Q 01/05

Which silent-film legend plays old Erronius in the 1966 film A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum?

A) Buster Keaton

B) Harold Lloyd

C) Stan Laurel

D) Charlie Chaplin

Answer · why

A) Buster Keaton

Buster Keaton was 70 and terminally ill, yet he took the pratfall after running into a tree himself. The film reached cinemas eight months after his d...

Q 02/05

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum was whose first Broadway show as both composer and lyricist?

A) Leonard Bernstein

B) Stephen Sondheim

C) Jerry Herman

D) Frank Loesser

Answer · why

B) Stephen Sondheim

Stephen Sondheim had written only the lyrics for West Side Story and Gypsy before it. The show went on to run for 964 performances on Broadway.

Q 03/05

The title A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum spoofs a stock opening line used by whom?

A) Roman orators

B) Wedding toastmasters

C) Vaudeville comics

D) Circus ringmasters

Answer · why

C) Vaudeville comics

Vaudeville comics often began a story by saying a funny thing had happened on the way to the theater. The authors simply swapped in the Roman marketpl...

Q 04/05

Which actor, later Broadway's first Tevye, created Pseudolus in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum?

A) Sid Caesar

B) Danny Kaye

C) Jackie Gleason

D) Zero Mostel

Answer · why

D) Zero Mostel

Zero Mostel won the Tony for Best Actor in a Musical as the scheming slave, then repeated the part in the 1966 film. He had spent much of the 1950s on...

Q 05/05

In A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, what does Hero promise Pseudolus for winning him Philia?

A) A racing chariot

B) A ship to Greece

C) His freedom

D) A vineyard in Gaul

Answer · why

C) His freedom

His freedom is the engine of the whole plot: every lie Pseudolus tells is meant to get him out of slavery. He ends the show a freedman with the courte...