How would you have fared on 21? Try these authenic questions
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torreydeluca — 21 years ago(December 21, 2004 01:47 PM)
But in real-life Charles van Doren got that one wrong. Obviously he got it wrong on purpose to add to the drama. I believe he and Stempel tied each other two or three times before Herbie was told to blow it on the Oscar winner for Best Picture from 1954.
I'm recalling this from interviews with Stempel I've seen, as well as from books I read on the quiz hows scandals back in college. Charles van Doren comes out a little bit better in the film than in real-life, and the opposite for Stempel.
Herbie really did have an unhealthy obsession over van Doren becoming more famous than he had become, but he wasn't that much of a stereotypical nebbish in real-life. Also, his wife knew all along that he was getting the answers. But I guess it made for a more interesting character.
Back to the questions - I'd have gotten them all right if I were given the answers ahead of time, just like on the show!!! But with the multiple choice I was able to get 11 of them right. -
marlie1013 — 21 years ago(December 28, 2004 06:50 PM)
That's a broad assumption, how about people have a lot more to do now and by the time they get to watching tv they don't want to use their brains, they want mind numbing crap so they don't have to think about what they are watching. It's all about ratings-not about how dumb everyone has gotten.
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torreydeluca — 21 years ago(December 30, 2004 03:24 PM)
People aren't considerably smarter or dumber since the late 1950s. It's just that now-adays we have much more media concentrated on celebrity "news".
Also, when TV first came along so-called intellectuals chided it as "the idiot box" and "the boob tube". They'd also regularly brag about how they didn't own a TV because they knew how to read books and newspapers. One of my freshman year roommates was always acting that way, saying he didn't own a TV with a tone of moral/intellectual superiority. Of course he used to listen to reggae all day long, so
Anyway, back in the late 1950s TV networks tried to win over people into believing that they could produce intellgient programming. That's a major reason why they went after van Doren to be on the show and why the questions were so hard.
Today with networks like PBS, Discovery Channel, and The History Channel, there is enough knowledgeable programming out there that it is no longer necessary to do such things. -
chickenblood — 19 years ago(August 08, 2006 03:47 PM)
Also, when TV first came along so-called intellectuals chided it as "the idiot box" and "the boob tube". They'd also regularly brag about how they didn't own a TV because they knew how to read books and newspapers. One of my freshman year roommates was always acting that way, saying he didn't own a TV with a tone of moral/intellectual superiority. Of course he used to listen to reggae all day long, so
so what?
"Your mother's in here with us." -
chickenblood — 19 years ago(August 10, 2006 08:44 AM)
Wow calm down. I'm not trying to bait anyone, just asked a simple question
I was just wondering how the fact that a man listens to reggae, means that his opinion on something completely unrelated is invalidated.
"Your mother's in here with us." -
torreydeluca — 19 years ago(August 10, 2006 09:18 AM)
I don't need to "calm down". I'm just making the rational choice to avoid a stupid, immature fan-boy war on these boards.
If you don't have an agenda as you claim (which I don't believe based on your smart-ass posting regarding what W.A.S.P. stands for) then I will answer your question:
My freshman roommate categorically derided everything that was on television as being idiotic, and everyone who owned a television as being an uncultured moron. Yet he found no hypocrisy in the fact that he'd skip class and sit in the room listening to music with lyrics that incessantly repeated, "no woman, no cry". He even blasted me for watching a documentary on the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge on PBS while he listened to the homphobic rantings of Shabba Ranks.
Do you see the relation now? -
chickenblood — 19 years ago(August 10, 2006 09:45 AM)
I don't need to "calm down". I'm just making the rational choice to avoid a stupid, immature fan-boy war on these boards.
If you don't have an agenda as you claim (which I don't believe based on your smart-ass posting regarding what W.A.S.P. stands for) then I will answer your question:
Since you want to drag a completely unrelated post into this one, I'll say this: It is not fanboyism to simply make a JOKE. Also - look it up. W.A.S.P is also the name of a band and We Are Sexually Perverted is what the initials stand for. So it had nothing to do with being a smartass, just offering a valid alternative interpretation in a lighthearted way. Don't jump to conclusions. You will often be wrong.
