40 Fun Facts About Harrison Bergeron

What do Harrison Bergeron and the ballerina kiss after leaping thirty feet into the air during their dance?

The ceiling gets the first kiss, thirty feet up, and only then do the pair kiss each other while still hanging in the air.

What has George gone to the kitchen to fetch when his son is killed in Kurt Vonnegut's 'Harrison Bergeron'?

A beer keeps George out of the room for the shooting, so he returns to find Hazel weeping over something neither of them can name.

Which Handicapper General shoots Harrison Bergeron dead on live television in Kurt Vonnegut's story?

Diana Moon Glampers ends the rebellion in person, and the narrator remarks that Hazel looks a good deal like her.

In Kurt Vonnegut's 'Harrison Bergeron', what must citizens judged too beautiful wear to hide their faces?

Ugly masks hide good looks, so viewers assume the ballerina wearing the most hideous one is the most beautiful dancer of all.

What title does Harrison Bergeron claim for himself after bursting into the television studio in Vonnegut's story?

Emperor is the title he proclaims, boasting that he is the greatest ruler in history before ripping off his handicaps on camera.

What does the ballerina apologize for when she begins reading the bulletin about Harrison Bergeron?

Her lovely voice would be unfair to other women, so she says sorry and finishes the bulletin in a harsh squawk nobody could envy.

What device in George's ear scatters his thoughts with sharp noises in Kurt Vonnegut's 'Harrison Bergeron'?

A radio linked to a government transmitter sends out a new noise about every twenty seconds, so George never finishes a thought.

What does the news bulletin that interrupts the ballet say Harrison Bergeron has just done?

Escaped from jail is the news, and the photograph shown with it reveals a seven-foot boy weighed down by 300 pounds of metal.

Eight years after 'Harrison Bergeron', which Kurt Vonnegut novel about wartime Dresden made him famous?

Slaughterhouse-Five drew on Vonnegut's own survival of the 1945 raid, which he sat out as a prisoner of war in a meat locker.

Why is Hazel allowed to go without any mental handicap in Kurt Vonnegut's 'Harrison Bergeron'?

Her mind is perfectly average, which in 2081 means she can think only in short bursts and soon forgets why she was upset.

What weapon does the Handicapper General carry into the studio to end Harrison Bergeron's dance?

A shotgun, fired twice, kills Harrison and the ballerina in the middle of a long kiss, and the band is ordered back into its handicaps.

What fills the 47-pound canvas handicap bag that George must carry in Kurt Vonnegut's 'Harrison Bergeron'?

Birdshot weighs George down by law: taking out even one ball would cost him two years in prison and a $2,000 fine.

What trait, shared by every television announcer, stops one from reading the bulletin in 'Harrison Bergeron'?

A speech impediment is standard issue for announcers, so this one gives up and hands the bulletin to a ballerina to read aloud.

Besides shaved eyebrows and black-capped teeth, what must Harrison Bergeron wear to cancel out his good looks?

A red rubber nose sits on a boy who stands seven feet tall and carries 300 pounds of metal, all ordered by the Handicapper General's agents.

On suspicion of what crime has fourteen-year-old Harrison Bergeron been locked up by the authorities?

Plotting to overthrow the government is the charge, and within minutes of the bulletin he attempts exactly that on live television.

How does Harrison Bergeron choose the woman who will rule beside him in Kurt Vonnegut's story?

The first to stand up, he announces, may claim the throne with him: a ballerina rises, and he strips away her handicaps on camera.

In which Midwestern city, now home to his museum and library, was 'Harrison Bergeron' author Kurt Vonnegut born?

Indianapolis is where his great-grandfather founded the Vonnegut Hardware Company, and its Vonnegut museum screened the film 2081 in 2017.

What Sunday sound would Hazel choose for the ear noises if she were Handicapper General in 'Harrison Bergeron'?

Chimes on Sundays would give the noises a religious feel, Hazel thinks, and she adds that she would do the job well because she knows what normal is.

In which month do government agents take fourteen-year-old Harrison Bergeron away from his parents?

April, the narrator jokes, was one thing equality had not fixed, since the month still refused to feel like spring.

What does Harrison Bergeron wave like batons to show the studio band how the music should sound?

Two musicians are plucked from their seats and swung about while he sings the tune, and the second attempt at the music is far better.

