Ken Jennings's Trivia Almanac (104 page)

JUNE 26

1284
A
CCORDING TO THE
B
ROTHERS
G
RIMM
tale, the Pied Piper rids the city of Hamelin of all its pesky rats, and then of all its pesky children.

THE RAT PATROL

1.
What TV title character has a rat named Steve McQueen?

2.
What is the more common name for benzoic sulfinide, linked in 1977 to bladder cancer in lab rats?

3.
Which member of “the Rat Pack” was married to a Kennedy?

4.
What kind of American desert rat can survive indefinitely without drinking water?

5.
Fusilli, Macaroni, or Linguini—what’s the name of the hapless chef in the film
Ratatouille
?

6.
What 1984 Ratt hit featured a cross-dressing Milton Berle in its video?

7.
What disease, caused by the bacteria
Y. pestis
, is spread by fleas and rats?

8.
What horror movie was based on the novel
Ratman’s Notebooks
?

9.
Whose sensei is a rat named Master Splinter?

10.
The first attested use of the word “scuzzy” was in reference to “Ratso” Rizzo, in what film?

1974
T
HE FIRST GROCERY
UPC code is scanned at a Marsh Supermarket checkout in Troy, Ohio. The first item purchased? A ten-pack of Juicy Fruit gum.

JUICY FRUITS

1.
The word “grenade” derives from the name of what fruit?

2.
What are the two fruit juices in a cosmopolitan?

3.
According to Langston Hughes, what might “dry up, like a raisin in the sun”?

4.
What’s Mick Jagger’s favorite flavor of soda, according to “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”?

5.
Mexican laetrile, once thought to be an anticancer drug, is extracted from the seeds of what fruit?

6.
What fruit appears in the Olive Garden logo? (Hint: not olives.)

7.
Whose print of a banana is the cover of the 1967 album
The Velvet Underground and Nico
?

8.
In the
Godfather
films, what fruit’s appearance foreshadows death?

9.
What corporate logo consists of an apple, two bunches of grapes, some gooseberries, and three leaves?

10.
Grape, cherry, or fruit punch—what flavor of “Kool-Aid” (actually Flavor Aid) was used at Jonestown?

11.
The phrase “banana republic” was first coined by O. Henry in reference to what country?

12.
What fruit is a hybrid of the mandarin orange and the grapefruit?

13.
Darryl Strawberry is one of only two players to have won a World Series with both the Mets and the Yankees. Who’s the other?

14.
The journey in Roald Dahl’s
James and the Giant Peach
ends with the peach impaled on what?

15.
Enzymes from the papaya fruit are used to make what kitchen staple?

16.
In Greek myth, Hippomenes scattered distracting golden apples during a footrace in his attempt to win whose hand in marriage?

17.
What pieces of fruit contain three princesses in Sergei Prokofiev’s most famous opera?

18.
Why was Mary Mallon famous in the early 1900s for her signature dessert of peaches and ice cream?

19.
What’s a Chinese gooseberry?

20.
Which one of Strawberry Shortcake’s four original toy “friends” was a boy?

JUNE 27

1967
T
HE WORLD’S FIRST
electronic ATM is installed in North London. As a publicity stunt, British TV star Reg Varney makes the first withdrawal.

MATCHING FUNDS

Can you match up the images on the front and back of a piece of U.S. paper currency and give the denomination in question?

1979
J
OHN
C
LEESE’S
A
MNESTY
I
NTERNATIONAL
benefit
The Secret Policeman’s Ball
begins in London. U 2’s Bono will later credit the show with sparking his interest in social activism.

SO I CAN, SO I CAN

Answer these questions about people who, like Bono, are famed for wearing sunglasses indoors.

1.
Fashion guru Anna Wintour is the editor of what magazine?

2.
Who won a 1991 best male vocalist Grammy despite having died in 1988?

3.
Who edited books like
The Cartoon History of the Universe
and Dorothy West’s
The Wedding
while working at Doubleday?

4.
What Jack Nicholson title refers to the one Bach, two Chopin, and two Mozart compositions played in the movie?

5.
What Canadian-born TV star was the Blues Brothers’ first arranger and is the musical director at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?

2003
T
HE NATIONAL
D
O
N
OT
C
ALL
registry is opened for telemarketer-harried Americans, enrolling seven million numbers the very first day.

FORBID AND FORGET

Don’t
let these ten “don’t”s trip you up.

1.
What company’s informal corporate motto is “Don’t be evil”?

2.
What movie is available in the “Don’t Call Me Shirley!” DVD edition?

3.
What TV show opened with a “control voice” saying, “Do not attempt to adjust the picture”?

4.
What briefly made Journey’s twenty-five-year-old hit “Don’t Stop Believing” the most-downloaded song on iTunes in June 2007?

5.
When going directly to jail, a Monopoly player is commanded not to do what two things?

6.
What specific animal appeared above the “Don’t Tread on Me” motto on early American flags?

7.
A sestina, a rondeau, or a villanelle—what kind of nineteen-line poem is Dylan Thomas’s “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night”?

8.
What movie’s tagline was “Don’t get him wet, keep him out of bright light, and never feed him after midnight”?

9.
What does a DNR order at a hospital stand for?

10.
What 1977 hit was the theme of Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign?