Who Created The Character? Trivia Quiz

Answer: Robert Louis Stevenson

Long John Silver was the one-legged cook on the voyage to "Treasure Island" described in Robert Louis Stevenson's novel. The yarn first appeared as a serial in "Young Folks" Magazine (1881-1882) before being published as a book in 1883. Silver is a complex character, especially for a work of children's literature.

He is amoral and deceitful to others but kind and protective to young Jim. He is both attractive and repulsive. The story has been adapted to film several dozen times, to radio, to the stage, to comic books, to video games. Numerous parodies have been made using non-human characters, e.g. the Muppets, aliens and robots, Alvin and the Chipmunks, and Mickey Mouse.

Answer: Ian Fleming

Ian Fleming first wrote "Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang: The Magical Car" for his son Casper, published in 1964. In it, Commander Caractacus Pott purchases and renovates a dilapidated old car which turns out to have secret powers such as the ability to fly. The vehicle was based on an actual 1920s racing car named Chitty Bang Bang built by Count Louis Zborowski. Fleming was the well-known author of the James Bond series of sexy spy novels.

The author did not live long enough to see his book adapted to the screen by Roald Dahl and Ken Hughes. Albert R. Broccoli, one of the producers of the James Bond movies, produced the 1968 motion picture.

It starred Dick Van Dyke as Commander Potts and Sally Ann Howes as Truly Scrumptious. In a curious case of novel to film and back again, the 1968 movie was "novelised" back into a book by John Burke.

Answer: Mark Twain

Twain's "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" was published in 1899 as a satire of medieval romanticism and then-modern ideas about progress. It was published under several different titles. Hank Morgan, an engineer, is magically transported from New England to the Olde England at the time of King Arthur. Adventures follow. Twain was no fan of feudalism and monarchy but he was not uncritical of capitalism and the results of industrialisation.

The story has been variously adapted; in 1946, Bugs Bunny played the part. Rogers and Hart turned it into a stage musical. Crosby made the movie; Tennessee Ernie starred in the TV version. Disney made a version set in outer space.

In Carl Sagan's 1985 novel "Contact," the lead character is reading "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" in one of the early scenes, which is referenced later in the work concerning contact between cultures.

Answer: Roald Dahl

Roald Dahl wrote "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" in 1964. It was not until 1971 that Gene Wilder played Willy Wonka in "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory", a difficult role for him (or anybody). Johnny Depp did worse in 2005's "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory." The critical consensus was that the second film didn't work. Egregious changes to the story of the boy and the chocolatier are made in the second motion picture. On "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," Depp told the host that he played the character as he imagined George W. Bush would act if he were "incredibly stoned."

Answer: Patrick Dennis

Told from the perspective of a boy, Patrick, who has lost his parents, "Auntie Mame" is the adventures he experienced while living with his father's sister. The novel was a major best-seller in 1955. It was adapted as a stage play by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee in 1956; Rosalind Russell played the lead.

It was made into a motion picture in 1958, also starring Rosalind Russell. It was made into a Broadway musical starring Angela Lansbury in 1966. The musical was made into a film in 1974 starring Lucile Ball. Author Patrick Dennis wrote many other novels, two of which were turned into American television series and one of which became a Broadway play.

Answer: Earl Derr Biggers

Charlie Chan, a Chinese-American detective in the Honolulu Police Department, first appeared in Earl Derr Biggers 1925 novel "House Without a Key." This was the only Chan novel set primarily in Hawaii. Biggers, a Harvard graduate, had a previous success with the novel "Seven Keys to Baldpate" (1913) which became first a successful stage play and then a successful motion picture. Biggers wrote only six Charlie Chan novels before his untimely death at 48 by heart attack.

A great many more Charlie Chan films were made, all of the Hollywood films starring occidental actors.

The 1956-57 television series, "The New Adventures of Charlie Chan," also used a non-Asian to portray the detective.

Answer: Anthony Burgess

Both Anthony Burgess' novel "A Clockwork Orange" (1962) and Stanley Kubrick's film adaptation of it are regarded as classic by those who regard things in such terms. The story of Alex, his crimes and attempts at his rehabilitation, is a commentary on violence, behavioural modification and juvenile delinquency. Alex is a sociopath who is drawn to rape and "ultraviolence" along with his gang companions The Droogs. The psychiatric approach to his cure is both humourous and pathetic.

Answer: Raymond Chandler

Raymond Chandler created the gruff gritty private detective Phillip Marlowe for his short stories published in pulp magazines of the 1930s. Marlowe was the quintessential hard-boiled detective. He began to cobble some of those stories together into novels, the first being "The Big Sleep" in 1939. Motion pictures, radio and television adaptations followed. Mark Schweizer wrote a series of fifteen "liturgical mysteries" about a police chief (who is also an Episcopal church organist-choir director) who buys Raymond Chandler's typewriter to inspire his own (unfortunate) attempts at writing crime fiction.

Answer: Jane Austen

Elizabeth Bennet, who then becomes Elizabeth Darcy, is the central character in Jane Austen's 1813 novel "Pride and Prejudice." She is remarkable among heroines of her time because of her complexity. While her sisters go about their life's most important task of finding suitable husbands, Lizzie goes very much her own way.

The depictions of her in film and broadcast media are uncountable. Kiera Knightly's 2005 portrayal earned her a nomination for the Best Actress Oscar. There is even a 2016 motion picture based on Seth Grahame-Smith's 2009 novel "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" in which Miss Bennet dispatches the undead.

Answer: Erle Stanley Gardner

Perry Mason is a criminal defense attorney created by Erle Stanley Gardner. He appears in novels, short stories, television series, radio dramas and motion pictures. The formula requires Mason to exonerate his client by implicating another who blurts out a confession, often on the witness stand before a jury. The CBS-TV series (1957-1966) featured Raymond Burr. Some of the books fell out of print until Ankerwycke, the press owned by the American Bar Association, reissued them in 2015. HBO has announced, three times, that it has a new Perry Mason series in the works.