golf's four major championships is the only one held at the same course every year?

The Masters always returns to Augusta National in Georgia, a private club that runs the tournament itself. Since 1949 its champion has been given a green jacket.

Which of the four New Testament Gospels do most scholars believe was written first?

Mark is printed second in the New Testament even so. The idea that it came first, called Marcan priority, gained widespread acceptance in the 19th century.

Which member of Marvel's Fantastic Four is Ben Grimm, a former test pilot with a rocky orange hide?

The Thing flew the rocket on the flight that gave all four their powers. He grew up poor on Yancy Street, on New York's Lower East Side.

Which actor played Winston Zeddemore, the fourth Ghostbuster, who is hired after answering a help-wanted advert?

Ernie Hudson took a role that Dan Aykroyd has said he first intended for Eddie Murphy, though director Ivan Reitman denied it.

Which member of the Monkees inherited a fortune from his mother, the inventor of Liquid Paper correction fluid?

Mike Nesmith's mother, Bette Graham, built the Liquid Paper Corporation over 25 years and sold it to Gillette in 1979. He received his inheritance from her estate in 1980.

Which member of ABBA was born in Norway to a Norwegian mother and a German father, then raised in Sweden?

Frida Lyngstad was taken to Sweden by her grandmother, who raised her alone after her mother died at 21. Her father had been a German soldier in occupied Norway.

In the ancient theory of the four humours, an excess of which fluid was thought to make a person calm and reserved?

Phlegm gave English the word phlegmatic, still used for someone hard to ruffle. The physician Galen named four temperaments after the humours.

Which of the four chambers of the human heart pumps blood into the aorta and has the thickest wall?

The left ventricle needs the extra muscle because it must pump blood to most of the body, while its right-hand twin fills only the lungs.

Which member of The A-Team, played by Mr. T, has an intense fear of flying despite being a tough ex-commando?

B. A. Baracus is at his most afraid when Murdock, the team's unhinged pilot, is at the controls. The initials stand for Bosco Albert, and for Bad Attitude.

Which of the four Pevensie children is the first to find the way into Narnia through an old wardrobe?

Lucy is the youngest of the four, and Peter, Susan and Edmund do not believe her about Narnia at first. Edmund follows her in on her second visit.

Which Marx brother played the straight man in the first five Marx Brothers films, then quit acting to become an agent?

Zeppo bowed out after Duck Soup in 1933 and went on to work as an engineer as well as a theatrical agent.

Which Italian composer wrote The Four Seasons, a set of violin concertos published in Amsterdam in 1725?

Antonio Vivaldi published the concertos with sonnets, possibly written by himself, spelling out what each season's music was meant to evoke.

Which American illustrator painted the Four Freedoms in 1943, a series first printed in The Saturday Evening Post?

Norman Rockwell took his four themes, freedom of speech and worship and freedom from want and fear, from a 1941 State of the Union address.

Which Italian prime minister sat with Wilson, Lloyd George and Clemenceau as the Big Four at Paris in 1919?

Vittorio Orlando knew no English, while Wilson and Lloyd George knew no French. Only Clemenceau could speak and understand both languages.

Which former film actress, the wife of Mao Zedong, led the Gang of Four during China's Cultural Revolution?

Jiang Qing and her three close associates were removed from power in a bloodless coup on October 6, 1976, shortly after Mao died.

Which K-pop girl group debuted under YG Entertainment in 2016 with Jisoo, Jennie, Rosé and Lisa?

Blackpink's four members were made honorary MBEs in 2023 for their work as advocates for climate change awareness.

Which German city do a donkey, a dog, a cat and a rooster set out for in a Brothers Grimm fairy tale?

Bremen is never reached: the four animals scare a band of robbers out of a house on the way and move in themselves.

Which invention joins papermaking, printing and gunpowder as one of the Four Great Inventions of ancient China?

The compass began in Han dynasty China as a tool for divination. Chinese sailors were navigating by it in the 11th century, during the Song dynasty.

Which stroke always opens a swimming medley relay because its swimmer has to start in the water?

Backstroke goes first so that a swimmer waiting in the water cannot block a teammate finishing the leg before. In an individual medley, butterfly leads instead.

In the DNA double helix, which of the four bases always pairs with adenine through two hydrogen bonds?

Thymine is replaced by uracil in RNA, so the pairing with adenine survives there under another name.

Which general outlasted Galba, Otho and Vitellius in Rome's Year of the Four Emperors and founded a new dynasty?

Vespasian founded the Flavian dynasty and began the amphitheatre better known today as the Colosseum. He was the first Roman emperor to be succeeded by his natural son.

Which Greek philosopher from Sicily proposed that everything is made of four roots: earth, water, air and fire?

Empedocles held that two divine powers, Love and Strife, unite and part the four elements. The scheme stood as standard dogma for the next two thousand years.

By what other name is foursomes, a pairs golf format played at the Ryder Cup, known?

Alternate shot has two partners take turns hitting a single ball. It is a fixture of team competitions such as the Ryder Cup, the Solheim Cup and the Presidents Cup.

Which instrument joins two violins and a cello in the standard string quartet developed by Joseph Haydn?

The viola completes a line-up that Haydn's works from the 1750s onwards established as a group of four more-or-less equal partners.