Good Job, Brain! - 52: Trivia About Trivia

Episode Date: March 4, 2013

It's our first birthday and it's our TRIVIACEPTION show! Believe it or not, amazing facts about the king of amazing facts, Robert Ripley. The business behind bad trivia. We try our luck in Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, and gush over other TV game shows. Famous riddlers and question-askers throughout literary history, and exactly why is a raven like a writing desk? ALSO: "Initial Here" quiz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast. Hello, Tremendous Trove and Troop of Trivia Troopers. This is Good Job, Brain, your weekly quiz show and offbeat trivia podcast. Today's show is episode 52, our one-year anniversary birthday show. Wow. And of course, yeah, it's great. I am your humble host, Karen. And we are your Ballyhooed buddies broadcasting beaver bits and birthday bonanza.

Yay. I'm a Ballyhoo from last week's episode. I'm Colin. I'm Dana. And I'm still Chris. One year later. Without further ado, let's jump into our general trivia segment, Pop Quiz Hot Shot. And I have a random trivia pursuit card here.

And you guys have your barnyard buzzers. And let's answer some questions. Here you go. Blue Wedge for Geography. What Central American Nation boasts a barrier reef second in length only to Australia's Great Barrier Reef? Dana. Is it Belize? It is Belize. Good job. I know diving in Belize is supposed to be awesome. Amazing.

Yeah, that's right. Pink Wedge for pop culture. What actor came to regret uttering the immortal line? Use the force, Luke. Of course, Colin That is Sir Alec Guinness Correct, Alec Guinness Legendarily hated almost everything

About his experience on Star Wars Yeah, it's really unfortunate He had little to no respect for his experience on it Which is too bad What didn't he like about it? I thought the writing was pretty poor He thought it was kind of just trite And he really, he didn't like all the attention

That he got afterward Because he was like, you know, I'm a classically trained actor And all these kids want as my autograph for being Obi-Wan Kenobi I think Ian McKellen feels that way about being a magnino action figure? Absolutely not. No. Or Gandalf.

Right, yeah. He loves it. Yeah, right, right. He's a classically trained Shakespearean actor. Or Patrick Stewart. Yeah, is what I was going to say. Dane Maggie Smith. Yeah.

Professor McGonagall. Get off, your high horse guy. She turns into a cat. She turns into a cat. Yellow Wedge? What was the first nation to adopt the metric system in 1795? college France

It is France It's from our Belgium Not Belgium Oh yes All right Green Wedge for science What's the only land animal To use extremely low

Infrasonic sounds To communicate across several miles Infrasonic Oh Infrasonic It's not ultrasonic Yeah yeah you know It's a grand

round animal. It's like... We talked about this animal in our last episode. It's an elephant? Elephant. Oh. The humble elephant.

Infrosonic. Yeah, yeah. Not above the level of human hearing, but below the level of human hearing. Oh, so ultra is above... Right, like infrared is below the red on the spectrum. Yeah. Or super-ssonic.

So super low, basically. Yeah. The one's supersonic. That's in terms of speed, like faster than... Last question. Orange Wedge for Sports and Leisure. What nickname? named Canadian wrestler, Brett Hart, trademark in 1990.

Chris Collar. That would be The Hitman. Yes, correct. The Hitman. Brett Hart. All right, good job, Brains. Today is our one-year anniversary birthday show. And we thought the most appropriate topic for this week should be trivia about trivia.

So it's our Triviaception show. Very meta. I want to ask you guys, where does the word trivia come from? Do you guys know? My remembrance of this is that it is from the Latin Trivia, meaning three roads. And there was when three roads intersect, they put up a big message board and people could post things on the message board so you can read it. Yes, that is that is one of the stories. Oh, okay.

That's what I have read where it came from, yeah. Okay. But it's a story. Ancient Greek. Saw you, saw you at the Coliseum. Yeah, I thought you were cute. The first unmoderated comment board. For Chan of, uh...

It was Ivy Chan. Oh, yeah. Wow. So that is a common etymology story. Trivia is a plural form of trivium. Trivia describes the three liberal arts arms, which is grammar, logic, and rhetoric. Back in the ancient Greece and Asian Roman times, these were kind of the foundation topics in basic education. So somehow, these, I guess, foundation arms became to known as things that aren't really essential to know, but you had to learn it in school.

Sure. I like that better than the Three Roads, which is one of those that sounds so good to be true. That the use of the word trivia, the way we use it, really only goes back to about, like, 1900. And that that was taken from Trivium, which were the three of the liberal arts, as you described them. And the meaning, I guess, was sort of that those three together, the place where the three roads meet, were sort of the less important and concerned with the things that were not considered as significant at the time. Oh, I see. So that's sort of a sort of a sort of a slight at grammar, rhetoric, and logic, of course, as opposed to arithmetic or, you know, to geometry or the more hard sciences. So that sort of seems to be the connection there.

Well, this is a good indication, though. Like a lot of trivia, the origins are disputed. I think no conversation about trivia would be complete without discussing bad trivia, common misconceptions or trivia that we used to think was true, but has since been shown to be false. Well, we talked about one of my favorite examples of this on our landmark episode about the Great Wall of China and its visibility or non-visibility from space. What is the only man-made thing that can be seen from space? Right. And many people will say, oh, great wall of China. but it's not true.

