A Very Muppet Rosh Hoshanah
Posted by knoxvillian on August 21, 2008
Have you ever stopped to wonder how large of a debt “The Dark Knight” owes to “The Muppet Show?” It’s not a topic that’s getting the credit it deserves, thank you very much anti-Muppet media. Seriously, though. You’ve got millionaire playboy by day (Scooter) who masquerades as a fierce and just vigilante by night (Rolf), a woman (Miss Piggy), a justice-minded fatalistic DA (Dr. Teeth) who turns into a hideous vengeance-minded enforcer (Kermit), a good but overly-loyal cop (Ernie), and a sadistic murderous clown intent on raining chaos down upon the whole of Gotham City (Snuffleupagus…you wanted Elmo, didn’t you? Well too freaking bad.). As far as I can tell, the whole thing is just an elaborate remake of “The Great Muppet Caper” with a few dashes of early “Sesame Street” and the Alice Cooper episode of “The Muppet Show” thrown in just for laughs. Christopher Nolan is a freaking thief.
You see, Muppets are a fitting allegory for trivia this week: it’s not quite a mop, and it’s not quite a puppet, but MAN! So to answer your question it sucked. We didn’t win, and we didn’t have a particularly successful time of it otherwise. We missed 4 regular round questions(5, 12, 14, 15) AND the Bonus. Dr. Bunsen Honeydew would be so ashamed…But, then again, nobody got the bonus so I guess we can’t feel too down on ourselves. So, in the end, it was the weiners who were winners (Weiners=those who did not have the fortitude to BET IT ALL!!). And, as countless arcade games from the early 90s have taught us, Weiners aren’t reall Winners.
1. Who is UT’s first football opponent this year? (That’d be UCLA. Never heard of it. I’ve heard of Pepperdine. Why aren’t we playing Pepperdine? Apparently the first-string QB for the Bruisin’ Bruins went down, providing a golden opportunity for the second-string QB to come in…and subsequently also go down. So the Vols are playing against a scrappy young walk-on who makes up for his obvious physical deficiencies with an over-abundance of “heart.” Playing the part of the well-funded bad guy team is Tennessee. Er…rah rah?)
2. What famous American structure has five sides and five floors? (The Pentagon, doubtless built by masons to carry out their Satanic keggers. Technically the Pentagon has 10 sides, with five outer walls and five inner walls surrounding the courtyard. Fascinating, no? Hey! WAKE UP! Fun Fact: The Pentagon is built to honor Satan. I know I already mentioned that, but I felt that it was important enough to mention twice.)
3. What is frequency modulation also known as? (FM. I’m pretty sure that this question was supposed to be “What does FM stand for?” But that opens all sorts of other possibilities: Freaking Marvelous, Fistfighting Martians, French Martians, Fangorious…Martians. Anyway, you get the idea. Still, you know what’d sound really “groovy” on the FM? Rock and roll music. I’ll get the boys in the Pentagon to stop messing with that Necronomicon and get right on it.)
4. In the movie “My Girl,” what is Vada’s father’s occupation? (Funeral Director. Or Mortician. Or Undertaker, although I’m pretty sure that you have to do some wrestling in addition to funeral work to merit the title of Undertaker. We went with Funeral Director, although I wish we’d have gone with college-professor-by-day/wild-fearsome-pimp-by-night. That’s right kids! It’s a Dr. Detroit reference!! Fun Fact: Did you know that the girl who played Vada’s great-grandfather once owned a trained bear that appeared in a Three Stooges film? Well you do now. And I am not making that last bit up even a little bit. Seriously.)
5. What decade saw the popularity of fake pearl necklaces, penny loafers, and Levi 501s? (Popularity is such a smelly word…apparently it was the 1980s. I remember the 80s, and not just through charming and informative infomercials about the decade on VH1, and I’m having trouble remembering fake pearl necklaces or penny loafers being “popular.” I remember them existing, but I also remember slap bracelets and swatch watches existing; that doesn’t mean they were popular. Really, I’m having trouble remembering 501s, although my memory has perfect clarity concerning Levi’s Big Jeans. “Living Large,” the commercials would say. And truly you were. Anyway, we said the 1950s. I think we were probably right enough.)
6. What is the largest non-polar desert in the world? (The Sahara. I really wish that he hadn’t been so thorough, because I totally could’ve nailed him on Antarctica actually being the world’s largest desert, but alas, my attempts to be a condescending ass were foiled. Curses! Fun fact: people living in the harsh arid climate of the Sahara desert are often forced to make a meager living as a moisture farmer with their uptight aunts and uncles, utilizing groovy robots purchased from robed midgets for the job. Truly a brave people, moisture farmers are constantly overcoming obstacles like having to travel for, like, 12 parsecs just to get some freaking power converters or having to deal with a veritable wamprat infestation in Beggar’s Canyon. Also Star Wars. Sorry, I just really wanted my awesome Star Wars allusions to be recognized…)
7. What “Looney Tuner” voiced Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and Porky Pig? (Mel Blanc. He also voiced Private Snafu in the great WWII military cartoons of same name. You might remember that his hilarious bumbling eventually cost 45,000 brave GIs their lives and nearly single-handedly won the war for zee Germans. And yet today he’s seen as a hero while true heros like Sam the Eagle, who risked his freaking life for us, go sadly unrepresented in today’s history books. OK, technically Snafu goes unrepresented in modern history books too. But it just begs the question: what else are they leaving out? The Berlin Wall? The Banana Splits? Waldorf and Astoria? We should all be outraged!)
