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Any Questions #266

WAMC's Ian Pickus and resident quizzer Mike Nothnagel head back to the farm.Last week's challenge
Start with the nicknames of two of Phoenix's sports teams: COYOTES and SUNS. Change one letter to a P and you can rearrange the result to get a six letter word for something you take to get information and a five-letter word for things that would be bad to have in that information. What are the words?
Answer: If you change an O to a P, you can spell CENSUS and TYPOS.

THIS WEEK'S CATEGORY: FAMOUS FARMS
On-air questions: On September 30, 1962, the first convention of the National Farm Workers' Association is held in an abandoned movie theater in Fresno, California. Led by labor leader Cesar Chavez, the NFWA later merged with the Agricultural Workers' Organizing Committee to become the labor union known today as the United Farm Workers. Chavez is also credited with popularizing the phrase "si, se puede", the English translation of which ("yes, we can") became the 2008 campaign slogan for President Barack Obama. To commemorate Chavez's legacy, today our questions are about famous farms.

1. A farm owned by the Kents and adjacent to the rural town of Smallville, Kansas becomes the landing point for a rocket containing an infant alien, whom they adopt. From what planet did this rocket originate?
2. In the 1989 film Field of Dreams, farmer Ray Kinsella constructs a baseball diamond on his farm after hearing a voice telling him to build it. After months of inactivity, a famous player appears on the field. Kinsella gives him permission to bring others, and he returns with the seven other players implicated in what infamous incident?
3. By what name do we know the organization that began as a 1985 benefit concert organized by Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp, and Neil Young, and has since gone on to hold 29 subsequent concerts and set up hotlines and other assistance for those who have lost crops and other belongings because of natural disasters?
4. Near the town of Hanover, Nebraska, a woman inherits her family's farmland and attempts to keep it viable. This is part of the plot of O Pioneers!, the first novel in the Prairie Trilogy – a trilogy which also includes My Antonia – written by which American author?
5. The 1968 two-part episode "A Star Named Arnold Is Born", in which a pig named Arnold Ziffel appears in a local play, which leads to a starring role in a major motion picture, was the finale of the third season of what series, starring Eva Gabor and Eddie Albert as New Yorkers who move to a farm in the country?

This week's challenge
Start with the phrase DAIRY FARMER. Rearrange the letters to spell a five-letter word that can describe someone who is happy and a six-letter word that can describe someone who probably isn't happy. What are the words?

Extra credit
1. By what name do we now commonly know the person who had a “farm in Ohio-i-o” in the original 1917 version of a familiar song?
2. “Plane Crazy”, a 1929 short film which takes place on a farm, is the first appearance of what famous character, who, in a 1931 book, is described as living “in a cozy nest under the floor of the old barn”?
 

Answers
1. Krypton
2. Black Sox scandal
3. Farm Aid
4. Willa Cather
5. Green Acres

Extra credit
1. Old MacDonald (named Macdougal in that 1917 version)
2. Mickey Mouse
 

A lifelong resident of the Capital Region, Ian joined WAMC in late 2008 and became news director in 2013. He began working on Morning Edition and has produced The Capitol Connection, Congressional Corner, and several other WAMC programs. Ian can also be heard as the host of the WAMC News Podcast and on The Roundtable and various newscasts. Ian holds a BA in English and journalism and an MA in English, both from the University at Albany, where he has taught journalism since 2013.
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