You can't see it from the moon and at a level where you can see the Great Wall of China, you can see other man-made objects as well. So that kind of thing. So let's start off with one. Karen, I know you love dogs. I do.

True or false? St. Bernard's are actually used as rescue dogs in the Alps. I believe to be true. It is true. But do they actually wear the little barrels of brandy around their next? No.

I wish they did. I thought it was another type of liquor or something around their neck. They don't. They do not, in fact, carry little barrels of brandy around their necks. It is so cute. And this is one of those things where we can actually trace this. There's a painting called Alpine Mastiff, reanimating a distressed traveler. That was painted in the 1800s, and the artist just chose to put in a little barrel of brandy around the St. Bernard's neck.

Artist slash inventor. They were, in fact, historically used to. as rescue dogs in the great St. Bernard Pass connects Switzerland and Italy, and there are some monks who live up there. And they've estimated they've rescued over 25,000 people since 1800s. True or false? Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg address on the back of an envelope envelope while riding to Gettysburg on a train. Chris. False. That is, in fact, false. The speech is, it's too good. You can't just knock that out on the back of the envelope on a train. That was carefully considered and, yeah, incredible.

wonderfully brief and concise, but no. Yeah, romantic story, but no. In fact, he was writing it for many days prior, and he even gave an advanced copy to the Associated Press. So, no. What's the name of the monster featured in Mary Shelley's famous 1818 novel? Karen. It's just called the monster.

Incorrect. It was a little bit of a misdirection. I think you guys sense it is not, in fact, Frankenstein. The monster does have a name in the book. They don't use the name in the movie, but in the book, the monster is named Adam, like the first man. Wow. I did not know that. Yep, Adam Frank.

Little Adam Frankenstein. I would have guessed what Karen guessed. Yeah, me too, actually. The monster. Adam. Speaking of famous characters and stories, according to Ian Fleming's original stories and novels, what type of alcohol does James Bond most frequently drink? What type of alcohol or what drink?

Either one. I'll accept either one. Oh, really? Oh, okay. Chris. Four loco? That would be awesome. Bailey's Irish cream.

So it's not... Double O four loco. So again, yes. It's not a martini. It is not a vodka martini. It is. Well, he's a spy. Shouldn't he not drink on the job?

It's not a trick question. No, he was quite a drinker, and that part of it really helps true. In the movies he does, he is really. associated with the vodka martini specifically shake and not stirred all of that in the books in the ian fleming writings he drank bourbon more than anything else yes someone actually did a tally of this a few years ago they went through uh out of all of the drinks he ordered he ordered 37 straight bourbons 17 bourbon mixed with water or soda uh 19 vodka martinis and 16 gin martini so yes all from the books all from the books yeah just the books an american

alcohol. I suppose. Yes, bourbon, that's right. Yes, it's true. Speaking of countries of origin, where was the game we know as Sudoku invented? Oh, that's a true question, because I want to say Japan. You kind of know by the whole premise of this entire segment,

that they're all a little bit of the true question. Yeah, I thought it was Japan, but I did. United States. India, India, good guess, Dana. United States. It is the United States. Oh, okay. This is, yeah, this is great. Susan Dooku. Susan Doco. No, no. They They were an American convention.

They used to be published by Dell magazines in their word books and their word games. Like what year? In the 70s. And it is absolutely the same Sudoku puzzle that you see today. So they kind of disappeared and a Japanese publisher called Nikoli sort of reintroduced them to the world in 1984. Wow. I would like to share a valuable resource that I use as a child for gathering facts and information. We went to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina on vacation when I was probably like 11 or 12.

We'd always go during the spring. So we'd go to Maine and go fishing, which I hated. And then we'd go to Myrtle Beach where they had like arcades and they had like street fighter machines and all kinds of things they didn't have in Connecticut. You know, and it was for me, it was like the super fun action-packed vacation. And one of the things they had in Myrtle Beach was the Ripley's, believe it or not, auditorium. The Ripley's Believe it or not museum. I mean, for me, like dorky kid who love crazy facts and all that kind of stuff. And, I mean, it was fantastic.

Oh, I love those. There's like 30 of these all around the world. So Robert Ripley, let's talk about him. He was born in 1890, and initially he wanted to be a professional baseball player. He had some aptitude in sports and wanted to play pro ball. And that never really worked out for him. He was also a very skilled cartoonist. He did a lot of things.

Robert Ripley had a lot of talents. And he was a cartoonist and did cartoons for newspapers. He started a series called, champs and chumps and what he did was he would take notable events that had occurred in the world of sports cartoon the event and then he would write about what the little bit of trivia was like you know so-and-so hit three home runs and such and such a game trying to trend towards the crazy unbelievable sorts of things

within a year champs and chumps became believe it or not because he started introducing non-sports factoids and trivia a little more broad appeal and so you know some of it was like as we kind of associate with Ripley, like things from around the world, like, oh, the such and such tribe of such and such country put rings in their mouth, that kind of thing. And then some of it was like just crazy things that people would send him from right here in the good old US of A, like Mrs. Leroy Johnson found a potato chip that looks like Jesus, you know, whatever. Robert Ripley, so first of all, he took his first trip around the world in the early part of the 1920s.

