50 Fun Facts About The BFG

Which green fizzy drink beloved of the BFG has bubbles that sink downwards instead of rising?

Frobscottle bubbles sink rather than rise, so the gas leaves the other end — a trick the BFG proudly demonstrates at the Queen's breakfast table in the 2016 film.

What does the BFG call the thunderous flatulence that his favourite fizzy drink sets off?

Whizzpopping is the BFG's word for it, and he happily lets rip in front of the Queen of England herself over a royal breakfast.

Which revolting vegetable, the BFG's only crop, tastes to Sophie of frog skin and rotten fish?

The snozzcumber looks like a knobbly cucumber and is all the BFG has to eat since he refuses to eat people; to him it tastes of cockroaches and slime wanglers.

In which misty land does the BFG catch the dreams he later blows into children's bedrooms?

Dream Country is where the BFG nets good dreams and bad ones alike, and on one trip there the other giants catch him and toss him between them like a ball.

What instrument does the BFG carry with his suitcase when Sophie first spots him in the street?

A trumpet is how the BFG delivers dreams, blowing each one through a bedroom window, and it is his sight of Sophie at her window that makes him snatch her.

How do Sophie and the BFG convince the Queen of England that the man-eating giants are real?

A nightmare blown into her sleep shows the Queen events that then come true, down to Sophie waiting on her windowsill, so she believes the girl and talks to the giant over breakfast.

Which actor, first artistic director of Shakespeare's Globe, plays the BFG by motion capture?

Mark Rylance called the motion-capture process 'liberating', and Spielberg had offered him the giant while the two were shooting another film together in 2014.

The 2016 BFG was the first Steven Spielberg-directed film released under which studio's own brand?

Walt Disney Pictures took the film over from its Touchstone banner in 2015, making it the first Disney-branded film Spielberg directed, though he had produced several for the studio.

Which Only Fools and Horses star provided the voice of the BFG in the 1989 animated film?

David Jason was a regular voice for the same Manchester studio, having already played Danger Mouse and Count Duckula for its animators.

What becomes of the man-eating giants at the end of Roald Dahl's novel The BFG?

Imprisoned in a huge pit 500 feet deep and the size of a football field, the giants become a tourist attraction, fed nothing but the one vegetable Giant Country grows.

Which giant, the largest and leader of the BFG's man-eating neighbours, is the last to be captured?

The Fleshlumpeater wakes as the others are shackled and is only subdued by a trick, having earlier been given a bad dream by the BFG as revenge for bullying him.

Why, according to the BFG, do the man-eating giants never travel to Greece for their suppers?

Greeks taste greasy, the BFG explains, while Turks taste of turkey, the Welsh of fish and Danes of dogs — the giants choose their country by flavour.

What name is given to the BFG's jumbled invented language, full of made-up words like 'delumptious'?

Gobblefunk is Dahl's own term for his made-up words, and The BFG alone contains more than 300 of them, from 'biffsquiggled' to 'trogglehumper'.

Which illustrator of more than 300 children's books gave the BFG and Sophie their look on the page?

Quentin Blake drew the BFG and Sophie for the 1982 original, and his pictures of the pair appeared on Royal Mail commemorative stamps in 2012.

Which composer scored the 2016 BFG, the 27th time he and Steven Spielberg had worked together?

John Williams likened the BFG's dream-catching scene to 'a child's ballet', and the score was his 27th collaboration with Spielberg.

The 2016 film of The BFG reached cinemas in the same year as which Roald Dahl milestone?

The centenary of his birth fell in 2016, the year of the film's 1 July release; Dahl was born in September 1916.

Why does the BFG carry Sophie off to his cave rather than leave her at the orphanage window?

To stop her revealing giants exist is his only motive: anyone who had seen a real giant could get him caught and put in a zoo, so Sophie can never go home.

In what does the BFG keep his caught dreams, each labelled and sorted onto shelves in his cave?

Jars hold every dream, and boys' and girls' dreams sit on separate shelves because, the BFG says, a boy given a girl's dream wakes up thinking it rotten.

Where does the BFG set Sophie down on a windowsill so the sleeping monarch finds her on waking?

Buckingham Palace is where the giant leaves Sophie in the Queen's bedroom, and a breakfast there follows once the Queen is convinced the giants are real.

What does the Queen send to Giant Country to carry off the sleeping man-eating giants in The BFG?

Helicopters shackle the sleeping giants, and the fleet then flies all of them, plus the BFG's dream collection, back to England.

Which giant barges uninvited into the BFG's cave and bites the vegetable Sophie is hiding inside?

The Bloodbottler's bite misses Sophie by a whisker; he spits her out unnoticed and storms off in disgust at the taste.

What official title does the Queen bestow on the BFG once the man-eating giants are safely captured?

Royal Dream-Blower becomes the BFG's official post, and rulers of every country the giants had raided send him and Sophie gifts of thanks.

Where are homes built for Sophie and the BFG by a grateful nation at the end of Dahl's novel?

Windsor Great Park is where the grateful nation builds the pair's new homes, while tourists flock to watch the captured giants eat.

Who turns out to have written the novel The BFG itself, under another's name, in its final pages?

The BFG himself, having learned to speak and write properly, pens the book under another's name — the same trick Dahl used to end James and the Giant Peach.

The BFG began as a bedtime story told by a father in which earlier Roald Dahl novel?

Danny, the Champion of the World has the hero's father describe a Big Friendly Giant who collects good dreams and blows them into bedrooms, a tale Dahl expanded seven years later.

