50 Fun Facts About Millennials vs Boomers

Which 1950s children's show seated its young audience in bleachers called the Peanut Gallery?

Buffalo Bob opened every show by asking the kids what time it was, and about 40 of them yelled the answer back in unison.

The Slinky sold 400 units in 90 minutes after a 1945 demonstration at which Philadelphia department store?

Naval engineer Richard James had knocked a spring off a shelf two years earlier and watched it 'walk' away, which is the whole product.

The Beatles' first live US TV appearance in February 1964 drew over 73 million viewers to which programme?

The night is generally treated as the start of American Beatlemania and the wider British Invasion.

Who hosted American Bandstand for more than three decades?

He took over in 1956 after original host Bob Horn was fired, and stayed until the show ended in 1989.

The 1969 Woodstock festival was actually held on a dairy farm in which New York town?

Max Yasgur's farm was 60 miles from the town of Woodstock; the organisers had told local officials to expect no more than 50,000 people.

Which cartoon character taught schoolchildren what to do in an atomic flash in the 1951 film Duck and Cover?

Bert pulls into his shell at the sound of danger; the film was shown in schools throughout the 1950s.

'TV Dinner' began as a brand name for aluminium-tray frozen meals sold from 1953 by which company?

The first one was a Thanksgiving plate of turkey, cornbread stuffing, peas and sweet potatoes, heated in the oven.

Sales of the powdered drink Tang were poor until NASA sent it into orbit in 1962 with which astronaut?

That association is why so many people still believe Tang was invented for the space programme; it had been on shelves since 1959.

The Regency TR-1, released in 1954, was the first commercially manufactured what?

About 150,000 were sold, mostly on the novelty of a radio small enough to carry around.

Which CBS anchorman closed his evening newscast with the words 'And that's the way it is'?

He dropped the sign-off on nights when he ended with commentary rather than news, to keep the line honest.

Annette Funicello became a 1950s star as one of the original members of which television troupe?

She was one of the nine Red Team members kept under contract for the entire 1955 to 1959 run of the show.

'Rock Around the Clock' became a teenage anthem after opening which 1955 film?

The single then spent two months at number one; the film version and the hit single actually differ in the order of their solo breaks.

Which company manufactured the Etch A Sketch after seeing it twice at a Nuremberg toy fair?

French inventor André Cassagnes had called it L'Écran Magique, the magic screen; the company passed on it the first time.

Hasbro's 1964 launch of G.I. Joe led to the coining of which two-word toy term?

The original line represented four branches of the US armed forces, and the word 'doll' was carefully avoided when selling to boys.

Barbie was named after whom?

Ruth Handler watched her daughter Barbara give paper dolls grown-up roles and modelled the doll on a German figure called Bild Lilli.

Who broke Babe Ruth's single-season home run record with 61 homers in 1961?

He did it in a 162-game season, which is why some fans insisted on an asterisk next to the number for decades.

Cassius Clay took the world heavyweight title from Sonny Liston in February 1964 in which city?

Their 1965 rematch in Lewiston, Maine ended in the first round with the disputed 'phantom punch'.

In The Graduate (1967), what one word of career advice does Mr. McGuire give young Benjamin?

The line ranks 42nd on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest movie quotes.

Which TV western ran 20 seasons from 1955 to 1975, a scripted primetime record until The Simpsons passed it?

It began as a radio drama and put out 635 television episodes, half-hours at first and then hour-long shows from 1961.

When five-digit ZIP codes arrived in 1963, what did the letters ZIP stand for?

The name was chosen to suggest that mail would zip along faster; a cartoon mailman called Mr. ZIP sold the idea to the public.

What was the first toy ever advertised on television, in a 1952 campaign aimed directly at children?

The original kit was just plastic face parts on pushpins; families supplied their own potato.

A 1955 craze for coonskin caps was set off by a Disney television miniseries about which frontiersman?

Americans bought more than $300 million of tie-in merchandise that year, and star Fess Parker said a voided contract cost him millions of it.

The Tamagotchi virtual pet has been sold since 1996 by which Japanese toymaker?

The name is a blend of the Japanese for 'egg' and 'watch', which describes the object almost exactly.

Who recorded AOL's famous 'You've got mail' greeting?

He was paid $200 and taped the lines on a cassette deck in his own living room in 1989.

How many Pokémon did you need to catch to complete the Pokédex in the original Red and Blue games?

