Q 01/05

Which American comic strip debuted in October 1950 and ran until its creator's death in 2000?

A) Garfield

B) Calvin and Hobbes

C) Peanuts

D) Doonesbury

Answer · why

C) Peanuts

Charles Schulz hated the name Peanuts, which United Feature Syndicate imposed on him, and grumbled about it for the rest of his life.

Q 02/05

Which company's frozen 'TV Dinner', launched in the 1950s, came in a compartmented aluminum tray?

A) Stouffer's

B) Swanson

C) Birds Eye

D) Banquet

Answer · why

B) Swanson

Swanson sold just 5,000 TV Dinners at first, but within a year its sales had passed 10 million.

Q 03/05

The 1954-55 Disney serial that launched the coonskin-cap craze dramatized which frontiersman?

A) Daniel Boone

B) Davy Crockett

C) Kit Carson

D) Jim Bowie

Answer · why

B) Davy Crockett

Davy Crockett died at the Alamo in the third episode, but the show proved so popular that Disney made two more Crockett episodes, aired in late 1955.

Q 04/05

'Rock Around the Clock' became a hit after playing over the opening credits of which 1955 film?

A) Jailhouse Rock

B) The Wild One

C) Blackboard Jungle

D) Rebel Without a Cause

Answer · why

C) Blackboard Jungle

Blackboard Jungle turned it into a smash, though the record had been only a minor US hit when it first came out in 1954.

Q 05/05

How did cameras show Elvis Presley on his third Ed Sullivan Show appearance?

A) In long shots

B) From the waist up

C) In silhouette

D) From behind

Answer · why

B) From the waist up

From the waist up, yet at the end of that show Sullivan told viewers Presley was 'a real decent, fine boy'.