WAMC's Ian Pickus and resident quizzer Mike Nothnagel keep an eye on the clock.
Last week's challenge
Start with the name of Nobel laureate Gunter Grass. Rearrange the letters and you can spell a two-word phrase that might describe members of Nirvana and Soundgarden. What is the phrase?
Answer: GRUNGE STARS
THIS WEEK'S CATEGORY: CLOCKS
On-air questions: On April 12, 1954, Bill Haley and His Comets recorded "Rock Around the Clock". Written in 1952, the song was recorded by another group the month before Haley's band went into the studio, and their version has become the most well-known, largely in part to its appearance in the 1955 film Blackboard Jungle. The song sits at #158 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, and was selected in 2018 by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry. To commemorate the recording of "Rock Around the Clock", this week our questions are about clocks.
1. The 1923 film Safety Last! starring Harold Lloyd features a famous scene in which Lloyd dangling from a skyscraper above a busy street while he clutches the hands of a clock. The scene was referenced in what 1985 film, when Christopher Lloyd hangs from a clocktower in a similar fashion?
2. First published in April of 1930, the children's novel The Secret of the Old Clock is the first volume in a series of mystery stories featuring what girl detective?
3. The television game show Beat the Clock premiered in 1950 and since then has been presented in various versions over the decades, including a new series that began airing in 2018. The show challenged teams to perform stunts within set time limits, and has been hosted by, among others, Bud Collyer, Jack Narz, and which host, perhaps most well-known for his time as the host of what other classic game show?
4. The 1983 album Punch the Clock, which features the single "Everyday I Write the Book", was the seventh album recorded by what singer/songwriter and his band The Attractions, which also backed him on 1978's Armed Forces and 1982's Imperial Bedroom?
5. If they were all set to their maximum times, which of these clocks would display the smallest number: the NFL's play clock, Minor League Baseball's pitch clock, or the NBA's shot clock?
Extra credit
1. What two-word name do we most commonly use for a metaphorical clock created in 1947 by the members of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists that was originally set at seven minutes to midnight?
2. "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen" is the first line of what novel?
This week's challenge
Start with the phrase STOP THE CLOCK. Rearrange the letters to spell a five-letter word for what shirts are often made of and a seven-letter word that names things shirts often have. What are the words?
ANSWERS
On-air questions
1. "Back to the Future"
2. Nancy Drew
3. "Let's Make a Deal"
4. Elvis Costello
5. Pitch clock
Extra credit
1. Doomsday Clock
2. "1984"