Neither cartridge had them all, so completing the set meant trading with a friend over a Game Link Cable.

Which teenager co-founded the file-sharing service Napster, launched in June 1999?

Sean Parker was the other co-founder; the original service lasted barely two years before the lawsuits shut it down.

Which of the four games built into the Nokia 3310 became a phenomenon in its own right?

The other three were Pairs II, Space Impact and Bantumi, none of which anyone plays at a bus stop from memory.

Furby, the must-have owl-like toy of Christmas 1998, was created by which company?

The company was a Hasbro subsidiary; the toy started out speaking 'Furbish' and gradually switched to English.

Blockbuster reached its peak of 9,094 stores in which year?

The company employed 84,300 people that year; six years later it filed for bankruptcy.

Lunchables, released nationally in 1988, are marketed under which brand name?

They were test-marketed in Eau Claire, Wisconsin and Grand Junction, Colorado the autumn before going national.

Surge, the 'hardcore' late-1990s citrus soda, was which company's rival to Mountain Dew?

It launched first in Norway under the name Urge in 1996 before the American rollout.

Who hosted MTV's Total Request Live when it launched in September 1998?

TRL merged his earlier request show with the live-audience format of MTV Live, broadcast from a Times Square studio.

Zack, Kelly, Screech and friends attended which fictional Los Angeles high school in Saved by the Bell?

The show was a reboot of the Disney Channel's Good Morning, Miss Bliss, and later spawned The New Class at the same school.

Which 2000 album sold 2.4 million copies in its first week, a US record that stood for 15 years?

Adele's 25 finally beat the mark in 2015; the runners-up here belong to Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears.

What was Britney Spears's debut single, released in September 1998?

It topped the charts in more than 20 countries and was written and produced by Max Martin.

Titanic (1997) was the highest-grossing film of all time until which movie overtook it in 2010?

Both films were directed by James Cameron, so he only ever lost the record to himself.

What was the first entirely computer-animated feature film?

Director John Lasseter received a Special Achievement Academy Award for the techniques that made it possible.

Brandi Chastain's shirt-off celebration came after the 1999 Women's World Cup final at which stadium?

All 90,000 seats sold out, and the image landed on the cover of Sports Illustrated.

By how many strokes did 21-year-old Tiger Woods win the 1997 Masters?

It remains the biggest winning margin in the tournament's history, and he was the youngest champion Augusta had seen.

Every new Myspace account came with one friend already added. Who was he?

Co-founder Tom Anderson stayed the default friend until 2010, when a profile called Today On MySpace, or T.O.M., took his place.

Super Soaker inventor Lonnie Johnson worked for the Air Force and which other body?

The prototype was PVC pipe, acrylic and an empty soda bottle; Larami sold it from 1990 and Hasbro took over the brand when it bought Larami in 1995.

The teenagers who told campfire stories in Are You Afraid of the Dark? called themselves what?

Each tale opened with 'Submitted for the approval of...' and a handful of 'midnight dust' that was really Coffee-Mate.

Sony's original PlayStation went on sale first in Japan in December of which year?

North America and Europe waited until September 1995; the console had begun life as a CD add-on for the Super Nintendo.

Which disease became the running joke for wiping out your party in The Oregon Trail?

The 1985 Apple II version was the one most schools ran, and the series was inducted into the World Video Game Hall of Fame in 2016.

Which two authors are widely credited with coining the term 'millennials' in 1987?

Children born in 1982 were just entering kindergarten, and the media had noticed they would graduate high school in the year 2000.

Which trade publication's 1993 editorial coined the phrase 'Generation Y'?

It first meant younger Gen Xers; by 2012 the magazine conceded 'Millennials' was the better name.

In which month and year did US 'echo boom' birth rates peak?

Millennials are called Echo Boomers because so many are the children of baby boomers, and the cohort rivals the boomers in size.

Which newspaper carried the first recorded use of 'baby boomer', in a January 1963 article?

Leslie J. Nason was warning of a coming surge in college enrolments; the OED dates the modern sense to a 1970 Washington Post piece.

How many baby boomers did the Pew Research Center estimate were living in the US as of 2019?

Despite predictions of a retirement-driven slowdown, 29% of Americans aged 65 to 72 were still in the labour force in 2018.

On which website was the first recorded 'OK boomer' posted, in September 2009?

It spread on 4chan from 2015 and exploded in late 2019 after a TikTok rant by an older man about 'infantile' young people.