Williams Trivia All Stars
May 15, 2020
On-Air Questions and Songs
Unused questions are shown with gray text.
| Mark Conger gave a brief introduction to the contest, explaining that the regular contest was postponed until October, but today we would have questions from years past presented by a rotating cast of Trivia All Stars. | |
| Rich Levy '74 and PJ Morello '72 were the first team to present. They prepared everything together, but PJ had technical difficulties at the last minute, so Rich did the reading. Their script is linked on the main contest archive page. | |
| Number | 1 |
| Realm | Movies |
| Subrealm | Trivia Contest Winner |
| Question | In the 1961 film The Great Imposter, what was the name of the lead character, played by Tony Curtis? |
| Answer | Ferdinand Waldo Demara |
| Song | The Great Pretender |
| Artist | The Platters |
| Number | 2 |
| Realm | Movies |
| Subrealm | Trivia Contest Winner |
| Question | In the 1941 movie classic Citizen Kane, when the newsreel about Charles Foster Kane is shown a couple of lines of verse are flashed on the screen. What were those lines? |
| Answer | "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan, a stately pleasure dome decree.” |
| Song | Walk Like A Man |
| Artist | The Four Seasons |
| Number | 3 |
| Realm | Movies |
| Subrealm | Trivia Contest Winner |
| Question | What is the last line in the movie The Time Machine? |
| Answer | He's got all the time in the world. |
| Song | Cryin' In the Chapel |
| Artist | Sonny Till & The Orioles |
| Number | 4 |
| Realm | Movies |
| Subrealm | Marx Bros & Little Richard |
| Question | What was Chico Marx’s favorite flavor of ice cream? |
| Answer | Tootsie Frootsie |
| Song | Tutti Frutti |
| Artist | Little Richard |
| Number | 5 |
| Realm | TV |
| Subrealm | Star Trek |
| Question | What were the opening lines to each episode of the original Star Trek TV series? |
| Answer | “Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. It’s five year mission: To explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations [third “i” pronounced as a long “i”], to boldly go where no man has gone before.” |
| Song | Telstar |
| Artist | The Tornadoes |
| Number | 6 |
| Realm | Movies |
| Subrealm | Henry Fonda/Jack Lemmon |
| Question | In the 1955 film Mr. Roberts, starring Henry Fonda and Jack Lemmon, what phrases were written on the two souvenir pillows that Ensign Pulver intended to use to seduce the nurse played by Betsy Palmer? |
| Answer | "(1) Toujours L’Amour, Souvenir of San Diego, Oh You Kid, and (2) Tonight or Never, compliments of the American Harvester Company, We Plow Deep While Others Sleep." |
| Song | Tears on my Pillow |
| Artist | Little Anthony & The Imperials |
| Number | 7 |
| Realm | Sports |
| Subrealm | Baseball |
| Question | Off what pitcher did Roger Maris hit his 60th homer in 1961? |
| Answer | "Fat" Jack Fisher of the Baltimore Orioles |
| Song | See You In September |
| Artist | The Tempos |
| Number | 8 |
| Realm | Movies |
| Subrealm | James Bond |
| Question | How did James Bond (Agent 007) prefer his martini? |
| Answer | Shaken, not stirred. |
| Song | Goldfinger |
| Artist | Shirley Bassey |
| Number | 9 |
| Realm | TV |
| Subrealm | Andy Griffith |
| Question | On The Andy Griffith Show, what did Barney Fife keep in the shirt pocket of his deputy's uniform? |
| Answer | A bullet. |
| Song | Stagger Lee |
| Artist | Lloyd Price |
| Number | 10 |
| Realm | Movies |
| Subrealm | Disasters |
| Question | In the 1953 movie "Titanic", starring Clifton Webb and Barbara Stanwyck, there is a scene in which a group of young men and women are gathered around a piano singing a song at the moment the ship hits the iceberg? What was the song? |
| Answer | "Yard by Yard", the Williams College fight song. |
| Song | Catch A Wave |
| Artist | The Beach Boys |
| Number | 11 |
| Realm | Movies |
| Question | What was the last line of the original King Kong? |
| Answer | "No, it wasn't the airplanes. Twas beauty killed the beast." |
| Answer | Lennie Welch |
| Song | Since I Fell For You |
| Number | 12 |
| Realm | Movies |
| Question | Here’s a bit of Williams Trivia trivia. In the fifth contest run by Carter House in Spring 1968, Morgan won with 166 points. This was a question asked in that contest: What did Patricia Neal say to the robot Gort to prevent it from destroying the world, after Michael Rennie had been killed in the original "The Day the Earth Stood Still"? |
| Answer | "Gort, klaatu barata niktu." |
| Song | Flying Purple People-Eater |
| Artist | Sheb Wooley |
| Next up were Andrea Currie '10 and Allie Gardner '10, reading from the contest they ran as the Ubernebulous Space Otters of Alpha Centauri, in January 2007. | |
| Number | 13 |
| Realm | Unusual celebrity names |
| Subrealm | Aren't a new phenomenon |
| Question | The host of what now off-the-air but once popular TV show is named after a certain New York City private school? Give the host and the show. |
| Answer | Regis Philbin, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? |
| Song | If I Had A Million Dollars |
| Artist | Barenaked Ladies |
| Number | 14 |
| Realm | Movies |
| Subrealm | I see dead people |
| Question | In the movie The Sixth Sense, Bruce Willis, who in real life is left-handed, writes with his right hand. Why? |
| Answer | He learned to write right-handed so he would not have to show the audience his left hand and reveal that he is no longer wearing his wedding ring, which would have been a clue to his actual non-living status |
| Song | This Diamond Ring |
| Artist | Gary Lewis and the Playboys |
| Number | 15 |
| Realm | Real units |
| Subrealm | But not SI, sorry |
| Question | Many English measuring units have their origins in the dimensions of the human body. The units based on the foot and the hand kept their names, but what's the unit based on the measurement from fingertip to fingertip, or a man's armspan? |
| Answer | The fathom |
| Song | With Arms Wide Open |
| Artist | Creed |
| Number | 16 |
| Realm | Cookie anatomy |
| Subrealm | Using too much flower |
| Question | In addition to containing baking flour, many cookies have contained images of the other kind of flower. What popular cookie features 24 nondescript four-leaved flowers? |
| Answer | The Oreo cookie |
| Song | Stuck in the Middle with You |
| Artist | Stealers Wheel |
| Number | 17 |
| Realm | Needing a manly breakfast |
| Subrealm | Don't you just love the smell of napalm in the morning? |
| Question | In the book-turned-movie, Fight Club, the character of Tyler Durden provides three recipes for homemade Napalm, each one being a mixture of gasoline and one other substance. Name at least two of the substances that complete the recipe. |
| Answer | Frozen orange juice concentrate, cat litter, or Diet Coke |
| Song | Rip it Up |
| Artist | Orange Juice |
| Number | 18 |
| Realm | Things as old as the hills |
| Subrealm | But not your mom |
| Question | A church dedicated to whom has existed on the same site in Rome since the fourth century AD? |
