Colourful General Knowledge Trivia Quiz

Tommy James and the Shondells released 'Crimson and Clover' in November of 1968, and it was successful on the charts in a number of countries in the following months. After they performed it on 'The Ed Sullivan Show' (January 26 1969) it hit the top of both the Billboard Top 100 and the Cash Box Top 100 when they released their lists on February 1.

While this original version was a dreamy piece, sometimes described as bubblegum and sometimes as psychedelic rock, a younger audience may be more familiar with the punk rock cover released in 1982 by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts as a single from their debut album, 'I Love Rock and Roll'. This version reached number seven on the Billboard Hot 100, and was top ten in a number of other countries as well.

This is the name of the current (2025) ruling house in the Netherlands, whose reign began in 1815 with the change from a republic to a monarchy under King William I (formerly William VI of Orange). The house itself is older than that, having been formed in the 16th century when Henry III of Nassau (Lord of Breda in the Netherlands) married Claudia of Chalon-Orange, and produced a son, René of Chalon. In 1830 this son inherited the Principality of Orange (in southern France) from his maternal uncle, becoming the first member of the Nassau dynasty to be a prince of Orange. The house of Orange is multi-branched across Europe, so this particular branch is usually referred to as Orange-Nassau for clarity, although in everyday use that is often shortened to just Orange.

William I, William II and William III were followed by Wilhelmina (does anyone else sense a pattern here?), Juliana (who abdicated in 1980 to allow her daughter to take over), Beatrix (who followed her mother's lead by abdicating in 2013) and Willem-Alexander, the first king since 1890. The current (2025) heir apparent is his oldest daughter, Catharina-Amalia, Princess of Orange.

The Green Bay Packers are one of the oldest teams in the National Football League, having been founded in 1919 as a semi-professional team by Earl "Curly" Lambeau and George Whitney Calhoun. They joined the American Professional Football Association (which was to be known as the NFL a year later) in 1921. The money to set the team up was provided by Lambeau's employer, a meat-packing company who required that the team be named after them. It has always been a community-based franchise, backed by shareholders who can only hold a fixed number of shares, to prevent a takeover that would turn it into a private company.

Even to those whose interest in American football is only aroused when they see headlines about the Super Bowl, Green Bay is a familiar team. Not only did they win the first two Super Bowls in 1966 and 1967, and repeat this success in 1996 and 2012, they had playing and coaching rosters that included some of the legends of the game. They were coached by Vince Lombardi between 1959 and 1967, whose star players included Bart Starr, Paul Hornung and Ray Nitschke. After Lombardi died of cancer in 1970, the trophy awarded to the winning team of the Super Bowl was renamed in his honour. The team that won the 1996 Super Bowl included Brett Favre, who won three consecutive MVP awards during the 16 years he spent with the club, at quarterback.

Actually, I could have described this phrase in a number of ways, as the fictional diamond that was at the centre of action in the 1963 film 'The Pink Panther' was only the start of things. The theme music by Henry Mancini, a jazz piece called 'The Pink Panther Theme', was nominated for an Academy Award. It lost out, but did win three Grammy Awards and made it into the Top Ten on the U.S. Billboard adult contemporary chart when it was released as a single. The theme was used again in later films in the series.

The opening credits for 'The Pink Panther' featured a cartoon character (obviously, an anthropomorphic pink panther) dancing and prancing to the theme music. The character proved so popular that it almost immediately generated a franchise in which he was the central character, spanning short cinematic films, television shows, advertisements (for football shoes, fibreglass insulation, artificial sweetener), video games, a short-lived breakfast cereal, and more. His pink colour made him an obvious choice to use as a mascot for a number of cancer campaigns around the world.

Getting back to that enormous and valuable pink diamond - its nickname stemmed from a flaw which was said to produce an image of a leaping panther if you looked at it correctly. This was the first film in a franchise that eventually (as of 2025 - who knows what may yet come) included eleven movies. The second and third focussed on the human characters from the first film, but the fourth one, 'Return of the Pink Panther' again involved the diamond. The rest of the movies all included a reference to the Pink Panther in their title, although the gem itself only figured in four of those seven films.

'Everyone knows' that a black hole is an area of space whose mass is so dense that its gravity keeps anything that comes too close from escaping from it - even light, which is why it is called black. Except it's not as simple as that - the more we learn about them, the more we find we don't quite understand. Let me cite two scientists whose expertise far exceeds mine.

Albert Einstein: "Black holes are where God divided by zero." If this reference didn't immediately click, you need to understand that dividing by zero doesn't make sense, it is a nonsensical thing to try, and mathematicians call it an undefined process. This from the man whose Theory of General Relativity predicted their existence.

Stephen Hawking: "Black holes aren't as black as they are painted." In 1974 Hawking (one of the leading lights in black hole theoretical research) demonstrated that black holes can indeed emit thermal radiation, an effect now known as Hawking radiation.

