Q 01/05

Dick Van Dyke's much-mocked Cockney accent comes from playing Bert the chimney sweep in which Disney musical?

A) Bedknobs and Broomsticks

B) Mary Poppins

C) Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

D) My Fair Lady

Answer · why

B) Mary Poppins

Mary Poppins also gave Van Dyke a second, hidden part as the elderly chairman of the bank. A 2003 Empire magazine poll ranked his Cockney the second-w...

Q 02/05

Dick Cheney, who accidentally shot a fellow hunter on a 2006 quail hunt, was vice president to which US president?

A) Ronald Reagan

B) Gerald Ford

C) George W. Bush

D) George H. W. Bush

Answer · why

C) George W. Bush

George W. Bush had put Cheney in charge of finding him a running mate, then chose Cheney himself. Cheney had earlier run the Pentagon as defense secre...

Q 03/05

Which coffee chain takes its name from the chief mate of the whaling ship in Herman Melville's Moby-Dick?

A) Starbucks

B) Peet's Coffee

C) Caribou Coffee

D) Tim Hortons

Answer · why

A) Starbucks

Starbucks came from a list of names beginning with st. The founders liked Starbo, an old mining town on a map, and that put them in mind of Melville's...

Q 04/05

Decca Records executive Dick Rowe is remembered for turning down which band after a January 1962 audition in London?

A) The Kinks

B) The Beatles

C) The Hollies

D) The Rolling Stones

Answer · why

B) The Beatles

The Beatles lost out to Brian Poole and the Tremeloes, who auditioned the same day and lived closer to London. Rowe later signed the Rolling Stones on...

Q 05/05

Dick Fosbury won gold at the 1968 Olympics by going over the bar backwards in which track and field event?

A) Pole vault

B) Steeplechase

C) Hurdles

D) High jump

Answer · why

D) High jump

High jump was never the same again: at the next Olympics, 28 of the 40 competitors copied his back-first style, by then known as the Fosbury flop.