Ken Jennings's Trivia Almanac (27 page)

FEBRUARY 15

2005
Y
OU
T
UBE.COM IS BORN,
the brainchild of three former PayPal employees banking on the fact that a large search engine will one day want to pay billions of dollars for a site where people can post hilariously recut trailers to popular movies.

CINEMASHUPS

Help inspire more knee-slapping YouTube parodies—overlap two movie titles to create the fanciful mashups described in these plot summaries, like
My Big Fat Greek Wedding Crashers.

1.
Tallulah Bankhead and friends are stranded in the North Atlantic because Harry Bailey—killed in a sledding accident as a young boy—isn’t there to shoot down their attackers.

2.
When Clive Owen discovers the last pregnant women on Earth, government agents quickly show up to erase his memory.

3.
Lecherous Prague doctor Daniel Day-Lewis discovers a door at his hospital workplace that leads into the brain of a popular actor.

4.
An English king must relearn how to live his entire life after suffering a brain injury in the battle of Agincourt.

5.
Sean Connery and Michael Caine fleece the natives of Skull Island by pretending to be a giant gorilla.

6.
A redneck sheriff needs Sidney Poitier’s help when zombies overrun Sparta, Mississippi.

7.
Single mom Laura Linney discovers her wayward brother is a check-kiting con man on the run from the FBI.

8.
Emma Thompson becomes even more protective of her flighty younger sister when it turns out she can
see the dead
!

9.
A young Jedi learns that his father is actually high-diving college freshman Rodney Dangerfield.

10.
Sharecropper Celie learns to express—through her music!—just what it feels like when doves cry.

11.
Dog trainers Dean Jones and Suzanne Pleshette join Clint Eastwood in an epic search for buried Confederate gold.

12.
Southern lawyer Matthew McConaughey defends a beautiful assassin who’s been arrested for the brutal revenge she exacted against David Carradine.

13.
Edie Sedgwick finds the “golden ticket” that will give her a one-day tour of Andy Warhol’s magical New York studio.

14.
Butler Anthony Hopkins must atone for his wasted life by preventing his evil Nazi employer from assassinating Charles de Gaulle.

15.
Cop partners Judge Reinhold and Fred Savage mysteriously switch bodies while battling Cuban drug lords.

16.
Cockney chimney sweep Ben Stiller goes gaga for a magical nanny who throws magical tea parties on the ceilings and uses semen as a magical hair gel.

17.
Robert Mitchum marries an Irish village girl during World War I, only to see World War II kill off all their sons.

18.
John Denver is enlisted by a powerful supernatural force to deliver His message: “Evacuate Tokyo before I destroy it.”

19.
After Mr. Freeze is defeated, Chris O’Donnell returns home only to discover that his lifelong love, Audrey Hepburn, has joined a convent.

20.
Three budding actresses leave their tiny Welsh coal-mining town, hoping to make it big in the sleazy world of show-biz.

FEBRUARY 16

1568
T
HE
C
ATHOLIC
C
HURCH
sentences the entire population of the Netherlands—three million people!—to death as heretics.

THE EXECUTION OF ALL THINGS

1.
What was the better-known name of Margaretha Zelle, exotic dancer and firing squad victim?

2.
In 1980, what executed man was, ironically, added to the Anglican Church’s calendar of saints?

3.
Retired auto worker John Demjanjuk was sentenced to death by Israel because he was believed to be the Nazi guard called by what historical nickname?

4.
What two U.S. state capitals are named for people who were executed?

5.
Who was the last European head of state to be executed after being removed from power?

6.
According to Norman Mailer’s
The Executioner’s Song,
what condemned murderer may have been the illegitimate grandson of Harry Houdini?

7.
For what crime was Bruno Hauptmann executed in 1936?

8.
Oslo’s Holocaust research center is the former home of what firing squad victim?

9.
Whose execution caused the famed Spanish Armada to sail against England?

10.
Plato’s
Apology
consists of what man’s defense against a capital charge?

1868
T
HE
B
ENEVOLENT AND
P
ROTECTIVE
O
RDER OF
E
LKS
is formed at a New York saloon.

LIVING LODGE

Every sitcom needs a goofy Elks rip-off! Match these TV shows to their fictional fraternities.

1950
D
EVELOPER
J. C. N
ICHOLS DIES.
He was the brains behind Kansas City’s Country Club Plaza, the U.S.’s first suburban shopping center.

PLAZA-BLE ANSWERS

1.
What author hosted his famous 1966 masquerade, the “Black and White Ball,” at New York’s Plaza Hotel?

2.
What historic plaza is named for the first publisher of the
Dallas Morning News
?

3.
What capital city is built around the famous Plaza Mayor and Puerta del Sol?

4.
On what TV show would you see Kirby Plaza, named for
Fantastic Four
creator Jack Kirby?

5.
There are currently six U.S. buildings named “Trump Plaza.” In what city was the first one located?