| Answer | Saint Peter |
| Song | I Am a Rock |
| Artist | Simon and Garfunkel |
| Number | 19 |
| Realm | Kaboom! |
| Subrealm | All's fair in love and war... |
| Question | In an episode of Family Guy, Stewie tries to bait his swimming rival, Brad, toward an explosion with which food item? |
| Answer | Marzipan |
| Song | Homestar Runner Theme |
| Artist | The Brothers Chaps |
| Number | 20 |
| Realm | Williamsiana |
| Subrealm | Harry Potter |
| Question | What is Griffin of Griffin Hall's middle name? |
| Answer | Dorr |
| Song | Light my Fire |
| Artist | The Doors |
| Number | 21 |
| Realm | Literature |
| Subrealm | WTF? |
| Question | They could not be removed by Nadd, nor by the father of Nadd, nor by the father of the father of Nadd, nor by anyone else in the kingdom of Didd. What were they? |
| Answer | The Five Hundred Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins |
| Song | I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles) |
| Artist | The Proclaimers |
| Number | 22 |
| Realm | Movies |
| Subrealm | You can't handle the truth |
| Question | In “A Few Good Men”, lawyer Daniel Kaffee famously induces Colonel Nathan Jessup to confess to ordering the “Code Red” for Private Santiago. Kaffee does this essentially by demanding an explanation for the contradictory nature of the two orders that Jessup testifies to having given to his men, both related to Private Santiago. What are those two orders? |
| Answer | One order was to not touch Santiago (do not give him a Code Red); the other order was to have Santiago transferred off the base for his own safety (a contradiction because, if Jessup had ordered his men to lay off Santiago, and Jessup's orders were always followed, then why would he need to have Santiago transferred for his own safety?) |
| Song | Code Red |
| Artist | DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince (also accept Will Smith) |
| Taking over next was Rob Kent '84, reading questions from various contests run by the "Python" team, which played under many different Monty Python-derived names over a long period of time. | |
| Number | 23 |
| Realm | Comics |
| Subrealm | Comics on TV |
| Question | During the recent "Crisis on Infinite Earths" on TV, an early cameo was by none other than Burt Ward - Robin to Adam West's Batman on the campy 60's TV show. He had one line, spoken as he gazed upon the advancing wave of antimatter consuming the atmosphere of Earth 66 - what was it? |
| Answer | Holy Crimson Skies of Death! |
| Song | Holding Back the Years |
| Artist | Simply Red |
| Hint | (it didn't end ", Batman" but it should have) |
| Number | 24 |
| Realm | Movies |
| Subrealm | Early Matthew Broderick flirting with Armageddon films |
| Question | What are the final words of Joshua at NORAD, in "War Games"? |
| Answer | "CPE1704TKS GREETINGS PROFESSOR FALKEN hello A STRANGE GAME. THE ONLY WINNING MOVE IS NOT TO PLAY. HOW ABOUT A NICE GAME OF CHESS." (Last line only is acceptable.) |
| Song | One Night in Bangkok |
| Artist | Murry Head, album Chess |
| Hint | . |
| Number | 25 |
| Realm | Comedy |
| Subrealm | Monty Python |
| Question | In the film "Monty Python at the Hollywood Bowl," what doesn't the Pope like about Michaelangelo's the Last Supper? Name three things for one point, all five for two points |
| Answer | There is a kangaroo in the back / There is a trampoline act / Jell-O is being served / There are 28 Apostles, and they are too Jewish / There are three Christs portrayed - one fat one balancing two skinny ones. |
| Song | Relax |
| Artist | Frankie Goes to Hollywood |
| Hint | Australian Gymnasts? |
| Number | 26 |
| Realm | Movies |
| Subrealm | Beloved Movies |
| Question | Name the three people who kiss Rick In "Casablanca" |
| Answer | Ilsa Lund/Lazlo, Annina Brandel (the Bulgarian girl), Sascha (Russian bartender) |
| Song | Never Going to Give You Up |
| Artist | Rick Astley (Horrible Song Onesie) |
| Number | 27 |
| Realm | Politics |
| Subrealm | All Politics are Local |
| Question | The Queens Daily Eagle, on Friday December 20 2019 proved that all news is local. On the bottom of page 16 below two stories about the subway was a headline which began “Queens man” . What word came next? - and for an extra point, identify the significance of the song. |
| Answer | Impeached |
| Song | Rhythm Is a Dancer (the song playing in footage of Trump partying with Jeffrey Epstein @ Mar A Lago |
| Artist | Snap |
| Hint | Anyone who wants a hint can get a hint |
| Number | 28 |
| Realm | Movies |
| Subrealm | That ARE Scripture |
| Question | Please name all the ways Brave Sir Robin was not afraid to die |
| Answer | He was not afraid to die, no not brave Sir Robin. He was not in the at all afraid to be killed in nasty ways, brave brave brave brave Sir Robin. He was not in the least bit scared to be mashed into a pulp or to have his eyes gouged out and his elbows broken. To have his kneecaps split and his body burnt away and his limbs all hacked and mangled, brave Sir Robin. His head smashed in and his heart cut out and his liver removed and his bowels unplugged and his nostrils raped and his bottom burnt off and his penis . . . "That's enough music for now lads, there's dirty work afoot" |
| Song | Rockin' Robin |
| Artist | Jackson Five |
| Hint | He was, according to his minstrels, very brave - so if you don't know this, you're not going to guess . . . |
| Number | 29 |
| Realm | Theater |
| Subrealm | Deconstructive Criticism |
| Question | In 1962, Broadway impresario David Merrick produced a show called "Subways Are For Sleeping." The city's theater critics were unanimous-- they all hated it. Merrick was so outraged by their negative response that he retaliated with an unusual advertising tactic. What? |
| Answer | He located people with the same names as the critics (such as a Richard Watts or a Frank Rich), and got them to provide rave reviews, which he then quoted in his ads. |
| Song | MIami 2017 |
| Artist | Billy Joel |
| Number | 30 |
| Realm | TV |
| Subrealm | Plural Eponymous TV stars |
| Question | Bob Newhart played an innkeeper in Vermont in the show Newhart, which ran for eight seasons - what happened at the end of the final episode? |
| Answer | He woke up in bed with Susanne Pleshette, his wife from the Bob Newhart Show, and said he’d had this crazy dream about being an innkeeper. |
| Song | Armadillo Dreaming |
| Artist | Grammy award winning Marcus Hummon '84 |
| Number | 31 |
| Realm | Movies |
| Subrealm | Movies with nasty big pointy teeth |
| Question | In Jurassic Park, Lost World, the T-Rex causes a bus to crash into a video store. On a prominent poster in the store, a well known actor appears as the lead in a purported film of King Lear - who is that actor? |
| Answer | Arnold Schwarzenegger |
| Song | Bad to the Bone |
| Artist | George Thorogood & The Destroyers (heard in Terminator 2 when he steals the bartender's sunglasses) |
| Number | 32 |
| Realm | Movies |
| Subrealm | Based on Scripture |
