By Randy Cohen
I give the (actual) headline; you give (a brief summary of) the story. From the New York Post: “YOSHII WANTS THE 5 SPOT.”
by 5 p.m. ET on Sunday to e-mail your answer (NewsQuiz@slate.com).
Responses to Wednesday’s Question (No. 8)–“Odd Man Out”:
Who does not belong: Leonardo DiCaprio, Zack Hanson, Billy Graham, Rupert Murdoch?
“I haven’t slept with Zack Hanson (yet).”–David Rakoff
“Only Zack Hanson refuses to diminish his craft by playing Rizzo in Grease.”–Beth Sherman
“Oh, I know this one. They roughly correspond to the good guys and the bad guys in The Hobbit. If only I had my books with me. The gentle, dewy, boyish ones with the hairy feet–they’re the good guys, right?”–Chris Kelly
“Rupert Murdoch. DiCaprio, Hanson, and Graham all have only one Y chromosome.”–Larry Doyle
“Billy Graham, because, as EVERYONE knows, he’s a top.”–Larry Amaros
“Billy Graham is the only one to have recently used the phrase ‘Gettin’ jiggy with it.’ Correctly.”–Jon Hotchkiss
“Billy Graham is the only one whose name anagrams to ‘big ham rally’ “–Francis Heaney
“I don’t have any idea which does NOT belong. I do know that we all have the keys to Aaron Spelling’s underground bunker. Yes, I said WE. I can’t tell you any more.”–Fred Graver
Randy’s Wrap-Up:
The dreamy young actor, the adorable teen drummer, the disturbingly attractive preacher, the evil media mogul–but enough about the cast of my boyhood bedtime stories. That’s best kept between my parents and the district attorney. Instead, let’s visit …
Etymologist’s Corner
Some of you were confused by yesterday’s use of the expression “working blue.” This is comedian’s jargon for using lewd material, going with the easy sex joke. The term probably shares its origin with “blue movie.” One explanation, perhaps apocryphal, is that some production companies designated movie genres by the colored leader tape spliced to the front of a movie to protect the film when it is threaded into the projector–green for comedy, red for adventure, and blue for sex. Another possible source: the blue in the editorial “blue pencil.”
We Know What We Like Answer:
With a hammerlock on the national imagination, DiCaprio, Hanson, and Graham are each the subject of a book on the New York Times best-seller list (paperback nonfiction). Odd man Murdoch is the publisher who cancels your book if he finds its assertions inconvenient to his Chinese business ambitions. Fun Fact: Three of the 15 books on the list concern the Titanic; two more Titanic books make the hardcover nonfiction list. Now, imagine a book about these really cute teen-age boys and a minister in a horrible shipwreck …
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