Thematic Unique Ideas Trivia

31. What word goes with Barnum?

From Quiz We Go Together Like Bacon and Eggs

Answer: Bailey

Barnum and Bailey Circus was an American organisation which began with the merging of two circuses. One was owned by P.T. Barnum and James Bailey, and the other was owned by the Ringling brothers. The new production became known as "The Greatest Show on Earth", and excellent marketing kept it to the fore of large public entertainment for years. It became a joint venture from 1907 when the Ringling brothers purchased Barnum and Bailey's circus, but the two ran separately until they combined as the one giant show in 1919. The last performance under the big top was in 1956, where the show moved from outdoors to indoors entertainment, which was all a bit sad, really. Since then, it's changed hands and formats many times.

From Quiz Sorry, Wrong Answer (part three)

Answer: English intrusion in colonial economy

The English did place a tax on tea and other items. The colonists then began to buy Dutch tea. When English tea began to pile up in warehouses, the English removed the tax from tea so it cost less than Dutch tea. The protest was really over policies that were analogous to the growth of the colonial economy.

From Quiz Sorry Wrong Answer (part two)

Answer: Phileas Fogg

The character's name is Phileas Fogg, a common mistake in referring to him as Phinias. The novel involves a bet made in a club that one can not travel around the world in eighty days. This was a successful film starring David Niven as Phileas Fogg in 1956 that nabbed five Oscars.

From Quiz Simon Says...

Answer: Lemmings

"Lemmings" is a 1991 video game where the player must lead a certain percentage of Lemmings safely through a number of obstacles to the exit. If they hit an immovable object, they turn around, but if they fall from a great height, or into water or lava, they die. There are different tasks, which can be assigned to some of the Lemmings such as blockers to divert Lemmings away from danger, diggers, bashers or miners who can burrow through rock, and builders who can create a stairway. Climbers will climb any vertical surface they encounter, while floaters can fall from a great height without killing themselves. "Lemmings" was created by DMA Design (now Rockstar North) and published in 1991 by Psygnosis. It has also been adapted for Playstation Portable, Playstation 2 and Playstation 3.

From Quiz Hair of the Dog

Answer: Thirteen

The cork has to be from the bottle you drank from, and putting thirteen black headed pins into it keeps the spirits that cause hangovers at bay. If you consumed more than one bottle, then thirteen pins for each cork are needed if those demons are to be properly discouraged.

From Quiz So What's the Problem?

Answer: Faulty accelerator pedals

The trouble began for Toyota when accelerator pedals began to stick on some models. The cars affected had been manufactured between March 2009 and January 2010. Millions of cars were involved, among them over 12 million in the USA and 75 million in China. A number of deaths were blamed on the fault.

From Quiz Cards on the Table

Answer: Princess Diana

Princess Diana was married to England's Prince Charles, and she died in a car crash in 1997. Prince William and Prince Harry are her sons. She was noted for doing a lot of charity work.

From Quiz It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time

Answer: John Candy

Prior to this, Candy had an uncredited part in the film "Class of 44" and a few roles in TV series. He died far too young in March 1994. Team Quiz Question Author: BillMcC

From Quiz This Is Not a Quiz

Answer: Major-General Stanley, from "The Pirates of Penzance."

The Major-General's song is described by "The Annotated Gilbert and Sullivan" as "one of the fastest and most famous of all the Gilbert and Sullivan patter songs." Major-General Stanley can also "...quote the fights historical/From Marathon to Waterloo in order categorical." My favorite of his skills is being able to tell us "every detail of Caractacus' uniform." Since Caractacus went into battle naked, this would be a short list.

From Quiz Invented By Mistake

Answer: Penicillin

Fleming was researching staphylococcus bacteria, but had disappeared on holiday for a month leaving his experiments out on a work bench. On his return he found that one of the cultures had been contaminated by mould that had destroyed the adjacent staphylococci. Fleming called this active substance Penicillin, and with the help of Florey and Chain it went on to become the world's first anti-biotic drug.

From Quiz And as the Lights Went Out...