And this is where he just started collecting data and came back and just started like a lot of the things that he had seen. He became very shortly after that. And absolutely, just a transmedia sensation. He was really, really popular. He had a radio show. He did a TV show in the 1940s before people had television. You know, before a lot

of people had televisions. So the 1933 Chicago World's Fair, that was where he opened up his first temporary auditorium. And this is where he showed off his collection, because he was just, he collected, you know, some people would say stole. Right, right. He collected all kinds

of artifacts from all over the world. As you might imagine, this might not leave him a whole lot of time to do research. And as soon as he returned back from that world trip, he put out word that he was looking for a researcher, for a polyglot, basically, for somebody who spoke many, many languages. That makes me happy that he wants someone to verify all of this stuff, too. Yes. He wanted somebody to find things and also to verify. He really had a passion for getting the facts, right, making sure everything was accurate. But Norbert Pearl Roth, with the wonderful, wonderful name of Norbert Pearl Roth, was born in Austria, and he moved to the United States just as the Ripley's brand was skyrocketing. According to one source I found he was fluent in 14 languages.

Ripley hires Norbert Pearl Roth, and so for the next 52 years, Norbert living in New York City, every weekday, would get up, go to his office, take care of things, and then head over. over to the New York Public Library and would read, read, read. He would scour the, all the foreign language newspapers that had come in, but then also just read books and read books and read books. And he became a fixture there. If you go to the, you know, fun facts page for the New York Public Library, they talk about him as having come there every weekday. Feeding, Feeding Ripley's machine.

Yeah. And so. That is my dream job. Yeah. And so most of the facts that you read in Ripley's, believe it or not, for 50 years, were things that were uncovered by Norbert. And when Ripley would go on his world travels, that's how he knew what to go look for. You know, it was things that Norbert would find.

Other notable Ripley's moments include in 1929, the Ripley's, believe it or not, one of the cartoons pointed out the U.S. had no national anthem and pointed out that the Star-Spangled Banner was based on an old English drinking song and the melody was, right? This came as a big surprise to everybody. And people wrote in and were like, yeah, you know, people wrote in like, what do you mean we don't have a national anthem? He's like, write your senator. We don't have a national anthem. Within two years after the publication of this cartoon, the Senate, the Congress basically enacted that the Star-Spangled Banner was in fact, would in fact officially be our national anthem. Official stamp. Ripley's Believe it or not now calls this Ripley's most doubted, believe it or not.

And he ran a cartoon with a picture of the Spirit of St. Louis and said, believe it or not, Charles Lindberg was not the first man to fly across the Atlantic. He was the 67th man to fly across the Atlantic. The gag, which was not really explained in the strip, is that people. believed that, you know, Lindy was the first guy to go across the Atlantic Ocean. He was not. He was the first pilot to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. Other people had done it in group. A couple of dirigible had done it with a lot of people on it.

And then a pair of pilots had done it together. But of course, the cartoon did not point that out. They just, they played on the common misconception. He was the first one. And so it was like he was the 67th man to fly across the Atlantic. So Robert Ripley was also the first troll. The fact I was just going to say, he invented trolling. Too funny.

My first exposure to the world of Ripley and Ripley's Believe It or Not was as the TV show. There was a very cult hit, very popular TV show famously hosted by Jack Palance. And it was just a very dramatic presentation. And like really the signature line of every segment was in the Jack Palance voice. Believe it or not. The heart attack that killed Robert Ripley, he suffered it on live TV doing a Ripley's Believe or Not show. He was explaining the history of the bugle song Taps, which is played at funerals, had a heart attack on live TV.

They had to finish his show without him, and then he died. Believe it or not. Believe it or not. Well, I know I fell in love with the lower, the lesser human information. Probably through a device that other people would also look down on through TV shows. TV game shows. Yay! I think it's delicious.

I'm not ashamed to admit that so much of my early trivia came from TV. Oh, sure. Yeah. It's so fun. You can see what people think. So I have a quiz for you guys. I call it the quiz show, quiz show, quiz show quiz. So I'm going to describe a show for you guys, and you tell me the name of the quiz show and the host.

And then I'll give you a question that came from that show. Oh, okay. So these are famous. TV game shows. Yes. Famous TV game shows. All right. First one.

This 1986 game show on Nickelodeon featured trivia questions and occasionally messy physical challenges. Colin. Double there. And who is the host? Mark Summers. Yes. From the food channel. Yes.

Yes. Mark Summers. This question was really hard. The kids didn't get it. I didn't get it. Wow. But let's see if you guys get it. What part of your body would you wear a gilly?

On your head, feet or around your waist? Gilly. Yeah. Spalled G-H-I-L-L-I-E. Huh. This is free association. A little glimpse of the Karen's brain. Gilly weed from Harry Potter is the weed that you eat and you grow gills and you can swim

underwater. So I think it's maybe something related to aquatic. I'm awfully dubious of that explanation. So it's like flippers or something. It is feet. They're dance shoes. Oh. And they're from Scotland, which is close to wear Harry.