8. On this day in 1977, what space probe was launched? (That’d be Voyager the Deuce. Or Voyager 2 if you’re not “groovy.” We were actually torn between answering Voyager or Viking until Andy informed us that we needed a number firmly affixed to the probe. So we went with the one with the number and bang-a-dang-a-doodle, we got us a right answer. By the way, if you have any good probe jokes to insert here than you’re obviously a depraved individual, the sort that they welcome with open arms over at the Pentagon.)
9. Who is married to Ben Affleck? (Jennifer Garner, who is apparently preggers again. What is it with all the ladies and the getting pregnant all the time? If it were me, I’d be all “Nuh-uh!” and that pregnancy would be all like “Ok…” and try to walk away with its lower lip trembling but I wouldn’t let it and I’d be all like “Where do you think you’re going pregnancy? You’d better get back here and mow my lawn!” And the pregnancy would say, “But you don’t have a lawnmower!” to which I would reply “Then use a freaking laser!” My point is that you have to show that pregnancy who’s the boss.)
10. Which MLB team was the first to win a televised World Series? (It was the New York Yankees, which we unfortunately answered correctly. Not so much unfortunate in that it meant that we got the right answer, but unfortunate because it meant acknowledging the Yankees success. It was also unfortunate because I was having trouble coming up with a fitting joke name for the Yankees. I think that’s because most of my sports-related indignation was being focused on the Chinese Olympic dive team, using up my resources and leaving precious little for Yankee-hatred. Hopefully I can work on expanding my faculties so that I can capably loathe several teams at the same time with equal fervor. Someday…)
11. Where will the Republican National Convention be held? (The CORRECT answer is Minneapolis, MN. Andy said St. Paul, setting off a playful tete-a-tete between him and me for the rest of the evening, what with him screaming “ST. PAUL YOU LOUSY NINCOMPOOP!” and me returning with “IT’S AT THE METRODOME IN DOWNTOWN MINNEAPOLIS, LAMEBRAIN!” For you see, I have decided that all fights need to be resolved with the appropriate manner and level of name-calling. Furthermore, I have ascertained that the only vocabulary robust enough for proper name calling is that which is present in 1980s cartoons. I’m submitting my findings to the “New England Journal of Science and Medicine” and to the creators of “The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!” for approval, but, in the meantime, feel free to go ahead and amend your vocabulary accordingly.)
12. What film is set in Chicago and has a tour business and Jason Bateman? (The answer is “The Break Up.” Guess who has two thumbs and has never actually seen “The Break Up?” If you now find yourself with two thumbs pointing proudly back at yourself, than congratulations! You may join me and my dad [both still possessing our opposable digits] in having the good sense not to encourage Vince Vaughn in his delusion that he should make movies. As for our answer, we went with “The Confabulous Fabtraption of Prof. Horation Hufnagel” which actually starred Troy McClure.)
13. What was the name of the trial held in Dayton, TN in 1925 concerning evolution? (The Scopes Monkey trial! Hooray! Or, just The Scopes Trial if you’re into the whole being sensitive to monkeys thing. I mostly only new this from the film adaptation “The Muppets Inherit the Wind,” with Fozzie as Clarence Darrow, Gonzo as William Jennings Bryan, and Oscar the Grouch as the monster who lived in the garbage can outside the courthouse. A moving and visceral work of cinematic art, and one that I highly reccomend.)
14. A study from the University of North Carolina’s “National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injuries” says that which high school and college sport is responsible for the most injuries? (This is a stupid question that has a stupid answer. That answer, of course, is cheerleading. Yes, apparently students are overextending their “spirit” all across this great land of ours, and that’s not to mention all of the pom-poms forcifully lodged in bleached-blonde foreheads that are awaiting removal. Seriously, what the effing shit? Cheerleading? FREAKING CHEERLEADING?! We misunderstood the question and actually put a sport, football, and we’re suddenly the ones who are wrong. These damned kids these days.)
16. Who has been in the following films: “Animal House,” “Cold Mountain,” and “The Dirty Dozen?” (Of course, the answer is Donald Sutherland. Sorry, Flounder, but you don’t get to be in any other movies. Seriously, there were really only two options here, Sutherland and John Vernon, and so we just had to put our foot down and choose. And that foot was Sutherland. Fun fact: Karen Allen did not want to “flash” the audience in Animal House. It was only after Donald Sutherland eagerly agreed to do so himself that she relented. Thus, I think we can safely call Donald Sutherland the greatest thing to happen to modern film. Period.)
Bonus! Category: Expensive Divorces
Q. According to Forbes Magazine, name 7 of the 10 celebrities who had to pay the MOST in a divorce settlement. NOTE: This does NOT include Phil Collins since he is about to top the list with his impending divorce. (The list IS: Mick Jagger, Lionel Richie, Michael Douglas, James Cameron, Steven Spielberg, Neil Diamond, Michael Jordan, Paul McCartney, Harrison Ford, and Kevin Costner. Of those we got McCartney, Ford, and Costner. We also technically got Phil Collins; he was on the list for his previous divorce, but, since he was outlawed wholesale, we didn’t get credit. This was a killer of a question because, honestly, I didn’t even know that most of these people were divorced. The high-profile divorces that you usually hear about happen between 2 famous people, not a famous person and their anonymous spouse. But if both people are famous, both probably already have money, so you don’t get big settlements. In case you’re wondering, our wrong answers were Donald Trump, Alec Baldwin, Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Roseanne Barr, James Brown, and our wrong/right answer Phil Collins.)
So there you have it. Our downfall brilliantly documented for posterity, with liberal Muppetization employed for flavor. And it was a pretty good wrap-up too. I didn’t like seeing Donnie die, but I happen to know that there’s a little Lebowski on…um. Yeah.
