Velcome to ze joungle. Ve have fun unt games.

Efficient German fun.

Allow me to cut throught the treacle: VE VIN!!  Or rather, WE WIN!!  Like a sleek BMW crashing into a stylish Volkswagon, we are poetry in motion.  FRANZ KAFKA ROCK OPERA UBER ALLES!

By the way, our team name was Franz Kafka Rock Opera, which morphed into Franz Kafka (short “a” sound) Rock Band.  It was a thorough thrashing of those thankless thieves who thought to thwack our thrilling, ummm…thousands?  I’ll go with that.  We only missed two questions, although some of our answers were far from certain.  In the end, we were tied for 1st, but we took down the tiebreaker like a fat fraulein takes down sausages at Oktoberfest.  (OK, no more German stuff, but hopefully more alliteration to follow!)  We missed numbers 6 and 14, but got the rest.  Good, ja?  (When I said no more German stuff, I was lying, as the Germans are wont to do.)

Here be questions!

1.  Which restaurant’s ad slogan is “I’m Lovin’ It”?  (McDonald’s, silly, not McDowell’s!  That restaurant only existed in the fever dreams of Eddie Murphy, and the sugar-laden delirium of Louie Anderson.  BTW, Bryan wanted to know if they have McDonald’s “and stuff” in the Caymans.  I told him to mind his own damn business.)

2.  Which of the Great Lakes is due north of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula?  (Lake Superior.  There’s very little funny to say about Lake Superior, unless you find “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” to actually be darkly comic.  And really, who doesn’t?  You, that’s who.)

3.  Which 2 presidents died July 4, 1826?  (John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.  There was a table of girls sitting across from us who looked like Nobel Laureates waiting to happen knowwhati’msayin’.  Anyway, I overheard them as I walked by discussing Roosevelt as an option.  And not Teddy either…)

4.  Which car make has the following models: LaCrosse, Rendezvous, and Riviera?  (Buick.  Affordable luxury is also acceptable.  “Those cars that old folks think are so great” is unacceptable, as that only pertains to the versions of those cars that are painted gold.)

5.  What statue was modeled after Marie Bertholdi, the sculptor’s mother?  (That’d be the Statue of Liberty, or, as Andy insisted on calling it, Lady Liberty.  See, here in the U.S. of God Bless America, we have this thing called freedom.  You might have heard of it in whatever totalitarian police state that you live in now.  To commemorate our overwhelming freedom and to give the finger to the world, we designed this statue, built it ourselves out of the corpses of Injuns and Injun tears, and gave it laser beam eyeballs.  Sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing…)

6.  On this day in 1997, what movie star died in Beverly Hills at the ripe old age of 89?  (If you said Jimmy Stewart, you’d be wrong.  However, if you said Jimmy Stewart with a really bad Jimmy Stewart impression, you’d be right.  Actually, saying it normally is right too.  Anyhow, we said Walter Matthau.  Curse you “Hello Dolly!”!)

7.  What Madonna song contains the following lyric: “Boys may come and boys may go and that’s alright you see”?  (That’s right, Material Girl!  That song is irrevocably drilled in my head from when you and Mel listened to it incessantly.  Or, when you listened to it that once.  Point is, it’s not my fault I knew this one, it’s yours!  I’m more of a Borderline man myself anyhow.)

8.  Which event happened first: the opening of the Panama Canal or the Wright Bros. first flight?  (A man.  A plan.  A canal.  Panama.  See?  It’s a palindrome!  But it’s not the right answer.  The ACTUAL answer is the Wright Bros. flight, which was in 1903.  Panama Canalary was in 1914.)

9.  Who was the first woman to host the Oscars solo?  (Whoopi!  There’s an obvious joke about questioning in what way Whoopi Goldberg qualifies as a “woman” as opposed to “man” but I’m above such base observations.)

10.  Who socked 61 dingers (home runs) in 1961?  (Roger Maris.  And did you know that Whoopi Goldberg may actually be a man?  Shocking but true!  All that aside, I’m not sure why this was a 15 point question.  I guess the advent of McGwire and Bonds might have clouded the memory of Maris.)

11.  What movie has the following:  putt-putt, a carpenter, and Dean Profitt?  (Overboard.  Andy has a serious man-crush on Kurt Russell, apparently.  I asked him why, and he gave me Russell’s 1980s filmography.  I was not swayed.  The filmography did mark the first of 2 times that “Big Trouble in Little China” was referenced at trivia, however.  Foreshadowing ho!)

12.  What state’s quarter has a design that features a buffalo and sunflowers?  (Kansas.  Dad got this one, as he should have.  Fun Fact: Did you know that there are only 3 states with one lonesome state nickname?  They are New York [The Empire State], Vermont [The Green Mountain State] and Washington [The Evergreen State].  Tennessee, the Volunteer State, is also known as the Big Bend State, the Butternut State, the Hog and Hominy state [deliciousness ho!] and the Mother of Southwestern Statesmen [history ho!].)

13.  Located in the ear, what is the smallest bone in the human body?  (The stirrup.  Not the hammer.  Nailed it!)

14.  This one is a 2 parter!  Because Andy thought the original question was too hard, he asked a second question as the actual 20 point question.  If we could answer part 1 correctly, we were entitled to an extra 10 points.  We were correct on neither part.  Part 1: Who was the artist of the famous Uncle Sam portrait?  Part 2: What American war actually had a cook named Uncle Sam?  (Part 1: James Montgomery Flagg.  We said Thomas Nast.  Curse you, William Randolph Hearst!!!  Part 2: The War of 1812.  We said the Spanish-American War.  Curse you, William Randolph Hearst!!!)

15.  Is a full-grown blue whale’s heart the size of a basketball, a washing machine, or a VW Beetle?  (He must have listed this one from Trivial Pursuit.  The answer, of course, is a celebration of methodical German engineering.  Although that should set up a joke about German basketballs, the right answer actually is the VW Beetle.  Dad got this one as well.)

16.  Who has been in the following films: “Big Trouble in Little China”, “The Bonfire of the Vanities”, and “The Ice Princess”?  (I’ve never actually seen any of these.  At any rate, the right answer is Kim Cattrall for some reason.  Hot?  I guess so.  Certainly “Police Academy” era Kim Cattrall.  Dad got this one too.)

Bonus!  Category: U.S. States
Q.  Name all of the states that begin with the letter W.  (Thank you Ms. Norton.  The 4 nifty United States are Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.  No word yet on Wode Island or Wawaii.)

Tiebreaker! 
In what year was Colorado organized as a territory?  (The right answer is 1861.  The pretenders to the crown said 1880, but we said 1860.  In your face history!!)

So, there you have it.  A powerful performance of patriotic prowess and persnickety plausibility.  Or something. 

OK, that last bit was a little forced, but I knew that you were waiting patiently for more alliteration, and I’m loathe to deny you any promised literary devices.