Below are six trivia questions. If you’d like to participate, you can either reply to this e-mail or submit your answers via Google Forms by using the button below. You can find our rules and guidelines by following this link.
1) NAME the general and politician who served as one of Bolivia’s earliest presidents; a close friend of Simón Bolívar, he is known as the “Grand Marshal of Ayacucho” and is the namesake of Bolivia’s judicial capital.
2) Anthony Davis, once identified by The New York Times as “the dean of African-American opera composers,” won a Pulitzer Prize for composing the music for the 2019 opera The Central Park Five. He also composed the music for a 1986 opera based on the “life and times” of WHAT individual, which opera was performed at the Metropolitan Opera last winter and at the Seattle Opera last week?
3) In the screenplay for the 1970 film Patton, General Patton says at one point “You remember, General, what [REDACTED] said in four fifteen B.C. during the Peloponnesian War: ‘If Syracuse falls, all Sicily falls -- then Italy!’” NAME the statesman and general Patton is quoting; he is a major character in the play Timon of Athens.
4) Between the Curtains is one name for a self-portrait by Frida Kahlo that she dedicated to WHAT person on the date that was both his birthday and the twentieth anniversary of the first day of the October Revolution?
5) WHAT woman was voted the greatest woman of the past 1,000 years in a 1999 BBC News Online poll, beating out (in addition to every other woman of that millennium) Elizabeth I, Mother Teresa, Marie Curie, Margaret Thatcher, Joan of Arc, and Eleanor Roosevelt? She is the second-longest-serving prime minister in her country’s history, behind her father.
6) The following is a complete list of cities that hold WHAT distinction? Washington, DC; Buffalo, NY; Dallas, TX.
Trivia Newsletter CCVI Recap
1) In a 1970 essay, Professor Masahiro Mori introduced the “uncanny valley,” a concept describing a relation between an object’s resemblance to a human being and a human’s emotional response to that object. Specifically, the essay delved into human-WHAT relations, one of Mori’s specialties at the Tokyo Institute of Technology?
This question asked about human-ROBOT relations.
This purports to be the first English translation of Mori’s article that he authorized. Here’s the editor’s note, which gives us a solid explanation of what the uncanny valley is:
More than 40 years ago, Masahiro Mori, then a robotics professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, wrote an essay on how he envisioned people's reactions to robots that looked and acted almost human. In particular, he hypothesized that a person's response to a humanlike robot would abruptly shift from empathy to revulsion as it approached, but failed to attain, a lifelike appearance. This descent into eeriness is known as the uncanny valley. The essay appeared in an obscure Japanese journal called Energy in 1970, and in subsequent years it received almost no attention. More recently, however, the concept of the uncanny valley has rapidly attracted interest in robotics and other scientific circles as well as in popular culture. Some researchers have explored its implications for human-robot interaction and computer-graphics animation, while others have investigated its biological and social roots. Now interest in the uncanny valley should only intensify, as technology evolves and researchers build robots that look increasingly human.
2) The Edmonton Oilers, Toronto Blue Jays, and Vancouver Canucks all play their home games in different cities, but their respective home venues share WHAT word in their names?
The common word is ROGERS, as each venue’s naming rights is owned by Rogers Communications Inc., a major communications company headquartered in Toronto.
Rogers currently holds the national broadcast rights in Canada for National Hockey League games, due to a deal reached in 2013:
The most complicated and expensive rights deal in Canadian history was pieced together in five days after Rogers Communications Inc. decided to gamble the company's broadcasting future on the National Hockey League.
The cable giant has spent the past several years under president Keith Pelley building its Sportsnet brand, securing rights deals and acquiring stations in a bid to boost its national presence and steal the top spot from Bell Media-owned TSN.
Now, Rogers has sealed a $5.2-billion, 12-year deal for national broadcast and digital rights for NHL games that will radically reshape the way Canadians watch hockey and shifts the balance of power in the country's broadcast industry. The deal immediately hands Rogers a powerful tool to drive demand for cable TV subscriptions - and in the longer term, gives the firm a bigger digital platform, particularly for broadcasting to mobile devices.
For Canadians, the deal means a much different way to watch the national game. Instead of a limited number of matches on a Saturday night, fans will have a much wider choice, on a range of devices: more channels, more games, different personalities - but at a higher cost on a monthly cable bill.
3) “[It] was originally sold under the title of Li'l Folks, but that had been used before, so they said we have to think of another title. I couldn't think of one and somebody at United Features came up with the miserable title [REDACTED], which I hate and have always hated,” said a man born in 1922 about his most notable work, which may have taken its “miserable title” from WHAT kind of gallery?
This question asked about the comic strip Peanuts, and thus was asking for a PEANUT gallery.
Where does the term “peanut gallery” come from? It’s complicated, and some assert the term should be retired:
“No comments from the peanut gallery!” For many Americans who were born in the 1940s or 1950s, this phrase conjures up fond memories of the “Howdy Doody” show. It launched in 1947 as one of the first children’s television programs.
…
In fact, “peanut gallery” predates Howdy Doody by at least 80 years. Its first reference dates to an 1867 review of a vaudeville show published in the New Orleans Times-Picayune – and the term has a surprisingly controversial history.
Vaudeville came to North America from France. You could find almost any kind of act at a vaudeville show. On a given evening, spectators might be entertained by a comedian, acrobat, juggler, ventriloquist, magician or trained animal acts. Music and song-and-dance acts were mainstays. The lineup sometimes included burlesque acts, one-act plays or movies.
…
Since peanuts were the cheapest snack, they were the projectiles of choice for hecklers. Untalented – or unlucky – entertainers were pelted from the back of the theater – a section that became known as the “peanut gallery.”
