No quiz this week

Sorry - it's the doctor's 30th birthday today, so regular quizzing plans are somewhat out the window!

Tweet

Seth Rogen worked on Da Ali G Show

Your targets this week:

We won this week, but could you have done even better?

The attendees
1) The statistician
2) The doctor
3) The meteorologist
4) The metallurgist
5) The rich-person otherkin

The ones that got away
1) What is the collective name for hip hop artists Slim Jimmi and Swae Lee?
2) Which of these was not a real 19th Century US political party: a) Anti-Masonic Party; b) Anti-Nebraska Party; c) Free Soil Party; d) Greenback Party; e) No More Railroads Party
3) Which Hanna-Barbera character's distinctive voice was inspired by Art Carney's character on The Honeymooners?
4) What was the first PG-13 rated animated feature, released in 1982? Hint: the title contains the name of a popular pet animal. (N.B. PG-13 indicates some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.) (Hint: it's not Fritz the Cat, which was an answer to a related question we got correct.)
5) What upcoming animated film will feature Seth Rogen, James Franko and Jonah Hill playing talking food?
6) Lady Amalthea is a main character in what fantasy novel (later adapted to film and TV)?

The answers

1) Rae Sremmurd
2) No More Railroads Party
3) Yogi Bear
4) Plague Dogs
5) Sausage Party
6) The Last Unicorn

The doctor's excuses

1) I'd not heard of this group but now I've listened to one of their tracks they seem to be "trap" (genre-wise)... which is not really a style I'm at all familiar with yet (via my very slow self-education in "rap music as a whole"). So that's useful for later, I guess? We had basically no idea and put (effectively) gibberish.
2) Oh good! A multiple choice question, my favourite! We were torn between No More Railroads (which to The Statistician's ears sounded "too modern") and Free Soil. Free Soil was something to do with slavery and... *yawn* *stretch* uhhhh, wow, I'm so tired... sorry I'm just going to have a little sleep until this excuse is over. A celebratory sleep. To celebrate how engaging and fun I find multiple choice questions.
3) We initially had the right answer, but it was overruled by parties who thought The Flintstones seemed like something that accorded better with "The Honeymooners" given that it's (presumably) about a married couple... whereas Yogi Bear is... idk, prolly secretly about gay culture?
4) Plague dogs (no spoilers, not seen it yet) is apparently based on another book by Richard Adams (of Watership Down fame), featuring a bunch of cute animals having just the *worst* possible time of it. Seems like the dude had "a thing" about sad cute animals, I guess.
5) Haha wat. I've not even heard of this movie, it sounds terrible. We went with the equally terrible sounding "Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 3" since I'd seen some of number 2 over someone's shoulder on an aeroplane, with the sound off, and thought it seemed a reasonable shout.
6) I'VE HEARD OF THIS! A couple of my friends in primary school were basically a bit obsessed with it... there's a wizard called Kendrick and a princess called Eilowny and the bad guy is like... maybe an evil cloud? Something like that. I'm not going to look it up myself, for tax reasons. Feel free to investigate further on your own time, if that sounds like a scene you're into.

How did you do? Would you have beaten us (1 or more point)? Let the world know with the poll below, then read on for my alternative questions (loosely) inspired by this week's Ones That Got Away!


Our alternative questions

Question 6

1) As I'm sure we all know, Rae Sremmurd comes from the duo's home label - EarDrummers - spelled backwards (a process known as backslang). What 3-letter word, British slang for a loutish, uncultured person, was derived in a similar manner?
2) The last time the US Presidency changed from one President to another without changing party was when Republican George H W Bush took over from Republican Ronald Reagan. Who took over the last time this happened for the Democrats?
3) Baseball star Yogi Berra was renowned for his 'Yogi-isms': often (seemingly unintentional) witticisms. Examples include "When you come to a fork in the road, take it" and "I really didn't say everything I said", but what French phrase completes this other classic: "It's _____ all over again"?
4) The Motion Picture Association of America's highest film rating is 'NC-17' - what did the letters 'NC' originally stand for in this rating?
5) Talking food reminded me of the BBC children's show The Herbs which, I have now learned, was written by Michael Bond (of Paddington Bear fame). While Parsley the Lion is arguably the most famous character, the wise owl character was given what rather appropriate herb name?
6) The My Little Pony franchise features three main 'types' of pony. Unicorn Ponies (who wield magic) and Earth Ponies (who are just a bit boring) are two, but what mythical creature's name is used for the third (pictured)?