| Question | In "Life of Brian", What does Brian write 100 times on the wall? |
| Answer | "Romanes eunt domus" was grammatically incorrect. A Roman soldier pointed out that it was correctly done "Romani ite domum," and forced Brian to write this 100 times. |
| Song | Another Brick in the Wall |
| Artist | Pink Floyd |
| Next up was Tom Gardner '79, father of Allie and keeper of the BOMO flame. His script is linked at the bottom of the main contest page. | |
| Number | 33 |
| Realm | Movies |
| Subrealm | Leave the gun, take the canolli |
| Question | Everyone knows that the Godfather makes offers that others cannot refuse, but, in “The Godfather,” the first movie, what is the original "offer" – the one that gets the bandleader to release Johnny Fontaine from his contract? |
| Answer | Michael Corleone tells the story to his wife, Kay…about the offer that could not be refused. And Michael relates it as follows: “Luca Brasi held a gun to his head, and my father assured him that either his brains or his signature would be on the contract.” |
| Song | Walk Away Renee |
| Artist | The Left Banke |
| Number | 34 |
| Realm | TV |
| Subrealm | For all you graduates of Princestone U. |
| Question | Please sing the "Flintstones" theme song, and I am specifically looking for the opening theme song, not the closing theme song |
| Answer | Flintstones, meet the Flintstones / They're the modern stone-age family / From the town of Bedrock / They're a case right out of history / Let's ride with the family down the street / Through the courtesy of Fred's two feet / When you're with the Flintstones / Have a yabba dabba doo time / A dabba doo time / You'll have a gay old time. |
| Song | Friday on My Mind |
| Artist | The Easybeats |
| Number | 35 |
| Realm | Comics |
| Question | What position does Zonker Harris play on the Walden College football team in the comic strip "Doonesbury"? |
| Answer | Uptight end. |
| Song | Uptight |
| Artist | Stevie Wonder |
| Number | 36 |
| Realm | Movies |
| Subrealm | The letters of transit |
| Question | From "Casablanca"...we would like to know the name of Rick's cafe in Paris, where he and Ilsa spent such happy hours before the Germans spoiled the fun. |
| Answer | La Belle Aurore |
| Song | She's Not There |
| Artist | The Zombies (first song of both our May, 1974 contest, the first one we ran, and our May, 2012 contest, the most recent one we ran) |
| Number | 37 |
| Realm | Williamsiana |
| Subrealm | Several libraries later, it's still standing |
| Question | Alright, Stetson Library fans wherever you are, what five names appear on the south face of Stetson, over the door? |
| Answer | Homer, Goethe, Moliere, Cervantes, Franklin. |
| Song | Laugh Laugh |
| Artist | Beau Brummels |
| Number | 38 |
| Realm | Sports |
| Subrealm | A bad year for the Babe |
| Question | 1961 was a big year for the Yankees, a World Series championship year, and two players each broke a hallowed record held by Babe Ruth. Everybody knows of Roger Maris' 61 home runs. But what World Series record of the Babe's was broken, and who broke it? |
| Answer | Consecutive scoreless innings pitched in World Series play; broken by Whitey Ford. (Total series: Babe had 29 2/3; Whitey had 33 2/3.) |
| Song | Red Rubber Ball |
| Artist | The Cyrkle (the first song of our December, 1976 contest, the second one we ran) |
| Number | 39 |
| Realm | Movies |
| Subrealm | Career Advice |
| Question | From "The Graduate." Exactly who is it that asks Ben to remember the word "plastics"? |
| Answer | Mr. Maguire |
| Song | Eve of Destruction |
| Artist | Barry MaGuire |
| Number | 40 |
| Realm | TV |
| Subrealm | The Pros from Dover |
| Question | From "M*A*S*H," we'd like to know the full character names of Hawkeye, Radar, and Trapper. |
| Answer | Hawkeye is Benjamin Franklin Pierce, Radar is Walter O'Reilly, and Trapper John is John McIntyre. |
| Song | The Name Game |
| Artist | Shirley Ellis (the first song from our December, 1978 contest) |
| Number | 41 |
| Realm | Movies |
| Subrealm | Who are those guys? |
| Question | In "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," who is the leader of the superposse, and who is the tracker? |
| Answer | The leader is Joe Lefors (whose trademark is a white straw skimmer); the Indian tracker is Lord Baltimore. |
| Song | Runaway |
| Artist | Del Shannon |
| I’ll end my set with a sports question, and I am morphing a Bonus question that was actually asked by General Bumble in the December, 1974 contest, and I am doing that as a way to tell my best trivia moment story. I was not even at this contest, at the time I was a senior in high school, and fast asleep at home. Anyway, the bonus question was to name the stadiums that 10 professional sports teams had occupied before moving into their more modern current stadium, circa 1974. Now in those days, bonuses were all or nothing propositions. You had to get every part of the bonus correct to get all 5 points, or you received no points at all. BOMO was trailing the House of Gee and badly needed this bonus. And by 4:50 AM or so, the BOMO sports mavens, including my brother Steve, had collectively recalled 9 out of the 10 stadiums, like the LA Coliseum, the former home of the Dodgers, and Colt 45 Stadium, home of Houston’s baseball team before they were the Astros. But the one stadium they could not remember was the original home of the AFL’s San Diego Chargers. So my brother called me up at my parents’ house just before 5 AM. My father – who I’m sure was not too happy to receive a call at such a time – woke me up and told me Steve was on the phone. I was naturally quite groggy. So I could feel the urgency in Steve’s voice as he asked me, what was the name of the original stadium of the San Diego Chargers? And then he started telling me about some book he had in our house, on the old AFL, but I interrupted him because -- I knew the answer. And when I said it, I could hear the screaming on the other end of the phone as the entire living room in Gladden House exploded because I knew the answer off the top of my head at 4:55 in the morning. And that was quite a moment. So, I ask you. | |
| Number | 42 |
| Realm | Sports |
| Subrealm | This one goes out to my brother Steve Gardner, Class of '75 |
| Question | What was the San Diego Chargers’ original stadium? |
| Answer | Balboa Stadium |
| Song | Five O'Clock World |
| Artist | The Vogues |
| Following Tom were Laurie Brink '05 and David Letzler '06, who have run many Belgium, Sponge, and Wombat-related contests. | |
| Number | 43 |
| Realm | Children's books |
| Subrealm | How much wind could a Windkoppel kop if a Windkoppel could kop wind? |
| Question | Give any two of the four pseudonyms adopted by Sam "Windy" Windkoppel. |
| Answer | Sam Westing, Barney Northrup, Julian Eastman, and Alexander McSouthers |
| Song | Wild Wild West |
| Artist | Will Smith feat. Dru Hill |
| Note | From May 2004, Mortal Wombat |
| Number | 44 |
| Realm | Sound effects |
| Subrealm | Easier to spell than onomatopoeia |
