I've Got the Entertainment Blues, Mama! Quiz

Answer: Bobby "Blue" Bland

Bobby Bland's birth name was Robert Brooks. Leroy Bland was his stepfather. Although never a huge crossover success in the pop charts, Bobby "Blue" Bland had 25 Top Ten singles on the US R&B charts between 1957 and 1974, including "Stormy Monday Blues" and "Turn on Your Love Light".

The stage name Bobby "Blue" Bland is catchy. Much better, I think, than plain Robert Bland would have been.

Answer: Toni Morrison

Perhaps best known for her novel "Beloved", Ms. Morrison won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993. "The Bluest Eye" was her first novel, published in 1970. The other three authors are also American Nobel Laureates in Literature, although perhaps not as familiar to many of us as, say, Hemingway and Faulkner.

Answer: Blue Velvet

David Lynch's great film "Blue Velvet" was controversial at the time of its release, but has since been hailed as an American classic. Bobby Vinton's recording of the song "Blue Velvet" was Number One on the Billboard Hot 100 for three weeks in 1963. It had previously been recorded by both The Clovers and Tony Bennett. Vinton's was the most popular rendition, however.

Answer: Blue Cheer

Blue Cheer was easily the loudest and heaviest band of the Sixties Bay Area counter-culture music scene. They were apparently named for a brand of LSD created by the acid chemist and entrepreneur, Owsley Stanley. Personally, I've always associated the name with laundry detergent.

Answer: Devil in a Blue Dress

Mosley's series chronicles race relations and African-American culture from the late 1940s through 1967 in the context of highly entertaining hardboiled detective novels. The hint was a reference to Mitch Ryder's 1966 hit single "Devil With a Blue Dress On/Good Golly Miss Molly".

Answer: The Thin Blue Line

Randall Adams was convicted of the 1976 murder of Robert W. Wood, a Dallas police officer. Morris' film builds a convincing case for his innocence and even identifies by name and screen appearance a very likely suspect for the murder. Adams was released from prison in 1989.

His case was re-examined as a direct result of this film. The term "thin blue line" refers to the police. Presumably, they are the "blue line" protecting the rest of us from the criminal elements of society.

Answer: My Blue Heaven

Gene Austin's version sold over 5,000,000 copies, a staggering number for 1928. Fats Domino's version was a much more modest hit. There was a film in 1950 with Betty Grable and one in 1990 with Steve Martin. Other cover versions were recorded by Frank Sinatra, Harry Connick, Jr. and even the Smashing Pumpkins. (The other choices are all Bob Dylan songs.)

Answer: Juliette Binoche

Since this is, I imagine, one of the more difficult questions in this quiz, I attempted to provide a hint with the date. Ms. Binoche is the only one of the three actresses active in films in 1993. Arletty, probably best known to American audiences for "Children of Paradise" (1945), died in 1992 at age 94. Brigitte Bardot stopped making films in 1973 to concentrate her efforts as a spokesperson for animal rights. Audrey Tautou's earliest screen appearance was in 1996, when she was 20 years old.

Answer: Blue Bloods

Use of the word "blue" in entertainment most often indicates sadness or blues music. In the titles of TV shows, however, it commonly indicates a police series.

Answer: Behind Blue Eyes

"Behind Blue Eyes" has been covered many times, perhaps most memorably by Limp Bizkit in 2003. This version had moderate success as a single in some markets. According to the Wikipedia, "Behind Blue Eyes" was the first choice for the theme of "CSI: NY", but the head of CBS overruled it in favor of "Baba O'Riley."