The History of Hair Dryers Trivia Quiz

Answer: Darth Vader

'Back to the Future' told the story of a teenage boy named Marty McFly who travelled back to 1955 when he drove a DeLorean sports car that had been converted into a time machine at the key speed of 88 miles per hour. During his time in 1955 he met both his parents George and Lorraine as teenagers and inadvertently got in the way of their relationship. In order to save himself and his siblings from being wiped out of existence, Marty tried a number of different plots and plans to bring them back together, including a somewhat bizarre attempt where he claimed to be an alien called Darth Vader from the planet Vulcan and threatened to melt his father's brain with a "ray gun" (hair dryer) if he didn't ask Lorraine out.

Since the planet Vulcan didn't feature in a TV episode of 'Star Trek' until 1967 and the first film in the 'Star Wars' franchise was released in 1977, poor George McFly had no way of knowing that the alien name and place his strange visitor had just quoted were lifted straight out of science fiction.

Answer: Melmac

The TV sitcom 'ALF' ran for four seasons from 1986 to 1990 and was about the adventures on Earth of an alien - the titular "A(lien) L(ife) F(orm)" - who crash landed in the garage of the Tanner family. The episode 'Pennsylvania 6-5000' was the fourth episode of the show. In it ALF had serious concerns about the people of Earth's use of nuclear technology and used a short wave radio to convey his opinion to the US President - netting his host, Willie Tanner, a stay in jail. ALF's fears were explained when he told the Tanners that his home planet, Melmac, had been destroyed in a nuclear accident caused by overuse of the planet's stock of hair dryers.

However, ALF wasn't entirely consistent in his explanation of his planet's destruction as nuclear war and a "freak boating accident" were also mentioned later in the series.

Answer: Princess Vespa

'Spaceballs' was a comedy spoof of the 'Star Wars' franchise and the basic plot revolved around attempts to capture Princess Vespa of the planet Druidia. Vespa's father, King Roland, was trying to find her after she escaped the planet in in order to avoid being forced to marry the narcoleptic Prince Valium, while the leader of the planet Spaceball wanted to kidnap her as part of a plot to use a giant vacuum cleaner to steal all of Druidia's air.

The hair dryer featured after Vespa (based on Princess Leia) and her friends had been tracked down by a mercenary named Lone Starr (a Han Solo/Luke Skywalker cross). The group crash-landed on a desert moon and set off in search of help - weighed down by a full set of luggage. Lone Starr opened up one of the cases to reveal a massive hair dryer labelled "hot air" and challenged Vespa as to why she thought it was an essential item to carry across the hot and sandy landscape... she replied with "It's my industrial-strength hair dryer and I can't live without it".

Answer: The Northeast Blackout

Science fiction show 'Quantum Leap' featured a scientist named Sam Beckett, who ended up "leaping" through a series of historical events after testing an experimental time machine. On each leap he ended up in the life of a key person in events - appearing to be that person from the point of view of people of the past - and had a mission to correct something that had gone wrong with the timeline.

In 'Double Identity', the sixth episode of the first series, Sam's mission was to induce the northeast blackout of 1965 in order to save the lives of a Mafia hitman named Frankie and his lover Teresa, who also happened to be the girlfriend of a Mafia boss.

He achieved his task by getting Frankie's brother to plug a hair dryer from Teresa's salon into an external power socket of a fraternity house in Boston.

However, the exact reason behind all the complicated details or why Frankie and Teresa's relationship was so important to history wasn't really made clear.

Answer: Thelma and Louise

'Thelma and Louise' starred Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon in the title roles of a pair of friends who end up on the run after one of them shot and killed a man who was attempting to rape her friend. While fleeing in the direction of the Mexican border they picked up a handsome hitchhiker named J.D (Brad Pitt) who Thelma immediately fell for and invited back to her hotel room.

He turned out to be a thief, who helpfully illustrated his technique for holding up a bank, using Thelma's hair dryer as a stand in for a gun.

He then stole all of Louise's money and disappeared; Thelma was left to put his advice to good use (albeit using an actual gun) and rob a convenience store to make up for it.

Answer: He gained the ability to hear women's thoughts

In 'What Women Want' Mel Gibson played Nick Marshall, an arrogant advertising executive who had an unfortunate incident involving a bath tub full of water and a hair dryer he was testing to help him work out how to promote it. After regaining consciousness he discovered that the electric shock had granted him the ability to hear what women are thinking - and that none of their thoughts about him were particularly complimentary! Nick then used his secret new ability and the information it granted him for both bad and good; he stole the ideas of his female boss to save his job, but he also rebuilt his relationship with his teenage daughter and helped a suicidal secretary.

Answer: The Incredibles

'The Incredibles' was the first film in a franchise about two former superheroes and their children who were hiding amazing superpower abilities behind a "normal" suburban lifestyle, when the emergence of a new supervillain led them to return to crime-fighting.

The family consisted of Bob Parr (Mr. Incredible), his wife Helen (Elastigirl), daughter Violet (who possessed the power to become invisible), son Dash (who could move at super-speed) and baby Jack-Jack. In the film, Bob found a computer tablet which delivered a message that a secret government agency needed his help to destroy a rogue experimental robot.

The tablet then self-destructed, triggering the Parr's fire sprinkler system and forcing Bob to employ a hair dryer to help salvage his precious book collection.

Answer: Eastern Promises

'Eastern Promises' was directed by David Cronenberg and set in the underworld surrounding a Russian mafia group in London. It tells the story of a midwife (Naomi Watts) who became embroiled in the machinations of a criminal sex-trafficking ring while trying to help the baby of one of her patients - a teenage Russian prostitute who had died during childbirth. One of the many acts of violence that takes place in the film is the murder of the leader of a rival Chechen gang and the disposal of his body by the main character Nikolai, a fixer for the Russian gang played by Viggo Mortensen. Since the body had initially been stored in a freezer, Nikolai had a to use a hair dryer to defrost it enough to be able to cut off the fingers (to hinder the identification process) before throwing it into the River Thames.

Answer: Dancing Queen

Based on songs by Swedish pop band ABBA and set on a small Greek island, the 2008 film adaptation of the jukebox musical 'Mamma Mia!' proved to be a massive hit. In it, single mother Donna (Meryl Streep) was preparing for the wedding of her only daughter Sophie (Amanda Seyfried), when she discovered that three of her former lovers (Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth and Stellan Skarsgard) - who were all possible candidates to be Sophie's father - had turned up on the island.

It then became the job of her best friends Tanya (Christine Baranski) and Rosie (Julie Walters) to console the stricken mother of the bride and help her work out why these men had suddenly reappeared in her life.

The rendition of 'Dancing Queen' began in Donna's bedroom with various props (including the hair dryer) standing in for costumes and equipment such as microphones, but ended with almost all the women on the island parading down to the harbour and jumping into the sea.

Answer: Daisy Mason

The member of Downton's staff who made an ill-advised attempt to cut and blow dry her own hair and ended up having to hide the mangled remains under her hat was Daisy Mason, the somewhat naïve assistant cook. The incident took place in the TV episode 'The Finale', which first aired on Christmas Day, 2015, and featured the marriage of the long-suffering Lady Edith Crawley to Bertie Pelham, the Marquess of Hexham. Poor Daisy was so embarrassed that she initially refused to attend the wedding, but changed her mind after Anna Bates, Lady Mary's lady's maid, proved able to use the hair dryer properly and gave Daisy a beautiful new short style.

This was the last TV episode of 'Downton Abbey' before the release of the 2019 film, which picked up the lives of Downton's residents two years after the events of 'The Finale'.