| Question | It's been called the "clang," the "gavel," the "cash register," the "doink doink," and the "ominous chung." What is it? |
| Answer | The "scene change" noise on "Law and Order." |
| Song | Watching the Detectives |
| Artist | Elvis Costello |
| Note | From May 2010, La Esponja Grande |
| Number | 45 |
| Realm | Unexpected rewards |
| Subrealm | Of the relatively worthless kind |
| Question | Several of the Chance and Community Chest cards in a standard Monopoly set award you specific amounts cash. Of them, which card gives you the LEAST money? |
| Answer | "You get second prize in a beauty pageant!" ($10) |
| Song | I Feel Pretty |
| Artist | Marnie Nixon (West Side Story) |
| Note | From Jan 2007, Suite Suite Lovin' |
| At this point Dave told a story about playing in the Worker and Parasite contest in January, 2005. | |
| I was the captain of the quiz bowl team in 2005. Usually, Trivia took place the week before Penn Bowl, which was one of the big events in the NE quiz bowl calendar. In 2005, though, Trivia and Penn Bowl were on the same weekend. I was disheartened to think that I was going to miss one of my eight undergrad Trivias, until Daniel Klein '06 pointed out that, technically, Trivia (12-8 AM) and Penn Bowl (9 AM-6 PM) didn't overlap. In theory, we could drive down to Philly Friday night after class, play Trivia from the hotel, go to campus, play Penn Bowl, then drive back home (on no sleep). This was a crazy plan, but there was critical mass on the team to carry it out, with the caveat that drivers would sleep for part of the contest. | |
| Unfortunately, when we arrived at the hotel, we discovered that the "hi-speed Internet" they advertised in the rooms was, in fact, just a phone jack. (This was 2005, remember.) It looked like the plan would fail, until Max Gutman '08 offered to contact a friend of his who was a freshman at Penn to see if we could crash at her dorm and use their WiFi. Somehow, she said yes. I am not sure she realized what she was in for, as seven guys she had never met ended up crashing in her dorm room all night, but she stayed up and hung out with us as we played. The highlight of the night was when Chris Paci '08 filmed Zach Thomas '08 doing the "Howard Dean scream" Action Trivia on a flip-phone in the dorm stairwell. As Zach began yelling off all the states, the floor's RA entered the screen and asked who Zach and Paci were, why they were screaming in the stairwell at 3 AM, and whether he needed to call security to escort them out. Zach apologized profusely and promised to go back to the room. End scene. That's what we submitted. | |
| Anyway, we left from the dorm at 8 and went straight for Penn Bowl. The tournament went long, so that didn't wrap up until around 7, which means after we had dinner we weren't getting on the road until 8. Unfortunately, as the Rochester team had pointed out to us as they shuffled out early, that meant we were driving straight into the year's biggest blizzard, which ended up dropping 3 feet of snow. Driving the faster routes on the Taconic or NY-22 was not possible, so we had to crawl slowly up I-87 and I-90 before submitting to the vagaries of Rte. 7. It was a treacherous drive, and we definitely spun out more than once. It was well past 4 AM when we got in. | |
| And that's the story of our 36 straight hours of driving and trivia competitions. | |
| Number | 46 |
| Realm | Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar |
| Subrealm | And sometimes it's a poisoned cigar planted by shadowy government agents who want you dead! |
| Question | In 2017, age and time finally succeeded in doing something the CIA repeatedly failed to pull off: killing Fidel Castro. It's fairly well-known that during the 60s, the CIA tried to assassinate Castro in a variety of ways ranging from the traditional bombs and guns to rather more creative but equally ineffective ideas like poisoned cigars and exploding seashells. However, one of their plots, which involved putting a chemical in Castro's shoes, was never intended to kill him. What was the intended goal of this scheme? |
| Answer | Making Castro's beard fall out. (Obviously, the CIA failed at that one, too.) |
| Song | On the Chin |
| Artist | Kings of Leon |
| Note | From Jan 2017, Gradne Belgian Wombat Tart |
| Number | 47 |
| Realm | I said come on fhqwhgads, I said come on fhqwhgads. |
| Subrealm | Everybody to the limit, everybody to the limit, everybody come on fhqwhgads. |
| Question | What is the population of Strong Badia? |
| Answer | Tire |
| Song | Tired of Sex |
| Artist | Weezer |
| Note | From May 2004, Mortal Wombat |
| Here Dave & Laurie told a story about running the Mortal Wombat contest in May, 2004. | |
| Leading into the Mortal Wombat contest, Laurie had, for some weeks, been unsuccessfully asking three Wombats who had been assigned hour boni to provide an update on their progress. Despite the radio silence, on the day of the contest, two boni we'd neither seen hide nor hair of to that point magically appeared in complete form. There was still one audio, though, that was outstanding. Its premise, as we'd decided on at the team meeting, was that the audio clips would combine to create the lyrics for the first verse and chorus of "American Pie." Its assembler had told us several times that it wasn't quite done yet, but it was on track to get completed for the contest. Well, come the contest's beginning, neither he nor the bonus was anywhere to be found. We heard later that he'd been hiding from us in the snack bar, and that he had not done any work on the bonus at all. The team roundly cursed his name, but the contest had started, and we were an hour short. | |
| Dave very nearly went back to his dorm to try to assemble an audio during the contest itself, which probably would've been a doomed attempt. However, just before he did, Tom White '04 made a suggestion: why not simply provide the lyrics, then ask the teams to lay out an audio? The team conferred quickly and decided that, while we weren't sure that this would work, it would at least take way, way less time than constructing the audio ourselves. So we threw together a packet as quickly as we could and made it the final hour bonus. We were worried that this would come off as slapdash, but before announcing the final scores in Baxter lounge, several teams commented that this was the most creative bonus of the night. When they asked where we got the idea, we had to rather sheepishly admit its origins were necessity more than any well-thought-out-plan. | |
| Number | 48 |
| Realm | People who are fantastic |
| Subrealm | People who are amazing |
| Question | This accomplished fellow, who passed away in 2018, has been a mailman, a security guard, a pageant judge, a playboy, a hot dog vendor, a high school librarian, and a general - all after the age of 75! |
| Answer | Stan Lee, in just a few of his cameos from Marvel movies. |
| Song | Please Mr. Postman |
| Artist | The Marvelettes |
| Note | From May 2014, ANUSTART |
| Number | 49 |
| Realm | Big names in music |
| Subrealm | And by "names," we mean "bank accounts" |