Tony Orlando and Dawn had a hit with 'Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree' in 1973. Yellow ribbons have a long history of association with an absent loved one, usually in military service, but expanded in the middle of the 20th century to include those whose absence is due to imprisonment. It was at times common practice for women to wear a yellow ribbon, either around their neck or as a bow pinned to their clothing, to indicate that they were faithfully waiting for their loved one to return. The song is said to have been inspired by a story (quite possibly an urban legend, since there seem to have been multiple versions of it, according to the settlement of a copyright infringement case lodged against the authors of the song) told by someone who shared a bus ride with a newly-released convict who was looking to see whether the oak tree outside his house sported a welcoming yellow bandana or not. One bandana doesn't seem nearly as exciting as a hundred ribbons tied all over the tree, which is the welcoming climax of the song.

During the Iran hostage crisis of 1979-1980, many Americans started sporting yellow ribbons to show their support for the relatives of the hostages; the song had a new life, with lots of airplay. It has also had media exposure in association with several popular uprisings whose supporters sported yellow ribbons - in the Philippines in 1983, protesting the Marcos regime, and in Hong Kong in 2014, protesting proposed reforms to the electoral system.

'You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown' is a musical comedy featuring the characters from the beloved comic strip 'Peanuts'. The music and lyrics were provided by Clark Gesner, with the book attributed to John Gordon, who does not exist. Much of the material was workshopped by the original cast (which included Gary Burghoff, later to reach a wider audience as Radar on 'MASH', in the title role), who decided to use a pseudonym rather than listing the entire cast and crew. The show originally was pretty much a series of skits, each based around one of the numbers that Gesner had written for his concept album inspired by the comic strip. These include (in the album order) Lucy being rejected by Schroeder as he plays Beethoven; Linus with his security blanket; Charlie Brown trying to fly a kite; Charlie Brown relating his woes regarding the Little Red Haired Girl to Lucy at her psychiatrist stand; Snoopy fighting the Red Baron from atop the doghouse; the whole gang playing baseball (and Charlie Brown striking out at a critical moment) and Snoopy demanding dinner, then performing a Happy Dance when it arrives.

The show originally ran off-Broadway between 1967 and 1971; this was followed by a much less successful Broadway run of 32 shows, and multiple revivals around the world, a tribute to the enduring legacy of the characters Charles Schulz created.

Scott O'Dell's 1960 award-winning children's novel was adapted into a film in 1964, starring Celia Kaye as Karana, a young girl who is stranded on an island off the coast of California, with only a dog for a companion, for many years - long enough that the dog dies of old age, and is replaced by another wild dog that she also manages to tame. Suspicious of what the hunters who visit the island might do to her, she hides from them every year, and spurns the friendship that a girl in their group tries to offer. She does finally realise that she needs human companionship, and departs with a missionary, accompanied by the dog.

The story was based on the life of Juana Maria, a Native American girl who spent 18 years living alone on San Nicholas Island between 1835 and 1853. The details of how she came to be stranded there are not clear, as there are several versions of the story, but she is documented as the last surviving member of her tribe, the Nicoleño, after their numbers had been demolished in conflict with fur hunters in 1814 and missionaries transported the remaining Nicoleños from their island to the Santa Barbara Mission. She was actually rescued by a fur trapper named George Nidever, trying to collect a reward, and died of dysentery a few weeks later. Not nearly as romantic a story as the fictional version!

Sheb Wooley had a reputation for novelty songs, and 'The Purple People Eater' certainly qualifies! Released in 1958, it reached number one in several countries, including the USA, Canada and Australia. He was inspired to write it when a friend's child told a joke that (as is often the case for young children trying to explore what makes things funny) was agonisingly unhumorous: What has one eye, one horn, flies and eats people? A one-eyed, one-horned, flying people eater. Less than an hour later, he had a song.

The monster in the song, however, is not a people-eater who is purple in colour. Rather, it feeds on purple people - a commodity that is hard to find - and aspires to play in a rock and roll band. This careful ambiguity crops up in other aspects of the lyrics - that one horn seems at one time to be part of the monster's anatomy, and at another to be a musical instrument. Maybe it's both. In the 1988 film based on the song, the alien that befriends Billy (played by Neil Patrick Harris) is definitely purple.

Written by Irving Berlin for the 1942 film 'Holiday Inn', and sung in that film by Bing Crosby, 'White Christmas' won the Academy Award for Best Original Song; the single that was released made it to the top of the Billboard chart for almost three months, repeating the feat in December of the nest two years. It has made a seasonal appearance in the top 40 multiple times since - and been covered by countless other artists. Many of these versions drop the first verse, in which the warmth of California at Christmas is admired, but then contrasted with the nostalgia of a good old-fashioned snowy celebration.

The 1954 film 'White Christmas', again starring Bing Crosby, featured a new version of 'White Christmas'. It was intended to also star Fred Astaire, reuniting the two stars of 'Holiday Inn', but what with one thing and another it was Danny Kaye who ended up in the other song-and-dance role. The film follows two army buddies as they form a team after the end of World War II, save a former commanding officer's failing hotel by staging a Christmas show and reuniting their old regiment, and (of course) get the girls. Everyone sings the title song as the snow falls, meaning the winter tourists will follow, and all will be well.