Not So Fast! Trivia Quiz

Answer: The wife of Zebedee and mother of James and John.

Also called Mary Salome, she asks Christ (in Matt. 20:20) to have her sons sit in glory at his right and left hand in his kingdom. According to the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, she was present at the Crucifixion (Matthew's gospel refers to her as "the mother of Zebedee's children"); Mark also lists her among the women who come to the tomb on Easter morning and find the body of Christ gone.

She is venerated as a saint in the Catholic church; her feast day is October 22. The gospels also mention the daughter of Herodias, who dances for the head of John the Baptist, but she is not referred to by name in the Scriptures. According to the historian Josephus, her name was, indeed, Salome, which was a common name among the Herod family. "Salome", by the way, is the feminine version of the name "Solomon".

Answer: Neither of these

The toothless old hag in "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" who proffers a poisoned apple to the heroine is actually the wicked queen, who (as in the Grimm story) has altered her appearance to resemble an elderly peddlar woman (not a witch). Thus disguised, she convinces Snow White to take the poisoned apple. Though it could be argued that, since the evil queen practices the black arts, she is in fact a witch, she is not an old witch (at least not to someone who, like me, is on the wrong side of forty).

"Sleeping Beauty" features an evil fairy named Malificent, who is certainly wicked, but is neither old nor a witch. In fact, despite a rather sallow complexion and a pair of horns, she is younger, thinner, taller, and more attractive than the three good fairies (Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather). No one that I know of has commented thus far on this subliminal glamorization of evil in a Disney film.

Answer: Neither of these

In the Brothers Grimm version of "Cinderella" ("Aschenputtle"), the stepsisters are described as "beautiful and fair of face, but vile and black of heart". Perrault's "Cinderella" ("Cendrillon") describes the wicked stepmother as "proud and haughty" and her two daughters by her first husband as "exactly like her in all things". Perrault's stepmother mistreats Cinderella, not so much because of her beauty; rather she cannot bear the girl's good qualities because "they made her own daughters appear the more odious". Perrault does state that Cinderella "...notwithstanding her coarse apparel, was a hundred times more beautiful than her sisters, although they always dressed very richly", but he does not describe them as ugly; rather "...they cut a very grand figure among those of quality."

Dramatized versions of "Cinderella" have depicted the stepsisters as unattractive and ungainly; notably Prokofiev's ballet version (in which the stepsisters are traditionally played by two male dancers in drag) and of course the Disney version. In Perrault's "Beauty and the Beast", the heroine has three sisters (not stepsisters) who are good looking (though not as beautiful as the heroine) but vain and jealous.

Answer: Queen Mary

Princess Mary Adelaide of Great Britain (1833-1897) was the wife of Prince Franz, Duke of Teck, and the mother of Princess Mary (May) of Teck, later Queen Mary, consort of King George V. Mary Adelaide was a gregarious, good-hearted, plump woman (she was also known by the less complimentary nickname "Fat Mary") who was constantly in debt due to her personal extravagance (she loved to dress well and to entertain) and her generosity. Queen Victoria was quite fond of her company and often helped bail her out of debt.

It was Victoria who chose Mary's daughter, Princess Mary of Teck as a match for her grandson Prince Albert Victor (known as "Eddy"), Duke of Clarence and Avondale. "Eddy" was second in line to the British throne (his father was Edward, the Prince of Wales, later Edward VII); by marrying him, Mary would eventually become Queen. Eddy and Mary did become engaged; however, he died of a fever in 1892, predeceasing both his father and grandmother. May was then engaged to his brother George, who ascended the throne in 1910 as George V, with Mary as his queen.

Mary Adelaide, sadly, did not live to see her daughter become queen, having died in 1897 (100 years before the tragic death of Princess Diana!). Mary Adelaide's simple, friendly, and unpretentious nature earned her the title of "The People's Princess", a nickname later bestowed upon the tremendously popular Princess Diana.

Answer: Neither of these

The romantic notion that the Great Wall is visible from the moon (there is, or was, a Trivial Pursuit question which alleged this) is widely believed, but has been debunked by numerous people who have seen Earth from the moon. Despite its enormous length (about 4160 miles), the Great Wall is only about 6 meters wide and would be much too thin to be visible from as far away as the moon. And while it is certainly visible from space (photos of it taken from space exist), it is by no means the only man-made object visible from space. Large bridges, cities, and even certain buildings can be seen (and have been photographed) from space.

In fairness, I should mention that Apollo 17 astronaut Gene Cernan told a Singapore newspaper that he had seen the Great Wall from the moon (he also alleged that tiny Singapore itself could be seen), but numerous other astronauts, including Alan Bean, Jim Lovell, Neal Armstrong, William Pogue and Chinese astronaut Yang Liwei have stated that it is actually difficult to make out the continents themselves from the moon, let alone the Great Wall (William Pogue, in fact, stated that it was visible from Skylab only with binoculars), and NASA's website has officially debunked the theory. Check out http://geography.about.com/library/weekly/aa090100.a.htm for more info.

Answer: Sir Walter Scott

The Latin prayer known as the "Ave Maria" is comprised of the words of the angel Gabriel at the Annunciation ("Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women." Luke 1:28), the greeting of Mary's cousin Elizabeth ("Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb", Luke 1:42) and a closing petition ("Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen"). This last section, according to the catechism of the council of Trent, was framed by the Church itself.

