Below are six trivia questions I’ve written. You can reply to this e-mail if you’d like to participate. Like most trivia, the answers can be readily found via Google, so you’re on the honor system. The SIXTH question of each set is designed to be a question that cannot be easily Googled, so correct answers to those will be tracked and recognized in the next newsletter. The answers, and the next set of questions, will be published every Monday and Thursday.
1) In chemistry, a container with SLOPED sides is generally known as a flask. What is the name, shared with a character from The Muppet Show, generally given to a container with STRAIGHT sides and a spout? John Joseph Griffin, a 19th-century English chemist, famously invented a common style of this item.
2) There are three actors who have won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series four or more times for playing the same TV character. Each of those three characters has a first name or a last name that ends in the letter “R”. Name TWO of the THREE characters, in up to THREE guesses—first and last name required. (Michael J. Fox won three times for playing Alex P. Keaton in Family Ties, and one time for playing Mike Flaherty in Spin City, and thus does not qualify.)
3) In combat sports, WHAT is typically the weight class that is heavier than flyweight but lighter than lightweight? The weight class typically spans 125 to 132 pounds in boxing, and 136 to 145 pounds in UFC. On August 15, 2009, Gina Carano took on Cris Cyborg for the inaugural Strikeforce Women’s Championship at this weight class.
4) In 2003, the American Film Institute released a list of the top 50 film heroes of all time. Two women are in the top ten of this list of heroes. One is Ellen Ripley from the Alien franchise; WHO is the other film hero, who appears in a film based on a novel? Both the actress who portrayed this character and the author of the novel are living as of October 29, 2021.
5) The below passage is taken from House Resolution 611 of the second session of the 105th U.S. Congress. WHOSE name fills in the blank?
[BLANK] willfully provided perjurious, false and misleading testimony to the grand jury concerning one or more of the following:
(1) the nature and details of his relationship with a subordinate Government employee;
(2) prior perjurious, false and misleading testimony he gave in a Federal civil rights action brought against him;
(3) prior false and misleading statements he allowed his attorney to make to a Federal judge in that civil rights action; and
(4) his corrupt efforts to influence the testimony of witnesses and to impede the discovery of evidence in that civil rights action.
6) What is the US city that best completes this set? Glendale, AZ; St. Louis, MO; Atlanta, GA; Seattle, WA; Toronto, ON; Baltimore, MD; New Orleans, LA; Pittsburgh, PA; Anaheim, CA.
Here are the answers from last time:
1) In the beginning, there were various Atari consoles, and then the Nintendo Entertainment System was released in North America in 1985. After that, the Mega Drive, Ozisoft, and Tec Toy were all international versions of WHAT video game system, released in North America on August 14, 1989? The system is often credited for innovating video gaming generally; it has been called "the key incubator for modern sports franchises," and it even featured an online subscription service that predated PlayStation Plus by over fifteen years.
Sega does what Nintendon’t, and what Nintendo don’t make was the Sega Genesis, the answer to our question. When I was a child, I was brainwashed by the Sonic the Hedgehog animated television show to think that “chili cheese dogs” would be delicious, which led to heartbreak around the age of nine. If you ever get a chance to play Genesis game Sword of Vermillion (by, uh, typing it into Google), I highly recommend it.
2) Delilah DiCrescenzo, a 2001 graduate of Queen of Peace High School in Burbank, Illinois and a 2005 graduate of Columbia University, is an American distance runner who competes in the women's 3000-meter steeplechase. She nearly qualified for the Summer Olympics in 2008 and 2012, and also was the subject of a hit song, released in 2006, by WHAT band? The song hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in July 2007 and remains the band's only #1 hit.
“Hey there, Delilah, what’s it like in New York City?” Our answer was the Plain White T’s, who are from Lombard, Illinois and who also wrote the song “1, 2, 3, 4” (not to be confused with Feist’s “1234,” which is presumably a song about the most common ATM PINs).
