The Sorting Hat Trivia Quiz

Answer: pork pie

Pork pie hats are traditionally made of felt, while some are made of straw (although these are usually more often called "boaters"). Buster Keaton and his wife (hand) made thousands of these hats during his career, because most were destroyed during movie stunts, given away as gifts or stolen by souvenir seekers. Dean Martin is another star who was fond of wearing the pork pie. Gene Hackman wore one in "The French Connection" and Fozzie Bear of "Muppets" fame looks adorable in his.

Answer: deerstalker

Though not named, the descriptions of the hat which are given and what hats were available at the time lead to only one logical conclusion, that Holmes wore a deerstalker cap. Illustrations, T.V. programs and movies have shown Holmes in a deerstalker cap. The deerstalker cap was first used by hunters around 1870.

Answer: The Brown Derby

Nearby to movie studios, the location of this Hollywood restaurant lent itself to become THE place to see and be seen. Many a movie deal was made there as well. This restaurant is also reported to be the birthplace of the Cobb Salad. It is said that Clark Gable proposed to Carole Lombard at the Brown Derby and rival gossip columnists Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper were regular guests. Like its other locations, it was the home of many caricatures of celebrities drawn by Jack Lane between 1947 and 1985.

Answer: meat

Talk about a "fleshy number"! To go along with that hat, Lady Gaga also sported a meat dress, meat handbag and trussed meat boots. Mind you, it probably wasn't a fashion first. Native Indians/Inuit used freshly killed animals as "hoods" to keep them warm.

The Aztec ruler, Montezuma, purportedly often wore a "sombrero de la pollo" (hat of chicken). Not sure that's true, but it certainly gives a unique tack on the expression "I'll eat my hat".

Answer: baseball

The original baseball caps were made of straw and first used in 1849. In 1860 the Brooklyn Excelsiors and a few other teams wore a cap evolved from a "Boston style", which was different from the "Chicago style" pill-box type of cap (also in use in the early days of baseball). In 1903 the "Philadelphia style" of cap was introduced with its innovative "stitched visor", which set the mold for all future modifications.

The goal of the baseball cap is to give the player some shielding from the sun while playing and this works for any fans enjoying the game or just walking around town as well, which has led to its popularity. It would look a bit ridiculous for a football fan or hockey fan to walk around with the helmets worn by players, so they adopted the baseball cap look for fans, as did other sports which have no headgear, such as basketball. Companies have also used baseball caps to promote themselves and their products.

Answer: coonskin

The coonskin cap is made from a raccoon, using the skin and fur of the animal and it is known for having the tail attached and hanging from the back of the hat. The first people to use the coonskin cap were Native Americans. European settlers later began wearing them.

The coonskin cap had a revival in the 1950s when Fess Parker portrayed Davy Crockett in a Disney television show of the same name - and most boys were desperate to have one!

Answer: top hat

Even if you HATE musicals and dislike dancing, you really need to watch "Top Hat" (1935). An all-around "feel good" movie, the pure athleticism is amazing and it's pretty funny (even today).

Top hats made of felt were processed using mercuric nitrates, which quite often led to neurological problems (trembling, anti-social behaviour, mood swings etc.) for the workers - hence the term "mad as a hatter".

Answer: Bonnie Parker

Possibly the first "gangsta fashionista", Bonnie Parker loved to dress up for her partner Clyde Barrow and the members of the public who were entertained by her exploits as portrayed in newspapers and magazines. Besides being a nickname for the hat, "Tam O'Shanter" is a poem by Robbie Burns. Bonnie wore hers a-kilt-er.

Answer: Carmen Miranda

Carmen Miranda (real name: Maria do Carmo Miranda da Cunha) played just about every stereotypical Latin female character in movies, despite what country they supposedly came from. She was touted as the "Brazilian Bombshell" and most of her songs were sung in Portuguese (not Spanish, as many movie-goers of the time may have thought).

Some of her fruit-laden hats were so heavy that she could not walk in her characteristic high heels, so in some movie sequences she appears barefoot. An estimated crowd of 600,000 people lined the streets of Rio de Janeiro for her funeral cortege.

Answer: ten gallon

John Wayne was fond of saying that the Stetson was "the hat that won the west". All hats made by the Stetson company were expensive (and still are today), which made them a status symbol. Despite their name, ten gallon hats had nothing to do with how much water they could hold. If you ignore Mongolian history, it is traditionally believed that similar hats made their way from the vaqueros of Central and South America to Texas.

In Spanish "galon" means "braid" and as many as ten braids were incorporated into their hatbands.

A "ten gallon hat" can hold no more than 3/4 gallons of fluid.