The Trivia Encyclopedia
1974 book by Fred L. Worth
The Trivia Encyclopedia is a 1974 book written by Fred L. Worth.
A best-selling book in its day, The Trivia Encyclopedia was brought back to public consciousness in the 1980s, when author Worth unsuccessfully sued the makers of Trivial Pursuit for copyright infringement. Worth claimed that they had sourced their questions from his books, even to the point of reproducing misprints and typographical errors. The "smoking gun" was Trivial Pursuit's assertion that the TV character Columbo had the first name "Philip". This "fact" originally appeared in Worth's book, but it was actually an invention of Worth's that was entirely untrue.
Columbo controversy
Lt. Columbo's first name was never spoken aloud in the TV series Columbo. When pressed, he would insist that it was "Lieutenant".
The "fact" that the Lieutenant's full name was "Philip Columbo" was planted by Worth in his book (and its sequels) in an attempt to catch out anyone who might try to violate his copyright.
In 1984, he filed a $300 million lawsuit against the distributors of the board game Trivial Pursuit, claiming that they had stolen their questions from his books.
The public source identifies “The Trivia Encyclopedia” as 1974 book by Fred L. Worth. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Trivia, Encyclopedia and book.
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Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 15, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q7770311. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1974 and 1984.
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This entry incorporates text from “The Trivia Encyclopedia” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.