Ken Jennings's Trivia Almanac (207 page)

DECEMBER 12

1792
B
EETHOVEN BEGINS STUDYING
with his most famous tutor, Austrian composer Joseph Haydn.

HOT FOR TEACHER

What general subject was taught by these film and TV teachers?

Easy

1.
John Houseman,
The Paper Chase

2.
Richard Dreyfuss,
Mr. Holland’s Opus

3.
Robin Williams,
Dead Poets Society

4.
Rex Harrison,
My Fair Lady

5.
Julie Walters,
Billy Elliot

Harder

1.
Howard Hesseman,
Head of the Class

2.
Edward James Olmos,
Stand and Deliver

3.
Glenn Ford,
Blackboard Jungle

4.
Cate Blanchett,
Notes on a Scandal

5.
Tina Fey,
Mean Girls

Yeah, Good Luck

1.
Robert Donat,
Goodbye, Mr. Chips

2.
Stephen Colbert, the
Strangers with Candy
movie

3.
Hayley Mills,
Good Morning, Miss Bliss

4.
Dennis Quaid,
The Rookie

5.
George Segal,
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

1917
F
ATHER
F
LANAGAN
founds Boys Town, Nebraska.

BOY BANDS

What “Boys” recorded these albums?

Easy

1.
Licensed to Ill

2.
Cooleyhighharmony

3.
Surf’s Up

4.
Millennium

Harder

1.
Please

2.
Sacred

3.
Till Death Do Us Part

4.
Step On Out

Yeah, Good Luck

1.
Stop Staring at Me!

2.
Young, Loud and Snotty

3.
Crushin’

4.
Fisherman’s Blues

1925
A
NEW WORD
and a new industry are born when Pasadena architect Arthur Heineman opens the Motel Inn in San Luis Obispo, California.

MOTEL SIX

1.
What motel was reopened as the National Civil Rights Museum in 1991?

2.
What bug control company manufactures the Roach Motel?

3.
In
Psycho,
what pastime of Norman Bates’s does Marion Crane call a “strange hobby”?

4.
“A House Is Not a Motel” is the B-side of what 1967 single by Love?

5.
In 1988, who was photographed leaving the Travel Inn in Lake Charles, Louisiana, with a prostitute named Debra Murphree?

6.
What Richard Linklater film is set, in real time, entirely inside a Lansing, Michigan, motel room?

DECEMBER 13

1977
T
HE
B
EE
G
EES RELEASE
their disco hit “Stayin’ Alive.” The drummer listed on the track is the fictitious “Bernard Lupe,” as the song’s drum part is actually a sample from the already recorded “Night Fever.”

A
G
THANG

What number one song by each of these artists leaves a final
g
off an “-ing” word of the title, just like “Stayin’ Alive”?

Easy

1.
Ricky Martin

2.
Alicia Keys

3.
Bon Jovi

4.
B. J. Thomas

5.
Will Smith

Harder

1.
Ricky Nelson

2.
The Temptations

3.
Neil Diamond

4.
Roberta Flack

5.
New Kids on the Block

Yeah, Good Luck

1.
Bobby Lewis

2.
Lou Christie

3.
Eddie Kendricks

4.
Stevie Wonder

5.
Minnie Riperton

1982
V
ANNA
W
HITE MAKES
her
Wheel of Fortune
debut, replacing former letter turner Susan Stafford.

YOU SPIN ME RIGHT ROUND

An examination on rotation.

1.
What do we more commonly call Turkey’s Mevlevi order of Sufi mystics, for their famous spinning dance?

2.
What’s the highest number on a standard roulette wheel?

3.
The gyroscope was named and invented by what Frenchman, the year after he hung his famous pendulum

4.
What name was coined by Mussolini on November 1, 1936, when he claimed in a speech that all Europe would soon “revolve” around Italy and Germany?

5.
What ballet’s Act III ends with Odile doing thirty-two
fouettés en tournant
in a row?

6.
In “Rumpelstiltskin,” what does the miller’s daughter promise the dwarf the last time he spins straw into gold for her?

7.
What word do Americans use for the billiards term that’s called “side” in Britain?

8.
What exhibits “Chandler wobble” as it revolves?

9.
What song—one of the most famous B-sides in pop history—plays during the pottery wheel scene in the movie
Ghost
?

10.
Warner Bros. has partnered with the Australian government to try to save what mammal, which is being driven extinct by cancerous facial tumors?

11.
What’s the only TV show ever to spawn five prime-time spin-offs?

12.
What was the first name of the Norwegian figure skater Paulsen, who invented his trademark maneuver in 1882?

13.
What hit Broadway musical was based on
Liliom,
a Hungarian play about a carnival barker who kills himself after a botched robbery?

14.
What book of the Bible provides the lyrics to the song “Turn! Turn! Turn!”?

15.
The Fujita Scale is used to measure the power of what?