Q 01/05

Vermont senator Patrick Leahy, a devoted comic-book fan, made cameo appearances in several films about which superhero?

A) Superman

B) Spider-Man

C) Batman

D) Iron Man

Answer · why

C) Batman

Batman has given Leahy screen time since an uncredited cameo in Batman Forever, and in The Dark Knight he is the party guest who confronts the Joker.

Q 02/05

The Order of St Patrick, founded in 1783, gave Ireland's patron saint which color, still on the presidential standard?

A) Orange

B) Blue

C) White

D) Purple

Answer · why

B) Blue

Blue, not green, was the order's choice, and the name St. Patrick's blue stuck; a field of the color still sits behind the harp on Ireland's coat of a...

Q 03/05

A 1944 film of Patrick Hamilton's play about a husband driving his wife insane lent its title to which now-common term?

A) Stonewalling

B) Brainwashing

C) Browbeating

D) Gaslighting

Answer · why

D) Gaslighting

Gaslighting was Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year for 2022, more than eighty years after Hamilton's thriller Gas Light opened in London.

Q 04/05

Super Bowl-winning quarterback Patrick Mahomes is the son of Pat Mahomes, a longtime professional in which sport?

A) Baseball

B) Basketball

C) Ice hockey

D) Boxing

Answer · why

A) Baseball

Baseball nearly claimed the son too: the Detroit Tigers drafted Patrick in 2014, but he never signed and stuck with football.

Q 05/05

Patrick Swayze played a working-class dance instructor at a 1960s Catskills resort in which low-budget 1987 hit?

A) Footloose

B) Dirty Dancing

C) Flashdance

D) Strictly Ballroom

Answer · why

B) Dirty Dancing

Dirty Dancing cost about $5 million, less than half the average film budget of the day, and Swayze co-wrote and sang She's Like the Wind for its sound...