Ken Jennings's Trivia Almanac (206 page)

DECEMBER 10

1972
T
HE
A
MERICAN
L
EAGUE
votes to adopt the controversial designated hitter rule.

AND OTHER REALLY BAD IDEAS

1.
Because vending machine operators rejected the original eleven-sided design, what unpopular 1979 coin was too easily mistaken for a quarter?

2.
Who starred in
Jade
and
Kiss of Death
after the ill-advised decision to leave his hit TV show?

3.
What lake, once the world’s fourth largest, is now a quarter of its previous size due to Soviet-era irrigation projects?

4.
What blunder led President Kennedy to say “Victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan”?

5.
A red boomerang is the logo for what Australian swimwear brand?

6.
What did Pepsi call its disastrous “clear alternative” to cola in 1992?

7.
What French minister of defense championed a line of concrete forts on the German border, to protect France from invasion?

8.
What Japanese weed took over the American South after being introduced at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition?

9.
What car company produced only one model, the DMC-12?

10.
If Biosphere 2 was the failed 1991 ecological experiment, what was Biosphere 1?

11.
During the O. J. Simpson trial, what Johnny Cochran couplet was the result of the prosecution’s ill-advised decision to have Simpson try on the “bloody glove”?

12.
What major-league team signed Michael Jordan during his bizarre flirtation with baseball?

13.
What nation did Hitler attack in the disastrous Operation Barbarossa?

14.
What movie innovation was used for only a single feature, 1960’s
Scent of Mystery
?

15.
What TV character cut her hair after a rough breakup with Ben Covington?

1984
A
NTI-APARTHEID ACTIVIST
Archbishop Desmond Tutu receives the Nobel Peace Prize.

TUTU FUNNY

Ballet trivia to keep you on your toes.

1.
How many basic positions are there in classical ballet?

2.
What ballet film scored a record eleven Oscar nominations without winning a single one?

3.
What one-legged ballet stance was so named because it was borrowed from Middle Eastern dance?

4.
What Stravinsky ballet was the only work by a living composer included in Disney’s
Fantasia
?

5.
Which of the animals from Saint-Saëns’s
Carnival of the Animals
became the most famous showpiece of ballerina Anna Pavlova?

DECEMBER 11

1967
A
FTER HE PAYS
the eleven-guinea fee, Oliver Greenhalgh is accepted as a member of the English Association of Estate Agents and Valuers. Unfortunately for the association, it’s been taken in by a headline-making TV news sting investigating phony professional associations. Oliver Greenhalgh is a housecat.

PUSSY GALORE

1.
What musical takes place at the Kit Kat Klub?

2.
What has been America’s most popular pedigreed cat breed since 1871?

3.
Besides his famous red and white chapeau, what other red article of clothing does the Cat in the Hat wear?

4.
Of what quarterback did Thomas “Hollywood” Henderson say “He couldn’t spell ‘cat’ if you spotted him the
c
and the
t
”?

5.
What is supposedly noteworthy about the $3,950 cats that Allerca, a San Diego biotech company, announced for sale in 2006?

6.
What’s the name of Audrey Hepburn’s cat in
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
?

7.
What parasitic disease, a cause of birth defects and schizophrenia, is often transmitted by cat feces?

8.
What cat pretended to belong to the Marquis of Carabas?

9.
What are a cat’s vibrissae?

10.
Whenever Felix the Cat gets into a fix, what does he reach into?

2001
T
HE LAST EPISODE
of Emeril Lagasse’s short-lived sitcom airs, ending the remarkable TV career of Robert Urich. Urich was a regular in thirteen different series, more than any other actor in TV history.

GET READY TO MATCH THE STARS

Match the roles in hit TV series that were played by the same actor, and name the actor. (For extra credit, name the shows involved.)