Round 5 at the Old Pequliar on July 1, 2008.
Average score: 6.15/11 (17 teams)

Each of these songs was featured in a popular commercial. For a half point each, name the performing artist and the brand or product they were advertising. (If a song was used in multiple commercials, the correct answer is the earliest widespread example.)

Example: The correct answers for “Start Me Up” are the Rolling Stones and Microsoft (or Windows 95).

1) clip #1
2) clip #2
3) clip #3
4) clip #4
5) clip #5
6) clip #6
7) clip #7
8) clip #8
9) clip #9
10) clip #10 (Note: while this commercial is fairly well known, it’s also British. So yeah, this one’s hard.)
11) clip #11

Read the rest of this entry »

1) A speech in Henry V supplied the title for what nonfiction book and the HBO miniseries based on it?
2) At the climax of “Scott Tenorman Must Die,” the South Park episode inspired by Titus Andronicus, Cartman tricks his enemy into doing what?
3) In 2006, the best-selling album in the United States was the soundtrack to what TV movie, a loose adaptation of Romeo and Juliet?
4) Spurred by a joke in a 1991 movie, Hamlet and Much Ado About Nothing have been translated into what artificial language?
5) Two Gentlemen of Verona inspired “Two Gentlemen of Capeside,” an episode of what TV drama?
6) In 2000, what novelist and New Yorker contributor published a prequel to Hamlet called Gertrude & Claudius?
7) One clue that Paul is dead: Lines from King Lear, including “O untimely death!”, can be heard in the background of what trippy Beatles song?
8) In Neil Gaiman’s comic series The Sandman, Morpheus, the king of dreams, commissions Shakespeare to write two fantastical plays. Name one of them.
9) The 1992 hit “Stay” was the biggest hit for what band, which took its name from a 1985 song by the Smiths, which was inspired by a section of Virginia Woolf’s essay A Room of One’s Own?
10) Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas play comical variations on Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in what movie loosely based on Hamlet?
Read the rest of this entry »

The Beatles, The Smashing Pumpkins, Morrissey

Bonus point: Can you figure out an artist who could come next?

1) In 1966, the Ku Klux Klan burned Beatles records after who said the group was “more popular than Jesus now”?
2) The Depeche Mode song “Personal Jesus” was inspired by the autobiography Elvis and Me, written by whom?
3) The Jesus and Mary Chain’s song “Just Like Honey” appears in the closing scenes of what 2003 drama?
4) Before Jesus Christ Superstar, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice collaborated on what other biblically inspired musical?
5) In the short film “The Spirit of Christmas,” when Jesus and Santa are kicking the crap out of each other, who reminds the South Park kids that “This is the season just to be good to each other”?
6) What Pulitzer-winning novelist and one-time New York mayoral candidate published The Gospel According to the Son in 1997, told from the point of view of Jesus himself?
7) Victor Garber, Jennifer Garner’s dad on Alias, plays Jesus in what musical film that climaxes on top of the World Trade Center?
8) The shortest verse in the New Testament, John 11:35, is “Jesus wept.” Whose tomb made Jesus cry like a little girl?
9) Supreme Court case Morse v. Frederick determined that a school can restrict student speech at a school event that can be seen as promoting drug use. What did Joseph Frederick’s controversial banner say?
10) In 1899, journalist Louis Klopsch came up with the idea for what biblical innovation?

Average score: 5.9

Read the rest of this entry »

“Sunday Girl” and “Denis” (Blondie), “Hold On Tight” (ELO), “Jennifer Juniper” (Donovan), “Fade to Grey” (Visage), “Eyes Without a Face” (Billy Idol), “Psycho Killer” (Talking Heads), “Games Without Frontiers” (Peter Gabriel), “Michele” (The Beatles), “Lady Marmalade” (Patti LaBelle)

I’ll post the answer in a few days, if someone hasn’t gotten it.

