Most of you are probably familiar with Before and Afters from Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune – basically, you link together famous phrases by having the last word of the first phrase be the first word of the second phrase, and provide a clue to the answer. For example:
A Biblical boat that was built to glorify Napoleon’s accomplishments.
What is Noah’s Ark de Triomphe?
or…
An NPR personality hired to return to her Midwest hometown to assassinate someone.
Who is Terry Grosse Point Blank?
But lets see how far we can expand this – how long a Before and After chain can you build? See what you can come up with, but let us know how many elements are in the answer. Here goes:
Before and After and After and After (4 elements)
Comedian who never aged past 39, and liked to chased women around to the tune “Yakety Sax” before starring in a seminal '80s Steven Bochco drama with a Harold Arlen/Johnny Mercer theme song.
Anyone?
**Incidentally, yes, I know the first two examples used Ark/Arc and Gross/Grosse, but as far as I’m concerned, homonyms are just fine.
I think… That’d be Jack Benny Hill Street Blues in the Night.
Here’s my stab at it: book by teenaged Holocaust victim and Pixies singer, who was also a common American wildflower and fought for women’s rights while playing Hannibal Lector.
I have no idea if I’ve phrased it coherently, but let’s see what people come up with.
No, that’s right. Although I was a little off, if you want to nitpick. The singer I wanted was Frank Black, but when he was with the Pixies, he was Black Francis. I’ll have to cook up some more of these- the one I gave you had been kicking around in my head for years. The original form was longer, but it involved people who weren’t public figures, so nobody would have figured it out.
How about this: although he’s best known as a British singer/pianist, this TV psychic also starred as an inspirational math teacher in a late-1980s film. [Bad pun bonus if you can tell me the name of the autobiographical Cameron Crowe film in question.]
I’m resisting the urge to google or IMDB the last part…
Elton John Edward _____________. I assume the Cameron Crowe film you’re talking about is Fast Times at Ridgmont High, but I can’t think of any Edwards who played a teacher in that movie.
Try this:
Before and After and After and After and After (5 elements)
The famous last words of a Billy Wilder comedy sum up this '80s sitcom about two cousins living together who enjoy singing a song based on a Borodin composition while reading an epic English poem set in modern Tokyo.
I can get the first three elements, I think, but I doubt I’d ever get it on my own.
You’re right up to the blank. Ridgemont High isn’t the movie I was thinking of. The name of the Crowe film can be formed out of a pun on the name of the actor who played the math teacher.
Before and After and After and After and After (5 elements)
You can find this British comedy programme with an Oscar winner’s catch phrase drawn from a Cyndi Lauper song along a popular “dirty”-book-turned-movie by using a search engine.
Some people will probably already know this one, but during the Jeopardy Tournament of Champions a while back, they had a three-element Before, During and After Category (instead of just Before and After). My favorite of those had a clue to the following effect:
“Home of Peter Pan, located in Alaska, also inhabited by famous jazzman who founded the Arkestra.”
I confess I had to look up the last element because I wasn’t sure. Very clever – I’d be very impressed if any of the Jeopardy contestants were able to get it; hope it was the $2,000 clue.