| Question | Out of all the world's professional touring musicians, who has the highest net worth, at about $1.5 billion? For those who track these things, his band has put out three albums in the last four years, and they've both toured with Jewel and shared stages with the Doobie Brothers, the Eagles, and Aretha Franklin. |
| Answer | James Dolan, heir to the Cablevision empire and best-known as the hapless owner of the New York Knicks. He's half a billion richer than Paul McCartney and Jay-Z. As you can tell from the song, his high-profile touring schedule as leader of J.D. and the Straight Shot is entirely due to his group's musical ability, and not related at all to his possession of a nicer touring jet than any pop group or his ownership of several of the venues at which they played. |
| Song | Fix the Knicks |
| Artist | J.D. and the Straight Shot |
| Note | A brand new question! |
| Number | 50 |
| Realm | [Stefon voice] New York's hottest club is Question 50 |
| Subrealm | This place has everything: fidget spinners, ASMR, that thing of when we list a bunch of stuff... |
| Question | What do the following things have in common: the sun, traffic, every day but Monday, a fidget spinner, Brexit, awkward political dinner discussion, ASMR, a polar vortex, the word "lodestar," that S symbol everyone used to draw, the sound some people heard as "yanny" and some heard as "laurel," New York City, a banana, and the crushing existential weight of sentient self-awareness? |
| Answer | All of them have had sex with the protagonists of Hugo-nominated "romance" author Chuck Tingle's stories since the last time we asked you this question. |
| Song | When Somebody Loves Somebody |
| Artist | Fabio |
| Note | Updated from Jan 2017, Grande Belgian Wombat Tart |
| Number | 51 |
| Realm | Good Omens |
| Subrealm | He'll get you, my pretties! |
| Question | According to the Malleus Malificarum, a good way to identify a witch is to shave her head and look for Satanic totems on her scalp. According to Monty Python and the Holy Grail, a good way to identify a witch is to see whether she weighs more than a duck. But according to Sergeant Shadwell of the Witchfinder Army, the best way to identify a witch is...what? |
| Answer | Count the nipples! |
| Song | My Humps |
| Artist | Black-Eyed Peas |
| Note | From Jan 2006, Gratuitous Use of the Word "Belgium" |
| Number | 52 |
| Realm | The Princess Bride |
| Subrealm | Tomorrow, you'll be mostly dead all day |
| Question | What is Prince Humperdink supposed to do after losing his challenge to the pain? Please quote exactly. |
| Answer | Wallow in freakish misery forever. |
| Song | I'm Sad the Goat Just Died Today |
| Artist | The Frogs |
| Note | From Jan 2003, Joanie Loves Trotsky |
| Taking over next was David Kensinger '93, reading questions from the December 1993 contest by The Purpose of the Military is to Kill People and Break Things. | |
| Number | 53 |
| Realm | Mass media |
| Subrealm | Really massive media |
| Question | On his radio talk show, national syndicated host, fat guy, and conservative icon Rush Limbaugh argued consistently against allowing gays to serve openly in the military. He claimed that the military was not ‘a laboratory for social experimentation’ but rather.... what? |
| Answer | "The purpose of the military is to kill people and break things." |
| Song | My City Was Gone |
| Artist | The Pretenders |
| Number | 54 |
| Realm | Tradition! |
| Subrealm | Traditions not about food or sex |
| Question | Who was offered the Presidency of Israel before Ben Gurian, and refused? |
| Answer | Albert Einstein. |
| Song | Oomalama |
| Artist | Eugenius |
| Number | 55 |
| Realm | Holy creepie crawlies |
| Subrealm | Callin’ all my Muslim Bio Majors out there! |
| Question | Three books of the Qur'an are named after arthropods. Which ones? |
| Answer | The bee, ant, and spider. |
| Song | St. Agnes and the Burning Train |
| Artist | Sting |
| Number | 56 |
| Realm | Coaching Legends Sub-Realm: Bill Belichick went to Wesleyan |
| Question | Recently deceased Don Shula holds the NFL record for coaching wins. When he set the record back in the 90’s, what NFL legend did he pass? |
| Answer | George S. Halas |
| Song | Flipper TV theme |
| Artist | (none needed) |
| Number | 57 |
| Realm | Computers |
| Subrealm | Today's technological wonder, tomorrow's paperweight |
| Question | What is the most recent predecessor of the Macintosh computer? |
| Answer | Lisa. |
| Song | Lost in Emotion |
| Artist | Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam |
| Number | 58 |
| Realm | Star Wars Easter Eggs |
| Subrealm | Wookies are so graceful |
| Question | In "Star Wars," when Chewbacca enters the Millenium Falcon, what does he bump his head on? |
| Answer | The original fuzzy dice used in the filming of "American Graffiti." |
| Song | Battle in the Snow |
| Artist | John Williams |
| Number | 59 |
| Realm | Old wisdom |
| Subrealm | Makes ya glad to live in the 90's, don’t it? |
| Question | An old adage says: 'A night with Venus and a lifetime with mercury.' Explain. |
| Answer | Mercury was used to treat syphilis. |
| Song | Sex (I'm a...) |
| Artist | Berlin |
| Number | 60 |
| Realm | Institutions of higher education |
| Subrealm | Amherst was his safety school |
| Question | What institute of higher learning did Bullwinkle J. Moose attend? |
| Answer | Wassamatta U. |
| Song | Wrong |
| Artist | School of Fish |
| Next up was Steve Farley '85, reading questions from May, 1985's contest by Nasty Big Pointy Teeth. | |
| Number | 61 |
| Realm | Science Fiction |
| Subrealm | "Hitchhiker's Guide" Trilogy |
| Question | When Arthur, Ford, Zaphod, and Trillian went to the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, they met Ford's old mate Hotblack Desaito, of the plutonium rock band "Disaster Area." What was unusual about Hotblack? |
| Answer | He was spending a year dead, for tax reasons. |
| Song | Dead Skunk |
| Artist | Loudon Wainwright III |
| Number | 62 |
| Realm | Music/Williamsiana |
| Subrealm | Musicians who played Chapin Hall |
| Question | What song immortalized the London Chinese restaurant Lee Ho Fook's? |
| Answer | "Werewolves of London," by the equally-immortal Warren Zevon. |
| Song | Do the Freddie |
| Artist | Freddie and the Dreamers |
| Number | 63 |
| Realm | Miscellaneous |
| Subrealm | Prairie Home Companion" The Margaret Nelson Memorial Question |
| Question | Please tell us the complete names of the following local concerns from the town of Lake Wobegon: _____ _____ Hardware, _____ _____ _____ Grocery, _____ Auto Repair, _____ _____ Boutique, and _____ Biscuits. One point for two, two points for all five. |
| Answer | Home Defense Hardware; Ralph's Pretty Good Grocery; Jack's Auto Repair; Bertha's Kitty Boutique; and Powdermilk Biscuits. |
| Song | The Things We Do for Love |
| Artist | 10cc |
| Number | 64 |
| Realm | Comics |
| Subrealm | "Doonesbury" The Jeff Trout Memorial Trivia Question |
