Ha! Not THOSE Skittles. The bowling kind of skittles. Lots of pubs in the UK used to have an area where you could play skittles while you enjoyed a pint or two.
According to Google nGram (which shows how often words or phrases are found in all written works that Google has digitally catalogued) "not all beer and skittles" appeared first in the early 1800s and is still more common than "not all peaches and cream". Both are far more common than "not all rainbows and lollipops".
Great quiz - didn't get "the life isnt all" and "like nailing" phrases cause I'd never heard either, both are cute - they must not be New York regionalisms (where I'm from) - where are they used?
I got them all correct, but, at first wanted to put "Like nailing eggs to the wall." I kinda like that image. If anything more messy than jello, although equally impossible to do successfully.
Comparing apples to oranges is used when people try to win the argument by connecting contrary ideas or subjects, whereas apples and pears is used when the subjects are so similar that the argument is nitpicking.
To answer the soup to nuts question, we in the West have constant references to ancient Greece and Rome, in both our language and culture, largely because of the Renaissance. "Soup to nuts" means from start to finish, and it's a reference to how ancient Greeks began and ended their meals, respectively. There's also a less common phrase out there, "Ab ovo usque ad mala," or "from the egg all the way to the apples." It too means from start to finish, but it's a reference to how the Romans began and ended THEIR meals. That being said, I got soup to nuts only because of that comic strip...
I wanted to answer coffee because that is what many menus here end with. I also tried cheese.
There is a campfire chant about a train having to back up and the meal being served backwards starting slowly with Co ffee, co ffee, co ffee, cheese and biscuits, cheese and biscuits, cheese and biscuits ... getting faster and faster through the fruit and custard, beef and carrots and fish and chips till it reaches a long whistle of Sooooooooooooooooup.
I've never heard it as "don't put new wine in old bottles" but always as "don't put new wine into old wine skins". I think the point is that new wine will burst old wine skins, thus ruining both, whereas the age of a bottle wouldn't matter one way or another.
I've encountered trying to nail OATMEAL to the wall, but not Jello. Maybe an alternate option (I eventually guessed Jello by guessing what other squishy foods would not be easily nailed to a wall)
Bologna and soup to nuts clearly American idioms that haven't made it to Australia in any meaningful way. And the Australian saying for nailing what to a wall doesn't involve something you eat! Got the rest though, but had to guess beer and skittles.
Soup to nuts and life's not all beer to skittles are phrases I don't think I've ever heard before. I missed a couple of more of these, but slapped my forehead after the answers were revealed.
Got 'tea' while going for "Spill the ___". Did not notice it filled in the wrong blank at first, which was confusing later on. I suspect that within the younger demographic, tea is pretty common.
Are we really accepting advertising slogans as 'sayings'? I can't begin to imagine a situation in which 'My bologna has a first name" would be of any sense at all.
No Mr Simpson, I'm afraid that is another one of your hallucinations.
Ok then, give me a duff and some skittles.
I expect I'll spend my entire life still learning about all the things referenced in the Simpsons.
There is a campfire chant about a train having to back up and the meal being served backwards starting slowly with Co ffee, co ffee, co ffee, cheese and biscuits, cheese and biscuits, cheese and biscuits ... getting faster and faster through the fruit and custard, beef and carrots and fish and chips till it reaches a long whistle of Sooooooooooooooooup.
beer and skittles not a saying