-Fevruary 4, 1977
This is the first year that Trivia will emanate from WLFM's new studios in the Seeley G. Mudd Memorial Quanset Hut. Because the studios are hard to find and space here is limited, if you have a complaint that you want to make in person, go down to the old studios in the Con and lay into Mr. Prebys. You'll feel a whole lot better.
This year a new phone system in being tried out. Contestants will be asked to phone their next of kin when answering questions or they may dial Trivia '77's sophisticated answering service-Pizza Orgy at 602 on campus and 731-1324 off campus. A new switching system has been installed to handle the volume of calls and those which cannot be handled will either receive a busy signal or a sausage and scum pizza.
Back again this year giving Trivia players spiritual advice and a hard time will be St. Tuchulus, the Jewish Patron Saint of Christmas. After a 32 year hiatus in the Vienna Woods (where he kept to a strick diet of Cheetos and Valvoline) St. Tuchulus has returned to ensure that the Larry U. switchboard receives no Trivia calls or he will fill your ears with tree sap.
Jeopardy will not be played this year (Don Pardo finked out). In its place will be Sucjer's Shut Out on Sat. and Sun. evenings at 8:00. This will be a 15 minute series of questions that the Masters challenge anyone to answer. Special awards will be given to any animal, vegetable, or Lawrentian capable of answering more than two of them in one session. the questions will be tougher than a Downer Swiss steak, so good luck suckers.
Phone answerers, fellow travellers, and other fifth columnists are needed throughout the contest, but again, no marathoning will be allowed unless you want to listen to Page's problems.
Because last year's t-shirts caused many people to suffer severe bouts of confusion and disorientation, this year's t-shirts will only be sold during months with "r" in them. So hurry up. For $2.50 they are tastelessly emblazones with a familly portrait of John Foster Dulles and prominently feature the secret mantra of millionxs: OHM'S OHM.
Stan Cola, the world's only tuna flavored soft drink, has disgracefully withdrawn ots sponsorship from Trivia 77. it seems that during last year's contest more of the deep sea delight was returned than was ever produced. In its inimitable place Trivia 77 heartily welcomes Eggner Bisquick's Home Style Duffel Cakes with the taste of real duffel. (Watch the cracks - they were the only sponsor we could get.) They'll be cutting up duffel cakes for players and phone answerers throughout the contest. By the way, they're dispensed inrest rooms around the country and are the sailor's friend
P.S> Audio recording equipment such as a tape recorder, could be of great benefit to all the teams planning to play trivia this weekend.
-Fevruary 4, 1977
In honor of this twelfth anniversary of the conception of Trivia, the 39 year old Perfect Master Pope Pontius Page the one-fourth (all praise to his new carport) has declared that anew religion be promulgated throughout the lanD that will rise like yeast and spread like Mazola.
Yes, its Trivia time again and with the divine backing of the Little Father-in-Law WLFM will kick off 50 hoUrs of madness (rain or shine) at 10 p.m. tonight.
Pope Pontius Page the one-fourth as the fourth and lost member of the All Original Trinities has been reborn as a capacitor to transmit the diodes and rectiFy life to the Fundiment of Fundiments - The All Holy Eternal Quadrivium.
(OHM'S OHM)
Though mute and in perpetual salivation the 39 year old One of One's, All of All's, Vicar of Boy Scouts, and Father of two has bequeathed to man the two works which compromisE the Corpus Ridiculous. They are the Impermeables, writen in pidgin Spanish on a Tiajuana hoLiday which includes the mystical phrase "Vaya Con Huevos" (probably from Hegel via Dos Passos) and the imposing Metaphysical Considerations of Ala Carte Menus. (Printed in Russia as substitutions in Plate LunCheons.) Though both works were written during a period immediately previous to his birth and shortly followng his deAth, they have the clear ring of inaccuracy and the slick commerciality of popular women's magazines.
