Here now, the Geek Bowl XIII answers!
Tiebreaker
Take the year that Haiti declared independence from France. Add to that the number of Foot Locker stores in the world. Now multiply that sum by the number of legal brothels in Nevada. Now divide that product by the number of human figures in the MySpace logo. Or, to put it a bit more formulaically:
[(H + F) x B] / M
Where H = year of Haiti’s independence, F = worldwide Foot Locker stores, B = legal brothels in Nevada, and M = human figures in the MySpace logo.
H = 1804
F = 3,270
B = 21
M = 3
[(1,804 + 3,310) x 21] / 3 = 35,798
Back to the questions
Round One: You Just Ate This Round
1. Suburban housewife, junior college student, and Zoya the Destroya. That’s on the TV résumé of what adorable star? Alison Brie
2. The multi-culti cartoon dog Ren Hoëk has a Dutch-ish name, but belongs to what breed that descends from Toltec times? Chihuahua
3. The rhyming nickname for Martina Hingis, and a shitty hot chocolate brand that’s not even from the Alps. What name refers to both? Swiss Miss
4. Kumail Nanjiani culture-clashed in The Big Sick when he met his sorta-ex-girlfriend’s parents, played by Holly Hunter and what whitest man ever? Ray Romano
5. A company started by Muhammad Ali’s wife, an L.L. Cool J album, and a bunch of obnoxious Tom Brady fans have all used what acronym? GOAT
6. Some 5,000 miles west of the Netherlands, you’ll find what 1940s structure that Woody Guthrie once sang about for the Bonneville Power Administration? Grand Coulee Dam [This was one of my favorite team moments. From having researched cheeses when I wrote my practice round, I knew that Edam was a cheese. Based on the fact that this question was going for a structure connected with a Power Administration, I figured dam, so then I turned to Jonathan and asked him if he could think of any dams whose names end in “e”, making “e-dam”. He immediately came up with “Grand Coulee.” Boom.]
7. Narrated by the daughter of intergalactic refugees Alana and Marko, an Eisner-winning comic series by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples goes by what generic-ass title? Saga
8. Barely ten weeks after the whole black-guy arrest thing last spring, another Starbucks employee got fired for mocking a customer’s speech impediment, in what East Coast shithole town? Philadelphia [The Geeks have a longstanding rivalry or heckling relationship or something with Philadelphia, one of those feuds going back years and years at this point. Too complicated to explain, and not worth it. But that’s why the “shithole” comment.]
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Round 2: Win Some, Lose Some
As promised, here’s that video, with a comment about #5 below.
[“Dammit” was totally our response to #5. We had felt pretty good about our answer, which was “Fat Lip” by Sum 41. Don had even exulted in figuring out how it fit the theme — “You win SUM, you lose SUM!” Nope. Listening to these two songs side by side… it’s pretty easy to imagine those lyrics going into the Sum 41 tune. OH WELL.]
Round 3: Don’t Be A Buster
1.
A. Lakers’ NBA titles. 16
B. Steelers’ Super Bowl titles. 6
C. Brazil’s FIFA World Cup titles. 5
[So the 2-point answer was A and C.]
2. Billboard Hot 100 #1 singles as a lead artist:
A. Madonna. 12
B. Rihanna. 11
C. Katy Perry. 9
[We had thought there was more distance between these numbers, but we still picked A and C as the high and low.]
3.
A. Number of TV seasons for Gunsmoke 20
B. Number of TV seasons for Wonderfalls 1
C. Number of TV seasons for Numb3rs 6
[Knowing that Gunsmoke ran for 20 seasons meant that we just had to figure out whether Wonderfall or Numb3rs was the one that only ran for one season. Pretty straightforward path to A and B as the 2-point answer.]
4.
A. Number of human pituitary glands. 1
B. Number of human baby teeth. 20
C. Pairs of human cranial nerves. 12
[Once again, Jonathan knowing that there were 20 baby teeth meant that we just had to figure out the 1. A and B.]
5.
A. Dan Brown’s Robert Langdon novels. 5
B. Books in the main “Left Behind” series. 16
C. Books in the main “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” series. 13
[This is the one we stumbled on, mainly because apparently there are teen “Left Behind” novels that apparently got counted in the full inventory. We still ended up with A and B, which was the right answer.]
6.
A. Number of Canadian provinces. 10
B. Number of Canadian teams in the NHL. 7
C. Total number of astronauts recruited by the Canadian Space Agency. 14
7.
A. British Commonwealth nations in Africa. 19
B. African U.N. member states that start with Z. 2
C. African nations in the top 100 on the 2018 Human Freedom Index. 15
8. Including straight-to-video:
A. Hellraiser movies. 10
B. Land Before Time movies. 14
C. Police Academy movies. 7
Back to the questions
Round 4: Splitsville!
