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50 free Hard Famous Duos trivia questions with answers — pop culture quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This is the hard famous duos quiz. If you already know Simon & Garfunkel, Laurel & Hardy and Ben & Jerry, these 50 questions ask how the pairs actually came together: the hi-fi shop where the Pet Shop Boys met, the wrong turn to the bathroom that produced My Fair Lady, the kitchen a manager locked Jagger and Richards in, the correspondence course that launched an ice-cream empire, and the record label that first sold Simon and Garfunkel as Tom & Jerry. The set covers comedy double acts from Martin & Lewis to Ant & Dec, songwriting partnerships from Rodgers & Hart to Leiber & Stoller, pop duos from the Everly Brothers to Outkast, business partners from Procter & Gamble to Hewlett-Packard, outlaws, skaters, journalists and screen couples. It is written for people who like the origin story more than the greatest hits. Every answer was checked against a primary or encyclopedic source before publishing and each question carries its citation. For a warm-up, start with our main famous duos trivia quiz and come back for this one.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Under what name did teenage Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel score a minor hit with 'Hey Schoolgirl' in 1957?
Tom & Jerry
They recorded it for $25 at a Manhattan studio while imitating their close-harmony idols from Kentucky. Their 1964 Columbia debut Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. initially flopped.
Q 02Where did Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe meet on 19 August 1981?
A hi-fi shop on the King's Road, Chelsea
Tennant needed a connector for a Korg synthesiser. The 1999 Guinness Book of Records listed the Pet Shop Boys as the most successful duo in British music history.
Q 03Per Keith Richards, what did Andrew Loog Oldham do to force him and Jagger to write songs?
Locked them in a kitchen overnight
The result was 'As Tears Go By', a hit for Marianne Faithfull. The credit read Jagger–Richard until 1978.
Q 04Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield originally planned to open what business before switching to ice cream?
A bagel shop
The bagel equipment was too expensive, so they took a correspondence course in ice-cream making. Unilever bought the company in 2000.
Q 05William Procter and James Gamble became partners in 1837 at the urging of whom?
Their father-in-law, Alexander Norris
The English candlemaker and Irish soapmaker had married sisters Olivia and Elizabeth Norris after settling in Cincinnati.
Q 06Hewlett and Packard's first big contract, in 1938, supplied oscillators for which Walt Disney production?
Fantasia
The order for HP 200B oscillators let the pair formally found the company on July 2, 1939, after starting in a Palo Alto garage with $538.
Q 07Which Stanford professor's fellowship supported Hewlett and Packard in the garage?
Frederick Terman
Both men finished their Stanford electrical engineering degrees in 1935 and regarded Terman as a mentor.
Q 08Before teaming with Charles Rolls, Henry Royce ran what kind of business in Manchester from 1884?
An electrical and mechanical firm known for cranes
Royce's dissatisfaction with a second-hand Decauville car led him to build his own; the first was finished on 1 April 1904 and driven to Knutsford and back.
Q 09Michael Marks took on Thomas Spencer as partner in 1894 after acquiring a stall in which city's covered market?
Leeds
Marks, a Polish Jew from Slonim, had been helped with his English by Spencer's wife Agnes. Spencer was a bookkeeper from Skipton.
Q 10Which Dayton trade taught the Wright brothers that an unstable flying machine could be balanced with practice?
Bicycles
Their three-axis control system remains standard on aircraft. Their first patent, in March 1903, did not even claim invention of a flying machine.
Q 11Oliver Hardy took his stage first name from whom?
His father
Born Norvell Hardy in Harlem, Georgia, he was called 'Babe' by friends. Stan Laurel was born Arthur Stanley Jefferson in Ulverston, England.
Q 12At which Atlantic City venue did Martin and Lewis debut on July 25, 1946?
The 500 Club
Owner Skinny D'Amato threatened to fire them until they ditched the script and improvised, with Lewis as a plate-dropping busboy.
Q 13Sonny Bono worked for which producer when he met 16-year-old Cher in 1962?
Phil Spector
Cher sang backing vocals on Spector classics including 'Be My Baby'. The couple's unofficial wedding was in 1964; the legal one came in 1969.
