Ken Jennings's Trivia Almanac (156 page)

SEPTEMBER 18

1844
P
AINTER
C. M. C
OOLIDGE IS BORN.
You’ve probably never heard of Coolidge, but just ponder how much less kitschy life would be without him: he invented those boardwalk standees with head-shaped holes cut out, and—even better!—painted the
Dogs Playing Poker
series for a Minnesota ad agency in 1903.

HANDS ACROSS AMERICA

People play poker too.

1.
What TV series featured poker buddies named Murray, Vinnie, Speed, and Roy?

2.
What casino hosted the annual World Series of Poker from 1970 to 2005?

3.
What poker hand is worth more than a flush but less than four of a kind?

4.
According to Kenny Rogers’s “The Gambler,” what’s the best that you can hope for?

5.
What literary detective lived on a houseboat called the
Busted Flush
?

1990
A 500-
POUND REPLICA
of a Hershey’s Kiss is dropped from the flagpole at One Times Square in New York City to announce the debut of Hershey’s Kisses with almonds.

ORAL EXAM

Kisses of the non-chocolate variety.

1.
What’s the only Best Picture Oscar winner also to take home the coveted “Best Kiss” MTV Movie Award?

2.
What practice comes from the Inuit and Pacific Islander custom of mutually sniffing the sweat glands of the cheeks?

3.
Elizabeth Hickey’s appropriately titled novel
The Painted Kiss
is about Émilie Floge, the mistress of what painter?

4.
What two characters did NBC insist not touch lips when they kissed in the 1968
Star Trek
episode “Plato’s Stepchildren”?

5.
Two thirds of all people tilt their heads which way to kiss?

6.
What Kiss guitarist designed the rock band’s iconic logo?

7.
The story of Paolo and Francesca da Rimini in what famous literary work inspired Rodin’s famous sculpture
The Kiss
?

8.
Why have twenty-odd men, over the years, claimed to have kissed New York nurse Edith Cullen Shain?

9.
A mention of what 1980s TV show in the lyrics helps date the Prince hit “Kiss”?

10.
What’s the better-known name of the “pygmy chimpanzee,” the only animal other than humans that enjoys tongue kissing?

11.
The first kiss in the Bible is between what father and son?

12.
What 1989 Italian film ends with a montage of screen kisses, including smooches from
His Girl Friday, The Gold Rush,
and
The Adventures of Robin Hood
?

13.
In Norse mythology, the invincible god Balder is killed by an arrow of what plant, the only plant that didn’t swear never to harm him?

14.
What, besides a crick in your neck and possibly herpes simplex, is the traditional reward for kissing Ireland’s Blarney Stone?

15.
What fictional rocker had a big 1958 hit with “One Last Kiss”?

SEPTEMBER 19

1982
C
ARNEGIE
M
ELLON COMPUTER SCIENTIST
Scott Fahlman suggests, in a historic message board posting to his department, that a colon, hyphen, and close parenthesis be used to represent a sideways smiley face online.:-)

TURN TURN TURN

Answer these sideways questions.

1.
What ocean liner rolled over on its side and sank after colliding with the SS
Stockholm
in 1956?

2.
What title action of a 1939 movie occurs when Governor Hubert “Happy” Hopper flips a coin that lands on its edge?

3.
Venus, Uranus, or Neptune—what planet spins “on its side” relative to its orbit around the sun?

4.
What animal’s name is given to the kind of camera dolly that can move sideways as well as back and forth?

5.
In 1917, Marcel Duchamp turned what object sideways and tried to enter it in art shows under the title
Fountain
?

1988
A
CTOR
R
OY
K
INNEAR
is thrown from a horse while filming
The Return of the Three Musketeers
and later dies from the injuries. The film’s distraught director, Richard Lester, vows never to make another movie.

THE LATE SHOW

What actor appeared posthumously in each of these movies?

Easy

1.
Rebel Without a Cause

2.
The Crow

3.
Canadian Bacon

4.
Enter the Dragon

Harder

1.
Queen of the Damned

2.
Bad Santa

3.
Plan 9 from Outer Space

4.
Twilight Zone: The Movie

Yeah, Good Luck

1.
Brainstorm

2.
Atlantis: The Lost Empire

3.
Dirty Work

4.
UHF

1995
J
OHN
B
AUR AND
M
ARK
S
UMMERS
celebrate the first Talk Like a Pirate Day, an idea they hit upon the previous June after spicing up a racquetball game with some eighteenth-century nautical slang. After Dave Barry plugs it in a 2002 column, the made-up holiday really starts to catch on.

SHIVER ME TIMBERS

1.
Jim Hawkins and Long John Silver’s ship in
Treasure Island
is named for a different island. Which?

2.
What hero of the wars with the Barbary pirates is also famous for his toast “Right or wrong, our country”?

3.
The only two world nations with an
x
in their English name were also home to the world’s most influential “pirate radio” stations. What are they?

4.
What future leader was kidnapped by pirates in 78
B.C.
and, insulted by their low ransom demand, returned to crucify them after his release?

5.
In
The Pirates of Penzance,
the hero’s pirate troubles are the result of his birthday falling on what day?

6.
According to the famous sea shanty, how many men were there “on a dead man’s chest”?

7.
Johnny Depp’s and Keira Knightley’s
Pirates of the Caribbean
characters are both named for birds. Which two birds?

8.
Which of the five founding members of the Baseball Hall of Fame was a longtime Pittsburgh Pirate?

9.
What film centers around the writing of
Romeo and Ethel the Pirate’s Daughter
?

10.
In a 1992 Beastie Boys song, who is asked, “What’s another word for pirate treasure?”