This Study Guide ranges from Bob Barker’s animal‑rights sign‑off on The Price Is Right, to Brisbane’s role as host of the 2032 Summer Olympics, following Melbourne 1956 and Sydney 2000 as Australia’s third Summer Games city. You’ll also meet Alison Krauss’s bluegrass band Union Station, explore Disney’s blockbuster acquisitions of Lucasfilm and 21st Century Fox, tour world puppet‑theatre traditions from Japan, France, Russia, Indonesia, and Turkey, and finish atop New York’s neo‑Gothic Woolworth Building, once the tallest skyscraper in the world and headquarters for the F. W. Woolworth chain.

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Study Notes

Question 1: The Price Is Right sign-off

TELEVISION - “Help control the pet population. Have your pets spayed or neutered.” For decades, these sentences have been the sign-off that concludes episodes of what game show?

The sign-off belongs to The Price Is Right, the long‑running American game show that debuted in its current CBS incarnation in 1972. Host Bob Barker began closing episodes in 1982 with this spay/neuter reminder as part of his animal‑rights activism, and Drew Carey has continued the tradition since taking over in 2007.

Connections

  • Animal‑welfare groups and local news stories still quote Barker’s exact line when promoting spay/neuter campaigns, explicitly crediting his influence from The Price Is Right.
  • Barker’s legacy in pop culture includes his famous fight scene with Adam Sandler in Happy Gilmore, a cameo often highlighted in retrospectives on the film and on Barker’s career.
  • The sitcom How I Met Your Mother built the episode “Showdown” around Barney appearing on The Price Is Right to meet Barker, whom he believes is his father—an entire plot hinging on the host’s cultural notoriety.
  • The franchise extends off‑TV as The Price Is Right Live, a touring stage show where audiences in theaters play games like Plinko and spin the Big Wheel for prizes.

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Question 2: Brisbane and the 2032 Olympics

GAMES/SPORT - In July 2021, what sun-drenched city was awarded hosting rights for the 2032 Summer Olympics, becoming the third city in its country to host the Summer Games?

In July 2021 the International Olympic Committee formally awarded the 2032 Summer Olympics to Brisbane, Australia, making it the country’s third Summer Games host after Melbourne (1956) and Sydney (2000). Brisbane 2032 will run from 23 July to 8 August 2032, using venues across Brisbane, the Gold Coast, and the Sunshine Coast, with major new stadium and aquatics projects planned under a frequently revised infrastructure plan.

Connections

  • Brisbane’s selection under the IOC’s new “Future Host Commission” dialogue process contrasts with past competitive bidding wars—helpful context when comparing to cities that lost out on 2032 (like Doha or the Ruhr region).
  • Australia’s Olympic story now spans three eras: post‑war Melbourne 1956, the highly praised Sydney 2000 Games (with Cathy Freeman lighting the cauldron and winning 400 m gold), and an upcoming “southeast Queensland” regional model in 2032.
  • Films have long used the Olympics as backdrop or theme, from Chariots of Fire (1924 Paris track stars) to Cool Runnings (Jamaica’s 1988 bobsled team), both popular re‑watches whenever new Games approach.
  • Earlier fictional takes like the 1970 film The Games follow marathoners at an invented Olympic Games, useful for seeing how screenwriters dramatize Olympic pressure and national expectations.

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Question 3: Alison Krauss & Union Station

POP MUSIC - The name of the band that bluegrass impresario Alison Krauss joined in 1987 at age 16 is shared by transportation facilities in Chicago, Toronto, Washington, Los Angeles, and many other cities. What is that name?

At age 16 Alison Krauss joined the bluegrass band Union Station, which became known as Alison Krauss & Union Station and has recorded acclaimed albums such as Two Highways and Paper Airplane. The name Union Station is also used for major passenger rail hubs and transit complexes in numerous cities, including Chicago, Toronto, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles.

Connections

  • Krauss’s work with Union Station helped drive the roots‑music boom around the film O Brother, Where Art Thou?, where she sings the traditional hymn “Down to the River to Pray” on the hit soundtrack and related concerts.
  • Many of the real‑world Union Stations are cinematic icons themselves: Chicago Union Station appears in films like The Untouchables, The Sting, and Public Enemies, making the band name resonate with classic movie imagery.
  • Los Angeles Union Station has doubled for everything from a 1950 noir titled Union Station to the police station in Blade Runner and assorted locations in Muppets Most Wanted and Pearl Harbor.
  • Toronto’s Union Station is Canada’s busiest transportation hub and a National Historic Site, so fans might literally pass through “Union Station” on the way to a Krauss & Union Station concert there.

