47 Fun Facts About Spring Break

The 2003 spring break musical From Justin to Kelly starred the top two finishers of which TV talent show?

American Idol: winner Kelly Clarkson says she cried on the phone for an hour, pleading with the show's creator to release her from the contract that made her film it.

Which English landmark was bought, shipped to Arizona and rebuilt in a lakeside town now known for spring break?

London Bridge: it was sinking into the Thames when chainsaw tycoon Robert McCulloch bought it to put his new desert town on the tourist map.

Which singer starred in Girl Happy, a 1965 musical about a spring break trip to Fort Lauderdale?

Elvis Presley: he plays a nightclub singer whose boss sends him south to keep a secret eye on his college-student daughter during her week in the sun.

Which animated family's Florida holiday turns into spring break chaos in the 2000 episode 'Kill the Alligator and Run'?

The Simpsons: Homer gets swept up in the partying, runs over a town's beloved alligator, and the whole family ends up hiding from the police.

The 1960 film about four college girls on a Florida spring break is called what?

Where the Boys Are: the spring after its release, the crowd of students descending on Fort Lauderdale jumped from about 20,000 to 50,000.

Which singer acted in a 1960 spring break film and sang its title song?

Connie Francis: she talked the producer into giving her own songwriters, Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield, a week to write it, though Greenfield first called the title stupid.

Which sitcom's 2005 episode 'Spring Breakout' pits the magician Gob against the maker of a Girls Gone Wild-style video?

Arrested Development: Zach Braff guest-stars as the smug video mogul, who had mocked Gob's bungled magic tricks on one of his tapes.

Which Florida city ran a 2024 ad campaign announcing it was 'breaking up' with spring break?

Miami Beach: after two fatal shootings the previous March, the city warned visitors to expect curfews, bag checks at the sand and drink-driving checkpoints.

Which Florida Panhandle town has long billed itself as the 'Spring Break Capital of the World'?

Panama City Beach: after years of courting students with TV specials and giant beach clubs, the town has pushed a family-friendly image to shake off its party reputation.

Which country star released a run of Spring Break EPs and played yearly beach shows for student crowds until 2015?

Luke Bryan: he called time on the Florida concerts with a farewell record, 'Spring Break... Checkin' Out', saying he had looked forward to them year after year.

What did a Florida Panhandle sheriff set up at the beach to cope with spring break crowds?

A jail: the county lock-up was 25 miles away and drunk detainees kept being sick in the vans, so he built open-air pens that could be hosed down.

Which Texas island near the Mexican border draws college students from across the US every spring break?

South Padre Island: it could be reached only by ferry until a causeway opened in the 1950s, and the resort that grew up since still has just a few thousand residents.

Histories of spring break often trace its spirit to ancient spring festivals honouring which Greek god?

Dionysus: at the wine god's spring festival in Athens, revellers dressed up, sang and raced each other to drain their cups.

A 2003 film that followed 16 Americans on spring break in Cancún came from the makers of which TV series?

The Real World: its creators, Mary-Ellis Bunim and Jonathan Murray, took their cameras to the cinema with The Real Cancun, but the film earned back less than it cost.

Who picked the near-empty shore of Cancún as the site for a purpose-built resort around 1970?

Mexico's government: its planners spent three years studying the coast before choosing a spot that was home to little more than a small fishing settlement.

Cancún lies on the coast of which peninsula?

The Yucatán: the resort faces the Caribbean from a thin strip of island in the hurricane zone, and a direct hit in 1988 meant its hotels had to be rebuilt.

The 2012 film Spring Breakers was written and directed by whom?

Harmony Korine: in his script three of four college friends hold up a restaurant to pay for the trip, then fall in with the local drug dealer who posts their bail.

Which former Disney Channel star played one of the four girls in Spring Breakers?

Selena Gomez: she plays Faith, the Bible-study regular who goes home alone when her friends fall under the spell of a local gangster.

Which actor played the eccentric drug dealer 'Alien' in Spring Breakers?

James Franco: his gangster rapper posts bail for four arrested students he has never met, and three of them end up joining his life of crime.

In Spring Breakers, the gangster Alien sits at a white piano to sing which pop star's ballad 'Everytime'?

Britney Spears: he introduces her as 'an angel', then the masked friends sing along, shotguns in hand, as the film cuts to their armed robberies.

Many schools time spring break around which holiday?

Easter: students once simply went home for church with their parents, until word spread in the 1950s that a rowdier kind of holiday week was on offer in Florida.

Which Florida spring break city has long called its shore 'The World's Most Famous Beach'?

Daytona Beach: its mayor went on national TV in the 1980s to invite students turned away farther south, but by 1993 the city had cut its spring break marketing budget.

One Florida spring break beach is famous for allowing what on its hard-packed sand?

Driving cars: the smooth, firm sand drew pioneer motorists to test their machines, and by the early 1900s drivers were chasing land-speed records along it.

Fort Lauderdale's miles of canals earned it a nickname pairing which European city with 'of America'?

Venice: the canals are man-made, dredged through mangrove swamp from 1920 by developers who lined them with 'finger islands' so that as many house lots as possible faced the water.