The term lives on, with a few meanings. One refers to any noisy or disorderly group of spectators. Another is a racial slur. During vaudeville’s heyday, the cheapest seats were usually high up in a balcony, a section often reserved for Black patrons. As a result, “peanut gallery” is now among a long list of terms becoming socially unacceptable because of apparently racist origins.
But since those seats were also occupied by poorer people and immigrants, there is some debate over whether the expression was racially motivated or was a more general derogatory term for less affluent people.
4) The two characters shown in the below image share WHAT first name? The left character is a titular character in a Cartoon Network show that aired from 1999 to 2009, and the right character is a minor character in a 1994 film.
These two folks are both named ED—the left character is from Ed, Edd n Eddy and the right character is from The Lion King. (Ed is the hyena that constantly laughs and, best I can tell, never otherwise speaks.)
You know the song “Be Prepared” from The Lion King? Jeremy Irons voices Scar in the film, and he primarily voices Scar in the song as well. However, due to some vocal problems Irons developed, Jim Cummings (the voice of Ed, and many many other characters in other works) stepped in and sang the last part of “Be Prepared” as Scar. You can try to listen for it (the switch is around 2:14 of the below video):
“Be Prepared” didn’t get nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song, but “Circle of Life,” “Hakuna Matata,” and the eventual winner, “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” all did. That makes The Lion King one of four films to have three or more of its songs nominated for Best Original Song—can you name ONE of the THREE others? The answer’s at the end of this newsletter.1
5) Universal Studios figured that women over thirty would never go see a film called Rocket Boys, so with the magic of anagramming, audiences in 1999 were treated to Jake Gyllenhaal and Laura Dern in a film with WHAT adjective in its name?
The film is October Sky, and so the adjective is OCTOBER. A fun fact about us is that, for reasons we cannot possibly understand, we constantly confuse the films October Sky and Mercury Rising. The less said about that, the better, we think.
Homer Hickam wrote the memoir Rocket Boys upon which the film is based. Let’s hand it off to his website’s FAQ:
14. I loved the book title Rocket Boys. Why did they call the movie October Sky?
The short answer is Universal Studios marketing people got involved and they just had to change the title because, according to their research, women over thirty would never see a movie titled Rocket Boys. October Sky is an anagram of Rocket Boys.
Let’s do a few more:
35. My school is using Rocket Boys/October Sky as a reading assignment. How can I get information for my report?
First, read the book because watching the movie is not going to help you. The movie is good but it's not anywhere near the real story. Then go to the Students page on this web site. After that, it's up to you.
36. Did you really tell John F. Kennedy that we should go to the moon?
Yes. That story is in Rocket Boys/October Sky in the “A Suit for Indianapolis” chapter.
37. Does that mean you're responsible for the entire moon landing program?
Yes. Sort of. I don't know. Maybe. Read the chapter and make up your own mind.
6) WHAT word is both this newsletter’s theme and, in reference to a 1980s band, could itself have been one of the answers to Questions #1 through #5?
Each of the answers in this newsletter is a word that, when found after the word MISTER or MR., points to a recognizable work or figure:
Question #1: Robot (Mr. Robot was a thriller on the USA Network)
Question #2: Rogers (Mister Rogers was the creator and central figure of the show Mister Rogers' Neighborhood)
Question #3: Peanut (Mr. Peanut is the mascot of snack brand Planters)
Question #4: Ed (Mister Ed was a sitcom in the 1960s—Mister Ed was a talking horse)2
Question #5: October (“Mr. October” is a nickname for A’s and Yankees player Reggie Jackson, due to his clutch hitting in the postseason)
Our newsletter title, “Veritably Clean” was a reference to advertising mascot Mr. Clean and the fact that a 1962 promotion resulted in him being given the first name “Veritably.”
We referenced the 80s group Mr. Mister, which made “Mister” a self-demonstrating example of our theme. Mr. Mister is most notable for songs such as “Hunters of the Night” and “Broken Wings”—or, for a certain generation of you, they’re the band referenced in that very bad Train song “Hey, Soul Sister”:
Hey, soul sister
Ain't that Mr. Mister on the radio, stereo
The way you move ain't fair you know
Hey, soul sister
I don't wanna miss a single thing you do tonight
Oh, what the heck, let’s do a bonus question. Here’s the first verse from the terrible Train song “Hey, Soul Sister”:
Your lipstick stains
On the front lobe of my left-side brains
I knew I wouldn't forget you
And so I went and let you blow my mind
Your sweet moonbeam
The smell of you in every single dream I dream
I knew when we collided
You're the one I have decided who's one of my kind
That last line (“one of my kind”) is a reference to WHAT 1987 song by INXS? The answer’s at the end of this newsletter.3
Question #6 Leaderboard
The Question #6 leaderboard can be viewed at this link.
In addition to The Lion King, the other films featuring 3+ songs nominated for Best Original Song were BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, DREAMGIRLS, and ENCHANTED (each one had three songs). Of those nine songs, though, only one won Best Original Song—”Beauty and the Beast,” the titular song.
The horse that played Mister Ed on Mister Ed was named Bamboo Harvester.
“One of my kind” is pointing to the INXS song “NEED YOU TONIGHT.” That’s not our speculation; that’s from Train:
I've read that with “Hey, Soul Sister,” you set out to write an INXS-style song.
Yeah. I wanted to write “Need You Tonight” So those guys started with, [sings “Need You Tonight” riff] “Blink blink blink, da na na na na na na na.”
I was like, “No, no, no -- that's already been written. I want to write a song like that.”
You kept a nod to INXS with the phrase: “One of my kind.”
You're exactly right.