Ken Jennings's Trivia Almanac (144 page)

AUGUST 31

12
C
ALIGULA IS BORN.
Well, Gaius Julius Caesar Germanicus is born, anyway. As a two-year-old, his mom will dress him in armor and soldier’s boots, and the troops will begin to call him “Caligula”—Latin for “little boots.”

THESE BOOTS AREN’T MADE FOR WALKING

1.
The “boot” used to clamp the wheels of illegally parked cars is named for what U.S. city where they were first used in 1953?

2.
What’s referred to in the title of the film
Das Boot
?

3.
What do we call the part of a car that the British call the “boot”?

4.
What technique did IBM engineer David Bradley invent for rebooting a PC?

5.
What squarish gulf makes up the “arch” in Italy’s boot?

1965
A
NATION MOURNS
as
F Troop
goes off the air.

PARTY OF FIVE

Provide the missing initials (like the
F
in
F Troop)
that begin the names of these TV series. Each set of five will spell the name of a sixth TV series, reading down.

Easy

1.
________
SI: Miami

2.
________.
R. Pufnstuf

3.
________
Dream of Jeannie

4.
________
M Magazine

5.
________.
W.A.T.

Harder

1.
________.
A. Doctors

2.
________.
K.A. Pablo

3.
________
V Nation

4.
________
! True Hollywood Story

5.
________
U the Girl

Yeah, Good Luck

1.
________
Squad

2.
________.
E.S. Hudson Street

3.
________
C: Undercover

4.
________.
C. Follies

5.
________
Z Streets

1976
G
EORGE
H
ARRISON IS FOUND GUILTY
of “subconsciously plagiarizing” the melody to his hit “My Sweet Lord” from the Chiffons’ “He’s So Fine.” He will end up paying more than half a million dollars to the estate of that song’s late composer.

THEMED SONGS

It’s not a plagiarized melody, but what do these sets of songs all have in common?

1.
The Cure’s “Just Like Heaven,” Peter Gabriel’s “Lead a Normal Life,” George Michael’s “One More Try,” U2’s “Running to Stand Still”

2.
The Beastie Boys’ “Hey Ladies,” Beyoncé’s “Deja Vu,” Adam Sandler’s “The Chanukah Song,” Simon and Garfunkel’s “Mrs. Robinson”

3.
Procol Harum’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale,” Santana’s “Love of My Life,” Eric Carmen’s “All By Myself,” the Toys’ “A Lover’s Concerto”

4.
Eminem’s “Without Me,” Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power,” R.E.M.’s “Man on the Moon,” Shania Twain’s “That Don’t Impress Me Much”

5.
Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive,” Oasis’s “Acquiesce,” Rod Stewart’s “Maggie May,” Gene Vincent’s “Be-Bop-a-Lula”

6.
Chamillionaire’s “Ridin’,” Coolio’s “Gangsta’s Paradise,” Michael Jackson’s “Beat It,” Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit”

7.
Elvis Costello’s “Radio Radio,” Bob Marley’s “War,” the Replacements’ “Bastards of Young,” Ashlee Simpson’s “Autobiography”

8.
Badfinger’s “Day After Day,” David Bowie’s “Fame,” Harry Nilsson’s “Spaceman,” the Rolling Stones’ “We Love You”

9.
Beck’s “Loser,” Def Leppard’s “Rocket,” Pink Floyd’s “Empty Spaces,” Prince’s “Darling Nikki”

10.
Golden Earring’s “Radar Love,” Tom Petty’s “Runnin’ Down a Dream,” Johnny Rivers’ “Summer Rain,” Bruce Springsteen’s “Thunder Road”

August Answers

AUGUST 1

BELLY WILDER

1.
The “Breadbasket”

2.
Cheese

3.
Cobra

4.
Hydrochloric acid (HCl)

5.
The Carol Burnett Show

THE SCOOP-Y GANG

1.
Glaciers

2.
Vanity Fair

3.
Ethopia’s (or Eritrea’s)

4.
The Andromeda Strain

5.
Warren Moon and Dave Krieg

STRAIGHT TO VIDEOS

1.
“…Baby One More Time” (Britney Spears)

2.
Martin Scorsese

3.
“Money for Nothing” (Dire Straits)

4.
“The Big Bopper,” J. P. Richardson

5.
Characters in the Beastie Boys’ cop-show spoof “Sabotage”

6.
Christopher Walken

7.
“Jeremy” (Pearl Jam)

8.
“Hey Ya!” (OutKast)

9.
“Sledgehammer” (Peter Gabriel)

10.
“Losing My Religion” (R.E.M.)

AUGUST 2

“
ERIC CLAPTON” IS A “NARCOLEPTIC”

1.
Ed Asner

2.
Stan Lee

3.
Roger Daltrey

4.
Meg Ryan (
City of Angels
)

5.
Eddie Albert

6.
Al Green

7.
Tom Landry

8.
Tom Cruise (in
Risky Business
)

9.
Steve Irwin

10.
Cass Elliot

11.
Ian Holm

12.
Paul Reubens

13.
Martin Gore

14.
Tim Russert (
Meet the Press
)

15.
Lisa Loeb

SOLE SURVIVOR

1.
The world’s last passenger pigeon

2.
Robert Vaughn

3.
Doug Flutie

4.
Western Sahara

5.
“Paul Revere’s Ride”

AUGUST 3

GOOBER(NATORIAL) PILE

Easy