Ken Jennings's Trivia Almanac (34 page)

FEBRUARY 29

45
B.C.
T
HE
J
ULIAN CALENDAR
inserts the first Leap Day into the calendar. (Actually, the Romans made February 24 a forty-eight-hour day that year, but you know what I mean.)

LEAPER COLONY

1.
Who ordered the disastrous “Great Leap Forward” in 1958?

2.
What did Scott Bakula typically say after “leaping” into a new host on TV’s
Quantum Leap
?

3.
In 1991, who finally broke Bob Beamon’s decades-old long jump record?

4.
What kind of fixed-object parachute jumping takes its name from the four categories of such jumps?

5.
What is a whale’s leap out of the water called?

6.
What video game character was originally given the name Jumpman?

7.
Mark Twain’s “Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” was named for what famous orator?

8.
One Giant Leap
was the first biography ever written of whom?

9.
What state motto of Virginia did John Wilkes Booth shout as he jumped from Lincoln’s box to the stage of Ford’s Theatre?

10.
The “leap from the lion’s head” is the final challenge in what 1989 movie?

1960
T
HE LINE WINDS
around the block as the world’s first Playboy Club opens in Chicago.

BUNNY BUSINESS

1.
At what U.S. city, its state’s largest, did Bugs Bunny traditionally lament taking a left “toin”?

2.
What’s the Western name for the image the Japanese describe as a rabbit pounding
mochi
rice cakes?

3.
Whose garden is infiltrated by Peter Rabbit?

4.
What popular breed of pet rabbit was named for the Asian capital where it was first domesticated?

5.
What film’s title character is the only one who can see a giant demonic rabbit named Frank?

1968
O
N
TV’
S
H
OLLYWOOD
S
QUARES,
a contestant calls on Jack Palance, only to find the tough-guy actor asleep in his square. “No way was I going to wake him up!” remembered adjacent square mate Michael Landon.

DOZE WERE THE DAYS

Can you answer these drowsy questions without nodding off?

1.
Under what brand name does Roche market the sedative diazepam?

2.
What Native American was born Goyathlay, meaning “he who yawns”?

3.
What Oscar winner gives a wordless performance as the Headless Horseman in Tim Burton’s
Sleepy Hollow
?

4.
Which
Friends
alum is the answer to the trivia question in the
SNL
“Lazy Sunday” sketch?

5.
What 1991 hit features a recitation of the eighteenth-century children’s prayer “Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep” during the bridge?

February Answers

FEBRUARY 1

COPPER TONE

1.
Tin

2.
The torch flame is gold leaf

3.
Cyprus

4.
Zinc

5.
Claudia Schiffer

STRAIGHT “EH?”S

1.
Prince Edward Island

2.
Eleven

3.
The
Edmund Fitzgerald

4.
Nelly Furtado (named for Nellie Kim)

5.
The Suez Crisis

6.
Sam McGee

7.
Guy Lombardo

8.
British Columbia and Saskatchewan (Victoria and Regina)

9.
Lorne Greene

10.
Labrador

11.
Molson

12.
The CFL’s Grey Cup (named for the Fourth Earl Grey)

13.
William Shatner’s

14.
Filippo De Grassi (
Degrassi High
)

15.
Lake Michigan

FEBRUARY 2

SUB POP

Easy

1.
Moby-Dick

2.
Through the Looking-Glass

3.
Ben-Hur

4.
Black Beauty

5.
2001

Harder

1.
The Pilgrim’s Progress

2.
Frankenstein

3.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin

4.
The Hobbit

5.
Oliver Twist

Yeah, Good Luck

1.
Vanity Fair

2.
Brideshead Revisited

3.
Slaughterhouse-Five

4.
Tess of the D’Urbervilles

5.
Roots

TIME AFTER TIME

1.
Samsara

2. “
Let It Be”

3.
Those are fake ads interrupted by the Energizer bunny

4.
Da capo

5.
The Buffalo Bills, who lost all four

6. “
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”

7.
Déjà vu

8.
A flipped coin comes up heads

9.
Fractals

10.
A Christmas Story

SIGNIFICANT OTHERS

1.
Ireland

2.
Pork

3.
Jacob Riis

4.
Olive (the Other Reindeer, get it?)

5.
The E Street Band

FEBRUARY 3

¾
TIME

1.
Gibbous

2.
The Acadians (today, Cajuns)

3.
Perth

4.
Rechargeable batteries

5.
Alexander Hamilton

THOROUGH, BUT FAIR

Easy

1.
Beverly Hills

2.
New Orleans

3.
Paris

4.
San Francisco