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) “Denzel Washington and Viola Davis set to convert Tonys to Oscars” was part of a newspaper headline for an article reviewing WHAT 2016 film? Only one of the headline’s two predictions came to pass.
2) In Lord Byron’s satirical poem “Written after [BLANK] from Sestos to Abydos,” Byron unfavorably compares himself to Leander, a character from Greek mythology who made nightly efforts to woo Hero. WHAT word fills in the blank in the poem’s title?
3) In 2013, a video by fitness-enthusiast Joanna Rohrback went viral. The video introduced viewers to “Prancercise,” a specific type of workout. WHAT non-human animal is most prominently featured on the website and marketing materials for Prancercise?
4) Hip-hop artist Joseph Simmons is known by a particular nickname that is part of the name of the group that he started in New York in 1983 with Darryl McDaniels and Jason Mizell. WHAT is that nickname? McDaniels’s stage name makes up the remainder of the group’s name.
5) A 2003 book by Lynne Truss reminders readers of potential syntactical ambiguities by, in its title, alluding to a panda that has a sandwich and then does WHAT two things?
6) This newsletter’s answers allude to a version of WHAT event? (Your answer should be a ten-letter word.)
Trivia Newsletter CXCIII Recap
1) The Miami Dolphins lost to the Kansas City Chiefs last weekend in the fourth-coldest game in NFL history. Miami fans may have pined for warmer climes and warmer times, such as the 2018 “Miracle in Miami” when Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski jumped to his left and failed to tackle WHAT player, leading to Miami scoring the first walk-off, game-winning NFL touchdown involving multiple lateral passes ever?
[This player’s last name is the same as the stage name of the first artist to have three songs debut in the top three of the Billboard Hot 100 at the same time.]
This is KENYAN DRAKE (and the artist is Drake).
Let’s Watch About Some Guys! In lieu of long write-ups about these events, we encourage you to just watch them, and we’ve provided YouTube links so you can do that.
Because the NFL doesn’t want you to easily watch its content that happened years ago, most of the videos in this newsletter will not actually work unless you click through to YouTube. We suggest that you consider doing so, since these plays are all pretty fun. We tried to pick the shortest-possible videos for your watching ease.
2) The Dallas Cowboys were upset by the Green Bay Packers last weekend. The Cowboys’ gaffes may have reminded Cowboys fans of the two gaffes committed by WHAT alliteratively named player in 1993? The second such gaffe happened when he stepped to his right and touched the ball following a failed field goal, allowing the Dolphins to regain possession and win the otherwise out-of-reach game.
[This player’s last name is also an archaic word referring to someone from Latvia; you can add “-ish” to get another word for the Latvian language.]
This is LEON LETT (and the word is Lett).
3) The Chiefs will be hoping to avoid a repeat of the 2018 season when, in the AFC Championship Game against the Patriots, a seemingly game-clinching interception was waved off after the referee put his hands on his hips to signal that WHAT player was offsides?
[This player has the same last name as someone who often had a certain band play, in lieu of “Hail to the Chief,” the fight song of the University of Michigan.]
This is DEE FORD (and the individual is Gerald Ford).
4) The Pittsburgh Steelers lost a rescheduled game against the Buffalo Bills. Fans of the Steelers might have wished things went more like they did in the 2015 season’s wild-card round victory over the Bengals, in which WHAT player implausibly caught a touchdown pass by, mid-catch, doing a front flip and tightly bringing his knees in, pinning the ball in his leg?
[This player has the same last name as a product of Chicago’s Second City comedy club who, in addition to being a co-creator and the star of the television show Shrill, was a cast member on Saturday Night Live from 2012 to 2022.]
This is MARTAVIS BRYANT (and the comedian is Aidy Bryant).
5) Fans of the Detroit Lions, fresh off their first playoff win since 1992, might be tempted to celebrate in a fashion similar to WHAT running back, who was penalized in 2022 for a series of pelvic thrusts that went viral due to the act’s similarity to a Key & Peele sketch?
[This player has the same last name as a winner of the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize, who was the founder of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines.]
This is JAMAAL WILLIAMS (and the Nobel winner is Jody Williams).
And here’s that sketch:
6) Two of the 2023 playoff teams, the Lions and Cowboys, traditionally host Thanksgiving NFL games. Two other 2023 playoff teams have the longest streaks of not playing on Thanksgiving. The Cleveland Browns haven’t played on Thanksgiving since 1989, and the Los Angeles Rams haven’t played on Thanksgiving since 1975—the same year that a version of this newsletter’s theme was released in the U.S. WHAT is today’s theme?
There were a lot of false paths here. You could have thought about the NFL teams, the cities/states they represent, the years we mentioned, or the last names (Ford and Williams? Is this Star Wars? Lett and Kenyan? Are these demonyms?).
The trick was that none of that mattered, and the only detail we wanted you to pick up on was the fact that all five questions described some physical act. It may have stuck out to you, for example, that we took care to describe the motion for a referee to signal offsides in Question #3.
What do these five motions have in common?
It's just a jump to the left
And then a step to the right
With your hands on your hips
You bring your knees in tight
But it's the pelvic thrust
That really drives you insane
Let's do the Time Warp again
That’s right, those are the five motions in the “Time Warp,” the parody dance song from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. (We accepted either the song’s name or film’s name.) Our newsletter title, “Let’s Remember Some Guys Again,” was a fairly straightforward description of what we were doing, but also alluded to the song (what’s more of a time warp than waxing nostalgic about sports?).
We haven’t done a recap question yet, so let’s put it here. When FOX released a 2016 “re-imagining” of the film (clunkily titled The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Let's Do the Time Warp Again), WHAT ACTRESS played the role of Dr. Frank-N-Furter, the Mad Scientist? She may be most notable for playing Sophia Burset on Orange is the New Black. The answer is at the end of this newsletter.1
Let’s do the Time Warp again!
Question #6 Leaderboard
The Question #6 leaderboard can be viewed at this link.
Dr. Frank-N-Furter was played by LAVERNE COX.