Ken Jennings

Ken Jennings's Trivia Almanac

From the May 17 page

[Image of Trivia Almanac book cover]

1991 Brian Bosworth is . . . Stone Cold! Sadly he will lose out to Vanilla Ice in the year's unusually competitive Razzie race for Worst New Star.

HAM-DUNK
What athlete tries his hand at acting in these movies?

Easy

  1. Airplane!
  2. The Scorpion King
  3. There's Something about Mary
  4. The Naked Gun
  5. The Dirty Dozen

Harder

  1. Action Jackson
  2. Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels
  3. Blazing Saddles
  4. Steel
  5. Dumb and Dumber

Yeah, Good Luck

  1. Amazing Grace and Chuck
  2. Black Caesar
  3. Mitchell
  4. Old Yeller
  5. Harvard Man

1997 The identical Hansen quadruplets make history when they all graduate from Baylor on the same day.

FOUR BETTER OR WORSE
Give the missing last member in these famous quartets.

Easy

  1. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and . . .
  2. Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Girl, Human Torch, and . . .
  3. Strings, woodwinds, brass, and . . .
  4. Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo, and . . .
  5. Earth, air, fire, and . . .

Harder

  1. Agnetha, Björn, Benny, and . . .
  2. Solid, liquid, gas, and . . .
  3. Reading, Short Line, B&O, and . . .
  4. Carats, clarity, color, and . . .
  5. Swords, wands, coins, and . . .

Yeah, Good Luck

  1. Of speech, of worship, from want, and . . .
  2. Pison, Gihon, Hiddekel, and . . .
  3. Adenine, thymine, guanine, and . . .
  4. "Burnt Norton," "East Coker," "The Dry Salvages," and . . .
  5. Joe Greene, L. C. Greenwood, Ernie Holmes, and . . .

2005 Fleet Street, whose name was once synonymous with the British press, loses its last news office, as Reuters begins its relocation to new offices in Canary Wharf.

STREET SMARTS

  1. What famous street follows the line of a 12-foot stockade begun in 1653 by Peter Stuyvesant?
  2. What thoroughfare was the site of Hollywood scandals like River Phoenix's death and Hugh Grant's arrest?
  3. The city of Liverpool recently stalled plans to rename streets historically linked to the slave trade when it realized that what famous street was on the list?
  4. What road, which names a 2002 film, divides Wayne County from affluent Oakland and Maycomb Counties?
  5. New York's Tribeca neighborhood is so named because it's the triangle south of what major street?
  6. Spartacus and his fellow slaves were crucified alongside what Roman highway, the "queen of the long roads"?
  7. What London street is home to a famous theater and, in a children's song, to "the Muffin Man"?
  8. What is the official name of New York's Sixth Avenue, though it's only used by clueless out-of-towners?
  9. What runs between the Stratosphere in the north to McCarran Airport in the south?
  10. What American street is best known for its eight switchbacks between Hyde and Leavenworth?

ANSWERS

HAM-DUNK

Easy

  1. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
  2. The Rock
  3. Brett Favre
  4. O. J. Simpson
  5. Jim Brown

Harder

  1. Carl Weathers
  2. Vinnie Jones
  3. Alex Karras
  4. Shaquille O'Neal
  5. Cam Neely

Yeah, Good Luck

  1. Alex English
  2. Fred Williamson
  3. Merlin Olsen
  4. Chuck Connors
  5. Ray Allen

FOUR BETTER OR WORSE

Easy

  1. John
  2. The Thing
  3. Percussion
  4. Raphael
  5. Water

Harder

  1. Anni-Frid (ABBA)
  2. Plasma
  3. Pennsylvania (Monopoly railroads)
  4. Cut
  5. Cups (tarot suits)

Yeah, Good Luck

  1. From fear (FDR's Four Freedoms)
  2. Euphrates (Garden of Eden rivers)
  3. Cytosine (DNA bases)
  4. "Little Gidding" (T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets)
  5. Dwight White (the "Steel Curtain")

STREET SMARTS

  1. Wall Street
  2. Sunset Strip
  3. Penny Lane
  4. 8 Mile Road
  5. Canal Street ("Triangle Below Canal")
  6. The Appian Way
  7. Drury Lane
  8. Avenue of the Americas
  9. The Las Vegas Strip
  10. Lombard Street (in San Francisco)
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