| Question | Who did Duke replace as head of the U.S. mission to China? |
| Answer | George Bush. |
| Song | The Time Has Come Today |
| Artist | Chambers Brothers |
| Number | 65 |
| Realm | Miscellaneous |
| Subrealm | Patriotism and Self-Promotion |
| Question | What 1974-76 activity did Walter Matthau, Bernadette Peters, Paul Newman, Annette Funicello, Roger Moore, and Milton Berle, among hundreds of others, take part in? |
| Answer | Bicentennial Minutes. |
| Song | Wonderful World, Beautiful People |
| Artist | Jimmy Cliff |
| Number | 66 |
| Realm | Movies/Williamsiana |
| Subrealm | Little Three in Hollywood |
| Question | We all know that in "The Graduate," Dustin Hoffman supposedly graduated from Williams. In an equally auspicious 1971 film, the two chief characters, Art Garfunkel and Jack Nicholson, attended Amherst. What was the film? |
| Answer | Carnal Knowledge |
| Song | Never-Ending Song of Love |
| Artist | Delaney and Bonnie and Friends |
| Number | 67 |
| Realm | Science Fiction |
| Subrealm | Winning the trade war |
| Question | In Isaac Asimov's robot stories, how do you tell an android from a human? |
| Answer | Androids have "Made in U.S.A. stamped in their belly-buttons. |
| Song | Pictures of Matchstick Men |
| Artist | Status Quo |
| Number | 68 |
| Realm | Miscellaneous |
| Subrealm | Chevy Chase's inspiration |
| Question | What was wrong with Gerald Ford's apparel, when he married Betty on October 15, 1948? |
| Answer | He was wearing one brown shoe and one black one. |
| Song | Ride Captain Ride |
| Artist | Blues Image |
| Number | 69 |
| Realm | Music |
| Subrealm | Comic Groups |
| Question | During the Rutles' triumphant tour of America, those loveable moptops Dirk, Ron, Stig, and Barry held an historic concert at New York's Che Stadium. For whom was Che Stadium named? |
| Answer | Cuban guerrila leader Che Stadium. |
| Song | Dominique (Disco Version) |
| Artist | The Singing Nun |
| Number | 70 |
| Realm | Television |
| Subrealm | That Wacky Korean War |
| Question | What was the positively, absolutely LAST line of dialogue on the television series "M*A*S*H," and who spoke it? |
| Answer | "What?" spoken by Hawkeye Pierce. |
| Song | Hello, Hello |
| Artist | Sopwith Camel |
| Taking over next was Mark Conger '89, reading questions from 6 contests he helped run, plus one from January 2020's contest by [citation needed]. | |
| Number | 71 |
| Realm | Sports |
| Subrealm | Baseball |
| Question | In 1999 Homer Bush of the Toronto Blue Jays set an all-time single-season major league record, eclipsing one previously set in 1906. What was it? |
| Answer | Most homers by a player named Homer. (Previous record holder was Homer Smoot, who hit 4 homers in 1903 and 1906. Homer Bush hit 5 in 1999.) |
| Song | It's Raining Men |
| Artist | The Weathergirls |
| Note | From January 2014, Requiem for the Blue Civic |
| Here Mark told a story about playing from the Currier Ballroom in the late 1980s. In those days teams dialed in to the station to answer questions. The station had about 8 to 10 phone lines for receiving guesses on the Trivia, plus a pus line for complaints and, for a while, a couple of lines for giving hints on boni. In the Ballroom we countered with 8-10 lines of our own. Someone had a long multi-stranded phone cable which we ran from the phone box around the corner to a long table, where we placed phones donated by team members for the night. The cable was taped down and spliced to the phones, and the phone box illicitly broken into. (Obviously someone worked on that all afternoon before the contest.) | |
| Of course, dialing speed was at a premium, and so we would start dialing as soon as the song finished playing, and finish just after the next question was read. I recall watching the phone table at the end of one song, which was a live version of, I believe, "Ice Cream Man," by Van Halen. As the song reached its end and the recorded audience clapped, everyone at the table picked up the receiver on their phone and began dialing. Then David Lee Roth yelled "One more time!", and the band started playing the chorus again. Everyone hung up their phones and waited. When the chorus ended, eveyone piocked up their receivers again and began dialing. Then David Lee Roth yelled "One more time!", and the band started up again. Everyone hung up. And this repeated itself for, I swear, about 10 times. It was annoying at first, but by the end the whole room cracked up every time we heard "One more time!" | |
| Number | 72 |
| Realm | Advertising |
| Subrealm | Jingles |
| Question | This is a THREE-POINT-PLAY. Tom McFaul is a classically trained musician who studied music and musicology at the University of Illinois. Later he recorded with Bob Dylan and worked with a number of contemporary composers. In 2001 he completed a Mass in C Minor for 5 soloists. In between, he became a legend in the advertising world by writing some of the best known jingles in the world, including one that received the highest rating in the history of the standard Burke test of commercial recall. For one point, tell us the product that goes with that jingle. FOR A SECOND POINT: your chat host will shortly be typing a phone number into the chat room. Call us on that number and sing the jingle. |
| Answer | The Meow Mix Theme: Meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow meow. |
| Song | Pay Me my Money Down |
| Artist | Bruce Springsteen |
| Note | From January 2014, Requiem for the Blue Civic |
| Number | 73 |
| Realm | Williamsiana |
| Subrealm | Old friends |
| Question | When BOMO ran the Trivia contest in December of 1976, they sent a letter to all Williams freshmen inviting them to play. You can find the letter on the Trivia archive site. One line describing the contest was this: "It's as much an institution as Yo Yo, and it commands almost as much reverence." Obviously, this was a reference they expected all Williams students to understand. What did it mean? |
| Answer | Yo Yo was a dog who used to live on campus. He could often be found lounging on one of the benches in the Baxter Hall Snack Bar, and after he died, his picture was hung on the wall there. You will find it in the Lee Snack Bar in Paresky today. The caption reads, "Faithful canine friend to generations of Williams students." |
| Song | Snoopy vs. the Red Baron |
| Artist | The Royal Guardsmen |
| Note | From January 2014, Requiem for the Blue Civic |
| Number | 74 |
| Realm | Meeting of the Absurd |
| Subrealm | Inconceivable! |
| Question | In the 1950s Samuel Beckett, Nobel-prize-winning author of "Waiting for Godot", while living outside Paris, used to drive his friend Boris's 12-year-old son to school in his truck. Who was the son, and why did he need a ride? |
| Answer | Boris's son was Andre the Giant, of wrestling and Princess Bride fame. He needed a ride because he was too big to fit on the school bus. |
| Song | Happy Together |
| Artist | The Turtles |
| Note | From January 2014, Requiem for the Blue Civic |