The answers

1) Yob
2) Lyndon B Johnson (following the assassination of JFK)
3) Déjà vu
4) No Children
5) Sage
6) Pegasus

How did you do on my alternative questions? Have another poll!

Tweet

Mickey Mouse was the first fictional character to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame

Your targets this week:

We won this week, but could you have done even better?

The attendees
1) The statistician
2) The doctor
3) The secret German
4) The metallurgist
5) The rich-person otherkin

The ones that got away
1) His final film attempt, Bruce Lee died during the making of what 1972 martial arts film? (To clarify: this question concerns a film directed, written, and produced by Lee, in contrast to Enter the Dragon in which he makes his last appearance.)
2) Which of these is not a real Donald Trump business venture? a) Donald Trump's Real Estate Tycoon (a video game); b) Trump Ice Cream Parlour; c) GoTrump search engine; d) Trump Up Gas Station; e) Trump Vodka
3) In the movie 8 Mile, Eminem's character has the nickname B-Rabbit. What is the nickname of his rapping chum played by Mekhi Phifer?
4) The movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit is based on a book from a series about the character. Which of the following is not a real book from that series? a) Who Censored Roger Rabbit?; b) Who P-P-P-Plugged Roger Rabbit?; c) Who Wacked Roger Rabbit?; d) Who Remembers Roger Rabbit?
5) 2 Point Question: Name the 2 Stanley Kubrick movies with one-word (or one-name) titles. You need both for the 2 points (no partial credit).

The answers

1) Game of Death
2) Trump Up Gas Station
3) Future
4) Who Remembers Roger Rabbit?
5) Lolita, Spartacus

The doctor's excuses

1) I was, like, 90% sure it was The Big Boss. This was completely wrong. I really can't easily account for why I was so wrong. Game of Death (the correct answer) is where the distinctive "yellow with a black stripe down either side" jumpsuit is from, though. So at least we all learned something today.
2) My dislike of multiple choice quiz questions is a matter of public record. However it turns out that my previous animosity was ignoring the fact that a dislikeable question format could be coupled to a dislikeable person. MAXIMUM DISLIKE! We basically thought Ice-Cream might seem a bit nice and gentle for a [poop emoji] like Trump. But we were wrong, anyway who cares. (Bernie 4 lyfe!).
3) Yeah, no, despite trying to "learn rap music" (for both personal and quizzical reasons) I had no idea. We just went with Wolf, because that seemed to fit with the animal theme going on (with Eminem's character) and thought it was better than a blank space (not the Taylor Swift song).
4) Remember how I said I didn't like multiple choice questions... well that's still true! Ok, can I think of literally anything else to say? Well our rationale for P-P-P-Plugged being wrong was because it was basically "the odd one out", which basically shows how multi choice Qs are proper gash. Like, it often just ends up coming down to "do you think the odd one out is the wrong one or do you think it's one of the others" idk. I just hate it, mang. (Although I appreciate other people maybe do? It's not like I'm the God of Quiz. Yet.)
5) We thought of Lolita pretty fast, but were pretty stuck on the rest of Kubrick's one-word oeuvre. I think we went with Patton because "the bit where he stands in front of the flag seems a bit Kubrick-y". Patton, is of course by Franklin J. Schaffner... so, I guess you know that now. I hope you're happy.

How did you do? Would you have beaten us (1 or more point)? Let the world know with the poll below, then read on for my alternative questions (loosely) inspired by this week's Ones That Got Away!


Our alternative questions

Question 1

1) Master Shifu (pictured), from the Kung Fu Panda franchise, is supposedly what type of animal?
2) A number of fictional characters have stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (Donald Trump also has one but, alas, is ostensibly non-fictional). Of these, which 2 - one a fairy, the other a bear - were created by British authors? 1 point for each!
3) The name 'D12' - an American hip hop group of which Emimen is a member - is an abbreviation/initialism of what phrase?
4) A bit of a quizzing chestnut: what item of clothing does Bugs Bunny (almost) always wear?
5) Required trivia knowledge is that the characters in A Clockwork Orange use a fictional 'language' called nadsat. In this setting, to what does 'polyclef' refer? Hint: a burglar might find such an item very useful!

The answers

1) Red panda
2) Tinker Bell, Winnie the Pooh
3) The Dirty Dozen
4) Gloves
5) Skeleton key (via 'many keys')

How did you do on my alternative questions? Have another poll!

