Celebrity Spoonerisms Trivia Quiz

Answer: Dean Martin

Dean Martin, famous for either performing drunk or seeming to perform drunk, actually took the quote a step further and said, "I would rather have a free bottle in front of me than a pre-frontal lobotomy."

The original line has a long and mysterious history. In addition to author and bon vivant Dorothy Parker, radio personality Fred Allen, and movie star W.C. Fields, the quote has been attributed to comedian Groucho Marx, musician Tom Waits, and television comic Steve Allen.

Answer: Archie Campbell

Roy Clark was usually the recipient of these stories, forced to stuck in the barber chair and listened to the story while Archie Campbell pretended to cut his hair. Archie Campbell released records of his fairy tales years before performing his act before a wider national television audience on "Hee Haw".

Answer: Jack Ross

Simply called "Cinderella", it reached number 16 on the Billboard Hot 100 in March 1962. Bandleader and comedian Jack Ross, considered an "Alan Sherman type", recounted the story over some well-orchestrated beatnik horns and drums. On the B-side was "Margarita". Of course, the flipper sit (slipper fit) and they lived happily ever after.

Country comedian Archie Campbell "borrowed" Ross's schtick and performed it on "Hee-Haw" and on stage, but failed to credit Ross.

Answer: Bill Cullen

After the goof, announcer Jack Clark laughed and then introduced the show as Playword himelf, and then host Allen Ludden jokingly gave Cullen a hard time about it. Allen Ludden hosted "Password" for nearly a decade in the 1960s-70s and met his wife, Betty White, on the set. Bill Cullen temporarily replaced Ludden on successor show "Password Plus".

Unfortunately, Ludden eventually left the show permanently, replaced by Tom Kennedy, and subsequently succumbed to cancer.

Answer: Wayne Brady

Born in Columbus, Georgia, Wayne Alphonso Brady is an all-around singer-actor-comedian. He actually began on the original British version of "Whose Line Is It Anyway?", hosted by Clive Anderson, when its last season (1998) was filmed in Hollywood. He then became a regular on the American version (1998-2007).

He also hosted his own talk show for a while, and became the host for the new "Let's Make Deal" which was revived in 2009 on CBS. In 2011, he co-hosted the 42nd NAACP Image Awards, which are given by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People for excellence in television, cinema, music, and literature.

Answer: Harry von Zell

Legend has it that he introduced the President thus at his inauguration, but in fact it was during a tribute to Hoover's birthday. Harry von Zell read a long biography of Hoover, in which he spoke his name several times, and only at the very end did he trip over his tongue and call the man, "Hoobert Heever". He felt bad about it at the time. It wasn't a dealbreaker, however, as he proceeded to have a long career in announcing for and acting in radio, film, and TV.

By the way, Professor Douglas Hofstadter would claim that this is properly termed a "kniferism" -- not a spoonerism, since von Zell reversed entire syllables rather than initial sounds.

Source: Snopes and Mental Floss

Answer: Jack Benny

Once, when Rochester the valet flubbed a line, Benny remarked, "Just one rehearsal a week, that's all I ask!" After the "Drear Pooson" introduction, the writers altered the script of actor Frank Nelson, famous for giving the line, "Yeeeeeeessssss". When Jack Benny asked, "Are you the doorman?" Frank Nelson replied, "Well, who do you think I am in this uniform, Dreeeeeaaaarrrr Pooooossson?" Benny broke character and convulsed with laughter for several minutes.

"The Jack Benny Program" was on radio under various names from 1932 to 1955. It was on televsion from 1950 to 1965, so there was a five-year period in which it was on both media! The television version was essentially the same as the radio version, with the same characters and the same approach to comedy.

Source: "On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio" by John Dunning (Oxford University Press, 1998).

Answer: Monty Python's Flying Circus

Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969-74) pushed the envelope in television comedy with bits like "The Lumberjack Song" and "The Dead Parrot Sketch". When broadcast across the pond, the U.S. public television stations who normally aired British fare would preface the show with a viewer advisory, even into the 1990s! The irreverent program featured surreal sketches with a troupe of British actors and writers (like Eric Idle and John Cleese) and the bizarre animated creations of Terry Gilliam. The opening titles played John Philip Sousa's "Liberty Bell March" (1893), but the iconic American bandleader never got any credit on the show!

An anagram, by the way, is the rearrangement of letters in a word or phrase to form another word or phrase, e.g. "schoolmaster" into "the classroom"

Answer: Norman Vincent

Norman Vincent Peale co-founded the American Foundation of Religion and Psychiatry (AFRP) and wrote the best-selling self-help book "The Power of Positive Thinking" (1952). The mental-health community, however, criticized the book, and AFRP co-founder Dr. Smiley Blanton distanced himself from it. Donald Meyer called him a con man in the "New Republic" and argued that Peale's emphasis on fleeing from negative thoughts would actually lead to aggression.

Peale, though Protestant, liked to compare his techniques with those of the Jesuits, although paradoxically in 1960 he called John F. Kennedy unfit for the Presidency for being Roman Catholic. Peale regarded Stevenson equally unfit as he was divorced -- which prompted Stevenson to make his famous remark in 1952.

Source: "The New Republic" (11 July 1955); "The Chicago Sun-Time" (28 September 1986); Wikipedia.

Answer: George W. Bush

When Bush misspoke, the newshounds made the most of it and coined the word "Bushism" to cover all the kinds of rhetorical gaffes the 43rd President made, not just spoonerisms. For example, in 2000 in Arkansas, he said, "They misunderestimated me" instead of "underestimated". In 2007 he uttered, "Too many good docs are getting out of the business. Too many OB/GYN's aren't able to practice their love with women all across the country." The term Bushism became part of popular folklore, and authors like Jacob Weisberg published books on the subject.

Source: "Bushisms: Adventures in George W. Bushspeak - 2000", About.com