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the band was in talks three years ago to adapt “Hey There, Delilah” into a scripted romantic dramedy about a long-distance relationship. The president of an entertainment company said the following about the song, apparently not ironically: “[The song] is a perfect example of an iconic story song that has introduced characters and a premise to a massive multigenerational audience, and is begging to be expanded into a full-length story for contemporary television audiences.” No show has been made, yet.
3) The 2001 film Ocean's Eleven probably featured the first use of WHAT four-word phrase that has become something of a meme? In the film, Don Cheadle's character yells this phrase to his team (plus the two words "to do") when he blows up a vault door and an alarm goes off. As a meme, the phrase is most commonly invoked to call attention to someone committing a blunder while working--for example, one Reddit example lambasts a "Dinosaur Supervisor" in Jurassic Park with the phrase.
You had one job! You know, like:
4) Later this week, you can remember, remember the fifth of November, when Guy Fawkes failed to destroy the British Parliament and assassinate WHAT king, the son of Mary, Queen of Scots?
The answer here was James I. The failed assassination, also sometimes known as the “Gunpowder Plot,” led to a wave of anti-Catholic sentiment in England, leading to (as has happened in history before and since, and for religions other than Catholicism as well) the rise of “crypto-Catholicism,” whereby Catholics secretly practiced Catholicism while publicly professing a more socially acceptable faith. Today, pitching “crypto-Catholicism” might get you a couple rounds of financing and an IPO.
5) In Greek mythology, Artemis, the goddess and huntress of deer, repeatedly saw an island illuminated by moonlight under the Aegean Sea and wanted it to be hers. With the help of Zeus and Poseidon, the island was lifted from the sea. Today we know this island as Patmos, but as the story goes, the people at the time honored Artemis and named the island after WHAT GODDESS? They probably did so because of this goddess's relation to Artemis and not because she was the lead singer of, as they might have called it, 30 Seconds to Ares.
The answer here was Leto, mother of Artemis and Apollo—the band reference was meant to clue you into 30 Seconds to Mars and its lead singer Jared Leto. Leto (the goddess, not the Joker dude) was forced to give birth to Artemis and Apollo in hiding due to Hera’s jealousy—but, then, “Hera was jealous” is the impetus to a whole bunch of Greek mythology, including in part the fall of Troy.
6) What unusual characteristic do these films have in common? A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965), Footloose (1984), Dune (1984), Pulp Fiction (1994), Saving Private Ryan (1998), Man on Fire (2004), Fury (2014), Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015).
“And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.’ That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.”
“Aren't we told in Psalm 149 ‘Praise ye the Lord. Sing unto the Lord a new song. Let them praise His name in the dance’?”
“Behold, as a wild ass in the desert, go I forth to my work.”
“And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee.”
“Be not that far from me, for trouble is near; O my strength, haste Thee to help me.”
“The Bible says, ‘Do not be over come with evil, but overcome...?’”
”But overcome evil with good.”
“Here’s a Bible verse I think about sometimes. Manytimes. It goes: ‘And I heard the voice of Lord saying: Whom shall I send and who will go for Us? And…and…I said: Here am I, send me!’”
“Upon this rock, I will build my church.”
Each of these films has at least one scene where a character directly or indirectly quotes the Bible. (Yeah, yeah, I know the Pulp Fiction quote is a pretty loose reading of Ezekiel 25:17, but the last line is close enough where I’m calling it a quote.)
The quiz had a few Bible hints—Genesis, Delilah, and Job all appear in the first three questions. King James I commissioned what we call the King James Version of the Bible, and Question #5 (in addition to generally cluing you into religion via mythology) references Patmos, which is most famous as being the island on which the Book of Revelation was written. Question #1 started with “In the beginning,” which are also the first three words of the Bible. Finally, “furious rebukes,” the name of the quiz, is the portion of Ezekiel 25:17 that Tarantino most conspicuously removed from Samuel L. Jackson’s quotation of the verse.