Harry Potter takes place, so maybe, maybe there's a relation. I got her right for the wrong reason. Bending over backward for that one. Ironically, host Mark Summers has obsessive-compulsive disorder, which was revealed much later after that show was off the air, and so good on him for actually being able to deal with all of the slime and mess and people diving into pools of baked beans. Fittingly, the first contestant on this show to win the $1 million prize

was a school superintendent from Georgia. What was the show? Are you smarter than a fourth grader, first grader? Are you smarter than a fifth grader? Good job. You can tell I to watch that show. So she used to be a teacher. She actually taught the subjects.

I recommend watching it on YouTube if you get a chance. It almost brought me to tears. She was like, you know, he's like, do you want to drop out on the last question? You know, a lot of people have flunked and they lose a lot of money. And she's like, no, I'm not going to drop out. I'm not going to tell people to drop out because we encourage our kids to stay in school. cool and she like gave this whole speed i was like oh and then she won and then she got it wow and the host was jeff foxworthy yeah and the question was who was the longest reigning british monarch

was it victoria or was Elizabeth the second what's your answer it was not a bad yes queen was the second victoria it was Victoria oh okay Victoria was queen for 63 years yeah I knew she lived to a ripe old age yeah Elizabeth the second is on her 61st year wow so she might catch up oh yeah this TV game show was ranked as the second greatest game show on by both TV Guide and the game show network. It's currently in its 29th season. Colin? This is God.

I'm going to guess Wheel of Fortune. No? Jeopardy. It's Jeopardy. Yeah. What is Jeopardy? Who's the host? Alex Trebek. So, Ken Jennings is known as the contestant with the most number of wins on Jeopardy. And the funniest. That's hilarious. He made it to 74 wins.

When he lost on the 75, Fifth, this is the question he bombed. And so I'll ask you and see if you guys know the answer. Most of this firm's 70,000 seasonal white-collar employees work only four months a year. Wow. How do you guys? I think I know this. It's H&R Block.

Yes. Ken Jennings guest, FedEx. Yeah. And lost on that. Oh, H&R Block because of taxes. They employ contractor accountants. That's a good answer. That is a good one.

And a tough one to go out on, too. Yeah. Oh, well. So this game show started. it as a radio show and then transitioned to TV, it featured a segment where if a contestant said the secret word, a toy duck would descend from the ceiling, bringing them a $100 bill. Calm. Chris, Chris?

It's You Bet Your Life. Yes. Hosted by Groucho Marx. So I watched a whole episode of it. It was hilarious. I had no idea. It was so funny. So I'll give you guys the $1,000 question from the episode I watched.

It's not very hard. I'm like, man, people in the 50s. Anyway, they got it wrong, too. For $1,000, what was the name of the legendary city where King Arthur held his court? Wow. Yeah, that's kind of just surprised. Karen. Wait, is it, are you guys being sarcastic?

Is it, is it Camelot? Yeah. I would have feel like people in the 50s would know that better even. You think. I wonder what people get. Let us not cast this person on all people from the 1950s because, like, all person from the 1950s. It was two, a couple. Okay, but even so.

They did such an awesome job with the rest of the 50s. to the show. I was like, they're going to know this. And then they totally didn't. And I was like, maybe we've just been exposed to more TV and movies about Camelot. Maybe they just choked. It can be very, uh, it's very easy to sit on your couch and watch a game show and just be like, oh yeah, that's easy. I know all those questions. These people are dumb, but you know,

when you're on stage, harsh TV lights in your face and yeah. All right, fine. I won't be such a jerk. Good job, you guys. I had a lot of fun watching game shows. Old game show. Yeah. I'm surprised you didn't have a QI in Stephen Frye on your quiz.

I thought about it. Famous British quiz show. I was like, only Karen's going to know the answer. Oh, it's fantastic. I don't know that. Never heard of it. July, hosted by the steamed Stephen Fry. I know Stephen Fry.

Just very perfect kind of mix of facts and fun. All right, let's take a quick break. A word from our sponsor. Why just survive back to school when you can thrive by creating a space that does it all for you, no matter the size. Whether you're taking over your parents' space, or moving to campus.

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That's Inc. Productivity Tip of the Day wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. And this week, we're talking about trivia, about trivia. Well, I want to tell you guys one of my favorite stories that is about trivia and about the business of trivia. So let me start off with a question. Do you guys know what a copyright trap is? Have you ever heard this term before?

Do you know what a trap street is? This might give you a little bit more of a clue. Trap Street, even less of a clue. Sorry. So there is an old, old trick or technique used by mapmakers. trap streets got it the street does not exist and they and they put it on their map so that if somebody copies their map they know that they copied their map rather than actually made the map themselves 100% correct oh wow that's so clever and a copyright trap is some sort of

intentionally wrongly spelled word or something that you would not come up with on your own old old trick that mapmakers and even cartographers fake islands or fake rivers or things like this is not helpful if you're recently well so it's funny it's funny um the reason that you do it is Yeah, one to prevent copying. And the other reasoning behind it is that you can't copyright facts out in the world. Like, I can't copyright the location of streets. Yes. So if I want to copyright my map book, I've got to put something in it that makes it mine.

