How to use these
Thirty questions in four rounds: film, music, television, and a last round on books, games and the characters that outlived their medium. Each round runs from easy to hard, so you can stop a round early for a younger or more mixed group without losing the shape of it. Read them out with a twenty-second answer window, or type them into a community quiz so everyone answers on their own phone and the score keeps itself.
Entertainment is the category where somebody always disputes the answer, so each one comes with the fact that settles it. The questions deliberately avoid "what is popular right now": a question about last year's chart is wrong by next year, while a question about who won the first Oscar is right forever.
Round one: film
1. Which film won the very first Academy Award for Best Picture? "Wings", a silent film about First World War pilots, at the first ceremony in 1929. It remained the only silent winner until "The Artist" in 2012.
2. Who directed "Jaws"? Steven Spielberg, in 1975. The mechanical shark broke down so often that he showed it as little as possible, which is most of why the film works.
3. In "The Matrix", which pill does Neo take: red or blue? Red — the one that shows him the truth. The blue pill would have sent him back to sleep.
4. Which film contains the line "Here's looking at you, kid"? "Casablanca", from 1942. Humphrey Bogart says it to Ingrid Bergman four times, and it was not in the original script.
5. Which 1995 film was the first feature-length movie made entirely with computer animation? "Toy Story", by Pixar. It was also the studio's first feature film of any kind.
6. Which actor has played James Bond most often in the official Eon series? Roger Moore, seven times between 1973 and 1985. Sean Connery made six official Bond films; his seventh, "Never Say Never Again", was made outside the series.
7. How many Oscars did "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" win? Eleven — from eleven nominations, a clean sweep that tied the record held by "Ben-Hur" and "Titanic".
8. Which film held the record as the highest-grossing of all time for twelve years, from 1998 to 2010? "Titanic". The film that overtook it, "Avatar", was made by the same director, James Cameron.
Round two: music
9. Which band released "Bohemian Rhapsody" in 1975? Queen. At nearly six minutes, with no chorus, the record label said it was far too long for radio — it went to number one in the UK twice, sixteen years apart.
10. In which city were The Beatles formed? Liverpool, in 1960. The Cavern Club, where they played almost three hundred times, is still there.
11. Which Swedish group won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1974 with "Waterloo"? ABBA. The contest was held in Brighton, England, and the win launched the group internationally.
12. Which album is the best-selling album of all time? Michael Jackson's "Thriller", released in 1982. Seven of its nine tracks were released as singles, and all seven reached the US top ten.
13. What was the first music video ever broadcast on MTV, in August 1981? "Video Killed the Radio Star" by The Buggles — a choice the channel made on purpose, and one that has aged into a joke it tells about itself.
14. Which German band made "Autobahn" in 1974 and is widely credited with inventing electronic pop? Kraftwerk, from Düsseldorf. Their work is sampled in hip-hop, techno and synth-pop to a degree few rock bands can claim.
15. Which singer is known as the "Queen of Soul"? Aretha Franklin. In 1987 she became the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
16. How many strings does a standard violin have? Four — tuned G, D, A and E. A guitar has six, a cello also four, an octave and a fifth lower than the violin.
Round three: television
17. In "Friends", what is the name of the coffee house where the six spend most of their time? Central Perk. The orange sofa sat in front of the counter, and the sign on it saying "reserved" was the joke about why it was always free.
18. Which animated series, first broadcast in 1989, is set in the town of Springfield? "The Simpsons". It is the longest-running American animated series, sitcom and scripted prime-time series, and the state Springfield is in has never been confirmed.
19. Which German crime series has run since 1970 and rotates between cities, each with its own detectives? "Tatort". It airs on Sunday evenings and is watched together in bars across the country.
20. Which British science-fiction series features a time machine that looks like a police box? "Doctor Who", first broadcast in 1963. The machine is called the TARDIS, and it looks like a police box because its disguise circuit broke on the first trip and was never repaired.
21. In "Breaking Bad", what was Walter White's job before he started making drugs? A high-school chemistry teacher in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The series ran for five seasons and ended in 2013.
22. Which series based on George R. R. Martin's novels ended in 2019 after eight seasons? "Game of Thrones". The final season was the most-watched in the show's history and the most argued-about ending on television since "Lost".
23. Which Spanish heist series is known internationally as "Money Heist"? "La casa de papel" — "The House of Paper". Its robbers wear Salvador Dalí masks and are named after cities.
Round four: books, games and the characters that outlived them
24. Who wrote the Harry Potter novels, and in which year was the first published? J. K. Rowling; "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" came out in 1997, with a first print run of five hundred copies.
25. At which London address does Sherlock Holmes live? 221B Baker Street. The address did not exist when Arthur Conan Doyle wrote the stories; the street was extended later, and a museum now sits there.
26. Which 1937 novel by J. R. R. Tolkien introduced hobbits to the world? "The Hobbit". "The Lord of the Rings", written as its sequel, took him twelve more years.
27. Which video game character made his first appearance in the 1981 arcade game "Donkey Kong"? Mario — though in that game he was called Jumpman and was a carpenter, not a plumber.
28. What is the best-selling video game of all time? "Minecraft", with more than three hundred million copies sold. It began as a one-person project by Markus Persson in 2009.
29. What is Batman's real name? Bruce Wayne. He first appeared in "Detective Comics" issue 27 in 1939, one year after Superman.
30. Which German author wrote "The Neverending Story"? Michael Ende, in 1979. He disliked the 1984 film so much that he asked for his name to be removed from the credits.
Where the next thirty come from
If these ran out too fast, the entertainment category on omequiz holds many more, drawn shuffled and scored against a timer so that nobody has to read them out. The full list of reviewed questions with their answers is also public, sorted by difficulty, if you would rather build your own round from it.
For a whole evening, pair this round with general knowledge and one specialist subject: entertainment is the category most people can score in, which makes it the right one to open with and the wrong one to run alone.
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