Best Left Uneaten Trivia Quiz

Answer: Gum

The 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' novel is perhaps Roald Dahl's most famous piece of literature. It tells the story of five children, each of which has been lucky enough to obtain a golden ticket, and their adventure through the chocolate factory of Mr Willy Wonka. One of those five children was Violet Beauregarde, a girl who just cannot stop chewing. You can imagine her joy when Mr Wonka introduces a piece of gum whose taste changes with time to induce the sensation of eating a three-course meal. Wonka does mention however that he hasn't yet got the design quite right and that it is not yet ready for consumption. Beauregarde held no regard for his conservative nonsense and started chewing a piece of this most unusual gum.

In the 1971 film, as well as the 2004 stage play, the Beauregardes are left with a "blueberry for a daughter".

Answer: Apple

'Snow White', or in German 'Schneewittchen', is the world-famous fairytale penned by the Brothers Grimm. The story documents the hatred that a queen has for her stepdaughter (Snow White) due to her youthful beauty. The rather extreme result of her envy, especially for a piece of literature much loved by children, is multiple attempts at taking the young girl's life!

The first attempt involved sending a huntsman into the woods but the huntsman found that he didn't have the heart to kill such a young girl and so refused to carry out the deed. The second was attempted death by bodice; the Queen, in disguise, visited Snow White at the dwarves' home and sold the girl a bodice. The Queen then proceeded to tighten it to such an extent that Snow White fainted and she was left there to die. The dwarves came to the rescue though and untied the bodice allowing Snow White to return to consciousness. The remaining two attempts at the life of Snow White made use of poison; firstly, the poison was applied to a comb which caused Snow White to faint when she brushed her hair, and secondly, the famous apple was laced with poison which, for a while at least, appeared to have finally finished the young girl off. Snow White did live happily ever after though!

Answer: Chew

The first book in the comic book series 'Chew' was published in 2009 and it met such initial success that the franchise picked up the Eisner Award for Best New Series in 2009 and obtained a further Eisner Award in 2010, this time in the Best Continuing Series category. This is quite a big deal when it is considered that the Eisner Awards is often said to be the Academy Awards of the comic book industry.

'Chew', written by John Layman and illustrated by Rob Guillory, is set in the USA, a country suffering from the effects of bird flu to the extent that over twenty million people have died. The consequence of this is that the consumption of bird meats, such as chicken, turkey and, for the more adventurous, pigeon, is illegal. The enforcement of this law is down to Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officials such as the main character in this comic book series, Tony Chu.

Answer: Yes

Sam-I-Am must be praised for his persistence, as eventually the unnamed man who Sam-I-Am constantly pesters gives in and tries the new recipe. Despite the unnamed man believing that he wouldn't like green eggs and ham, he decides upon consumption that Sam-I-Am's creation is not that bad at all. Maybe there is an underlying message in this Dr. Seuss book about not judging things by how they look or maybe the whole story is just a bit of fun but either way, the book remains as popular now as it was when published in 1960.

Answer: Dexter

'House', 'Grey's Anatomy' and 'Scrubs' were all medically-themed television shows though they differed in how seriously they approached the subject matter. 'House' in particular explored the development of diseases, both common and exotic, due to eating contaminated food. 'Dexter' on the other hand, whilst having a medical component, was set in Miami Metro Police Department and as such was centred around solving crime with the help of forensic scientists. 'Dexter' starred Michael C. Hall, an actor who did a disturbingly good job of playing a serial killer. Though Hall's ability to convincingly portray strange characters is of no surprise to those who have seen HBO's 'Six Feet Under', an utterly bizarre yet wonderful show set in a Los Angeles funeral home.

Answer: Howard Wolowitz

'The Big Bang Theory' celebrated the nerd, the geek and everything that those two entities hold dear: science, technology, comic books, video games and science fiction. I am not even going to enter the debate over the similarities and distinctions, existent or otherwise, between nerds and geeks, as it may just start a riot! All that I will say is that Howard Wolowitz, with his Master's in Engineering and Batman belt buckle, belongs to one, the other or both of those classifications. Mr. Wolowitz, who is constantly derided by Dr Sheldon Cooper for not holding a PhD, also has a nut allergy, a fact that was useful to many of the show's plots.

Answer: Yes

It is quite a common occurrence in video games for slain animals (or monsters) to drop items. Often these dropped items can be food and this is true of the mole rat in 'Fallout 3', a game for Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The mole rat, as has already been mentioned, roams a post-apocalyptic wasteland and the survival of its predecessor (a normal, everyday rodent) came at a very great cost.

The significant exposure to radiation resulted in mutations which in turn resulted in the mole rat. The mole rat's meat doesn't seem particularly appetising, but in a post-apocalyptic world, you really cannot be picky!

Answer: Green

'Soylent Green' is a 1973 film, starring Charlton Heston, that was set in an overpopulated dystopia where food was scarce and ethics seemingly scarcer. The main source of nutrition for the population was in the form of products developed by the Soylent Corporation and these products were Soylent Red, Soylent Yellow and Soylent Green.

It is eventually discovered the the Soylent Green product is recycled human; rather than burial or cremation, dead humans were sent for reprocessing in order to sustain the nutritional needs of the populace.

The film can be summed up by one of the most memorable quotes in science fiction, "Soylent Green is people!"

Answer: Cloud Atlas

The 2012 film 'Cloud Atlas' is a rather confusing film with so many things going on that it could conceivably be about anything the viewer wants it to be about. There are six stories that run alongside each other on our screen, but took place separately and chronologically in reality. One of these stories takes place in Neo Seoul, Korea in the year 2144 and it is this story that involves the recycling of clones such that they can be reused as food for the remaining clones. This strongly references 'Soylent Green' (1973) and in one of the other six story arcs, Jim Broadbent's character explicitly mentions the 1973 film by uttering the famous phrase "Soylent Green is people!"

I like this film even though I admittedly don't fully understand it. 'Cloud Atlas' is certainly worth a few hours of anybody's time even if only to see the excellence of Jim Broadbent!

Answer: The Book of Eli

'The Book of Eli' was released in 2010 amidst a cinematic era in which post-apocalyptic films, such as 2009's 'The Road', were in fashion. 'The Book of Eli' starred Denzel Washington as a man being guided, maybe by instinct or maybe by a higher power, to "the west" in order to deliver and preserve the content of a special book. On his journey he has to survive threats posed to him by looters and cannibals and at one point had to decline the offer of some sandwiches.

This was in a scene featuring the excellent pair of Frances de la Tour and Michael Gambon (better known to 'Harry Potter' fans as Madame Olympe Maxime and Albus Dumbledore) who played an elderly couple who survived on tea made of filthy water and meals made from human meat! Despite how it sounds, the scene is rather humorous, with de la Tour and Gambon playing their parts in a comedic manner and with Anita Ward's 'Ring My Bell' playing in the background.