Q 21George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley first performed together in a short-lived ska band called what?
The Executive
They met at Bushey Meads School in 1975. In 1985 Wham! made a ten-day trip to China, the first by a Western pop act.
Q 22Steely Dan's Becker and Fagen met in 1967 at which school in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York?
Bard College
Fagen initially turned Becker down as a bassist because his existing bassist owned all the gear. Their 2000 comeback Two Against Nature won Album of the Year.
Q 23Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith's first band, before Tears for Fears, was a mod revival act called what?
Graduate
Q 14Rolling Stone's 2015 list of the 20 Greatest Duos of All Time put which act at number one?
The Everly Brothers
Ike & Tina were second and Outkast seventh. Don and Phil Everly's close harmonies influenced the Beatles, the Beach Boys and the Bee Gees.
Q 15Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid fled the United States to which two South American countries?
Argentina and then Bolivia
The pair travelled with Sundance's girlfriend Etta Place, pursued by the Pinkertons. Cassidy was born Robert LeRoy Parker in Beaver, Utah Territory.
Q 16Which member of the Thelma & Louise team won the film's only Academy Award?
Screenwriter Callie Khouri
The film had six nominations, including both leads for Best Actress. Louise drives a 1966 Ford Thunderbird convertible.
Q 17Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong met in 1969 in which city, where Marin had moved to avoid the Vietnam draft?
Vancouver
Chong's improv group City Works performed at a strip club owned by his family. Their 1978 film Up in Smoke grossed over $44 million.
Q 18Before Flight of the Conchords, Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement performed in a five-man group that also included which future film director?
Taika Waititi
The group, So You're a Man, debuted at Wellington's BATS Theatre. McKenzie and Clement had been flatmates at Victoria University.
Q 19Which Outkast release is the only one of their albums to debut at number one on the Billboard 200?
Speakerboxxx/The Love Below
The 2003 double album went Diamond and won Album of the Year at the Grammys, powered by 'Hey Ya!' and 'The Way You Move'.
Q 20In a hotel in which Australian town did Lennox and Stewart decide to become a duo?
Wagga Wagga
Both had been in the Tourists, which broke up in 1980. The name Eurythmics comes from a movement-based teaching system Lennox met as a child.
Graduate's 1980 single 'Elvis Should Play Ska' referred to Elvis Costello. Tears for Fears' 1985 album Songs from the Big Chair topped the US chart.
Q 24How many perfect 6.0s did Torvill and Dean's Boléro earn at the 1984 Sarajevo Olympics?
Twelve
Every judge gave 6.0 for artistic impression, plus six 5.9s. Nottingham's National Ice Centre is reached through Bolero Square in their honour.
Q 25Which first Lennon–McCartney single changed George Martin's mind about whether the pair could write hits?
'Love Me Do'
It reached the UK top 20. Between October 1962 and May 1970 the partnership published roughly 180 songs.
Q 26Gilbert and Sullivan's first collaboration, Thespis, was staged in 1871 by which producer?
John Hollingshead
D'Oyly Carte later brought them back together and built the Savoy Theatre for their 14 comic operas.
Q 27Ant & Dec's pop career as PJ & Duncan took its name from what?
Their characters in the CBBC drama Byker Grove
The pair from Newcastle went on to host SMTV Live, Pop Idol, I'm a Celebrity and Britain's Got Talent, and starred in the 2006 film Alien Autopsy.
Q 28Under what name did Eric and Ernie make their double-act debut at the Liverpool Empire in August 1941?
Bartholomew and Wise
Eric's mother Sadie suggested they form an act. A 1954 review of their TV debut called the television set 'the box in which they buried Morecambe and Wise'.
Q 29Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett met in 1963 at London's Buckstone Club, where Corbett was doing what?
Serving drinks between acting jobs
David Frost put them both in The Frost Report with John Cleese. Their 'Four Candles' sketch first aired in September 1976.
Q 30Which was the only one of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers's ten films together not made at RKO?
The Barkleys of Broadway
MGM made it in 1949 in Technicolor. Their first pairing, Flying Down to Rio in 1933, gave them only fifth and fourth billing.