The Eighties Club
The Politics and Pop Culture of the 1980s
Trivia Challenge # 3
1. In what 1980 film did Jack Nicholson utter the line: "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy"?
2. The population of Planet Earth reached ____ billion people in 1987.
3. Name the only professional baseball team to win the World Series twice in the 1980s.
4. Which one of the following films did Molly Ringwald not appear in --Sixteen Candles, The Pick-Up Artist, St. Elmo's Fire or The Breakfast Club?
5. The success of the 1983 film Blue Thunder spawned two television series featuring super-helicopters. One was entitled Blue Thunder. What was the name of the other series? (Hint: It starred Jan Michael Vincent.)
6. Andre the Giant, Rowdy Roddy Piper, Hulk Hogan and Mean Gene Okerlund all had what in common? (Apart from being big.)
7. Who starred in the title role of the 1980 Broadway hit Annie when it went on tour?
8. A year before he organized Live Aid, Bob Geldof put together a "supergroup" including Duran Duran, Sting, Boy George and others to record a song called "Do They Know It's Christmas" -- the proceeds to go to Ethiopian famine relief. Name that supergroup.
9. "There's a heart that's breaking down this long distance line tonight" are lyrics to what John Waite song?
10. What Russian ballet star defected to the West and went on to star in the film White Nights with Gregory Hines?
11. An environmental activist movement calling itself Ban The Box protested the production and use of what item, claiming it contributed to the destruction of forests?
12. Linda Hamilton, who wowed us in Terminator and Terminator 2, went into the sewer (literally) when she starred in what Eighties television series?
13. The ill-fated Betamax videocassette was made exclusively by one company. Name it.
14. Billy and the Boingers was a (make-believe) punk band composed entirely of cartoon characters from which popular Eighties comic strip?
15. Name the 1985 Disney sequel to The Wizard of Oz.
16. Name the leader of the labor movement called Solidarity, which played a crucial role in liberating Poland from Soviet tyranny,.
17. Before making it in the music business with the Grammy-winning hit "Jessie's Girl," Rick Springfield starred in what daytime soap opera?
18. Bob and Doug's quest for Elsinore beer in the movie ________ (two words) was actually a modern retelling of Shakespeare's Hamlet (believe it or not.)
19. In the early Eighties the U.S. Treasury produced a new dollar coin, about the size of a quarter. Name the early American suffragette who appeared on this coin.
20. The 1989 Tiananmen Square incident in which anti-communist demonstrations were violently crushed by the military occurred in what country?
21. Name the subject of the Tower Commission Report. (Choices: nuclear arms proliferation, the assassination attempt on President Reagan, the Iran-Contra Affair, violence in society.)
22. Johnny Depp starred in this TV series (1987-90) about a group of young undercover cops. It was the Fox Network's first big hit. Name that show.
23. Name the Indiana schoolboy who contracted AIDS in 1984 from a blood transfusion, and whose plight received nationwide attention when he was banned from attending school.
24. Olivia Newton-John played a beautiful Muse-on-rollerskates in what 1980 musical-fantasy film?
25. "Greed, for lack of a better word, is good," is a line spoken by Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) in what Oliver Stone film from the Eighties?
26. Who said "Politics is just like show business"?
27. In 1985, four country music stars recorded an album entitled The Highwaymen. Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson and Waylon Jennings were three. Who was the fourth?
28. To whom was George Bush referring when he introduced President Reagan to "the little brown ones"?
29. Name the magazine that had to pay nearly $10 million to the relatives of a woman murdered by a killer who was employed through its classified ads.
30. What was the name of the astrologer whom First Lady Nancy Reagan consulted regarding the best times for the president to schedule trips and public appearances? (Bonus point: What is the title of the book the astrologer wrote about all this?)
31. Name the star of the Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer television series (1984-87) who was tossed in jail by authorities after bringing an ounce of cocaine into England.
32. Soviet reformer Mikhail Gorbachev often used the words glasnost and perestroika. Which one means "openness"?
33. In 1982, Time magazine selected one woman as having the ultimate "80s Look." Name her. (Choices: Victoria Principal, Brooke Shields, Jane Fonda, Madonna.)
34. Ronald Reagan and Konstantin Chernenko impersonators went at it in a boxing ring in the video for the song "Two Tribes." What group performed that song?
35. What did PTL -- the ministry run by evangelist Jim Bakker -- stand for?
36. True or False: a majority of Americans polled in 1988 said they would vote for Ronald Reagan for a third term in the White House.
37. What was the actual name of the hospital featured in the television series St. Elsewhere.
38. What was the name of Prince's second movie -- Purple Rain being the first -- in which he played a gigolo in the south of France?
39. President Reagan was widely criticized for visiting a cemetery at Bitburg in West Germany because it contained what?
40. In what Eighties teen flick was the African Anteater Dance prominently featured?
41. In the television series Newhart, what were the names of Larry's two brothers?
42. Before she launched a successful solo career, singer Belinda Carlisle was a member of what popular all-girl pop group?
43. Before he starred in the 90s series ER, George Clooney appeared in an Eighties series about a hospital emergency room. Name that series.
44. What post in Reagan's Cabinet did both Alexander M. Haig and George P. Shultz hold?
45. What nation was the only one to vote against a 1981 World Health Organization recommendation that discouraged the use of baby formula in Third World countries?
46. Name the founder of the Unification Church who was sentenced to prison for tax fraud in 1982.
47. Name the 1982 amendment that the U.S. Congress passed which barred the Defense Department and the CIA from funding the overthrow of the Marxist government in Nicaragua.
48. Geraldo Rivera hosted a 1986 live television broadcast during which a 'secret underground vault" once belonging to __________ was opened.
49. What major network news anchor was "kidnapped" by an irate cab driver, beaten up on Park Avenue, walked off the set during a live broadcast, and was accused of coloring his hair -- all during the Eighties?
50. Was Tommy Tutone, who knew Jenny's number (867-5309) a group or a solo artist?

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