There have been innumerable musical setting of this text; however, Franz Schubert's "Ave Maria" (as originally composed, for voice and piano) is not one of them. Schubert's "Ave Maria" is the last of a group of three setting of texts from Sir Walter Scott's "Lady of the Lake" (translated into German by d'Adam Storck). In Scott's epic poem, the "Hymn to the Virgin" appears as stanza XXIX in Canto III when the heroine, Ellen Douglas, and her father are forced to take refuge in a cave in the wilderness. Ellen asks the Virgin to hear her maiden plea and declares her faith in Mary's protective powers. Though each verse begins and ends with the word's "Ave Maria", the rest of the text bears no relation to the Latin prayer. Many performances of Schubert's "Ave Maria" eschew the original text and use the Latin, with some difficulty, since the words don't really fit the music.

Answer: Bell Pepper

The potato (Solanum Tuberosum) is a member of the nightshade family (Solanaceae), whose members include tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants, as well as some harmful or toxic plants such as tobacco, nicotiana, and deadly nightshade. At one time, all plants of this family were believed to be poisonous (potatoes which have turned green due to exposure to light are, in fact, toxic).

Sweet potatoes (Ipomoea Batatas) are actually members of the Morning glory family (Convolvulaceae) and are not directly related to potatoes. Peanuts (Arachnis Hypogaea) are actually not nuts at all, but legumes; they belong to the Phaseolus family, which includes beans, lentils, and peas. Turnips (Brassica Rapa) belong to the Brassica, or Mustard family of vegetables (also known as Cruciferae) which includes mustard greens, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kohlrabi, and Brussel sprouts.

Answer: Jules Bledsoe

Although composer Jerome Kern and librettist/lyricist Oscar Hammerstein wanted Paul Robeson for the role of Joe, he was unavailable when the show premiered; the role was thus created by baritone Jules Bledsoe. Robeson did finally play Joe in the 1935 revival and in the first film version; he also featured "Ol' Man River" in many of his concerts and the song is inextricably associated with him.

Jules Bledsoe was born Julius Lorenzo Cobb Bledsoe in Waco, Texas in 1897. He graduated from Central Texas Academy in 1914 (he was class valedictorian) and began a career in medicine. In his spare time, he took voice lessons and eventually abandoned medicine for a singing career which spanned opera, popular music, Broadway, and vaudeville. He was also a composer of some note; among his works is an operatic version of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" entitled "Bondage". Bledsoe's multi-faceted life and career came to an untimely end with his death in 1943 at the age of 47.

William Warfield, another versatile artist whose career spanned classical and popular repertory, starred as Joe in the 1951 film version of "Show Boat" (also starring Kathryn Grayson, Ava Gardner, Howard Keel, and Joe E. Brown); he subsequently recreated the role in a Lincoln Center revival of "Show Boat" in the 1960s. Warfield, who was at one time married to opera diva Leontyne Price, died in 2002 at age 82.

Baritone Todd Duncan, the first African-American singer to sing with the New York city Opera, created the role of Porgy in George Gershwin's opera "Porgy and Bess". Duncan died in 1998 at age 95.

Answer: Gypsy

"Mama Rose" in the Laurents-Styne-Sondheim musical "Gypsy" is based on Rose Hovick, a domineering stage mother whose two daughters achieved stardom as actress June Havoc and stripper Gypsy Rose Lee. Arthur Laurents, who wrote the book to the musical, was not enthusiastic about doing a musical about Gypsy Rose Lee, but was greatly intrigued by a story he heard about her mother, who once threw a hotel manager out of the hotel window during an argument, killing him (she skipped town to avoid prosecution). Laurents also learned from a girl who had been in Rose's troup that Rose had been a lesbian who "initiated" some of the girls in her charge. Later in life, Rose opened a lesbian farm in Highland Hills. According to Gypsy Rose Lee's son Erik Preminger, Rose shot one of the women (who was her lover) during a party at the farmhouse because the woman had made a pass at Gypsy. According to Preminger there were at least three witnesses to this crime, which was later dismissed as an accidental shooting. None of this made its way into the musical, of course, but Laurents decided that Rose would make a far more interesting protagonist than her daughter.

The characters of Roxie Hart and Velma Kelly in the musical "Chicago" are based respectively on Beulah Mae Annan and Belva Gartner, two female murderesses from the 1920s. Each, however, killed only one person; Annan killed a lover who was about to end their relationship and Gartner shot a male acquaintance during a bout of drunkeness (she later claimed to have no memory of the incident).

Mrs Lovett in "Sweeney Todd" had a real-life counterpart of the same name. The real Mrs. Lovett did, indeed, knowingly turn the victims of the "demon barber" Todd into meat pies, but she took no active part in the actual murders. An elegant and refined woman (unlike the Cockney slattern so memorably played by Angela Lansbury), her arrest as an accessory to murder shocked her clients, who nearly lynched her when the truth was revealed. Condemned to death as an accomplice, she escaped execution by taking poison in her prison cell.

As for "Sunset Boulevard", while the advent of "talkies" left a number of unemployed and, no doubt, embittered actors and actresses in its wake, the character of the unbalanced and ultimately homicidal Norma Desmond, in both the Wilder film and the musical based on it, doesn't appear to have had any real-life counterpart.

Answer: Neither is correct

If you are a reader of Agatha Christie, and particularly of "The Tuesday Club Murders" (a.k.a "The Thirteen Problems"), you may remember this one. The case of a missing will reminds Miss Marple of naughty little Tommy Symonds, who asked his Sunday school teacher "Teacher, do we say yolk of eggs is white or yolk of eggs are white?" When the teacher replies that one should say yolk of eggs is white and yolks of eggs are white, Tommy replies "Well, I should say that yolk of eggs is yellow!"