It helps your customers get lost. It is. It is deceptive. And, you know, you can do your own little reading on this. And there are a lot of people who are really against this practice. And some of the major mapmakers have eventually announced that they've stopped doing it. Rand McNally, for instance, they said, I mean, they admitted that they did this, you know. They did?

Oh, yeah, absolutely. It's not really a secret, you know, per se. They don't talk about it, but some of the big matmakers have agreed to stop doing this. So anyway, this is an example of something that you put in among otherwise real world data so to make it your own collection. And so that is an example of a copyright trap. I want to talk about an example of a copyright trap in the world of trivia. So let's go back to the 1970s, and this is pre-internet, pre-tribal pursuit world. I want to talk about a man named Fred Worth. And Fred Worth was a trivia lover, trivia collector, and he put out a lot of books that were essentially

compendia and encyclopedias of trivia. He wrote Super Trivia and The Trivia Encyclopedia, and many books with these kind of names. They were essentially just lists of facts organized alphabetically, and you know, kind of leave it in the bathroom or peruse it if you were trivia nut, whatever. And he was moderately successful publishing these books. So now let's flash forward to 1984 after, of course, the massively successful game, Trivial Pursuit, has come out. And we've talked about this on an earlier show about board games about the genesis of Trivial Pursuit. One of the things that we talked about on that episode was

the hard part of the game was really sourcing all the facts for the game. So Fred Worth got wind of the success that Trivial Pursuit was having and he got himself a copy and looking through the game he decided that they had in his mind stolen a lot of his material. By his

estimate he claimed that they stole up to a third of their material came from his encyclopedias and fact books and so he filed a lawsuit. He filed a lawsuit. He filed a lawsuit against the makers of true of pursuit. Now, how was he so sure that they had stolen his material? Well, the answer was he had inserted a copyright trap of a fake fact in one of his books for just this purpose, thinking that if anyone ever copied his material, he'd be able to trap them by, aha, you printed this, that I made up this fact. Well, sure enough, one of the facts in

trivial pursuit, uh, he claimed was copied. Now, he and his lawyer were being very cagey. They didn't want to say what the fact was. They didn't want to out his one faked fact and then basically admitting to everybody else, everything else in the book is true. You can copy it. Eventually, they were pressured to divulge what they claimed was the fact. So here was the question from

Trivial Pursuit. What's Columbo's first name? And of course, they're referring to the famous TV cop, played by Peter Falk, famously in the TV show Colombo. What's Colombo's first name? The answer that they gave is Philip. And this is the fact that Fredworth had made up. So Philip is not actually Colombo's first name on the show. He

invented it out of thin air just to trap people. His first name is detective. It was a running gag on the show. He would always say his first name is lieutenant. So anyway, the case, it was dismissed before it went to trial. And the judge essentially said, you know, it was clear that the creators were working in good faith. And they were able to show that they got their facts from a wide range of sources. The judge said, I think, fairly that, you know, part of research is is taking facts from published lists. And not only that, but what they were doing was presenting a game. They weren't just merely presenting a list of awesome facts,

you know, which he might have been a little bit more pre-disposed to let it go to trial. They did take the question out of the game. So if you buy it, as Trivial Pursuit, said it no longer asked what Columbo's first name was. That's a collector's edition. Yeah, I wonder if that card is now worth a lot of money. To eBay, I'm sure you could find some. Whoa. So now here's the Colombo card.

So here's what's really interesting to me about how, So this fact sort of two things about it. One, it's demonstrably wrong. They have now found screen grabs of the episode, and you can see there are some scenes where Colombo holds up his badge and his ID card, and you can see it very clearly says Frank Colombo. Even though they never mention it in the show,

they never discuss it. As much as that's canon, his name is not Philip. But, of course, the Philip has made its way into other trivia collections. So it has gotten repeated now as a fact, and of course, you know, being in Trivial Pursuit, gave it some legitimacy.

And then just the one last little bit that I'll wrap up with about copyright traps is that the U.S. courts have generally held that those are not copyrightable, even if you do put something in your thing that you have made up, because it essentially hinders legitimate research and hinders legitimate use of facts. So the best case is that you can kind of shame someone to show, like, look, I know you copied from me by using this. So there you go. Another game show that gained popularity in the late 90s, early 2000s, was, of course,

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Primetime game show hosted by... That was a phenomenon. It was a British import, too. Yeah, so the allure was that you could become a millionaire on one show. A million dollars. Yes, it does, yes. And so it took a while before somebody became a millionaire, but eventually many people would complete the show,

answering the final, very difficult question to win the million dollars. And so what I have brought for you guys today is titled, You Wants to Be a Millionaire. And so I would just like to have you guys actually work together on these, and let's see how many million dollars you can make. Oh, these are all final. These are all million dollar questions. Yeah, from the U.S. version of the show.

If you need a lifeline, I don't know how I can do phone or friends. I can eliminate two wrong answers if you want, and you can also poll the audience. This was the first ever question that somebody won a million dollars on. It's kind of easy. Which of these U.S. presidents appeared on the television series Laugh-In? A. Lyndon Johnson, B. Jimmy Carter, C. Richard Nixon or D. Gerald Ford. This was Nixon. Final answer?