| Here Mark told a story about knowing Judy Blume books. In December, 2000, The Funk of 40,000 Years asked this question: "Question 69: 3 point play: People are always attempting to ban certain books from schools & libraries. The American Library Association has compiled a list of the 100 most challenged books for 1990-1999. One author, apparently driven to corrupt the fragile moral framework of the television-raised American youth, managed to get 5 books on this list. For one point, name the auther, for another point, name all 5 books." | |
| This was 5 or 6 in the morning, and I was playing from my home in Ann Arbor. The rest of my team (Butterfly Ballot Blues, who ultimately finished 9th) had left or gone to bed. I guessed that the author was Judy Blume, and then started naming all the Judy Blume titles I could come up with from the back of my sleep-deprived mind. I had read *all* the Judy Blume books when I was a teenager, but never in my wildest dreams imagined that my knowledge of them would ever be useful. I said "Forever", of course, and "Are You There God, it's Me, Margaret?". Then I guessed "Tiger Eyes" and "Deenie" (no idea why those would be banned), but I was stuck on the fifth one. I guessed several that were wrong. Finally, as the song was running out, the woman I was talking to said, "It's the one about the fat girl." I yelled "Blubber! Blubber! It's Blubber!" | |
| Some of the best Trivia moments come when you are the only one in the room to know something. I was the only one in the room, period, but I still felt vindicated for all my misspent hours reading Judy Blume. | |
| Number | 75 |
| Realm | Movies |
| Subrealm | Marvel Movies |
| Question | According to Infinity War director Joe Russo, "He got snapped in the middle of a game. He was seconds away from his all-time high score... He's gone." What character from the first Avengers movie suffered this horrible fate? |
| Answer | "Galaga Guy", the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent whom Tony Stark caught playing Galaga on the bridge of the aircraft carrier. |
| Song | Popcorn |
| Artist | Hot Butter |
| Note | From May 2019, Four Oreos Away from Paradise |
| Number | 76 |
| Realm | 5th Grade US History |
| Subrealm | State the Obvious |
| Question | Which US State was the 39th to enter the union? |
| Answer | One of the Dakotas - we don't know which |
| Song | Wakko's 50 State Capitols |
| Artist | Animaniacs |
| Note | From January 2020, [citation needed] |
| That question was from the 2020s, which means that in the contest we have asked questions from all seven decades of Williams Trivia! | |
| Here Mark told the story of the second tiebreaker in Trivia history, when We Begin Bombing in Five Minutes defeated I Don't Have To Answer That Question by a third of a fifth of a point in Fall 1986. It is well documented in the archive under the Giant Pygmies of Beckles contest. | |
| Number | 77 |
| Realm | Movie Ratings |
| Subrealm | Off the Grid |
| Question | On the Internet Movie Database, or imdb.com, all movies ever made are rated on a scale of 1 to 10. All movies, that is, but one. Which film is the only exception? |
| Answer | "This is Spinal Tap." It alone is rated on a scale of 1 to 11. |
| Song | Run Runaway |
| Artist | Slade |
| Note | From May 2016, Taha Noa Noa |
| Here Mark told the story of the ill-fated Worker and Parasite contest in January, 2005. I arrived in Williamstown about an hour before midnight, after a 12 hour drive from Ann Arbor. I had been working on modifying the Trivia website software written by Kate Krolicki 4 years earlier, so was planning to be the webmaster and scorer for the contest. For some reason (construction?) our team was heaquartered on the second floor of Goodrich. It was about 10 degrees below zero that night, and while our room was heated, the stairwell to get to it was not. | |
| The first thing I found was that I couldn't plug my laptop into the campus internet, because I didn't have the right authorization. So instead we borrowed a laptop from someone and plugged it in near the door. Our DJs were over in Prospect, where WCFM had recently moved. We were understaffed, but it didn't seem too bad at first. The contest started, people passed me little slips of paper with team names and points on them, and I began entering numbers into the scoring system. | |
| At about 12:45 AM, 45 minutes into the contest, WCFM's internet stream suddenly died. Later we heard a vague story about maintenance happening somewhere upstream, but at the time we frantically tried everything we could think of, which wasn't much. But at that time of night there was no one to call and really, nothing to do. All of our hearts sunk. | |
| But, the show must go on, even in silence. We started reading questions over the phone to teams that called in, then giving them hints. Eventually we began giving teams two points for the trivia, since there was no music. (One team calling in was the Williams Quiz Bowl Team, featuring Dave Letzler, who were in Philadelphia for a tournament. That was the location of Dave's anecdote about recording action trivia on a flip phone in the stairwell of a strange dorm at 3AM, which he told earlier in the All Star contest.) | |
| Most teams were remote at this time in Trivia history, but there were a few on-campus teams who brought boni down to Goodrich to turn in (and performed action trivia in the auditorium downstairs). Every time the door opened on the stairwell, a blast of frigid air would hit me where I huddled over the computer. We were afraid to move it because we thought the battery might die. So I sat there immobile all night, becoming number and more miserable, as we ground onward. | |
| At the end we were just too brain dead to finish scoring boni. We gave approximate scores for the top teams, then everyone high-tailed it out of Williamstown ahead of an approaching blizzard. I was despondent that so much of the effort that went into creating the contest had gone unheard. | |
| The next week I was in San Diego for a math conference. I vividly remember taking a packet of ungraded boni to the Dr. Suess library on the UCSD campus, and scoring them while communicating with Des Devlin about rubrics. It was a surreal experience. | |
| One Very Good Thing came out of the whole experience. Trivia had been stuck, for several years, in a battle over how to deal with the internet. Wikipedia, Google, and IMDB had layed waste to vast swaths of traditional trivia topics, and some old-timers argued for banning use of the internet during the contest. Undergraduates, on the other hand, said they didn't see the point of tying everyone's hands behind their backs. The internet was the future, and it seemed ridiculous to them to pretend otherwise. | |
| This fight had been going on for several years, and Trivia was suffereing for it. Attendance and quality were down. Bonus writers had been concentrating on making boni "un-Googleable" to try to avoid the problem. But that is hard and only gets you so far. | |