Which 2014 comedy sequel sends undercover cops Schmidt and Jenko to a Mexican beach town at spring break?

22 Jump Street: Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum's cops spend the film posing as college students before their drug case follows the partying crowds to the beach.

Which entertainer, as mayor of Palm Springs, led a 1991 crackdown on the city's rowdy spring break?

Sonny Bono: the city banned thong bikinis in the street and late-night poolside drinking, and T-shirt sellers hit back with shirts mocking the 'Bono No-Nos'.

Cancún lies in which Mexican state?

Quintana Roo: sparsely settled and only a federal territory until 1974, it has since grown rapidly on the tourism its resort cities bring.

Which 1987 comedy sequel sends Lewis, Booger and friends to a fraternity convention in Fort Lauderdale?

Revenge of the Nerds II: the jocks of Alpha Beta turn up at the same convention out to get even, so the Tri-Lambs have to win their place all over again.

Students who spend the week volunteering are said to be on what kind of spring break?

Alternative: two Vanderbilt graduates founded Break Away in 1991 to help colleges run the trips, which range from tutoring migrant farm workers to registering rural voters.

Which party-bar chain, found in spring break resorts from Cancún to Cozumel, began life in Mazatlán?

Señor Frog's: it spread from Mexico's beach resorts to Caribbean islands and then into the United States, where it opened bars on Florida's own spring break beaches.

Which of these spring break destinations is in the Bahamas?

Nassau: long before the students came, pirates such as Blackbeard overran the Bahamian capital, until a royal governor arrived in 1718 and restored order.

Punta Cana, a spring break spot, is in which country?

The Dominican Republic: the resort strip has its own international airport, so visitors can fly straight in from abroad without passing through the capital.

Which rock singer opened the Cabo Wabo Cantina in the spring break resort of Cabo San Lucas?

Sammy Hagar: he opened it in 1990 with his Van Halen bandmates as partners, and when the bar lost money in its early years he bought them out and turned it around.

Which Jaws star opens the spring break horror film Piranha 3D as a doomed fisherman?

Richard Dreyfuss: his fisherman is the first to be eaten, a good-natured send-up of the shark expert he played in Jaws 35 years earlier.

Which comedy group released the 2013 parody single 'Spring Break Anthem'?

The Lonely Island: Andy Samberg's group cut its frat-party chants with calm verses about planning a same-sex wedding, to ask which of the two really deserves the outrage.

By the mid-1980s, hundreds of thousands of spring breakers had earned Fort Lauderdale which boozy nickname?

Fort Liquordale: bars lured students with all-you-can-drink specials until the city passed tougher drinking laws and its mayor went on TV to tell them to stay away.

The 1984 law that pushed every US state to a drinking age of 21 threatened to cut federal funding for what?

Highways: states that kept a lower age stood to lose a tenth of their road money, and Florida, facing an $80 million hole, raised its age from 19 to 21 in July 1985.

Sean S. Cunningham, director of the 1983 comedy Spring Break, is better known for launching which horror franchise?

Friday the 13th: three years after that slasher hit, Cunningham headed to Fort Lauderdale for a comedy about two pairs of college guys thrown together for the week.

Piranha 3D is set at spring break on fictional Lake Victoria but was shot at which Arizona lake?

Havasu: the film was once titled 'Piranha: Lake Havasu', and its director says about 80,000 gallons of fake blood were poured into the water.

Spring Breakdown (2009) stars Amy Poehler, Parker Posey and which fellow SNL alum?

Rachel Dratch: she also co-wrote the comedy, in which three thirty-something friends crash a college spring break to keep an eye on a senator's daughter.

Which studio released Spring Breakers in US cinemas in March 2013?

A24: the brand-new distributor sold the film with neon posters and guerrilla stunts, and even mounted a real Oscar campaign for its gangster rapper.

Which electronic producer co-scored Spring Breakers with Cliff Martinez, his first film score?

Skrillex: the film's director won him the job by sending its music supervisor YouTube links to his tracks.

Which Fort Lauderdale beach bar became known as spring break's unofficial headquarters after appearing in a 1960 film?

Elbo Room: the corner dive where Las Olas Boulevard meets the sand still trades on the legend, greeting the 2024 season online with a promise of 'beaches, booze and bikinis'.

Which Pacific resort, a 1950s playground of film stars, became a spring break rival to Cancún in the 2000s?

Acapulco: with a drinking age of 18 and student tour firms pushing it as the next big thing, the resort once favoured by Elizabeth Taylor filled with American undergraduates.

Who plays the grandfather who drags Zac Efron to spring break in Dirty Grandpa (2016)?

Robert De Niro: his foul-mouthed widower talks his uptight grandson, a lawyer one week from his wedding, into a road trip to Florida, then sets about showing him how to live a little.

Cabo San Lucas sits at the southern tip of which peninsula?

Baja California: a road running the length of the peninsula from Tijuana was finished only in 1973, ending its isolation, and the small town at the far end has since grown into a major resort.

Which rapper said in 2013 he was suing Spring Breakers' makers for $10M over the character Alien?

Riff Raff: the film's director had contacted him about appearing, and after its release he complained for months that the character copied his style.