Ken Jennings's Trivia Almanac (180 page)

OCTOBER 30

1938
O
RSON
W
ELLES’S RADIO ADAPTATION
of
The War of the Worlds
leads to nationwide panic when millions of listeners, switching over from Edgar Bergen on NBC, miss the disclaimers that no Martians are actually invading.

FEAR FACTOR

1.
What terrifies Carrie White in the first scene of the film
Carrie
?

2.
What playwright took the title
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
from graffiti he once saw written in soap on the mirror of a Greenwich Village bar?

3.
What white object became a symbol of cowardice during World War I, when women were instructed to give them to men not in uniform?

4.
What has the words “don’t panic” written on it in large, friendly letters?

5.
In what state is Cape Fear?

6.
What are hexakosioihexekon-tahexaphobes afraid of?

7.
The band Panic! at the Disco took its name from what band’s 1986 song “Panic”?

8.
What 1986 movie is the source of the line “Be afraid. Be very afraid”?

9.
Billy, Danny, or Tommy—in the Kenny Rogers hit, what’s the first name of the “Coward of the County”?

10.
Whose presidency was doomed by the Panic of 1837?

1960
M
R
. B
LACKWELL ANNOUNCES
his first “Ten Worst Dressed” list. His first “winner”: Italian star Anna Magnani, whom he calls “the female counterpart of Emmett Kelly.”

MR. JENNINGS’S TEN BEST DRESSED

1.
What dressy item does Mr. Peanut wear on his feet?

2.
What Mayfair street famous for its tailors was also the site of the Beatles’ famous “rooftop concert” in
Let It Be
?

3.
The record auction bid for a movie dress is the £410,000 paid in 2006 for the little black Givenchy worn in the famous first scene of what 1961 film?

4.
What friend of George IV, whose famous name is now synonymous with fashionable dandies, fled England in 1816 due to his huge debts?

5.
What color are the pinstripes on the Yankees’ home uniforms, named by ESPN as the best sports garb of the twentieth century?

6.
What husband of actress Gene Tierney designed Jackie Kennedy’s state wardrobe?

7.
What movie’s sadistic villain, Frank Booth, confuses the protagonists by disguising himself as “the Well-Dressed Man”?

8.
What fashion icon debuted in 1959 wearing a zebra-striped one-piece swimsuit?

9.
Who designed wedding gowns for Mariah Carey, Jessica Simpson, and J. Lo, among many others?

10.
What superhero switched to a stylish black costume in 1984, only to give it up when he discovered it was an alien symbiote?

OCTOBER 31

1945
J
IMMY
D
URANTE LEAVES
an imprint of his famous “schnozzola” in the cement outside Grauman’s Chinese Theatre.

NOSE CANDY

1.
What was Frosty the Snowman’s nose made out of?

2.
What’s the name for the bone-and-cartilage wall that divides the left and right airways of your nose?

3.
What composer of fifteen symphonies also wrote
The Nose,
about a nose that leaves its owner’s face and becomes a civil servant?

4.
What leader of the Nez Percé Indians surrendered by saying “I will fight no more forever”?

5.
In Carlo Collodi’s novel, whom does Pinocchio angrily kill with a mallet at the beginning of the book?

6.
What does “gesundheit” mean in German?

7.
What Danish astronomer lost his nose in a 1566 duel and wore a metal prosthetic nose the rest of his life?

8.
What does Toucan Sam encourage you to “follow your nose” to find?

9.
What’s the name of the woman silently loved by Cyrano de Bergerac?

10.
A 2003 study of a Japanese minivan found that what phenomenon could be as harmful as glue sniffing?

1961
J
OSEF
S
TALIN’S EMBALMED BODY
is removed from Lenin’s Tomb and buried outside the Kremlin.

INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS

1.
In 1973, the body of what Flying Burrito Brother was stolen from LAX by friends, who tried to cremate it at Joshua Tree?

2.
After the 1955 coup that overthrew her husband, whose body was secretly shipped to Italy and buried in a Milan crypt under the name “Maria Maggi”?

3.
What silent-film star has been buried under six feet of concrete since his body was stolen from a Swiss grave in a 1978 extortion plot?

4.
The organs of what fifty-eight-year host of radio’s
Letters from America
were illegally harvested before his 2004 cremation?

5.
The body of what great actor (and grandfather of a modern star) was stolen in 1942 by director Raoul Walsh, who propped it up in a chair in Errol Flynn’s home as a prank?

1981
ACCORDING TO THE TIMELINE
of the
Harry Potter
books, Voldemort kills young Harry’s parents on this night…and leaves Harry himself with that fetching scar.

BEST(IARY) SELLERS

What kind of creatures are these nonhuman
Harry Potter
characters?

Easy

1.
Nagini

2.
Crookshanks

3.
Buckbeak

4.
Dobby

Harder

1.
Norbert

2.
Fang

3.
Fawkes

4.
Grawp

Yeah, Good Luck

1.
Hermes

2.
Ronan

3.
Trevor

4.
Tenebrus

October Answers

OCTOBER 1

IDENTITY CRISIS

1.
E (
Me, Myself & Irene
)

2.
G (
Sybil
)

3.
F (
Taxi
)

4.
I (
Heroes
)

5.
H (
The Nutty Professor
)

6.
D (
Fight Club
)

7.
A (
Psycho
)

8.
J (
Family Matters
)

9.
C (
Twin Peaks
)

10.
B (
The Three Faces of Eve
)

A CAPITAL QUIZ

1.
Ecuador (Quito)

2.
Mongolia (Ulan Bator)

3.
Pakistan (Islamabad)

4.
Croatia (Zagreb)

YOU’RE WITH ME, LEATHER

Easy

1.
Ty Cobb

2.
Darryl Strawberry

3.
Sammy Sosa

4.
Eddie Murray

5.
Roberto Alomar

Harder

1.
Jose Canseco

2.
Scott Brosius

3.
Alan Trammel

4.
Dave Justice

5.
George Bell

Yeah, Good Luck

1.
Lance Blankenship

2.
Mike Scioscia

3.
Rafael Santana

4.
Kent Hrbek

5.
Bert Blyleven

OCTOBER 2

I DO, I DO, I DO, I DO…

1.
Ava Gardner

2.
Michelle Phillips

3.
Lex Barker

4.
Evelyn Keyes

5.
George Sanders

M
C
GUFFIN READERS

Easy

1.
North by Northwest

2.
Vertigo

3.
Psycho

4.
The Birds

Harder

1.
Dial M for Murder

2.
Notorious

3.
The Man Who Knew Too Much

4.
Strangers on a Train

Yeah, Good Luck

1.
Saboteur

2.
Frenzy

3.
Foreign Correspondent

4.
Suspicion

GO, LANCE, GO

1.
The Marines

2.
St. George’s

3.
Traditionally, it pierced Jesus’ side on the cross

4.
The Crimean War

5.
Maryland

OCTOBER 3

GREAT SCOTT!

1.
Ragtime

2.
Erin Moran

3.
Velvet Revolver

4.
The Anaheim Ducks