h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This isn't turning into a successful NaJoPoMo - I've already missed two days through being busy at work. Oh well, I'll just post a quiz every couple of days instead.

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It's a QI-type question for you, today.

Points will be awarded for the correct answer (+3), for facts that decrease general ignorance (+1) and for Quite Interesting answers (+6), but they will be taken away with the sound of a klaxon blaring (-5) if your answer matches any of the three obvious yet incorrect answers that I’ve pre-selected:

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Who or what was originally black in 1964, then became orange in 1971, white in 1973, and distinctly brown in 2005?

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I want to be the first person to set off a klaxon!
Michael Jackson

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Not on my list, oddly.

And deliberately setting off klaxons isn't in the spirit of the game.

Well, if I can't win I might as well lose convincingly
Would 'your carpet' set off a klaxon?
I was thinking 'is it a flag?' but I couldn't think of a flag that changed in 2004 that might possibly have once been Orange – unless it was once the Orange Free State, but the current South African flag is every colour but brown… I did think about it being plug wire colours for a bit, but now I'm wondering if the colour is a false pretence and the answer is something to do with Gordon Brown.

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A sporting team's away shirt?
Cher's hair?
Dog poo used to turn white when dog food had a high calcium content but since that changed, more recently it doesn't.
Did an artist start off with a black period in 1964 before experimenting with orange, white and finally settling on a brown period?

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Hang on, wasn't 'A Clockwork Orange' released in 1971...

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Well, you triggered not one but two of the klaxons that time:

celebrity hair
flags

I'll give you +1 for calcium in white dog poo.

Had you given some interesting facts in respect of those guesses, you may not be staring at a score of -9 at this point.

But there's still time.

...correcting klaxon error:

flags

I was thinking along the lines of some obscure club's strip, but who would wear a brown shirt to play footie in?

It could be the name of someone, but I'm not sure anyone is called Mr or Mrs Orange.

I think I would make a very boring QI panellist.

Is it the Black Box in aircraft?

It can't be American Presidents because the orange President hasn't been elected yet.

Hi TC - There's always Jason Orange, once of Take That. Not the answer, though.

Gnomon gets a couple of points for the black box, and for making me laugh with the orange president, but neither are correct. The second is slightly warmer than the first.

Yay – I've set off two out of the three klaxons

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Agent Orange was used in the Vietnam War in 1971, and I believe they also had an Agent White chemical as well.

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Was there an Agent Brown in The Matrix?

I don't know of anything explicitly called "agent white", but there was the horror of white phosphorous. That's one of the worst war crimes.

Nothing to do with chemical agents, but points all round for those nuggets. I hadn't heard of Agent White.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_White

I watched a TV programme about the Admiral sportswear company the other month, so I know there was indeed a brown football kit! http://www.coventrytelegraph.net/sport/football/transfer-news/coventrys-infamous-chocolate-brown-kit-4066416 Coventry City 1978