After the Oleanginous One's manifestation on a Northbound commuter train in suburban Glenview, Disciples, Apostles, and Patriarchs have been coming out of the woods faster than anyone would care to recognize and Bishophrics and Diocese springing up in close competition with major franchize restaurants. With opposing factions spitting insults at each other on popular talK shows and church retreats turning into rumbles, the Almost Mighty was forced to intervene
Assuming the form of an all night truck stop the Intimidible One callEd in his true flock. In the Sacred Hymnal (Bendix and Lipset Vol XII) it is written (in pencil in the margin): "And so the final dinner came to pasS. And yea though they sat at a long table in bounteous repast, there was longing. For he looked upon them and they called upon him. With their mouths full of the salad of ecstacy they cried out 'More'. Overwhelmed with passion and cheap wine the Great One spoke, 'No yose guys got it all wrong. My name's Larry.'"
Tradition and Hollywood tell uS that this was the convocation of the true flock: the Five Guys Named Moe. Though they fought forever after over the check, the spirit of triviality was kindled.
As a groUp the Five Guys Named Moe are totally dissimilar except in their mutual distaste for mailmen. They promise to bring this year's Trivia contest anything they can get their hands on as long at it has resale value.
Hedging their bets, the Five Guys Named Moe swelled to 7 to take on trivia 77. Heading up the list is Dempster J. Garfish who had the distinction of being Trivia's first lady wrestler and Neo Platonist. Noted for her brilliant autobiography of george Livingston Armstrong, she has contributed many artiCles to the Christian Science Monotone on her obsession with dingle balls. Following furiously is the well known Benzol Skeegig whose oft quoted "I would never climb to the top of the World Trade Center in Denver because it isn't there," will not be mentioned here. Engaged for a return bout is that master of the meaningless, the rev. Dr. Wolfgang Q. Fawz, reKnowned collector of bus transers and lifelong malcontent.
Chosen from amongst thousands of Northern Wisconsin farm communities as the person most likely to learn how to read, Perry karyon entered Trivia as the only alternative to jail or the Ice Follies. the sometimes Reverend Hung Wun Moon has joined Trivia as a means of severe self-flagellation in his eternal and mystical quest to become at one with a shoe horn. Taking time out from his ninth consecutive incarnation as Neenah, Wisconsin, the Right Honorable Sir Percival Stern should at least add a phony air of dignity to the whole mess. Finally, because they wanted an odd number, what odder number could there be than the extinguished Dr. of Pomology, Sphilt Knockers. Recently arrested for allegedly indecent practices with a grapefruit, he is being extradited from the IPC this year specifically to increase their chances of winning.
Though their collective criminal record is so impressive that it's challenging Tammy Wynette's Stand By Your Man on AM stations in the Southwest, the trivia masters are a relatively harmless bunch except when surprised while eating duffel cakes in a dark alley.
"It's an addiction. Every year I try to pass it by, but I can't. And my friends can't help me, because they're addicted too." Bill Edminsters' addiction is not trivial; it is Trivia Weekend which begins this Friday at 10:00 pm on WLFM, 91.1
Edminster and his friends, the Phi Taus, won last year's contest and are "so paranoid this year about sabotage that the Phi Taus would rather not release their team's name early." Several years ago the Phi Tau team was sent chocolate cookies laced with Ex-Lax which when eaten in large quantities sent some of the members to the hospital, removing them from competition.
Edminster says "The Trivia Contest's questions should cover a wide enough spectrum so that everyone on campus should be able to answer a few of them. For example, one year Jim Thompson was only able to answer two questions for the Phi Tau team, but those two questions, one about a Gregorian chant and another about the second half of a dirty Yiddish proverb, were crucial and could only have been answered by Jim Thomson."
Edminster, mean-while, has brought a copy of The Lives of the Saints and a guide to Middle Earth from home and has sat in one of Chaney's classes this term to gather more trivia. Edminster also says the Phi Taus use their Trivia file to answer one out of five trivia questions.
