Miscellaneous Arts Trivia Quiz

What play opens with "Now is the winter of our discontent"?
A: Shakespeare's "The Tragedy of King Richard III."

What was the title of the biography of Thomas Crapper, the British sanitary engineer who invented the modern flush toilet in 1878?
A :Flushed with Pride; The Story of Thomas Crapper.

What is the origin of the expression "Cowabunga!"--the war cry of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?
A :It was the greeting exchanged by Buffalo Bob Smith and Chief Thunderthud on the "Howdy Doody" TV show in the 1950s.

 

How many times did Ernest Hemingway revise the last page of A Farewell To Arms?
A: 39 times.

What is the name of the elementary school attended by Lucy, Linus and Charlie Brown in Charles Schulz's Peanuts comic strip?
A :Birchwood.

How many syllables are there in a Japanese haiku poem?
A :17, arranged in 3 lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables.

In Lewis Carroll's poem The Hunting of the Snark, what did the elusive, troublesome snark turn into to fool hunters?
A: A boojum.

What unflattering observation did poet Dylan Thomas make about writer T.S. Eliot's name?
A : Backward--but for one misplaced letter--it would spell toilets.

In the original L. Frank Baum story The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, what color were Dorothy's slippers?
A: Sliver.

What was art-world guru Andy Warhol's name at birth?
A :Andrew Warhola.

What phrase did French impressionist artist Paul Cezanne teach his pet parrot to say over and over again?
A: "Cezanne is a great painter!"

What was the maiden name of Blondie Bumstead, the comic-strip wife of hapless Dagwood Bumstead?
A: Boopadoop.

Whose autobiography is entitled The Wheel of Fortune?
A: The answer is not Vanna White, who was only eight years old when the book was published in 1965. Its author was French singer Edith Piaf.

What famous comic strip character was inspired by the 1936 Henry Fonda film Trail of the Lonesome Pine?
A: Al Capp's Li'l Abner.

What was the original name of the orphan created in 1924 by cartoonist Hrold Gray in the comic strip we know as Little Orphan Annie?
A: Otto. 

What Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist worked as a hod carrier, wheeling 100-pound barrows of concrete along scaffolding, during construction of New York's Madison Square Garden in the 1920s?
A: John Steinbeck.

In what play does the title character have a son named Swiss Cheese?
A: Mother Courage and Her Children by Bertolt Brecht.

How many grandchildren did artist Grandma Moses have?
A: 11

In the early James Bond books, Agent 007 packed a Walther PPK. What weapon replaced it in his later appearances?
A: A German-made, 9-millimeter, Heckler and Koch semi-automatic pistol.

In what state was playwright Tennessee Williams born?
A: In Mississippi, as Thomas Lanier Williams.  He took the name Tennessee after his father's home state.

Who said "Nothing is so much to be feared as fear?
A: Henry David Thoreau, in his 14-volume Journal, published posthumously in 1906.

What was the name of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's pet golden cocker spaniel ?
A: Flush.

What famous novel provided the basic story line for Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 Vietnam war film epic, Apocalypse Now?
A: The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, published in 1902 and set in Africa.

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