All About Bananas Trivia Quiz

Answer: Harry Belafonte

The song is a traditional Jamaican folk song, sung by night-shift dock workers loading bananas onto ships. "Daylight come and me wan' to go home." There are numerous versions and a great variety of lyrics, as befits a folk song. Harry Belafonte's 1956 recording became a standard and one of his signature songs.

He sang it on "The Muppets Show" in 1979. It was featured in the 1988 motion picture "Beetlejuice." Stan Freberg famously parodied it in 1957 in a version where a beatnik bongo player tries to persuade the singer to sing more softly: "It's too piercing, man. Like, I don't dig loud noises."

Answer: NBC-TV, in the USA

Hanna-Barbera mixed live-action with animation when they created "The Banana Splits Adventure Hour" for American TV. The result was so successful that the programme remained in syndication from 1971 to 1982. The premise was that four costumed animal characters -- Fleegle, Bingo, Drooper and Snorky -- composed a rock band. Both the costumes and the sets were designed by Sid and Marty Krofft ("H.R. Pufnstuf"; "The Bugaloos"; "Sigmund and the Sea Monsters", "Land of the Lost", "Wonderbug").

Answer: an Italian-American gangster

Joseph Bonanno (1905-2002) was the boss of a major Mafia crime family in New York City. He was widely known as "Joe Bananas." He was succeeded by his son, Salvatore Vincent "Bill" Bonanno (1932-2008), as head of the Cosa Nostra family. The organization was infiltrated by an FBI agent using the name Donnie Brasco (true name Joseph Dominick "Joe" Pistone).

Answer: It is lit on fire for service.

Bananas Foster was created by co-owner Ella Brennan and Chef Paul Blangé at Brennan's restaurant in New Orleans in 1951. It was named to honour Richard Foster, the chair of the city's Crime Commission and a friend of co-owner Owen Brennan. Bananas are sautéed in butter, brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg. Dark rum and banana liqueur are added and ignited.

The bananas and their sauce are then served over vanilla ice cream or as the filling for a dessert crêpe. If the flambé is performed tableside, the restaurant may charge more for the impressive dish.

Answer: Woody Allen

Vincent Canby said, in "The New York Times," that the movie is about "love, Cuban revolution, the C.I.A., Jewish mothers, J. Edgar Hoover and ... 1000 grilled cheese sandwiches." Allen plays a neurotic who accidentally becomes the president of San Marcos, a Latin American country, in the midst of a revolution. The title is a double entendre: "bananas" is slang for crazy and "banana republic" is a term for a politically and economically unstable nation.

Answer: a banana-shaped electrical vibrator

Musician Country Joe McDonald apparently started the rumour in 1966 that smoking dried banana skins would get people high. According to Cecil Adams and "The Straight Dope," the notion that smoking banana skins produced hallucinations was publicized in the "Berkeley Barb" in March of 1967 and debunked by researchers at New York University later in 1967. "The Rolling Stone Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock and Roll" (2001) says that the reference is to a battery-powered vibrator shaped like a banana. Donovan's chum Paul McCartney played bass guitar on the album and is one of the revelers who can be heard in the background of the song.

Answer: the headliner, top-billing

The etymology of "top banana" is obscure but may derive from an old vaudeville term used in burlesque theater for the star of the show. From there, the term expanded to mean the head person in any business or organization, even those outside of entertainment. "Top Banana" was a 1951 Johnny Mercer Broadway musical written especially to star Phil Silvers playing the host of a TV variety show. It borrowed the title in its classic sense. Silvers won the Tony for Best Actor in a Musical in 1952.

Answer: the Minions

The Minions -- those little yellow animated fellows with goggles and almost no hair who speak Minionese -- made a teaser trailer in 2012 for the motion picture "Despicable Me 2."

"Barbara Ann" was written by Fred Fassert in 1958, using the name of his little sister Barbara Ann Fassert. The Regents recorded the song in 1958 but did not release it until 1961, after they had broken up. The Beach Boys' cover was released in 1965. Minions love bananas so it was a short reach to adapt this song to their ends. As they say "Togari noh pocato-li kani malo mani kano chi ka-baba, ba-ba-nana."

Answer: One is wicked venomous; the other harmless

The Brazilian wandering spider is among the more venomous of all spiders. It has neither a lair nor a web but rather hides in the floor of the forest or in the foliage of plants. They are found in harvested bananas, hence the common name. They are brown which aids in their concealment. Nephila are beautiful large yellow spiders who build durable webs.

Their venom is no more than an annoyance to humans.

Answer: the United States

The baking of pies is ancient. The making of cream or custard pies began in Medieval times. The confecting of banana cream pie is a late 19th century American innovation. Cream pies are made in many sorts: vanilla, chocolate, peanut butter, lemon, lime, coconut.

The United Fruit Company (owner of the Chiquita Banana trademark) enjoyed great success predicated on improvements in transportation and refrigeration in the late 19th century. The company marketed a number of recipes using "exotic" bananas including banana cream pie. March 2 is National Banana Cream Pie Day in the US.

A delicious English variation is Banoffee Pie, made with bananas and toffee, invented by Nigel Mackenzie and Ian Dowding at The Hungry Monk Restaurant in Jevington, East Sussex.

Answer: Australia

The township of Banana is located in the Shire of Banana, and both of them are located in Queensland, Australia. The place name has nothing to do with yellow fruit but rather took the name of a dun-coloured bullock named "Banana" in the 1860s. Banana was used to steer wilder cattle into the stockyards. The bull was so highly regarded by stockmen that, when he died, he was given a proper burial.

Answer: O. Henry

O. Henry (William Sydney Porter, 1862-1910) wrote the book "Cabbages and Kings" (1904) while he was in exile in Honduras. It contained short stories about Latin America and described the Republic of Anchuria which was corrupt, stratified, and wholly dependent upon the export of bananas for its wealth. American corporations such as the United Fruit Company as well as the United States government were complicit in propping up banana republics where a large peasant class struggled and a small ruling class thrived.

Answer: Banana Boat Sun Tan Lotion

Bell worked spring break as a lifeguard at the Fontainebleau resort hotel in Miami Beach. He heard guests complain about greasy suntan lotion and invented a non-greasy formula which contained a sun-blocker and came in unbreakable tubes rather than glass bottles. He founded his business in his garage in 1985 and sold it to Playtex in 1993 for eight figures.

Answer: an English girls singing group

Bananarama began as an English girls trio in 1981 but became a duo in 1991 and a trio again in 2017. Sara Dallin, Siobhan Fahey and Keren Woodward were the original members. Fahey left in 1988 and was replaced by Jacquie O'Sullivan. O'Sullivan left in 1991. Fahey returned in 2017.

The group had numerous number-one hits including "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye" (1983), "Cruel Summer" (1983), and "Love in the First Degree" (1987).

Answer: vanilla, chocolate, strawberry

A banana split in two the long way, laid to either side of a long shallow narrow glass dish (called a "boat" in the trade), is filled with three scoops of ice cream, a sauce or sauces, crushed nuts, whipped cream and a maraschino cherry on top. The sauces may be chocolate, caramel, strawberry or something else.

The nuts may be walnuts, hazelnuts (Filberts), peanuts, pecans or something else. But the classic ice cream flavours are always vanilla, chocolate and strawberry. One highly-likely inventor was David Evans Strickler at Tassel Pharmacy in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, in 1904.

Others are Letty Lally at Foeller Drug, Columbus, Ohio, in 1904 and Ernest Hazard at his restaurant in Wilmington, Ohio, in 1907. Walgreens Drug popularized the banana split by making it their signature dessert.