I have no idea. Lock it in. Lock it in? It is Richard Nixon. Yeah. You have one million dollars. Shocker to me. Which of the following land?

Locked Countries is entirely contained within another country. A. Lizotho, B, Mongolia, C, Burkina Faso, or D, Luxembourg. Finally answer, Lasotho. Wow. Locked in of South Africa. Without even, without even consulting your teammates. I agree. It is Lizotho.

Yeah. Two million dollars. I'm so rich. Who is credited with inventing the first mass-produced helicopter. A. Igor Sikorski. B. Ferdinand von Zeppelin. C. Elmer Sperry, or D. Gottlieb, Daimler. I mean, I know that Sikorsky is a helicopter manufacturer. So I think that's the, I know that Sikorsi makes helicopters. Do we get to keep playing it for wrong? I think that's right. Okay. You can, but you have the only three lifelines.

Dymler. Dymler is like Daimler, Chrysler. That's automotive. So I don't think it's stuff. Barry, I think, might be boat related. I looked at Lephalyter's. I don't think it was Zetflin. I'm pretty sure of Sikorsi. Lock it in. Lock it in? That's it, Sikorsky?

It is indeed, Igor Sikorski. Yeah. First mass-produced helicopter. Who did artist Grant Wood use as the model for the farmer in his classic painting American Gothic? Oh, it's a dentist. A, a traveling salesman. B, his dentist. C.

A local sheriff. or D, his butcher. Dentist, lock it in. It was his dentist. It is his dentist. I think studying for good job, brain, actually. Yeah, you've got $4 million. Moving on.

You still have all your lifelines. Yeah. In the children's book series, where is Paddington Bear originally from? A, India. I think it was from Timbuk, too. No, well, that's... You should let me read your four answers. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're getting way ahead of Chris here.

A, India. B, Canada, C, Peru, D, Iceland. I'm going to say Peru. Wait, wait, hold on. But if he's at the station, how can you come from a faraway country? Just transconnect to other countries. But not to Peru, not England to Peru. It could be a multi-stage journey.

India. I say Peru. I think it would be the most foreign and exotic, too. I think it'd be India. So if we eliminate trans-ers, do you think it's just going to be India and Peru? Let's do it. We haven't used our power-ups. simulating the show. Let's eliminate two incorrect answers.

You're going to eliminate two correct answers? The computer randomly. Yes, I will now randomly eliminate. How do I feel about you, Peter? I have eliminated two incorrect answers, and you are now left with B, Canada, and C, Peru. Peru. Final answer? Yes.

It's Peru. Good job, computer. All right, you have $5 million. The U.S. icon Uncle Sam was based on Samuel Wilson, who worked during the war of 1812, as a what? A, meat inspector, B, historian, C, mail deliverer, D, weapons mechanic. Meat inspector. I believe it as meat inspector, yeah. Dan Rice.

I'm talking about the clown Dan Rice. Right, right. From last week's episode. He does look like Uncle Sam, who was possibly the model for Uncle Sam. I looked it up for real. So I was like, was he actually the model? But they said the real one was a meatpacker. I've heard of disputed, yeah.

Final answer? You still have two lifelines left. Poll the audience and phone a friend. Let's do it. We're all in. We're all in on Meat Inspector. It's Meat Inspector. Yeah.

$6 million. All right. Which of the following men does not have a chemical element named after him? All right. A, Albert Einstein B, Isaac Newton C, Niels Bohr, D, Enrico Fermi I believe it's Bore

I think it's Bore. I think it's Newton. No, I think there's Newtonium. I think there's Newtonium. There's definitely Einsteinium. There's Berym. Are you thinking of Beryam? No, I think there's one near the end of it. Neos Bore is the one who came up with the actual

Adam model. They for sure named something after him. My first is, you can... If I were 100%, I would say I was 100%. That's the thing with Who Wants to be a Millionaire. It's like, oh, yeah, life line. But it's like, who would you call who would know this stuff? Like, it's not like they can look it up.

You know, actually, what they do is they encourage you to find a bunch of people in various disciplines, even if they're not really your friends. And then right when your taping starts, they actually call all of them and keep them on hold. And then as soon as you say who you're, oh, I'm going to call so-and-so. They're already on the phone with so-and-so, and they're just like, oh, we need you now. Yeah. We're calling. We're phoning a friend. All right.

And he is our physicist friend, James. Hi, I'm on who's familiar? I'm on a staged recreation of a James on cable. Oh. All right, I'll go with it. But I don't think it is right. But I'm going to. You can blame me.

You can blame me if you're wrong. It's okay. I'll take that. I'll take that hit. That's your final answer is Niels Bohr? it's Isaac Newton There is Boreum, there is firmium, and there is Einsteinium. Let's talk about Newtonium a little bit.

At one point, back in the day, scientists were proposing that the green color you see during a solar eclipse must be, because they couldn't identify that as being anything in nature, that must be a new element in the sun, and they called that either coronium or Newtonium. Unfortunately, it then proved that it was just really, really, really hot iron. So he had a fake, short-lived element. Yeah. So you drop back down to zero dollars, unfortunately.

