History Main / UnexpectedlyObscureAnswer

*** Eventually, they ask Marx another set of three questions about "workers' control of factories": "The development of the industrial proletariat is conditioned by what other development?" [[note]](the development of the industrial bourgeoisie)[[/note]], "The struggle of class against class is a what struggle?" [[note]](a political struggle)[[/note]], and finally "Who won the cup final in 1949?" [[note]]*Marx throws out a few Marxist-themed answers for the hell of it and loses, the answer being Wolverhampton Wanderers.)[[/note]]

* The French quiz show Burger Quizz always contained a segment where contestants had to choose between three sets of questions : two which were rather normal (for example, questions about then-current president Jacques Chirac, Star Wars, or pop rock) and a final one which was extremely difficult and based around a particularly obscure subject (examples include "the county of Côte d'Or during the years 1870s" or [[OverlyLongName "chemistry so complicated, that even Nobel Prize winners would have trouble answering those questions"]]). Needless to say, the first two sets of questions were always picked.

* One moment from the ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'' anime is particularly infamous. The cast take on an exam that allows instant access to the Pokémon League if passed, and one question shows a circular silhouette and asks participants to name the Pokemon. Rather than the obvious Voltorb or Electrode, it's... a Jigglypuff seen from above. This gag was used again many years later in the "Who's that Pokémon?" EyeCatch for a episode that featured Jigglypuff.

* The university in the ''TabletopGame/{{GURPS IOU}}'' setting has an "Advanced Cheating" class, in which the final exam is nominally a series of impossibly obscure trivia questions. The ''real'' test is to [[NotCheatingUnlessYouGetCaught cheat on the test without getting caught]].

* In one of the stories in ''Joker's Asylum'', ComicBook/TheJoker takes over a game show and presents the contestants with ridiculously difficult questions. To their surprise and relief, failure to answer correctly results in harmless joke penalties rather than the expected lethal ones -- the ''real'' target of the joke is the show's executives, who are [[IfItBleedsItLeads cynically exploiting the incident for ratings]] (in a control booth bugged by the Joker).

While ''Series/{{Jeopardy}}'' was the inspiration for this trope (see the discussion page for the most egregious examples), it's Administrivia/NotAnExample because the writers honestly thought that someone among the contestants would get the answer right. Most examples of this sort (i.e., Nine Times Out of Ten that it happens in RealLife) fall under MoonLogicPuzzle.

* In the Book of Job in ''Literature/TheBible'', God poses a series of impossible challenges to the book's title character, including asking him to count the number of clouds (presumably across the whole Earth), something that God knew only He could do, making this trope [[OlderThanFeudalism Older Than Feudalism]].

* In ''ComicStrip/FoxTrot'', Jason comes up with a quiz show called "I Want to Be a Millionaire", which he talks his dad into playing. He starts off by switching to math questions after Roger says that he was an English major, and the first question is "What is the 8,346th digit of pi?" The trick being that every time Roger gets a question wrong, ''he'' has to pay ''Jason'' that amount (as Jason points out, the name of the game is "'''I''' Want to Be a Millionaire").

* The mini-game "M.P.I.Q." in ''VideoGame/MarioParty 3'' will sometimes ask questions based on on-cartridge data, like what the current record time or distance on some other mini-game is or how many times a certain board has been played. Likely invoked, as the ''Mario Party'' series is a LuckBasedMission anyway.
* Played straight with a twist in British quiz ''Series/{{Pointless}}.'' Given a category, the aim is to name the most obscure member. But even though giving obscure answers is the point, it's still unexpected when it happens. Also, sometimes it's the fact that a given answer ''is'' obscure that's unexpected; sometimes the 100 people surveyed will simply miss an answer that you'd expect to be obvious.

* Played for drama in the episode "Quiz Show" of ''Series/BoyMeetsWorld''. A traditional Quiz Bowl-type game show is revamped in order to [[WereStillRelevantDammit appeal to youngsters]] by ditching their acadamia-themed questions for pop culture and "stupid question-stupid answer" type questions -- much to Feeny's dismay. Naturally, this made goofballs Cory and Shawn (and the not-so-goofy-but-still-on-the-team Topanga) popular returning champions. When the executives wanted Cory and Shawn out of the game, they brought back the academia to force the team to lose (bordering the line of what caused the quiz show scandals), including one question that Feeny answered in a ChekhovsLecture earlier in the episode, which the team wasn't able to answer.