What name does 'Harrison Bergeron' give the government agents who take Harrison from his home?

H-G men is the story's name for them; the short film 2081 swaps them for a SWAT team raiding the family home.

What reward does Hazel think the struggling TV announcer has earned just by trying in 'Harrison Bergeron'?

A raise is Hazel's idea of a fair reward for effort alone, even though the announcer gives up before he can read the bulletin.

Which noise breaks George's train of thought the moment he starts thinking about his son, Harrison Bergeron?

A twenty-one-gun salute goes off in George's head, a burst of gunfire that hints at how his son's rebellion will end.

Harrison Bergeron's big spectacles are designed to leave him half blind and to give him what?

Headaches come with the glasses, and instead of a small earpiece Harrison must wear a huge pair of earphones as his mental handicap.

What cuts off the broadcast in the Bergeron living room moments after Harrison Bergeron is shot?

The TV tube burns out, so Hazel is left in tears at a blank screen and cannot tell George what upset her.

Which magazine first published Kurt Vonnegut's 'Harrison Bergeron' in its October 1961 issue?

Fantasy & Science Fiction, in full The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, ran it seven years before Vonnegut collected it in a book of his short fiction.

Which 1968 collection of 25 Kurt Vonnegut short stories reprinted 'Harrison Bergeron' in book form?

Welcome to the Monkey House pulled together stories first sold to magazines as different as Collier's, Playboy and Ladies' Home Journal.

Which Supreme Court justice closed a 2001 dissent about a disabled golfer's cart by citing 'Harrison Bergeron'?

Antonin Scalia was on the losing side of a 7–2 ruling that the PGA Tour had to let the golfer ride between shots.

Kurt Vonnegut later suggested 'Harrison Bergeron' grew out of envy and self-pity he felt as a misfit when?

In high school, Vonnegut wrote in a later letter, he had been an outsider, a private origin for a story usually read as political satire.

Which star of The Goonies played the title role in the 1995 television film 'Harrison Bergeron'?

Sean Astin led a loose adaptation in which Harrison is recruited by a secret elite of geniuses who quietly run the handicapped country.

The Handicapper General of 'Harrison Bergeron' shares her name with a client of which wealthy Kurt Vonnegut hero?

Eliot Rosewater gives his fortune away to troubled callers in a 1965 novel, and the one who shares the name is nothing like the armed official.

Which libertarian science-fiction prize inducted 'Harrison Bergeron' into its Hall of Fame in 2019?

The Prometheus Award's Hall of Fame vote came 58 years after the story appeared and was the first Prometheus recognition for Vonnegut.

In 2005, lawyers in a school-funding case quoted 'Harrison Bergeron' to which state's Supreme Court?

Kansas heard the brief, and Vonnegut told a local newspaper the lawyers may have misread him: his story was about talent and intelligence, not wealth.

Which cable network made the 1995 film of 'Harrison Bergeron' after airing an anthology series hosted by Vonnegut?

Showtime began the anthology in 1991, with Vonnegut introducing dramatizations of his short stories on screen.

Which SCTV comedian played President McCloskey in the 1995 television film 'Harrison Bergeron'?

Eugene Levy shared the cast with fellow SCTV veteran Andrea Martin, whose character borrows the name of the story's Handicapper General.

In the 1995 film 'Harrison Bergeron', what worn device dials every citizen's IQ toward a perfect 100?

A headband replaces the story's ear noises and fails on Harrison, whose brain reroutes itself around every adjustment.

Which actor played Harrison Bergeron in 2081, the 2009 short film based closely on Kurt Vonnegut's story?

Armie Hammer's Harrison has been held for six years rather than a short time, so he is a grown man, not the story's fourteen-year-old.

In the 2009 film 2081, what does Harrison Bergeron claim to have hidden beneath the theater stage?

A bomb is his bluff: the detonator in his hand actually switches the blocked television feed back on, so the whole country sees him shot.

Critic Darryl Hattenhauer argued in 1998 that 'Harrison Bergeron' mocks America's distorted picture of which ideology?

Communism and socialism as Cold War Americans misunderstood them were the story's real target, Hattenhauer theorized in a journal article.

The 1995 film 'Harrison Bergeron' is set in the United States but was shot in which Canadian city?

Toronto stood in for a future American suburb, with scenes also filmed on the University of Toronto's Scarborough campus.