Retrospective: 250 quizzes

Answer: Divine

You name it--sexual perversion, cannibalism, rape, infantilism--are all there and more. John Waters shot it on a shoestring budget and it looks like it. Divine is at the center of the action working to retain her title as "Filthiest Person Alive" The film ends with Divine's demonstration of coprophagia.

"Cult Films" from 2007 was my first attempt at writing a quiz. It was rejected by the editor (for good reasons) five times.

Answer: Alan Ameche

Yvonne Molinaro was Alan Ameche's high school sweetheart in Kenosha, Wisconsin. He won the Heisman Trophy in 1954 playing for the University of Wisconsin. After his professional career, Ameche died in 1988. Eight years later she married Davis and was with him until his death in 2006.

Davis was part of West Point's Army famous football teams of the mid-1940s. Injuries kept him from having an extensive professional career. For a while he played the Hollywood playboy role as he dated Elizabeth Taylor and was briefly married to Terry Moore.

Although only 38% got it correct, I thought it was the most interesting piece of trivia about the Heisman Trophy winners posted in 11/2009.

Answer: Bourbon

In a Fleming's novels, Bond has a total of 317 drinks. Where the beverage is identified, 37 were straight bourbons, 10 bourbons with water, 7 bourbons and soda. Nineteen were vodka martinis. It isn't clear whether they were shaken or stirred.

I had purchased the book "Sorry, Wrong Answer" by Professor Rod L. Evans of Old Dominion University. I was able to derive four quizzes from it. Through research, Evans exposes as incorrect many of our commonly held beliefs. The four quizzes were early 2011.

Answer: Seven people were murdered

Julian and Gertrude Carlton were recommended to Wright by friends and were hired as butler and cook. Julian felt that many of the duties were not in the job description. Also, he felt isolated as they were the only two people of color in the area and Wright's mistress, Martha Mamah Borthwick, treated him with haughtiness. His paranoia increased to the point where he took an axe to bed.

On August 15, 1914, he took the axe and murdered Mamah and her two children who were visiting their mother. In the rage that followed he killed four more residents of Taliesin including a thirteen-year-old boy.

Carlton then began a fire that was extinguished with minimal damage, then found his way into the furnace room where he attempted suicide by poison but failed. Apprehended, he was taken to the Iowa County jail. While in captivity, he refused food and died in jail 47 days later of starvation, never going on trial.

I worked on and off for two years on "Incident at Taliesin". I had difficulty placing it in the right format and template. However, things fell into place and went online 10/2012. I feel this is the best quiz I have created.

Answer: Eugene V. Debs

The Espionage Act of 1917 contained a section which criminalized inciting any mutiny, desertion, or refusal of duty in the armed forces with punishment for up twenty years in prison. Debs, being one the most notable protesters, was arrested and sent to a federal prison. From prison he ran his 1920 presidential campaign under the Socialist banner. Although the Wilson administration refused to consider a pardon after the war ended, he was pardoned by Warren Harding. He died a few years later but was mentioned for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Over 300,000 men refused military draft during the war.

It was a pleasure to write this quiz on Debs--a person that I admire for what he did for the labor movement and the principles by which he led his life. It came online May 2010.

Answer: Sent a dwarf up to pinch hit

Eddie Gaedel, a little person, was recruited out of Chicago and signed a valid major league contract. Bob Cain, the pitcher, and Bob Swift, the catcher, were laughing so hard at the absurdity of the situation, they could hardy function. Eddie walked on four pitches and took a bow when he reached first. He was promptly replaced with a pinch runner.

Life was not easy afterward for Eddie Gaedel. He did not really take advantage of his 15 minutes of fame. He worked as a bartender and drank heavily and was in frequent bar fights in spite of being only 3'7" and weighing only 67 pounds. He was found beaten and dead in his room in 1961.

Bill Veeck once tried to purchase an entire Negro League team and integrate them into Philadelphia Phillies, but baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis, an ardent segregationist, got wind of the deal and maneuvered to cancel the arrangement.

Veeck also had an artificial leg related to his military service. He carved small pockets in the leg that he used to deposit his cigarette ashes. In 1947 he signed Larry Doby, the first black player in the American League.

Eddie Gaedel's story was told 2/2008.

Answer: Sugar

Replacing sugar beets for sugar cane was a slow process as sugar production was under expectations. Gasoline and tires were a relief to consumers but hard on tire re-capers. Auto production had to await conversion from war production to civilian purposes but were not rationed.

The background can be found in "US World War II Rationing" 2/2011.

Answer: Julius

Ambrose is the most well known Bierce but his uncle Julius was quite a flamboyant character himself. He did lead a ragtag army to invade Canada believing that with a show of support the Canadians would throw off the yoke of British domination and send them home as the United States had done decades before. It didn't quite work out that way and the British forces made them look foolish.

Julius Bierce was an abolitionist who supported John Brown's raids on slave holders. The library at the University of Akron is named for him.

Ambrose, of course, was a journalist, short story writer, and America's most renown cynic. His short story, "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" is part of many high school curriculums and his "Devil's Dictionary" is often quoted.

My mother was a Bierce and I am remotely descended. This quiz was posted 5/2015.

Answer: Doors in public buildings must swing outward, not inward

Because all the doors swung inward, in the panic of the fire, bodies of the fallen piled up in the doorways blocking exits. Bouncers, not realizing the danger of the fire, actually detained patrons as they thought they were leaving and not paying their bill. The number of customers was more than double the official capacity. The Coconut Grove fire was caused by a faulty light bulb that ignited flammable holiday decorations on the walls.

I ran across this while trolling the Internet and thought it might make an interesting quiz. It did. Online in March 2010.

Answer: Heartland

The film is based on the autobiographical writings of Elinore Randall Stewart, Ferrell's name in the film. Two issues face Torn with his mail order bride: she is not the beauty he expected; and two, she came with a ten year old daughter.

Through the bleak Wyoming landscape, they, over time, through numerous trials, develop both an accommodation and respect for each other that is love. Rotten Tomatoes gave it an 85%.

Not all my quizzes were big successes. The title "Pam and Don: Films You Might Have Missed" was not. The format may have been the problem as it was a dialog between Pam who sees movies as fun and entertainment and Don who over-analyzes films. The question in that format had a 43% correct rate. I personally thought the dialog was creative and for very personal reasons but FunTrivia fans let me know that it was not. Online since July 2014.