My freshman roommate categorically derided everything that was on television as being idiotic, and everyone who owned a television as being an uncultured moron. Yet he found no hypocrisy in the fact that he'd skip class and sit in the room listening to music with lyrics that incessantly repeated, "no woman, no cry". He even blasted me for watching a documentary on the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge on PBS while he listened to the homphobic rantings of Shabba Ranks.
The vast majority of songs have repetitive lyrics (I'm sure some that you listen to too). You may however be right about Shabba Ranks homophobic rantings, but either way, your point is a non-sequiter - you cannot judge someone's disdain for television on the basis of their taste in music. It sounds like your roommate was simlarly small minded if he really did think that
all
television was idiotic. Only 90% of it is
Do you see the relation now?
Yeah, you don't like reggae.
"Your mother's in here with us." -
torreydeluca — 19 years ago(August 10, 2006 11:57 AM)
"Don't jump to conclusions. You will often be wrong."
- And what do you know of the music I listen to? How perfectly wonderful it must be to know everything
All I know is that you love reggae like a fanboy and therefore can't tolerate any criticism of it, as my post was obviously a light-hearted joke that no one else felt it necessary to take personal offense to.
If you want to keep your little statements going on then please send to them to me directly and don't ruin this message board.
- And what do you know of the music I listen to? How perfectly wonderful it must be to know everything
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chickenblood — 19 years ago(August 10, 2006 12:40 PM)
I don't know anything of the music you listen to and I never said that I did. My claim was that in general lyrical music has repetitive parts (regardless of the genre).
As for your assertion that I "love reggae like a fanboy" (whatever that means), you are completely wrong and I see no reason why you could reach that conclusion from what I said.
I wasn't offended by what you said, just pointing out a logical fallacy. It seems that I have upset you though, so I apologise for that.
"Your mother's in here with us." -
iPadCary — 12 years ago(July 03, 2013 06:19 AM)
I'll admit it was pretty surprising to see that
"Glass-Looking-Outside-To-Crowd" thing on the "Today" show was done in the 50s.
I thought that was a new thing the morning shows started.
Anyway, to say that people aren't dumber now than in the 50s is rediculous.
I've seen FAR too many cases of people in high school legitamately saying
Viet Nam was one of the countries we fought in World War II, not knowing who the Beatles are,
and
sophomores in beep college
never hearing of
George Washington
.
No, my friend: in 1989, a concerted effort was started to destroy people from the inside out
the whole grunge thing, the Clinton administration, wierd camera-angles in TV & movies,
reverse-cadenced, deliberately-made annoying "music", unfiltered sunlight h
[notice how pale & white, and not golden warm, sunlight's been since the 90s?], tattoos,
heroin chic, school mass shootings [guns were just as freely available before the 90s
as they are now, but we never had insane things like a Columbine not only not happen before,
but happen on a fairly regular basis .
], the adding of who-knows-what into school food
make kids develop faster but be far, far stupider, etc., etc. and the not knowing of people of
basic common facts is just a single manifestation of that effort.
And to the quiz itself, I got 12 outta 12 right.
What do I win?
B . I . L-L-T . E-T-L-E-YYYYYYY Bill Tetley! -
frog-34 — 21 years ago(February 10, 2005 11:22 AM)
I got four of them wrong: 4, 8, 11, and 12.
And I think on the whole we are getting dumber as a country. Ten and twenty years ago on "Jeopardy" you'd see categories like "The American Revolution," "The Old Testament," "World Literature," "Word Origins," and so forth. I watched "Jeopardy" every day when I was a kid back in the '80s knowing that I would learn something. Today you get categories such as "Teens in the News," "2005 Cinema," and "If Shakespeare Wrote for the WB" (read, of course, by The Clue Crew).
Remember those "Celebrity Jeopardy" pieces they had on SNL a few years back with categories like "Things That Rhyme With the Letter S"? Not too far off the mark were they?
"[M]y fellow Americans, major combat operations in Iraq have ended."George W. Bush, 1 May 2003 -
mark-1589 — 15 years ago(June 01, 2010 09:44 AM)
To be honest, I knew some (Nos. 7, 8, 12) from the film and from watching parts of the original clip on YouTube, but I would not have known them otherwise. Other than that I got questions 1, 3, 5, 6, 9, and 10 right. Not so bad.
