I just finished reading Brainiac by Ken Jennings. Jennings gained fame and fortune when he won 75 consecutive games on Jeopardy over a four month period in 2004, and the book talks about his experiences on the show, but it's mostly a discussion of the history and culture of trivia. It's a great read, very highly recommended. Every chapter in the book is footnoted by a series of trivia questions to keep things interesting, and Jennings is a good storyteller as well as a smart guy. He says that trivia recall shouldn't be confused with intelligence, but in my experience, people with lots of general knowledge tend to also have lots of regular knowledge. As well as something to talk about with strangers on airplanes.
I've been fascinated with trivia for my entire life, and have always dreamed of appearing on Jeopardy or another quiz show. I still haven't been able to do that, but I once won a free trip to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland in a rock trivia contest, and was a lifeline for a friend on Who Wants to Be A Millionaire a couple of years later. I wasn't called, luckily, but "Banana 2000" from my last post may have been on 250 Records if I'd been consulted on his final question about the fisherman's favorite baseball player in Hemingway's The Old Man And The Sea. (it was Joe DiMaggio -- I thought everyone knew that!).
They don't have lifelines on Jeopardy, but I also would have been able to answer the "Daily Double" question that caused Ken Jennings to lose his 75th game "Most of this firm’s 70,000 seasonal white-collar employees work only four months a year.". (Answer: H&R Block). This probably doesn't make up for the hundreds of questions that would have stumped me in the 74 games that Jennings won before that.
When you ever find yourself in a rock trivia contest, study up on your bass players. There were questions in the VH1 contest about the original bass players for the Kinks (Pete Quaife) and Booker T. and the MG's (Donald "Duck" Dunn). Most trivia contestants got both of these questions wrong.
2 comments:
I'm impressed that you remember which questions our friend got asked on WWTBAM. Coincidentally, that very subject came up just the other day, for some reason, when I was with my mom and her husband. I mentioned that I knew some folks who'd won on that show. Wasn't there another question about "the sweet science" (boxing)?
The "sweet science" question was a few before. Joe used two lifelines (phone a friend and ask the audience) before he answered the question himself (correctly).
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