Oh, my God. No. All right, but you can still win $1 million if he answered his final question. All right. Okay. What insect shorted out an early supercomputer and inspired the term computer bug? A, moth.

B, fly. C. Roach. D. Japanese beetle. That's so specific. I'm pretty sure this is a moth. I feel like I've heard this story many times. Moth.

Lock it in. Final answer. Final answer. It is a moth. Yeah. Great job. You've either got $1 million or $6 million, depending on how you want to score that. Yay.

Steve Cubine and Nan McNamara's podcast from Beneath the Hollywood Sign. Mary Astor has been keeping a diary. Mary writes. everything down. And so this torrid affair with George S. Kaufman is chronicled on a daily basis. In great detail. And Iif pulls out a box and gives McAllister a ring saying, here's something to remember me by. This article caused Daryl Zanick to hit the roof. Actress Ruth Roman followed that up with playing a foil to Betty Davis in Beyond the Force. I mean, if you can stand toe to toe with her, boy. And she does because she plays the daughter of the man.

that Betty Davis kills out in the hunting trip. And it's directed by King Vidor, so he's no slouch. How do you go wrong with that? Speaking of the Oscars, talking about what I call Beginners' luck, it's all about the actors and actresses who won an Oscar on their very first film.

Get your fix of old Hollywood from Stephen Nann on the podcast from Beneath the Hollywood Sign. I feel like so much fun of trivia is definitely from answering questions, but I want to focus on the art of asking questions. And throughout history, in many cultures and a lot of literary works, there is a common archetype of the riddler, the questioner, someone with some sort of power who poses

tricky riddles and questions as a challenge or as a wager. So I'm going to talk about some of the famous riddlers in history and in mythology and in stories. I hope one of them is the Riddler. The Riddler. So, of course, when we think of the old, old, iconic riddler creature, we probably would think of the Sphinx. The Sphinx. Yep. Sphinx comes from a Greek mythology.

Sphinx, related to Svinkter, actually means to squeeze. To tighten up. I did not know that. I thought it might mean, like, gatekeeper. The Sphinx creature, which is like part bird, part lion. The sphinx will kill their prey by strangling them, so to squeeze them. Sphinx. Sphinx and Sphinxer. We got our contractually obligated butt comment in for this episode.

Yay! So the great famous Greek sphinx in mythology guards the entrance to Thebes. Of course, we know the age-old sphinx riddle from Oedipus is, which creature walks on four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon, and three legs in the evening? And the answer is... Man. Turns out it's man.

P.S. That's man. But when we think of Sphinx, I don't know. I personally picture the Egyptian Sphinx, right? Like of the animal guarding the pyramids. And technically, there are two different creatures. In Greek mythology, the Sphinx is a girl and is actually evil, right? You know, posing these riddles and killing people. And in ancient Egyptian beliefs, the Sphinx is male.

It is actually a benevolent creature acting as a guardian. And in our robot episode, Colin, you noted that female robots are known as Gainoid. The Egyptian sphinx is technically an andro sphinx. So, sphinx itself is feminine. Andro sphinx. Wow. It is boy sphinx. And we also see the Riddler archetype, even in opera, Turandot, the Puccini opera, famous song sung by Poverati and also Paul Potts, the Britain's got talent winner.

Nessendorma comes from the opera Turendo, which is a story about a prince courting, a princess, and the princess has three riddles, and if suitors have to answer all the riddles, and if they answer wrong, then they get executed. And if they answer right, then, you know, then they win her love. And her riddles, I mean, keep in mind, this is opera, and it's a little bit more poetic. I don't think they're very good riddles, but I'm sure very beautiful in context. Yeah, exactly, in Italian. So one of the riddles is, what Flickers read? and warm like a flame, but is not fire. My heart.

Blood. Yeah, it is blood. What? I was thinking of, like, a lobster. Like, I was thinking of, like, a red animal. And Louis Carroll, of course, has the Mad Hatter. One of the most famous riddles in Alice in Wonderland. Why is the Raven like a writing desk?

Right, right. Well, the answer is there's no answer, right? I mean, it's both. But originally, there's no answer. People have tried to back-solve it, right? Well, he eventually wrote a solution. Oh, he did. He got so tired of people writing into him and missing his point that it was a riddle that had no answer.

Right. And just part of the absurdity of the world that he did eventually write one that was very tongue-in-cheek. He wrote a prologue to one of the later editions, and he provided an answer. And his answer was, well, why is the Raven like a writing desk? Because it can produce a few notes, though they are very... flat. Yes. Yes. Yes. And it is never put with the wrong end in front. And so people are like, okay, well, that makes sense for a desk. You want the right end to be in the right end. Yeah. What about

the Raven? Never was spelled Nevar, N-E-V-A-R, which is backwards of Raven. Yeah. And of course, I cannot talk about the Riddler without talking about the Riddler from Batman. Mr. Edward Nigma. Riddler of Riddler. So bad. Yeah. Nickma

so bad I like it I didn't even as a kid I was like really really the man who's been setting all the fires

I believe his name I looked it up in the phone book and it's our son Robert son he's in a comic book right Edward Nigma or the Riddler

in Batman he had different incarnations we're probably most familiar with the Riddler from the old Batman show or Jim Carrey

which were both very cheesy and very campy. So I have a couple of riddles from the old school 1960s Batman series asked by the riddler himself.

