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Any Questions #519

Any Questions logo
Any Questions logo

Last week's challenge

Start with the name BRUNO MARS. Rearrange the letters and you can spell the last name of a vice president and a word that applies to him and others of his generation. What are the words?

Answer: BURR, MASON.

THIS WEEK'S CATEGORY: NHL TEAM NAMES

On-air questions: A couple of weeks ago, we marked the start of the NFL season – for better or worse, depending on what team you root for – and this week we mark the return of another sport: hockey. The 2021 National Hockey League season began on Tuesday, notable for the first-ever game played by the Seattle Kraken, the 32nd team in the NHL. Similar to our NFL show, each correct answer this week will contain the name of an NHL team in the singular, like “Ranger” or “Capital”.

1. Included along with Super Mario Bros. on a cartridge that came with the Action Set version of the Nintendo Entertainment System video game console, what game required the use of a device called the NES Zapper to aim at birds on a screen which were “retrieved” by an on-screen dog?
2. What cartoon character, styled and named after its real-life Australian carnivorous marsupial counterpart, only appeared in five Warner Bros. animated shorts between 1954 and 1964, four times against Bugs Bunny and once opposite Daffy Duck?
3. Written during a layover at Washington Airport in 1966, what John Denver song appeared on a demo of his under the title “Babe I Hate To Go” and was recorded in 1967 by Peter, Paul, and Mary, a version which became the group’s only Billboard number-one hit in the U.S.? [“Leaving on a Jet Plane”] [PPM version is a success; they share producer with JD; he re-records a version released the same month, doesn’t enter charts]
4. In 1979, a group of top women’s tennis players were asked to name who they would pick to help them overcome a deep point deficit in the third set of a match played on Wimbledon’s Centre Court. Three of those women, including Martina Navratilova, named which player, who teamed up with Navratilova to win the women’s doubles at Wimbledon that year?
5. What three-word phrase, now often used in general to refer to an effort to use a gimmick to promote something or to attempt to revive waning interest, has its origins in a 1977 episode of Happy Days in which Henry Winkler as the Fonz literally performs the action on a jet ski?

Extra credit

1. Versions of what film have received a total of 25 Oscar nominations: 7 in 1937, 6 in 1955, 4 in 1977, and 8 in 2019?
2. What begins at Lake Tana in Ethiopia and travels for some 900 miles to Khartoum, Sudan?

This week's challenge

Start with the words SENATOR and FLAME. Rearrange the letters to spell the eight-letter name of a city where a Major League Baseball team used to be located and a four-letter word that you often hear at a baseball game. What are the words?

ANSWERS
On-air questions
1. Duck Hunt
2. Tasmanian Devil
3. “Leaving on a Jet Plane”
4. Billie Jean King
5. Jumping the shark

Extra credit

1. A Star is Born
2. The Blue Nile

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.
Related Content
  • WAMC's Friday quiz segment, Any Questions?, puts news director Ian Pickus in the hot seat, as he and listeners field questions from resident quizzer Mike Nothnagel. Nothnagel is Associate Professor of mathematics at The Culinary Institute of America, and a crossword constructor for the New York Times and Games Magazine, among other outlets. Often, Mike and Ian switch seats or feature guest answerers, such as Will Shortz, Liane Hansen, John Flansburgh and Mike Doughty. Any Questions? airs Friday during Northeast Report Late Edition on WAMC.