What does the BFG call Charles Dickens, whose books he loves, in one of his muddled mispronunciations?

Dahl's Chickens is a spoonerism that swaps the opening sounds, as in 'catasterous disastrophe' and 'jipping and skumping', two more of the giant's favourites.

In the BFG's invented speech, what is a 'trogglehumper', rendered 'trollenklopper' in Dutch?

A very bad dream is a trogglehumper, and the word has also been translated as 'troglogoblo' in Italian and 'jorobanoches' in Spanish.

Whose 2016 BFG screenplay was her last, the film being dedicated to her after her 2015 death?

Melissa Mathison died in November 2015, eight months before release, and the BFG was her sole posthumous film.

Which ten-year-old Cheshire schoolgirl learned six pages of dialogue to win Sophie in the 2016 BFG?

Ruby Barnhill was cast in December 2014 after a lengthy search, and her own father Paul appears in the film as one of the Queen's footmen.

At which film festival did the 2016 BFG premiere out of competition, weeks before its July release?

Cannes hosted the premiere on 14 May 2016, with Spielberg walking the red carpet alongside his giant and his young Sophie.

Which actress, Downton Abbey's Isobel Crawley, plays Queen Elizabeth II in the 2016 BFG?

Penelope Wilton's Queen keeps her composure as the BFG demonstrates his fizzy drink's effects at breakfast, then sends her soldiers to Giant Country.

Which Flight of the Conchords comedian voices the 54-foot leader of the giants in the 2016 BFG?

Jemaine Clement's cape-wearing giant shows no regret for the children he has eaten over the years, and he intercepts the guilt-inducing dream meant for him.

Which Saturday Night Live alumnus voices the cleverest giant, the leader's advisor, in the 2016 BFG?

Bill Hader's 43-foot giant has cowlick hair and a skirt-like covering, and he was the first supporting cast member announced, in March 2015.

Which comedian nearly played the BFG in 1998, his improvising clashing with the giant's speech?

Robin Williams attended a read-through that producer Michael Siegel called 'surprisingly disappointing', and the project stalled for more than a decade.

Which same-studio animated hit was still drawing families when the 2016 BFG opened in US cinemas?

Finding Dory was the in-house competition as the BFG opened to an $18.6 million weekend that The New York Times called 'a colossal misfire'.

Which sitcom starred Frank Thornton and Mollie Sugden, the 1989 BFG's butler and maid?

Are You Being Served? gave the BFG's royal household Captain Peacock and Mrs Slocombe: Thornton voiced the butler Mr Tibbs and Sugden the Queen's maid.

On which day in 1989 did ITV premiere the animated BFG, dedicated to late animator George Jackson?

Christmas Day 1989 was the ITV premiere of a film five years in the making, with only five people at work on it when production began in 1984.

Which Manchester animation studio, the makers of Danger Mouse, produced the 1989 animated BFG?

Cosgrove Hall, founded by Brian Cosgrove and Mark Hall in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester, made the BFG as a full-length feature, with Cosgrove himself directing.

How did Dahl react at a Soho screening of the 1989 animated BFG, according to director Brian Cosgrove?

He stood up and applauded with his family from the back of the room, to the relief of a studio that knew Dahl had hated the 1971 Willy Wonka film.

What do the other giants call the BFG in the 2016 film, the only name he has besides his initials?

Runt is the giants' name for him, and it is Sophie who coins 'BFG' after he describes himself as the Big Friendly Giant.

Who runs the orphanage the BFG plucks Sophie from, a woman Dahl describes as cruel to her charges?

Mrs Clonkers never actually appears in the book, and the 1989 film ends with the BFG suggesting she be made the captured giants' keeper.

Which of the BFG's man-eating neighbours poses as a tree in parks to snatch passers-by?

The Meatdripper blends in among park trees to pick off anyone walking beneath him, and his best friend among the giants is the Childchewer.

The last giant still awake lets the BFG tie him up after being told what invented creature bit him?

A vindscreen viper is pure invention, but the last giant believes he has been bitten and lets himself be bound while the others lie shackled.

Which studio handled the visual effects for the 2016 BFG, filmed in Vancouver in spring 2015?

Weta Digital turned the actors' motion-capture performances into giants, and the film went on to win Saturn Awards for editing and production design.

Which Fawlty Towers Major gave his final screen performance as the Head of the Army in the 1989 BFG?

Ballard Berkeley died in January 1988, almost two years before the film aired, making the Head of the Army his last on-screen role.

Which former Herman's Hermits guitarist composed the score for the 1989 animated BFG?

Keith Hopwood, the Hermits' rhythm guitarist from 1963, wrote the score with Malcolm Rowe, and it won Best Score and Songs at the 1989 New York Festival.

In the 2016 BFG, whose portrait among the giant's belongings inspires Sophie to seek royal help?

Queen Victoria's portrait belonged to the last human who lived with the BFG and taught him to read before the other giants ate him.

Which fellow monarch does the Queen of England phone in The BFG to confirm people are vanishing?

The King of Sweden and the Sultan of Baghdad both confirm their people have been vanishing, matching the dream the Queen was given.

Which fairy-tale hero stars in the nightmare the BFG looses on the giants' sleeping leader?

Jack the giant-killer haunts the leader's sleep so badly that he flails about and starts a brawl with his fellow giants.

In which country did The BFG win a 1985 youth-literature prize as 'Sophiechen und der Riese'?

Germany's Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis named the translation the year's best children's book; Australia's BILBY awards followed in 1991.