By Eddie. Here we go. What weighs six ounces sits in a tree and is very dangerous? A hawk. Six ounces sits in it. I don't know. I get up.

A sparrow with a machine gun. That's fun. What has yellow? skin and rites. This is one of the classic ones that just... A banana pen. A ballpoint banana. Oh, yeah. Yep, yep, yep. So there is, of course, a list of all the old 1960s riddler-ridlers. There is one that has been unanswered.

Oh. Unanswered in the script, unanswered in the show. I did some research. Didn't see a lot of good... Suggestive answers. Suggestive answers. Here it is. When is a jet stream like a daffodil? I don't have an answer.

I know. Like, my temptation is... I give up, Karen. I think we should offer some swag to the best suggestion that someone sends in. There we go. When is it jet stream like a daffodil? So, listeners, if you have a good answer suggestion, you can email us at jb. com and we'll pick a good one.

Kara of E. Nigma. All right, there you go. Lots of trivia about trivia. And we have our last quiz segment, Colin. It's called Initial Here. And this will be a little bit of an experiment. So this is about famous people where initials are part of their name, and you may not know their initials.

So, for example, Karen, a couple weeks ago, you talked about J.R.R. Tolkien, which stands for this quiz, if I were to say something like, my name is John Ronald Royal, and I wrote about a fantasy world, you would say J.R.R. Tolkien. My name is James Cash, and I love a good shopping deal. Karen A J.C. Penny. Correct. James C. C. Penny. That's right. All right. I think you guys get it here. I get it.

My name is Phineas Taylor, and I love to put on a spectacle. I believe that was Chris. It's P.T. Barnum. P.T. Barnum. Oh, Phineas. Phineas. My name is Jerome David, and I created an iconic literary teenage character. Karen.

J.D. Salinger. Correct. J.D. Salinger. My name is Jeffrey Jacob, and I am a huge fan of lens flare. Karen again. J.J. Abrams. I'm sorry, what's his name again? Jeffrey Jacob Abrams. My name is Leon Leone, Leon Wood,

and I built an industry around my famous waterproof boots. Oh, Dana. L.L. Bean? Yes. My name is Susan Eloise, And though I haven't written many books, my first two were both made into movies directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Dana again.

Is it S.E. Hinton? It is S.E. Hinton. What were the movies? The Outsiders and Rumblefish launched many, many young actors' careers. Yeah. My name is Orenthal James. And I made my fame in three separate areas.

Chris. That's O.J. Simpson. That is O.J. Simpson. The areas, of course, being football acting and legal complications my name is joanne and i actually don't have a real middle name i chose a fake one at the suggestion of my publisher oh uh dana j k rowling it is joan she chose the middle name i know this she chose the middle name kathleen uh in honor of her grandmother to snaz it up to affect the jr roling so it's funny actually so yeah for both for both j k rolling and

Essie Hinton, their publishers encouraged them as female authors to take initials so that it could be ambiguous whether they were male or not, which is a little unfortunate. But, all right, we're going to close out with a couple tricky ones here where I'm just going to give you one name. So these are people with one first initial. My first name is Lyman, and I created one of the world's most beloved fantasy worlds. Dana. El Frank Baum?

Yes. Oh, L. Lyman Frank Baum, creator of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and all the other... Lyman. L-Y-M-A-N. All right, last one. My first name is Lafayette. And though I got my start as a writer, my lasting legacy is from my other, perhaps more spiritual endeavors. Oh.

Chris. L. Ron Hubbard. Yes, Lafayette, Ronald Hubbard. Lafayette. Yeah, that's a great name. That is quite fan. Sounds like a fancy cookie. And again, it's funny.

A lot of these people change their names for their writing careers. All right, well, good job, guys. You blew that one of my favorite little initial bits of trivia. Do you guys know what the S in Harry S. Truman stands for? Nothing. Chris. Nothing. It stands for S.

It does not actually stand for anything. It is Harry S. Truman. And sometimes you will see it with a period after the S. Sometimes you'll see it without a period after the S. But it was a family practice. They named him S. Oh, not that they forgot to fill it in. No, no, they didn't fill it out.

Yeah, it wasn't they forgot to fill out the birth form or anything. All right. Good job, guys. Woo! And that's our show. Thank you guys for joining me and thank you guys, listeners, for listening in. Hope you learn a lot of trivia about trivia. You can find us on iTunes, on Stitcher, on SoundCloud, and also on our website, which is goodjobbrain.com.

And check out our sponsor at bonobos.com. And we'll see you guys next week. Bye. Have you ever wondered how inbred the Habsburgs really were, what women in the past used for birth control, or what Queen Victoria's nine children got up to. On the History Tea Time podcast, I profile remarkable queens and and LGBTQ plus royals, explore royal family trees, and delve into women's medical history and other fascinating topics. Join me every Tuesday for History Tea Time, wherever fine podcasts

are enjoyed.