Tweet

The first retired Atlantic hurricane name was Carol

Your targets this week:

1+ out of 6: Well done, you beat us!
2+ out of 6: We'd have won with you on our team!

The attendees
1) The statistician
2) The doctor

The ones that got away

Question 6

1) What scale is used for rating tornado intensity?
2) At (approximately) what wind speed does a storm change from being classified as a storm to a hurricane? 43mph, 62mph, 74mph or 89mph?
3) Which country is home to the city which holds the record for most snowfall in a 24-hour period? Canada, USA, Italy or Japan?
4) If it's called a hurricane in the Atlantic Ocean, a typhoon in the Pacific Ocean, what is it called in the Indian Ocean?
5) Which was the first country to withdraw from the Kyoto protocol?
6) On the diagram, if the red is a warm front, and the blue is a cold front, what is the purple?

The answers

1) Fujita scale (or F-scale)
2) 74mph
3) Italy
4) A cyclone
5) Canada (in case you're wondering about the USA: they never ratified it in the first place)
6) An occluded front

The doctor's excuses

1) So, fun fact, in the Mortal Kombat series of Excessively Violent Fighting Games there is a character called "Fujin" who is a God of Wind. Fujin starts with the same first four letters as Fujita and is (as far as I can google) completely unrelated (the name Fujita means "wisteria rice-paddy", apparently). Needless to say, we didn't get this one (although our answer of Saffir-Simpson is a *hurricane* rating scale, so that's nice).
2) Here's a fun question. Are numerical multiple choice questions in a quiz a) boring, b) very boring, c) extremely boring, b) the worst. Answers on a postcard (perhaps send it to a neglected relative to cheer up their day!). We went with 62mph since the statistician said that would be about 100kph and might make this question a tiny bit not terrible.
3) Haha, because we live in Canada and it's snowy AF here, we put Canada. It's Italy. Probably... because of all the pizza they eat? IDK I'm not sure I can usefully claim an Italian stereotype is a cause of increased snowfall.
4) We discussed the correct answer of "cyclone" but then I insisted it "must be monsoon because they have a whole season about it" (thinking about how there's like a "hurricane season" in North America). But no, that was stupid and dumb. A monsoon (According to wikipedia) is a "seasonal reversing wind" which is often quite wet.
5) I started reading about the Kyoto Protocol and when I woke up I was in a hospital having just become conscious after a weeklong coma. As a doctor myself, I would recommend you do not drive or operate heavy machinery after having read about the Kyoto Protocol.
6) Our answer of Warm Wet Front, as well as being unpleasantly suggestive, was wrong. I think this question is sort of OK, I guess, in that weather reports are definitely a thing where one could/should have reasonably learned something about them just through being alive and near televisions.

How did you do? Would you have beaten us (1 or more point)? Would you have helped us win (2 or more points)? Let the world know with the poll below, then read on for my alternative questions (loosely) inspired by this week's Ones That Got Away!


Our alternative questions
1) The Fujita scale categorizes six types of 'damage'. Put these six damage classifications into increasing order of damage: Devastating, Incredible, Light, Moderate, Severe, Significant. [Note that sometimes 'considerable' is used instead of 'significant'.]
2) The USA's National Hurricane Center gives hurricances 'human' names based on an alphabetical list. 21 letters are used: Q, X, Y and Z are excluded, along with which other? (Hint: it scores 1 point in Scrabble.)
3) X is the new Y' is an example of a type of phrasal template where X and Y can be replaced by different words. This is described by what neologism? Hint: you can get the word by changing the 'g' and 'b' in 'snowglobe' to new letters.
4) Where can you find an anticyclonic storm that has lasted for (at least) 186 years?
5) Along with Canada, three other UN member states are not party to the Protocol: the USA, Andorra, and which African country? Hint: the Protocol entered infto force in 2005.
6) Occlusion therapy - where an eye patch is placed over a stronger eye to force use of the weaker one - is a common treatment for what eye condition? Hint: it is often caused by a strabismus (or squint), and has a more colloquial name which some consider inappropriate, but either that or the medical term will be accepted.

The answers

1) Light, Moderate, Significant, Severe, Devastating, Incredible
2) U (presumably because they'd run out of plausible 'U' names pretty fast)
3) Snowclone
4) Jupiter (it's the Great Red Spot)
5) South Sudan
6) Amblyopia ('lazy eye' also accepted)

How did you do on my alternative questions? Have another poll!

Tweet