Last week's challenge
Start with the phrase THE LAST EPISODE. Drop one letter and you can rearrange the result to spell a six-letter word and a seven-letter word that are synonyms. What are the words?
Answer: If you drop a T, you can spell LOATHE and DESPISE.
THIS WEEK'S CATEGORY: “HAPPY” “NEW” “YEAR”
On-air questions: OK, Mike. This is our first Any Questions of the new year, which gives me the opportunity to say Happy New Year. And tonight’s show will follow the same format: each correct answer will contain either “happy,” “new” or “year.”
1. Now a hit Netflix series, what 1967 novel by Gabriel García Márquez is the first screen adaptation, since the author long resisted selling the screen rights and wanted any adaptation to remain in its native Spanish?
2. Including James Gandolfini, Connie Chung, Vince Lombardi, and Whitney Houston, what state began honoring its famous natives by naming rest stops after them in 2021?
3. Although it was later used ironically in the title of a 2023 Prime documentary series subtitled Duggar Family Secrets, what song title released in 1991 features guest vocals by Kate Pierson?
4. According to an official company history of the 79-day 1985 drama, protests of what consumer product included the founding of the Society for the Preservation of the Real Thing and demonstrators carrying signs in downtown Atlanta reading “Our children will never know refreshment” ?
5. Appearing in, respectively, 170 and 255 episodes, Ron Howard and Henry Winkler reunited at the 2024 Emmy Awards on a recreated set of Arnold’s Drive-In to honor what classic sitcom’s 50th anniversary?
Extra credit
1. Following titles like 2000’s “Me Talk Pretty One Day” and 2013’s “Let’s Explore Diabetes With Owls,” David Sedaris’ latest book from 2022 shares its title with what 2008 Sally Hawkins film?
This week's challenge
Although there is one two-character member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, U2, R.E.M. is one of four three-letter groups in the Hall of Fame. What are the other three?
ANSWERS
On-air questions
1. “One Hundred Years Of Solitude” (The next eight episodes will come out this year after two episodes were screened in Cuba, which the Colombian Marquez long championed)
2. New Jersey (You can get off at Wall Township if you want to visit the Judy Blume rest area)
3. “Shiny Happy People” by R.E.M. appeared on “Out of Time”
4. New Coke (For a short time, Coca-Cola classic and New Coke were sold alongside each other, with New Coke later named Coke II before being discontinued in the U.S.)
5. “Happy Days”
Extra credit
1. “Happy-Go-Lucky”