Answer: The Nine Billion Names of God

Written in 1953, "The Nine Billion Names of God" is set in a Tibetan monastery. It is thought that Clarke was inspired by an old legend that says that Buddhist monks will play the 'Towers of Hanoi' puzzle game until the world ends as they finish. The story won a Hugo Award, retrospectively, in 2004.

From Quiz Son of Looney Tunes Title Puns and Gags

Answer: Jack Benny

"The Horn Blows at Midnight" was not quite the flop in 1945 that, for comedic purposes, Jack Benny made it out to be. It was, however, his last starring feature. Only the title is referenced in the 1950 cartoon, which stars the rooster Foghorn Leghorn. Leghorn was based on the Senator Claghorn character played by Kenny Delmar on Fred Allen's radio show; Allen and Benny had a long-running mock feud on both radio and in films that each milked for countless gags over the years.

From Quiz Looney Tunes Title Puns and Gags

Answer: Railroad transportation

A whistle stop was a small station at which trains stopped only when signaled to do so. By extension, it became associated with a form of political campaigning in which candidates traveling by rail stopped at small communities and gave speeches from the platform of the last car in the train. In the 1956 cartoon, rooster Foghorn Leghorn tries to put a stop to a weasel's efforts to steal chickens.

From Quiz Whatever Possessed Them to Call it That?

Answer: Hotmail

Hotmail was launched in 1996. It was the brainchild of Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith, and was one of the Internet's first well known webmail services. Just over a year after it was launched, it was bought by Microsoft for a reported $400 million. It is now known as Windows Live Hotmail. Essentially, Hotmail provides you the user to access your emails via the internet, as opposed to accessing them via a proprietorial email hosting system.

From Quiz I Should Coco

Answer: I should say so

"I should coco", alternative spellings co-co or cocoa, was Cockney rhyming slang for "I should say so", dating from the 1930s. [Source: "A Dictionary of Catch Phrases" by Eric Partridge.] In more modern parlance, the meaning has changed slightly, and it is now regarded as being a sarcastic comment.

From Quiz Rhyme and Reason

Answer: The first name of Wilma Flintstone's husband

The answer is FRED (Flintstone)- which rhymes with RED The incorrect answers are Freddy MERCURY, Everton play football in the city of LIVERPOOL, and Mr Leno's first name is JAY.

From Quiz Suits me to a T

Answer: Beam me up, Scotty

This was never said in a "Star Trek" episode or film but somehow became a cult saying (and a bumper sticker!) Similarly, Sherlock Holmes never said "Elementary, my dear Watson", Joe Friday never said "Just the facts, ma'am" and Humphrey Bogart as Rick never said "Play it again, Sam" in Casablanca.

From Quiz Some Naked Truths

Answer: Archimedes on discovering the principle of water displacement

Archimedes of Syracuse (c. 287 BC - c. 212 BC) was an expert in several fields including mathematics, physics, engineering and astronomy. The principle of the Archimedes Screw is still used today in water extraction. This headline refers to the incident when Archimedes was asked to evaluate whether or not the gold in a precious crown had been replaced with inferior metals. His problem was that he was not allowed to damage the crown. One day (so the story goes) as he lowered himself into a bath he noticed the level of water increased. He then realised that the volume of displacement could be used to find the density of an object. As different metals have different densities he theorised that he could use this method to find a solution to the problem. So excited was Archimedes by his discovery that he rushed to tell the king his news; in his haste he neglected to put on his robes and ran down the street naked crying "Eureka!" (Greek meaning - "I have found it"). Pythagoras (born between 580 and 572 BC, died between 500 and 490 BC) was a famous mathematician whose theory of the relationship between the sides of right-angled triangles has tormented generations of schoolchildren for centuries. Aristotle (384-322 BC) was a hugely influential philosopher. Homer (dates uncertain) probably needed a long hot bath after completing his epic works "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey".

From Quiz Beat The Crooks: Crime Prevention For All

Answer: They force doors or break windows.

These are all means of entry. Given the time and opportunity, a burglar can gain access to most houses. Some people, though, make it easy for the criminals. A staggering proportion of burglaries takes place via UNLOCKED doors or windows. Police officers estimate that a quarter of burglaries are via unlocked doors or windows.

