Ken Jennings's Trivia Almanac by Ken Jennings Page B

Pickle

    Harder
    1. Cesta
    2. Catenaccio
    3. Roval
    4. Googly
    5. Schuss

    Yeah, Good Luck
    1. Oche
    2. Caballerial
    3. Bonspiel
    4. Manchette
    5. Fistmele

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    1957 T HE MOST SUCCESSFUL VERSION of “The Banana Boat Song” peaks at number four on the pop charts—and it’s not by Harry Belafonte! A year before Belafonte started the calypso boom, a folk trio called the Tarriers had their own hit singing “Day-o.” One third of the trio: future actor (and
Little Miss Sunshine
Oscar winner) Alan Arkin.
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    ONE-HIT WONDERS

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    1. Who released only a single album during his lifetime, the ominously named
Ready to Die
?
    2. Who based her only novel on her father, a Monroeville lawyer named Amasa?
    3. Who replaced Stanley Kubrick on the western film
One-Eyed Jacks,
making it the only film he ever directed?
    4. What tale of the cross-dressing Leonore was Beethoven’s only opera?
    5. What’s the name of the Giants right fielder whose one-game major-league career—one inning and no at-bats on June 29, 1905—was immortalized in the novel
Shoeless Joe
and its film adaptation,
Field of Dreams
?

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FEBRUARY 10
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    1940 MGM RELEASES
Puss Gets the Boot,
a cartoon about a mouse-hungry tabby cat named Jasper. When the cartoon is an unexpected hit, Jasper is renamed Tom, and the Tom and Jerry series is born.
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    TOMMY, CAN YOU HEAR ME?
    What author created these literary Toms? And can you name each work?
----
    Easy
    1. Tom Joad
    2. Uncle Tom
    3. Tom Sawyer
    4. Tom Marvolo Riddle
    5. Tom Robinson

    Harder
    1. Tom Bombadil
    2. Tom Swift
    3. Tom Buchanan
    4. Tom Jones
    5. Tom Hagen

    Yeah, Good Luck
    1. Tom Brown
    2. Tom Tulliver
    3. Tom Wingfield
    4. Tom Gradgrind
    5. Tom Snout

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    1997 G ARRY K ASPAROV BECOMES the first reigning chess champion ever to lose to a computer, IBM’s Deep Blue. “I can still beat it every time at Minesweeper!” an angry Kasparov snarls to reporters.
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    SINGIN’ THE BLUES

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    1. The Linke Scale is used to measure the blueness of what?
    2. Who did Gargamel create using ingredients like crocodile tears, the tip of an adder’s tongue, and a hard stone for a heart?
    3. What Blue Ridge peak in North Carolina is the highest point east of the Mississippi?
    4. When do “blue laws” prohibit certain activities?
    5. Having installed blue AstroTurf in 1986, what’s the only NCAA team to play football on a nongreen surface?
    6. According to the last song on Joni Mitchell’s
Blue,
when
was
“The Last Time [She] Saw Richard”?
    7. Who was the only cast member to appear in every episode of
NYPD Blue
?
    8. Ever since 1948, when Syngman Rhee moved in, the “Blue House” has been the official residence of whom?
    9. What Crayola color became “midnight blue” in 1958 to remove an out-of-date geographical term?
    10. What trio plays unusual instruments like the PVC, the Tubulum, the Shaker Gong, and the Piano Smasher?
    11. What was studied by Project Blue Book?
    12. What 2002 movie was developed under the title
Surf Girls of Maui
?
    13. What St. Louis Blues wing had the highest-scoring non-Gretzky season in NHL history in 1991, with eighty-six goals?
    14. At what national capital does the White Nile join the Blue Nile?
    15. What branch of the U.S. armed forces do the Blue Angels belong to?

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FEBRUARY 11
----
    1899 F RANCIS B ARRAUD REGISTERS his painting
Dog Looking at and Listening to a Phonograph,
a portrait of Nipper, his beloved terrier who died four years earlier. The Gramophone Company of London purchases the painting, which will become EMI’s famous “His Master’s Voice” logo.
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    PUP QUIZ
    What breed is each of these famous dogs?
----
    Easy
    1. Snoopy
    2. Lassie
    3. Rin Tin Tin
    4. McGruff
    5. Yukon King

    Harder
    1. Santa’s Little Helper
    2. Toto
    3. Checkers
    4. Eddie (
Frasier
)
    5. Spuds MacKenzie

    Yeah, Good Luck
    1. Marley
    2. Fala
    3. Cujo
    4. Greyfriars Bobby
    5. Asta

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    1963 S YLVIA P LATH COMMITS SUICIDE in her flat at 23 Fitzroy Road in