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

So what was orange in 1971?


Everything!

Is it the in colour for fashion? Orange having been for a while the new black?

No, not fashion.

Time for a clue:

There's some political correctness involved in this.

Some form of signage?

Not signage, no.

But if you've an interesting fact on coloured sigs, feel free to share - that's what QI's all about. The corrrect solution is fairly incidental, doesn't score a lot, and serves to tell us when to stop

Would this be to do with the colour of the smoke issued from the Cistine chapel on the election of a new Pope?

I seem to remember that the black or white smoke has been confused on occasion and the smoke came out coloured on one occasion.

Not smoke, no, but that's worth a bonus.

Now, I thought the black smoke rose when the cardinals burned their ballot papers. I wasn't aware that they would artificially colour it, or indeed how they would create smoke of other colours.

They burn the pope at Lewes Bonfire every year, but I'm not sure what colour smoke he emits

My first thought was, the colours of the US Steel Building in Pittsburgh, whose Cor-Ten steel was designed to rust creatively, but ended up discolouring the sidewalk...but besides the fact that Pittsburgh is about as popular a subject on h2g2 as the Isle of Wight, the building wasn't opened until 1971...

To get the White smoke traditionally wet straw was added, but one year that appeared to come out gray and caused some confusion.

I seem to remember that it was reported as yellow on another occasion. (Could well be suffering memory fade there though).

I wondered if it was Rupert Bear, as he has been different colours through the years, but he was born before 1964.

You're vaguely moving in the right direction, SashaQ.

Is it the skin color included to show racial diversity?

F S

Is this some fictional character? A cartoon or story book character maybe? For some reason I'm thinking of Winnie the Pooh, maybe because of a radio story I heard about the daughter of the guy who adopted Winnie the Pooh during the war and left it at the zoo in London where the real Christopher Robin found her (Winnie's original name was Winnipeg, named after the Canadian city where the fellow was from). The original Winnie was brown, then there was the actual stuffed bear that Christopher Robin had as a boy that he named after the real Winnie. Then there was the book version. And possibly another color change after Disney got ahold of the story.


I know it's not Winnie the Pooh as the colors and dates don't line up with anything that I know of, but I could see this being about a similar character.

Just a wild stab.

Yes, Baron Grim - that's not only quite interesting, it's getting closer to the solution.

The solution is nothing to do with AA Milne, though, but you reminded me of the fact that Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones drowned in AA Milne's swimming pool.

Yeah... I probably won't know this one. Unless it's a universally known character like W. the P., a lot of cultural icons just don't cross the pond. I always wonder what comic strips are big in the UK. We have one strip that features British characters, but I suspect it's an American strip based on an English stereotype...


Nope, I was wrong. I just learned that Andy Capp is actually a British comic strip that's also syndicated here in the States.

Oh, this one crosses the pond.

Going on the timeline and the response Baron Grims. Trying the Who rather than the what, from literature I have seen a picture of an orange one, is the answer
Ompa Loompas

Is it the names that were coined for different racial groups?

Was it the most popular color for various cars or appliances?

I've got it!

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

The unknown filling of a sandwich bought at a railway station.

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