Ted Donovan of the Figi team says "A Trivia file is just not sporting. A true Trivia player should be able to answer questions using only his brain without the help of outside sources." Donovan, however, has several trivia dictionaries which "unfortunately are not cross-indexed. You have to know some trivia already to use these books. For example, you have to know that Robert Wagner played Al Mundi in order to look under Rober Wagner to find out Al Mundi's telephone number." And by the way, Donovan admits he is "the brain of the Figi team, Flying Sicilian, which will be this year's winning team."
L'Angelo Misterioso is also returning this year to its annual headquarters in Ormsby lounge. The name L'Angelo Misterioso was the same name used by George Harrison when he played on one of Cream's albums. One of L'Angelo's annual players, Mark Cieslewicz, says "Our team will depend on the leadership of players like Jim Peterson and Steve Schultz, but the team's real strength will come from any freshmen sections we can draft."
Walter Deutsch estimates that the Plantz team will have "twelve hard-core members with twenty-five people participating at any one time. Plantz's team will use the front desk to coordinate the activities of its workers." Plantz's team motto is "Remember Peter is watching." Peter the Armadillo was last year's team name, but as of this writing the Plantz team has not decided on this year's name.
Edminster, Donovan, Cieslewicz, and Deutsch are some of the old timers committed to Trivia Weekend, but what about the new-comers, the class of 1980? Donovan says he fears the freshmen. "Sure the Figis will win Trivia this year unless there are ten brilliant freshmen concentrated on one team. Who knows?"
A freshman, Tom Dwyer, says his Colman team "will depend on the mass brain power" of the freshmen in Colman. In any case, there will be many Unknowns working during Trivia Weekend and these teams are only a few of those which will spring up spontaneously both on and off campus.
The desert air was still as the old man sat in rheumy-eyed contemplation. "Ali-Ak Basim?.... Ali-Ak... now that's a name I've not heard for a long time... a long time."
"Then you know him?" asked the young man seated near him.
"Of course I know him. He's ME!"
"Then this bottle of Cadavracoll belongs to YOU! I've been looking all over the galaxy for you."
"Well, I don't remember ever owning any Cadavracol... But let me see it." He twisted open the battered bottle of frothing liquid and took as deep a breath as he dared. The swirling mists that arose from the slimy effervescence enveloped them both in a pernicious cloud of multiphasic, transubtantative stench.
Ali-Ak Basim inhaled calmly, savoring the unexpected pleasure of feeling his living lung tissue becoming embalmed. His young counterpart gasped and chocked. Inner peace of that sort held little fascination for him. He felt as if he were dying. He WAS dying. He was... suddenly there came the sound of feet running across the sand.
Flat feet. Five pair of flat feet. And then he heard singing. It grew louder-it split into three-then four-then five part harmony. He felt as if he had a barbershop quintet in his head, trying to shave its way out. Fighting for conciousness, trying to retain some personal sanctimony, he called out for aid.
"Ali-Ak!" he cried, "Help! Help me!"
"Trust your feelings. Plug your nose. Hold your ears. Shut your mouth," Ali-Ak Basim replied sagely. "It will get worse before it gets better>"
Ali-Ak Basim was true to his word. It got worse. Perforating the putrid, perdifious profundity cam Pope Pontius Page the One Quarteenth, weilding his incense burner like a Boy Scout practicing semaphore.
"Ecce Thunnus! In Hoc Telephonio Vinces!" he cried as his incendiary vessel belched forth acrid clouds of carbon monoxide. Ali-AkBasim raised his aged hands.
"Stop schnuttering in Latin, you Holiness. I've brought them." His eminence was his usual razor-sharp self.
"Brought who?" he inquired.
"The Six who are as Five. The Nine who are one-hundred ninety two. The One who is all, and the All who are none." Pope Pontius Page looked perplexed. Nonetheless he managed to ask the one question which penetrated to the heart of the dilemma.