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Question 4: Disney buys 21st Century Fox

BUS/ECON - The Walt Disney Company made two especially notable acquisitions in the 2010s: the 2012 purchase of Lucasfilm for $4.05 billion, and the 2019 completion of a $71.3 billion transaction involving key assets from another media and entertainment giant, which itself had spun off from News Corporation in 2013. Give the precise name of this latter acquisition target (as the name appeared in its logo) at the time of the deal.

In 2012 Disney agreed to acquire Lucasfilm for about $4.05 billion in cash and stock, gaining the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises. In 2019 it completed a roughly $71.3 billion purchase of 21st Century Fox (logo‑styled “21st Century Fox”), a media conglomerate formed in 2013 when Rupert Murdoch’s original News Corporation split its publishing assets into a new company and rebranded the remaining entertainment business.

Connections

  • Disney’s Fox deal brought film and TV assets such as 20th Century Fox studios, FX Networks, National Geographic, Star India, and a 30% stake in Hulu under Disney control, reshaping the streaming and cable landscape.
  • After the acquisition, Disney dropped the “Fox” name from the film studios, rebranding 20th Century Fox as 20th Century Studios and Fox Searchlight as Searchlight Pictures to reduce confusion with the separate Fox Corporation.
  • The famous 20th Century Fox fanfare—originally composed by Alfred Newman and later extended for CinemaScope—became tightly associated with Star Wars because George Lucas insisted on using it, and John Williams wrote the main title in the same key to flow out of it.
  • Disney’s purchase of 21st Century Fox also returned screen rights to the X‑Men and Fantastic Four characters, enabling Marvel Studios to fold Fox‑era mutants into the Marvel Cinematic Universe via multiverse stories like Deadpool & Wolverine and the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday.
  • Long‑running Fox TV properties such as The Simpsons are now produced by Disney‑owned 20th Television Animation and stream on Disney+, including a 24/7 “always‑on” Simpsons channel introduced in 2025.

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Question 5: Global puppet theatre traditions

THEATRE - Japanese Bunraku, French Guignol, Russian Petrushka, Indonesian Wayang, and Turkish Karagöz are all theatre traditions that are distinctive for their use of what props?

All of these theatre traditions are distinctive for their use of puppets: Bunraku’s large articulated figures, Guignol’s hand puppets, the Russian puppet character Petrushka, Indonesian wayang shadow and rod puppets, and Turkish Karagöz shadow puppets.

Connections

  • Bunraku puppets, often half to two‑thirds life‑size and operated by three puppeteers, have inspired modern exhibitions like Japan Society’s “Bunraku Backstage,” which showcases working puppets and props for New York audiences.
  • The French character Guignol, created in Lyon in the early 19th century, is still performed in traditional puppet theatres and often described as France’s answer to Punch—satirizing landlords, police, and politicians.
  • Russia’s Petrushka lives a double life: as a folk hand‑puppet trickster in street shows and as the tragic puppet hero of Igor Stravinsky’s 1911 ballet Petrushka, a repertory staple of 20th‑century ballet.
  • Indonesian wayang performances use flat leather shadow puppets (wayang kulit) or three‑dimensional wooden figures (wayang golek), accompanied by gamelan music to retell episodes from the Ramayana, Mahabharata, and local legends.
  • Turkish Karagöz and Hacivat shadow plays project colored leather puppets on a backlit screen; they remain a Ramadan tradition and even inspired a 2006 historical comedy film, Killing the Shadows, about the origins of the two characters.

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Question 6: The Woolworth Building and five‑and‑dime retail

AMER HIST - The Manhattan skyscraper that stood as the world’s tallest from 1913, when it surpassed the Met Life Tower, until 1930, when it was overtaken by 40 Wall Street, was built as the 60-story headquarters of what retail store chain?

The skyscraper is New York’s Woolworth Building, conceived by five‑and‑dime magnate Frank W. Woolworth as the headquarters for the F. W. Woolworth Company chain. Completed in 1913 at about 792–793 feet and roughly 60 stories, it was the world’s tallest building for 17 years until it was surpassed by the 40 Wall Street tower in 1930.

Connections

  • The Woolworth Company pioneered the fixed‑price “five‑and‑dime” store model, ultimately operating hundreds of stores and helping shape modern self‑service retail before evolving—through corporate renamings—into today’s Foot Locker brand.
  • In Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, the Woolworth Building secretly houses the Magical Congress of the United States of America (MACUSA), turning this real skyscraper into the wizarding equivalent of the Ministry of Magic.
  • TIME and New York location guides highlight that production built MACUSA sets based on the Woolworth’s ornate lobby, reinforcing its nickname “the Cathedral of Commerce” and making it a must‑spot landmark for Potter fans visiting Manhattan.
  • Architect Cass Gilbert’s neo‑Gothic design—terracotta cladding, soaring tower, and elaborate lobby sculpture—helped cement the Woolworth Building’s status as both an early skyscraper engineering feat and a continuing presence in New York’s skyline.

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