| Then, while preparing the Worker and Parasite contest, Joe Francis '87 and Maggie Heaman '88 (who were and are married) put forward what with hindsight seems like a natural idea: grade boni on two scales, one for teams that use the internet and one for teams that don't. That way you can use the internet if you want, but you are rewarded if you don't. And you can decide differently for each bonus, depending on your knowledge of the topic. | |
| It has worked brilliantly ever since, and solved what seemed like an unsolvable problem. It gives me hope for the world! | |
| Number | 78 |
| Realm | Yards and Yards of Deadly Monkeys |
| Subrealm | Does This Make Sense? |
| Question | What do the following have in common: Deadly sin, rooms, element, sense, yards, yards, monkeys? |
| Answer | They're all Bruce Willis "numbered" movies: (The First Deadly Sin, Four Rooms, The Fifth Element, The Sixth Sense, The Whole Nine Yards, The Whole Ten Yards, Twelve Monkeys). |
| Song | Build me up Buttercup |
| Artist | The Foundations |
| Note | From January 2005, Worker and Parasite |
| Number | 79 |
| Realm | Williamsiana |
| Subrealm | Natural disasters |
| Question | In the fall of 1985, Williamstown found itself in the unfamiliar position of being threatened by a hurricane - Hurricane Gloria, to be exact. Not knowing what to expect, then Dean of the College Stephen Fix agonized over what, if anything, to do about it, and eventually decided to take the unprecedented step of cancelling afternoon classes on the day the hurricane was scheduled to arrive. However, in the end all Gloria bestowed upon Williamstown was some rain in the morning and a lot of "hurricane parties" around campus. By afternoon the sun was shining, people were playing frisbee on Baxter lawn, and Dean Fix found himself in Stetson Hall, feeling a little chagrined. There he met a faculty colleague who walked up, looked at him sympathetically, patted him on the shoulder, and said... what? |
| Answer | "Wimp." |
| Song | Gloria |
| Artist | The Shadows of Knight |
| Note | From May 1995, Can't Do Plaid... Thud |
| Here Mark told the story of listening to the contest and calling in an answer from the island of Pohnpei in the Federated States of Micronesia, when WCFM first went online in May of 1998. It seems like no big deal now, but it was quite a thrill at the time! | |
| Number | 80 |
| Realm | Television |
| Question | In the first episode of "WKRP in Cincinnati," what record was Dr. Johnny Fever playing, when he was informed that the station was changing format from easy listening to rock 'n roll? |
| Answer | "You're Having My Baby," by the Halleluja Tabernacle Choir. |
| Song | The Cover of the Rolling Stone |
| Artist | Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show Not: From May 1987, We Begin Bombing in Five Minutes |
| Our final presenter was Ben Kitchen '21, demonstrating that Trivia is alive and well in the Roaring Twenties. | |
| Number | 81 |
| Realm | Our Favorite Countries That Start With “France” |
| Subrealm | France |
| Question | Please describe the French flag as used during the Bourbon Restoration. |
| Answer | A field of white. (No embellishments, just white. Do with that what you will.) |
| Song | I Surrender |
| Artist | Rainbow |
| Number | 82 |
| Realm | New Jersey |
| Subrealm | It’s Like Jersey, But Worse |
| Question | Lots of companies sign celebs to endorsement deals. In 2011, Abercrombie and Fitch offered the cast of Jersey Shore a cash deal in exchange for what type of arrangement? |
| Answer | They wanted to pay the Shoreites to stop wearing Abercrombie & Fitch, in order to protect the brand. |
| Song | You Wear It Well |
| Artist | Rod Stewart |
| Number | 83 |
| Realm | Movies |
| Subrealm | Documenting My Top Two Favorite World Wars |
| Question | World War II is all over the silver screen. Saving Private Ryan, Inglourious Basterds, and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, as well as hundreds of others, are all set during the Second World War. However, World War I is the redheaded stepchild of cinematic world wars, appearing notably less frequently. What, then, is the highest-grossing World War I movie ever, not adjusted for inflation? |
| Answer | Wonder Woman. |
| Song | No You Girls |
| Artist | Franz Ferdinand |
| Number | 84 |
| Realm | College Art |
| Subrealm | Even Creepier Than The Eye Sculptures at Williams |
| Question | At The University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, there's a sculpture of 2 students talking; the female student is sitting on a bench while the male student is standing with one foot in the bench. Although the official name of the sculpture is “Classmates”, it has a much more accurate nickname. What is the nickname of this sculpture? |
| Answer | The Mansplaining Sculpture. (It totally looks like that's what he's doing to her.) |
| Song | Tell Her About It |
| Artist | Billy Joel |
| Number | 85 |
| Realm | This Day In History |
| Subrealm | If Today Is February 16 |
| Question | What important, singular event in basketball history happened on February 16, 1996 in a Magic/Bucks game where the Bucks lost by 30? |
| Answer | Shaquille O’Neal scored his only three-pointer. |
| Song | Love Shack |
| Artist | The B-52's |
| Number | 86 |
| Realm | Reporting On The Olympics |
| Subrealm | No Medal For You! |
| Question | Last February, a Chicago news station reporting on the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang used a graphic that got the host city’s name wrong. What did they call it? |
| Answer | P.F. Chang. |
| Song | Chinese Food |
| Artist | Alison Gold |
| Number | 87 |
| Realm | Til Death Do Us Part |
| Subrealm | Psych! |
| Question | According to the CDC, the divorce rate for people 55-64 more than doubled between 1990 and 2012 and almost tripled over the same time frame in people over the age of 65. While changes in societal norms are believed to be a factor, what specific thing is largely responsible for the rise? |
| Answer | Viagra. (Huh huh huh, we said rise.) |
| Song | Harden My Dick |
| Artist | My Dick |
| Number | 88 |
| Realm | We Love This Question |
| Subrealm | It's Our Preeecious! |
| Question | Andy Serkis created what is probably still the greatest CGI character ever when he gave us Gollum in the great Lord Of The Rings movies, and the less-great Hobbit movies. How did he develop the voice he uses for Gollum? |
| Answer | He developed it by by imitating his cat barfing up a hairball. |
| Song | Can't Keep It In |
| Artist | Cat Stevens |
| Number | 89 |
| Realm | Minimum R&B |
| Subrealm | The Who |
| Question | What have the Who done 10 times, 9 times more than almost any other band that has done it? |
| Answer | Gone on a farewell tour. |
| Song | Every Time You Go Away |
| Artist | Paul Young |
| Number | 90 |
| Realm | Don't Forget |
| Subrealm | This Is Williams Trivia |
| Question | There is only one country in the world that is written with the letters of its name in reverse alphabetical order. What is it? |
| Answer | Tonga! |
| Song | The End is the Beginning is the End |
| Artist | Smashing Pumpkins |