Dark Bilious Vapors

Twenty questions this time, because I can. Answers Sunday. When Sunday? Beats the hell out of me; whenever I get around to it. Maybe Monday if I get lucky Saturday night, but I doubt that I will, so don't lose sleep over it.

1) Who is the only musical performer to make the Billboard Top 20 charts as a solo act, as part of a duo, as part of a trio, as part of a quartet, AND as part of a quintet?

2) What was the first special effect in movie history?

3) Agatha Christie's The Murder of Roger Ackroyd has what is probably one of the most unusual trick endings in mystery literature--so twisted, in fact, that one reviewer initially called it a "dirty trick." So, whodunit? (Hint: who would be the least likely suspect?)

4) Burned by acid as a boy, he took up the violin as therapy for his injured arm. He might have had a promising career as a concert violinist (yes, he was really that good), but he met a pair of brothers and was sidetracked into vaudville, and ultimately short comedy subjects. Who is he?

5) Imagine--you've been lucky enough to be cast as the latest actor to play James Bond. The terms of your contract allows you to appear in other, "non-Bond" movies PROVIDED you don't do one thing. What is the one thing you can't do in other movies?

6) Tom Seaver, Van Morrison, Bob Newhart, Roger Waters, and Orson Welles. What do these men all have in common?

7) In 1985, Wilbur Snapp got himself ejected from a minor league baseball game in Clearwater, Florida. What did he do that got him ejected?

8) Kentucky Mountain Bible College didn't like their assigned telephone numbers. Can you figure out why?

9) I have a list here: 10 people who, even though dead, still managed to overcome that obstacle and earn buttloads of money in 2002; in fact, they were the highest earning corpses that year. How many of them can you name?

10) The Harlem Globetrotters started playing basketball games in 1927. It took them until 1968 to finally get around to doing something you'd have thought they did much earlier. What was that?

11) In 1942, wartime travel restrictions didn't cause the cancellation of the annual Army-Navy game at Annapolis that year, but it did result in one of the most unusual orders ever given to the Brigade of Midshipmen. What were 3,200 Navy midshipmen ordered to do that day?

12) A two part TV trivia question: What prime time TV series was set the furthest in the past? Which was set the furthest in the future?

13) You may remember Marcel, the monkey from "Friends". Katie the capuchin monkey played that role. Katie also played the monkey carrying a killer virus in "Outbreak". But all this was a mere warmup for her greatest role. What was that?

14) Sure, I had the list of the corpses that made the most money in 2002. Big deal. According to Forbes magazine, who are the 15 richest fictional characters, and how much does Forbes say each is worth?

15) What book did George W. Bush claim was his childhood favorite, and why did that claim prove that George might be a little slow on the uptake?

16) I have no doubt that you've seen a picture of Edith Shain and Carl Muscarello, but I'll wager you couldn't tell me where if your LIFE depended on it. Prove me wrong: who are they, and where did you see them?

17) The time machine in the 1985 film "Back to the Future" wasn't originally supposed to be a DeLorean. What was it supposed to be in the original script, and why was it changed?

18) In the earliest days of IBM-compatible "clone" PCs, a particular software program came to be the "gold standard" for testing if a computer was 100% PC compatible. What was that program?

19) Billy Batson would shout "SHAZAM!", and with that word become Captain Marvel, the World's Mightiest Mortal! But what was the meaning of the magic word, "SHAZAM"?

20) A question in belated honor of the DVD release of The Star Wars Trilogy: what's the connection between Wedge Antilles of the original trilogy and Obi-wan Kenobi of The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones?

Len on 10.01.04 @ 08:21 PM CST