Saturday, June 24, 2023

My Spoon Was Too Big

 

I've had this trivia question floating in my brain for a few years now:


What website did Spin Magazine name as its Album of the Year for the year 2000?


The answer being "Napster". That's a fun fact. Anyway, I thought I'd post it on my Facebook wall, so I looked up the magazine to make sure I had the details right. And boy, there's no way to spoil a good trivia question than by getting the details right.


First and most importantly, it wasn't Napster that topped their list. It was "Your Hard Drive", acknowledging how peer-to-peer file sharing had changed the music acquisition game for the public. Yes Napster was cited in the blurb and in the picture. But they weren't the named Number One.



In fact, secondly, I'm not even sure they were the Album of the Year. The cover references Artist of the Year and Band of the Year, but Your Hard Drive is just the entry number one on the top twenty list. It's never called the Album of the Year. Maybe it's called that somewhere else in the issue, but it's not on this particular page. The list might not be in ranked order. Nitpicky but true.


Also, is Napster in this instance best descried as a website? Shouldn't I have called it a program (or maybe an app)? The problem is, What computer program was named Album of the Year, etc? doesn't provide a clear enough pointer to the intended answer. Program could mean Pro-tools, could be Auto-Tune, could be a lot of things. And honestly, "website" isn't really much clearer.


So yeah, I had hoped for a nice lateral-thinking question, and I ended up with just a plain old fun fact. That's okay though.

Sunday, May 07, 2023

Trivia Hall of Fame, concluded

I was finally able to locate the issues of Trivia Unlimited with the first 2 inductions to the National Trivia Hall of Fame. Please enjoy.


May 1980: Robert L Ripley, "Believe It or Not!"



May 1981: Art Fleming, "Jeopardy!"

Friday, April 12, 2019

Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! articles from Games Magazine

More scanner fun. Here are a pair of game show-related articles from my stack of back issues of Games Magazine. You'll have to open each picture in a new tab or window in order to get them big enough to read. Answers to puzzles in the articles are at the bottom of the page.

"Nailed to the Wheel of Fortune, The Anatomy of a TV Game Show" by Roger Dionne (March/April 1980 issue)




I though one of Roger's episodes happened to be on YouTube, but it was years ago I saw it, and I couldn't find it now, so maybe not.


"My Life in Jeopardy!" by legendary Jeopardy! writer Steven Dorfman (January 1987)





I have a Dell Champion magazine with one of Steven Dorfman's cryptic crosswords in it. If I can manage to locate it, I'll post it here.


Here are the answers. Interesting how Steven Dorfman credits each of the individual writers with their questions here.



Tuesday, August 04, 2015

Trivia Hall of Fame, continued

In anticipation of this weekend's induction at TCONA of Brad Rutter & David Wallechinsky, Irving Wallace and Amy Wallace to the Trivia Hall of Fame, I dug up my old copies of Trivia Unlimited magazine to find the write-ups for the earlier inductees to the original Trivia Hall of Fame. (I did Casey Kasem last year, and I wanted to finish the set.)

It looks like I don't have a copy (either print or Xerox) of the May 1980 issue, introducing the Hall of Fame and featuring the induction of Robert Ripley. But I was able to find the May 1981 and 1982 issues, and so I present the inductions of Art Fleming and James Parish.

Art Fleming (from Trivia Unlimited, May 1981)

(I wish I could get a bigger version of that picture.)

This is the second bio of Fleming I've featured on this blog. At some point between 1974 and 1981 he married and had a couple of kids. Good for him!

James Parish (from Trivia Unlimited, May 1982)


Bonus write-up of the California State University Trivia Bowl (also from Trivia Unlimited, May 1982)

If you haven't already, you can still vote for next years honorees here.

Sunday, June 15, 2014

Casey Kasem (1932-2014)

In remembrance of the life of Casey Kasem, I've scanned the article about his induction in the Trivia Hall of Fame, from the May 1983 issue of Trivia Unlimited magazine. Enjoy.






Thursday, January 09, 2014

Come On Down! (Answers)

Here are the actual retail prices from the Price is Right game posted earlier today.


Click to early seasons of Drew Carey-size.