"Huh?" he stammered, struggling to avoid delivering knockout blows to the nearby melody boys with wis deadly incense burner.
"Be careful with that thing!" Ali-Ak's young cohort cried, awakening out of his stupor only to find the pungent projectile whizzing just inches away from his nostrils. Ali-Ak Basim and his five flatfoot melody boys drew back, half in fear and half in disgust. And suddenly, inexplicably, the found themselves floating high above Kaukauna.
"Hey! What happened?" belched Pope Pontious Page the One Quarteenth.
"What happened" intoned the melody boys in perfect harmony despite their confusion.
"I believe we are about to experience that most existential of phenomena, the free-fall into what appears, from this altitude, to be a rather large deposit of bovine fecal matter."
"You don't mean..." gasped Ali-Ak's young accomplice.
"You don't mean..." burbled His Holiness, pinching his nostrils.
"You don't mean..." sang the melody boys, striking a minor chord.
"Yes, I am afraid so," replied Ali-Ak Basim gravely. "Cow dung."
They were keenly aware that the Kaukauna Manuer Works was now rushing toward them with greater and greater velocity, and that it was in fact about to strike them with solipsistic, cataclysmic, odoriferous force.
Then it was over. The Five flatfoot Melody Boys, Ali-Ak Basim, the young lad, and the thoroughly confused Pope Pontius Page the Obe Quarteenth were afloat in a sea of organic material, trying to maintain their bouyancy.
"Why did this have to happen?" asked the youngster. "What will my aunt and uncle say when I get home?"
"Why did it happen? Because it was meant to happen," replied Ali-Ak Basim. "Some force stronger than ourselves has called us to be brought together in this fashion. We must discover what we are meant to do."
They debated, discussed, digressed, and declaimed amid the defecation for minuted that seemed like hours. Finally a consensus was reached.
"The time has come to unveil our true identities and purpose," bellowed the Five flatfoot melody boys. "Trivia!"
"Trivia?" whispered the youth.
"Trivia? Non ego sum stultus..." said His Eminence.
"Yes, you Holiness, I am afraid you are... and Trivia muste be," declared Ali-Ak.
"Must be what?" asked the Pope, incisively.
"Must be. It is, therefore it must have been, and will be, ever in our image, at least for this year," answered Basim.
Ali-Ak Basim, with these historic words, called together the first Meeting of the Masters, amid the flagrant fragrence of the Kaukauna Manure Works. And just who are these paragons of perplexity?
Heading up the rear at the top of page two and a half is Norbert Q. Plotz, part-time otolaryntologisy and currently employed as a telephone pole in Darboy. Plotz represents the epitome of noveau-drecch thought in Western Theology. Engaged for a return bout with the trivia Strain (also catalogued as the Hortonville Flu) is well-knownneo-existentialist and jacks player Philosopher (Phil) Stone, the country's foremost authority on the geology of common hand soaps. three year victim-veteran R.F.D. Dilberton has made the perilous trip to Appleton against all odds from scenic Omro where he has been trapped beneath the ice of the Fox River since December 12 when he dove after a particularly interesting specimen of carp.
Newcomers to Trivial Studies this year include Dr. Humboldt Sammler, Chairman of the Committee on Social Drinking at the University of Urbane-Champagne. Among Dr. Sammlers more recent publications is his demographic analysis of acne transmission as a function of subway travel in cities north of Hoboken. Trivia '78's Director of Public Debations is the well known Rabbi Mikial S. Sigmandevich, whose renowned chain of franchised synagogues are suspected by Campus Police of operating an underwater laetrile smuggling ring. Iwhore Yalubudivchyat! (which translates into "I have eels in my underwear") has joined Trivia as the only alternative to Chamistry 67 or work at the Physical Plant. At a recent political cenvention, Iwhore was quoted as saying, "Unibus time-out fatal trap at line 360. Program lost-Sorry."