1. Square peg Tris Prior is the main character in what oddly-best-selling young adult series? Divergent
2. The very first atomic fission experiment karate-chopped uranium into what other, more enema-tastic alkaline earth metal? Barium
3. Having peaced out in 1847, the Missouri Synod now ranks behind the ELCA as the second-largest U.S. body of what Protestant branch? Lutherans
4. Good look, guys: What 1896 Supreme Court case gave a judicial-branch imprimatur to “separate but equal” facilities? Plessy vs. Ferguson
5. Fred Martin may have created it, but Bruce Sutter definitely popularized what breaking pitch? Split-finger fastball (aka Splitter)
6. Tammy Wynette had a hit with “D-I-V-O-R-C-E,” around the same time she split from Don Chapel and married what other country legend? George Jones
7. The breakup of Czechoslovakia was pretty amicable, but it did cause the resignation of what playwright-president with way too many V’s in his name? Vaclav Havel
8. Hanumanasana is the original Sanskrit name for what beastly yoga pose that’s literally just a split? Monkey Pose
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Round 5: FrankenBarry Manilow
Yeah, the answers are in the questions on the video, but I’ll include them here for interest, and to comment on a couple.
1. Clif BAriana Grande
2. OvalTina Turner [This is where we stumbled, and I honestly think it had to do with our proximity to the screens. Watching this on YouTube, it’s easy to see that Tina has some kind of chocolate drink, but we couldn’t make out this detail from our vantage point. Instead, we were trying to go off the jar, which looked to us like some kind of coffee. Maxwell House? Nescafe? Nope. We eventually ended up on “NestTeana Turner”, which we felt pretty good about, but it was a miss.]
3. Yoo-Hu Jintao [Way to go Jonathan for recognizing this Chinese leader.]
4. SchlItzhak Perlman
5. Olympia SnowBalls [Several people recognized Snowballs, but Jonathan was the one who knew Olympia Snowe by sight. GO JONATHAN.]
6. NutElla Fitzgerald
7. Lupita NyonG’oGurt
8. Raisin BrAnne Hathaway [Don had to work extra hard to convince us that this was Anne Hathaway — we nearly went with “Lana Del Raysin Bran”. The Hollywood sign in the background finally did the trick.]
Back to the questions
Round 6: We’re Here, We’re Querying
1. Before predicting a few election outcomes, Nate Silver worked with what 12-letter realm of baseball stats that have nothing to do with swords? Sabermetrics
2. At the forefront of the Harlem Renaissance, Langston Hughes used repeated phrasing and syncopated rhythms to bring us what musically-inspired poetry form? Jazz poetry [This is the one we got wrong, saying “bebop” instead.]
3. Cooked up by pathologist Louise Pearce in 1919, tryparsamide saved millions from what tsetse-borne disease? Sleeping sickness [aka trypanosomiasis]
4. Pearce’s roommate, medical researcher Sara Josephine Baker got her greatest claim to fame in 1907, helping to identify what famous Patient Zero? Typhoid Mary (Mallon)
5. Alexander von Humboldt is best known for a big 19th-century science treatise, which resurrected what ancient word for the whole ordered universe? Cosmos [or Kosmos]
6. Sally Ride was famously the first American woman in space, duh. She went there on what shuttle named for a 19th-century British research vessel? Challenger
7. Revelations is the signature work of what alphabetically advantaged New York dance icon, who once worked in a nightclub duo with Maya Angelou? Alvin Ailey
8. AIDS researcher Bruce Voeller set up a foundation whose name was what Spanish word for “butterfly,” that’s also Mexican slang for “gay”? Mariposa
Back to the questions
Round 7: Street Theater
Thank you Geeks for this video of all performers and clips of the movies they were re-enacting:
[For #6, we had guessed Batman, which was definitely from 1989, and seemed like it could have had Jack Nicholson speaking that final line. Nope!]
Round 8: Random Knowledge
1. a) “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” was a Mustafa-rific slogan for what personal-care brand? Old Spice b) What big-ass company owns that brand? Procter & Gamble [ARGH. We all thought Unilever.]
2. a) A citrus fruit called the tumbo was the traditional fish-curing agent for what Peruvian national dish? Ceviche b) And according to their creation myth, the Aztecs got chocolate from what feathered-serpent god? Quetzlcoatl
3. a) What robot-fighting game character bizarrely debuted as an air freshener in Sega’s 1991 arcade racer Rad Mobile? Sonic the Hedgehog b) In 2018, Styx concerts finally included what operatic prison-break anthem? “Mr. Roboto”
4. a) In November 2016, Jayna Zweiman and Krista Suh co-founded what yarn-based activist movement? The Pussyhat Project b) And a main character bailed on an intervention and got 20 years for grand theft auto, in what 1908 kid-lit classic? The Wind In The Willows
5. Two Creed points: a) Long before The Office, Creed Bratton played on the #5 hit “Midnight Confessions” for what band? The Grass Roots b) What do Christians call their still-repeated statement of orthodox faith against Arianism? The Nicene Creed
6. Since 2000, Jeff Bezos has founded a space tourism company and bought up a major newspaper. Name both ventures. Blue Origin and The Washington Post
7. Two Ramsay TV questions: a) Did Hell’s Kitchen originally air in the United States or Britain? UK b) Actor Iwan Rheon starred in what failed Marvel show that’s also a fair description of his Game of Thrones character? Inhumans
8. I’ll name a sports tournament, you name the current reigning runners-up: a) FIFA World Cup? Croatia b) Stanley Cup Final? Vegas Golden Knights
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