Q 01/05

In The Scarlet Pimpernel, what does Sir Percy tip into his snuffbox to disable Chauvelin at a Calais inn?

A) Gunpowder

B) Chalk dust

C) Pepper

D) Laudanum

Answer · why

C) Pepper

Pepper from the inn's own supper table does it: Sir Percy offers a polite pinch, and Chauvelin is left sneezing and blinded while his quarry strolls o...

Q 02/05

Which Marvel Comics co-creator called the Scarlet Pimpernel the first character who could be called a superhero?

A) Stan Lee

B) Jack Kirby

C) Steve Ditko

D) Joe Simon

Answer · why

A) Stan Lee

Stan Lee read the Pimpernel stories as a child. Sir Percy already had the superhero's kit decades before capes and masks: a secret identity, a calling...

Q 03/05

Which Looney Tunes star plays the hero of The Scarlet Pumpernickel, a 1950 cartoon spoof of The Scarlet Pimpernel?

A) Bugs Bunny

B) Daffy Duck

C) Porky Pig

D) Elmer Fudd

Answer · why

B) Daffy Duck

Daffy Duck pitches the swashbuckler to his studio boss because he is tired of comedy roles, then realises he never wrote an ending. Animators later vo...

Q 04/05

In The Scarlet Pimpernel, a cart driver disguised as an old hag clears the Paris gate by saying her grandson has what?

A) Cholera

B) Diphtheria

C) Leprosy

D) Smallpox

Answer · why

D) Smallpox

Smallpox sends the sergeant and the whole crowd backing away from the cart, which rolls out of Paris with a condemned countess and her two children hi...

Q 05/05

In Baroness Orczy's novel, Sir Percy signs his secret notes with a scarlet pimpernel; what kind of thing is a real one?

A) A wildflower

B) A woodland songbird

C) A butterfly

D) A gemstone

Answer · why

A) A wildflower

A wildflower of English roadsides, the pimpernel is tiny and star-shaped, which is the joke: the most wanted man in France hides behind one of the hum...