1) What is actor Jaleel White’s most famous role, which he played from 1989-1998?

2) It’s been covered by Ringo Starr, Iron Butterfly, and Sheryl Crow, but the song “White Room” was originally a hit for what band?

3) Inspired by the United States’ conquest of the Philippines, what poet wrote “The White Man’s Burden” in 1899?

4) Which Stephen King novel deals with the unusual life of the White family?

5) What short, frequently cited writing guide was co-authored by E.B. White?

6) In 1963, the White Revolution kicked off a series of 19 reforms, eventually halted by a revolution in 1979, in what country?

7) Betty White met her future husband Allen Ludden when she appeared on what game show that he hosted?

8) Don DeLillo wanted to name his novel White Noise something else, a word derived from Greek and Latin meaning “all sound.” The word was already trademarked by the Matsushita Electrical Industrial Co. What brand name is it?

9) In 1948, photographer Margaret Bourke-White became the last journalist to interview what world leader?

10) What’s the actual title of the Beatles’ album popularly known as The White Album?

Round 6 at the Old Pequliar on Sept. 4, 2007.

Read the rest of this entry »

What do these musical artists have in common?

The Beatles, Cabaret Voltaire, Elvis Costello, Bob Dylan, Marvin Gaye, Faith Hill, Paris Hilton, Janet Jackson, LL Cool J, Roxette, Third Eye Blind, The Troggs, and Jody Watley

Read the rest of this entry »

1) What’s the best-selling apple variety in the US?
2) Although King Features denies it, many people believe that a 1930s comic strip called Apple Mary eventually turned into what long-running soap opera comic strip?
3) In 1997, Fiona Apple said “This world is bullshit. … You shouldn’t model your life about what you think that we think is cool and what we’re wearing and what we’re saying and everything.” when she accepted what award? (Need award and category — both “best supporting actress” and “Oscar”)
4) What 20th century poet wrote “The Song of Wandering Aengus,” which ends:
Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.
5) What brand, which shares its name with a popular American singer/pianist, is the best-selling hard apple cider in the US?
6) Name one of the three midwest states where Johnny Appleseed planted orchards.
7) The Beatles were inspired to name their company Apple Corps by a surrealist painting called The Son of Man, by what artist?
8) The Apple MessagePad personal digital assistant, introduced in 1993, became better known by what name, which was technically its operating system?
9) Paris awarded Aphrodite the golden apple labeled “to the fairest.” Name one of the other two goddesses who claimed it.
10) What football team has won the Apple Cup the most times?

Round 6 at the Old Pequliar on August 7, 2007. Average score (18 teams): 6.44

Read the rest of this entry »

(The first in a probably long series of questions that just won’t work in a pub setting, for whatever reason.)

These four people, and only these four people, have something in common. What is it?

Fred Astaire
Marlon Brando
Marlene Dietrich
Marilyn Monroe

(I also posted this on Ken Jennings’ message board, and I stole the idea from one of his Tuesday Trivia quizzes.)

The answer:

Read the rest of this entry »

I’ll quote you a bit of nonsense. You tell me the name of the work it comes from.

1) Klaatu barada nikto
2) Oo ee, oo ah ah, ting tang, walla walla bing bang
3) They dined on mince, and slices of quince, Which they ate with a runcible spoon
4) All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe. (Specifically, the title of the poem.)
5) riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.
6) Crabalocker fishwife, pornographic priestess, Boy, you been a naughty girl you let your Knickers down.
7) Solakadoola menchicka boola, Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo.
8) There’s a letter called YEKK. And the YEKK is for Yekko
Who howls in an underground grotto in Gekko.
These Yekkos love echoes, and this is their motto:
“For best Yekko echoes, try Gekko, our grotto!”
9) Sha na na na, sha na na na na,
Yip yip yip yip yip yip yip yip
Mum mum mum mum mum mum
10) Toora loora toora loo rye aye
Read the rest of this entry »