Adding an international flavor to trivia '78 will be Milo (The Killer) Weed, private investigator from Cleveland, Ohio and partly full-time hack journalist. Asked to comment on the proclivity of computer software, Weed replied, "I don't know, but then again, I don't really know her all that well. That aside, Vyenta Olyblatz (also known as the Albanian Midget) arrived this year only to find a rather severe shortage of bedroom facilities in the Appleton area. No need to worry, though. Ms. Olyblatz has taken up residence inside a variable capacitor in the WLFM transmitter, where she plans to remain until a cure for apathy can be found.
Finally, Carlton W. Dorkwelder, prize winning door-to-door Geritol Salesperson for the twntieth year in a row, has assured us that Trivia '78 is, as we all suspected, "100 percent organic, nothing artificial added." As a result, the WLFM studios have received, courtesy of Dorkwelder, a letter of condemnation from Good Slumkeeping Magazine, which he also sells door-to-door.
As a group, Ali-Ak Basim ans his five flatfoot melody boys are a relatively diverse group; their only common interest is a surprisingly insatiable desire to stomp on cockroaches (Rabbi, with those pointed shoes of his, is especially tough in the corners). They assure all interested parties that "Trivia '78 will be the best Trivia contest that Lawrence has had since 1977."
What is the licence plate number on the Batmobile?
When confronted by such a question you might normally say, "Who cares?" But this weekend you will care-because it's Trivia Weekend.
That's right, at 10 p.m. tonight WLFM kicks off the proverbial Trivial football for the thirteenth time. For the next fifty hours people will be racking their trivial brains to answer the 400-odd questions that will be asked.
According to this year's Grand Trivia Master Norbert Q. Plotz, "You don't need to know Trivia to play Trivia. Non-Trivial people can still have a good time-Trivia is designed for everyone." He does have some advice however, for those teams interested in capturing this year's first prize.
"Numbers is the important thing," says Plotz. "If the team doesn't have at least 30 people playing all 50 hours, the chances of winning are very slim. This is particularly true during the critical period."
The critical period, as Plotz explains, is the time between 3 a.m. and 8 a.m. Sunday morning. During that time most teams tend to fade out. Those that don't can get ahead by as much as 100 points.
"Anyone can make it through the first night and the daylight will keep them awake through Saturday." But if the team doesn't have any fresh players on Saturday night, "their numbers will dwindle fast." To avoid this, it may be necessary to send people to be Friday night.
"Card games and a comfortable setting are also a big help," Plotz adds. It goes without saying that hundreds of reference books are a necessity for any team.
Although the contest is popular, the funds to finance it are limited. The contest, which has a potential listening audience of 500,000 people, costs about $1000 to run. The major source of funds is the WLFM Equipment Repair Fund. However, according to a Trivia master, it has become necessary to seek outside sources "in order to maintain a quality contest." This year the Committee on Committes gave $50 to finance an additional phone line, which brings the total to nine. The Public Occasions Committe donated $100 to cover the cost of publicity.
The contest has been attracting more teams every year. Last year about 300 teams competed; about 200 of these teams were from off-campus. The trivia Masters believe that this enthusiastic community response to the contest is an important way to "enhance community relations." "Indeed, Trivia represents the most significant contact LU has with the Appleton community, with the possible exception of Celebrate!"
Although many teams play to win, Plotz stresses that the goal of the contest is entertainment. To this end, the Trivia Masters poke fun at a lot of people, including themselves. According to Plotz, the Masters "don't intend to offend anyone, even though it invariably happens."
Plotz has a last exhortation for all Lawrentians. "Come on youse guys, don't worry about that Chaney mid-term. Chaney gives mid-terms 3 times a year and Trivia comes but once a year."
By the way. The license plate number of the Batmobile is 2F3567.