Dark Bilious Vapors

As my postings this morning show, I am alive and back to normal after being drugged out of what little mind I have in order that I could be poked and probed by one of my physicians in return for my contribution to his "Doctor needs a bigger boat" fund. So while I'm whiling away my life waiting for some feedback on my input to the latest project here, how about some trivia answers:

1) What is Termite Terrace?
The affectionate name given by the workers there to the Leon Schlesinger Studios. The Schlesinger studios was the predecessor to the Warner Brothers Studios Animation Unit, and is best known as the original home of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies. There such animation geniuses as Tex Avery, Bob Clampett, Chuck Jones and Friz Freling created such memorable characters as Porky Pig, Bugs Bunny, and Daffy Duck. (The answer of "the original building" given in the comments will receive full credit.)

2) Back in the days just after the Pearl Harbor attack, there was serious concern that Japanese forces might strike the U.S. West Coast. What did Jack Warner do to protect his studio from attack?
He had crews draw a white arrow on his roof pointing in the direction of Burbank, and had them write (in Japanese characters) the legend "Lockheed That-a way." Interestingly enough, the crew of at least one U.S. Navy destroyer serving picket duty in the Pacific later in the war used the same tactic; tired of being kamikaze bait, they posted an arrow and the legend "Carriers this way" on their deck. I'm told that the tactic didn't work, though.

3) What dubious achievement did New York Yankee pitcher/elbow surgery poster child Tommy John accomplish in 1988?
He committed three errors on one play: "In the fourth inning against the Brewers, John muffed a ground ball for one error and threw wildly past first base for a second. Then, inexplicably, he intercepted the throw home from right field and threw wildly past the catcher." The historic date: July 27, 1988.

4) In the popular cartoon "Speed Racer", who is the character "Racer X" and what is his relationship to the main character?
Racer X was Speed's older brother, Rex Racer.

5) Where is the only place you can find these films: "The Hot Hands of an Oslo Dentist," "Fillings of Passion," and "The Huge Molars of Horst Nordfink"?
In the subtitles to the opening credit roll of the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

6) Nokia executive Anssi Vanjoki received a traffic ticket which wound up resulting in a record fine, well over US$100,000. Why was Vanjoki's fine so huge?
In Norway, the amount of a traffic fine is calculated based on the amount of two weeks of the offender's salary.

7) In order to keep from offending readers, many newspapers feed their copy into "political correctness" programs which substitute more innocuous words for potentially offensive ones. As a result, on September 5, 1995 the Chicago area suburban paper "The Northwest Herald" renamed a B-29 which is (arguably) the most famous airplane of World War II. And what name did it receive?
The software in question rechristened the "Enola Gay" (named after the mother of pilot Paul Tibbets) the "Enola Homosexual".

8) It took them 362 pages of the first volume (of three) of their masterwork Principia Mathematica to do it, but English mathematicians Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead managed to prove it. What mathematical "truth" did they prove?
1 + 1 = 2

9) You might call Harmon Killebrew the Jerry West of major league baseball. Then again, you might prefer to call West the Harmon Killebrew of the NBA. Why?
Both the MLB and NBA logos feature the silouhette of a player; Killebrew and West are the models for the player in the MLB and NBA logos, respectively.

10) In August, 2003, Al Pacino achieved an interesting double feat on the Internet Movie Database website. What imdb.com two-fer did Al accomplish?
In August of 2003, The Godfather was ranked #1 (i.e., best) in the IMDB's listing of "Top 250 Movies" as based on IMDB user votes, while Gigli was ranked #1 (i.e., worst) in the IMDB's "Bottom 100". Al Pacino played roles in both movies. As of today (9/30/2004), however, while The Godfather remains the IMDB denizens' favorite of all time, Gigli has slipped from #1 to #22 on the "Bottom 100" list.

Len on 09.30.04 @ 10:35 AM CST