From Quiz The Last Word

Answer: Champions

To me, the song ends a little abruptly! I always expect him to finish the phrase with "of the world", but it ends at the word "champions". The song was originally recorded for Queen's album "News of the World".

From Quiz The Last One on Earth

Answer: Southern Siberia

Tofa is now only spoken by a handful (approx. 25 people) of nomads in the Eastern Sayan Mountains, in Southern Siberia. The suffix 'sig' can be added to any word to mean 'smell like'. For example dog-sig means you smell like a dog! No other language is known to have this kind of suffix. In the 1950s the Soviet government forced the Tofa people to learn Russian and abandon their traditional ways. Another unusual language is the body counting system used by some tribes in Papua New Guinea. For example, in 'Kobon', one up to ten goes; little finger up to shoulder. To go higher involves counting up to the collarbone; back down the other side, back up and starting all over again. So 61 in 'Kobon' is "hand turn around second time go back biceps other side" It must be great fun being a doctor there - "Is you arm broken or are trying to say you are ten years old?" Hehe!

From Quiz Form Fours

Answer: The Four Freshmen

Brothers Don and Ross Barbour, along with their friends Marvin Pruitt and Hal Kratsch, formed a barbershop quartet called Hal's Harmonizers when they were students at the Arthur Jordan Conservatory of Music at Butler University in Indiana in 1948. Later that year, they switched from barbershop to jazz, and renamed themselves the Toppers. Pruitt left the group and was replaced by Ross and Don Barbour's cousin Bob Flanigan, and in September 1948, the four boys went on the road as The Four Freshmen. Their early work shows heavy influence by the Modernaires (Glenn Miller Band) and the Mel-Tones (Mel Torme's back-up group), but before long the group had found its own unique free improvisational jazz sound and went on to become a major musical force in the 1950s and 1960s, working with such jazz legends as Dizzy Gillespie and Woody Herman. Their big break came in 1950, when bandleader Stan Kenton arranged an audition for the Freshmen with Capitol Records. Their albums exposed the mainstream music lovers to their style, and they became hugely popular. Despite several changes in personnel (even jazz singers get old!) and a downtime in the mid-60s with the popularity of British pop bands like the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Dave Clark Five, etc., the Freshmen never lost their audience. In 2000 the group won Vocal Group of the Year in the Downbeat Magazine readers' poll. If you've never heard the Freshmen's rendition of the Ellington classic 'Mood Indigo', get hold of a copy and give your ears a treat!

From Quiz In My Day It Was Called...

Answer: Constantine the Great

Istanbul, formerly Constantinople, was known as Byzantium under Greek rule.

From Quiz The Door Is Still Opun

Answer: Lord of the Fries

William Golding's "Lord of the Flies" is an extraordinarily depressing look at evil incarnate in children.

From Quiz Schoolyard Taunts, Rhymes, and Songs 3

Answer: Their feet

"Trick or treat/smell my feet/give me something good to eat." At the beginning of the twentieth century, many American farm children would celebrate October 31st by knocking over their neighbors' outhouses. When confronted by angry parents or police, the children would insist that their feet be smelled, to prove that they hadn't been anywhere near a stinking outhouse. Of course, some wise kids would keep an extra pair of boots handy. Fed up with this autumn shenanigans, local churches and schools began handing out candy to kids so they wouldn't go out and cause trouble, and trick or treating was born.

From Quiz Opun Library - Still Ticking!

Answer: War and Peas

Count Leo Tolstoy is best known for his epic "War and Peace" set in the Napoleonic Wars.

From Quiz Apt Titles Perhaps

Answer: The Silence of the iambs

Since "blank verse" is usually iambic pentameter, completely blank verse has no iambs at all!

From Quiz Not Quite So Easy-Peasy

Answer: Mississippi

He was born in Columbus, Mississippi and his birth name was Thomas Lanier Williams. His deep southern accent earned him the "Tennessee" nickname from his university colleagues.

From Quiz General Knowledge - With a Twist

Answer: General Practitioner

Although they are medical doctors, GPs are not Board Certified.

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