Featured as round 1 at the Old Pequliar on June 2, 2009

(While researching this round, I came across Craig Conley’s Magic Words: A Dictionary, which I didn’t read ahead of time but have found very enjoyable since. Recommended for the incantophile!)

1) What Washington city is mentioned in the witch doctor’s spell in the 1958 song “Witch Doctor”?

2) Sesame Street’s resident magician, the Amazing Mumford, refers to what popular lunch item as he casts his spells?

3) What Disney movie combining live action and animation features the spell “Filigree, apogee, pedigree, perigee”?

4) Jambi the Genie said “Mekka-lekka-hi, mekka-hiney-ho” when granting wishes on what kids’ show?

5) If you’re dueling with Dumbledore and he casts “expelliarmus” on you, what will you do?

6) What magical acronym from comics became a catchphrase for Gomer Pyle?

7) What two-word incantation is the title of a Kurt Vonnegut novel and the name of the magician’s rabbit on Frosty the Snowman?

8) “Sarsaparilla,” “Saskatchewan,” “septuagenarian,” “saddle soap” … what magic word is on the tip of Hassan’s tongue in a popular Bugs Bunny short?

9) How does DC comics magician Zatanna usually transform ordinary English words into magic words?

10) What popular magic word begins phrases including “send me someone to love,” “Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘Em,” and “don’t squeeze the Charmin”?

ANSWERS (no peeking)

1) Walla Walla

2) peanut butter sandwiches (I ended up awarding half point for peanut butter and half point for sandwich)

3) Bedknobs and Broomsticks

4) Pee-wee’s Playhouse

5) drop your wand (any reasonable variation on this is fine)

6) Shazam!

7) Hocus Pocus

8) sesame

9) says them backwards

10) please

Average score in the pub: 7.5/10 (14 teams)
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Round 3 at the Old Pequliar on June 3, 2008.
Average score: 6.13/10 (16 teams)

1) the Segway, one of the Spice Girls, and a castaway
2) a DC Comics supervillain, a children’s television show, and a kind of camera lens
3) a fruit-based dessert, a geologic term, and something a baseball player wants to avoid
4) Beatrice’s cousin, a role playing game system, and what they call a grinder in New York
5) a sign in the Chinese zodiac, something you’d find at a mall, and Splinter
6) a monster that lives in a maze, something funky you might see on TV, and a Whoopi Goldberg film
7) a women’s basketball team, a Peggy Lee song, and something to starve
8) an episode of the series Rome, an automotive company, and a Conan O’Brian character,
9) a recent celebrity autobiography, a truly creepy Japanese horror film, and an Adobe software title
10) a baseball stadium, a jazz-era synonym for hunky-dory, and the alligator man

Answers:

1) ginger
2) zoom
3) slump
4) hero
5) rat
6) ghost
7) fever
8) triumph
9) audition
10) jake

1) As a wee baby, Kal-El (a.k.a. Superman) was adopted by Jonathan and Martha Kent. What was Martha’s maiden name?
2) Christopher Reeve broke two vertibrae in an accident while he was doing what?
3) In the video for the Genesis song “Land of Confusion,” what world leader dresses up as Superman?
4) What well-known alternative rock band covered The Clique’s song “Superman” on a 1986 album?
5) Who costarred with Superman in an American Express commercial that aired during the 1998 Super Bowl?
6) In the movie Stand by Me, Vern wonders if what cartoon character could beat up Superman?
7) What 1999 comedy involves a computer-based interest-skimming theft that was inspired, as one character says, by Superman III?
8) In the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, which of Calvin’s alter egos used his powers to spin the earth backwards and give Calvin an extra day off from school?
9) Author Larry Niven explored the rather messy problems involved if Superman had sex with a human woman in his essay “Man of Steel, Woman of” what?
10) When Superman died in 1992, what character killed him?

1) Clark
2) riding a horse
3) Ronald Reagan
4) R.E.M.
5) Jerry Seinfeld
6) Mighty Mouse
7) Office Space
8) Stupendous Man
9) Kleenex
10) Doomsday

1) The episode titled “The 1000th Show” was what series’ only episode that was actually filmed in Seattle?
2) The characters in Grey’s Anatomy work in what Seattle hospital?
3) What 1999 comedy adapts the action of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew into a local high school?
4) In what 1992 film does a fictional mayor veto the idea of a Supertrain to address Seattle traffic problems?
5) Max, resident of Seattle in the year 2019 and the main character in the show Dark Angel, was played by what up-and-coming movie star?
6) In the 2002 film The Ring, Seattle journalist Rachel Embry attempts to save her son from the ghost of a girl named what?
7) In the 1983 film WarGames, David Lightman challenges a computer named Joshua to what game?
8) Dr. Gordon Freeman, a theoretical physicist from Seattle, stars in what video game series?
9) In the 1973 film The Night Strangler, Carl Kolchak tracks an undead alchemist through the Seattle Underground. What city was he living in in The Night Stalker when he tracked down a vampire serial killer?
10) In DC Comics, what member of the Justice League moved to Seattle in 1987, though he’s now the mayor of Star City?

1) Frasier
2) Seattle Grace
3) 10 Things I Hate About You
4) Singles
5) Jessica Alba
6) Samara
7) Global Thermonuclear War
8) Half-Life
9) Las Vegas
10) Green Arrow

Round 4 of the Greg Nickels quiz night fundraiser on April 26, 2007.