# Trivia Dominoes: Play Off the Last Bit of Trivia **URL:** \ **Category:** Thread Games\ **Created:** [February 4, 2010, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657 "2010-02-04T08:12:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1595
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/31887 "2016-09-26T02:09:28Z")
Rachel Maddow was born in the San Francisco Bay Area, in the city of Castro Valley. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/31888 "2016-09-26T02:12:29Z")
In the 1959 novel _Epitaph for a Tramp_ by David Markson, the main character Harry Fannin, in chapter six, says: “She was staring at the Castro they’d squeezed in against a far wall”, referring to the Castro Convertibles. ---
**Author:** ![gkster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gkster/32/14107_2.png) [@gkster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gkster)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/31889 "2016-09-26T02:31:49Z")
David Marks was a member of The Beach Boys from 1962 until 1963, again from 1997 until 1999, and lastly in 2012. A neighbor of the Wilson family (Brian, Dennis, and Carl Wilson) and a frequent participant at the Wilson family’s Sunday night singalongs, thirteen-year-old Marks officially joined the Beach Boys in February 1962 as its rhythm guitarist. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/31890 "2016-09-26T04:29:50Z")
As a boy, Woodrow Wilson saw the captured former Confederate President Jefferson Davis led in chains by Federal troops through Wilson’s hometown of Staunton, Va. Wilson later rose to political prominence in his adoptive state of New Jersey, where he served as a reformist Democratic governor before being elected President of the United States in 1912. ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/31891 "2016-09-26T04:35:38Z")
In the spring and summer of 1968, the Beach Boys’ Dennis Wilson lived in his Sunset Boulevard home. Also living with him during that time was Charles Manson and company. Yes, _that_ Charles Manson. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 7:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/31892 "2016-09-26T07:48:53Z")
The character of _Sunset Boulevard_’s Norma Desmond mirrors aspects of the twilight years of several real-life faded silent film stars, such as the reclusive existence of Mary Pickford and the mental disorders of Mae Murray and Clara Bow. It is usually regarded as a fictional composite inspired by several different people, not just a thinly disguised portrait of one in particular, but some commentators have made claims for specific models: one asserts that Norma Talmadge is “the obvious if unacknowledged source of Norma Desmond, the grotesque, predatory silent movie queen” of the film." The most common analysis of the character’s name is that it is a combination of the names of silent film actress Mabel Normand and director William Desmond Taylor, a close friend of Normand’s who was murdered in 1922 in a never-solved case sensationalized by the press. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/31893 "2016-09-26T12:38:29Z")
Paul Desmond was one of the most one-deinensioal figures in jazz music. Desmond met Dave Brubeck when he was 20, and was inextricably associaed as the saxophonist with the Dave Brubeck Quartet, rarely straying off the Brubeck stage until 25 years later. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/31894 "2016-09-26T13:30:45Z")
Horace Davenport in one of the Uncle Fred novels is so tall and thin that he is referred to as the illustration of a one dimensional line, having length but no breadth. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/31895 "2016-09-26T13:32:14Z")
Alan Campbell played Joe Gillis in the entire three year Broadway run of Sunset Boulevard. Norma Desmond and Joe Gillis had a relationship very much like the real life Dorothy Parker and her second (and third, they divorced and remarried) husband, Alan Campbell. ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/31896 "2016-09-26T13:41:46Z")
The thymus is a primary organ of the immune system. Within the thymus, T cells mature. T cells are critical to the adaptive immune system, where the body adapts specifically to foreign invaders. The thymus has two identical lobes and they are located in front of the heart and behind the sternum. Captain Jonas Grumby was a character better known as ‘The Skipper’ on the TV sitcom _Gilligan’s Island_. He was played by Alan Hale, jr., an actor who died in 1990 at the age of 68, of thymus cancer. ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/31897 "2016-09-26T13:50:21Z")
Jonas is the main character in The Giver, a novel by Lois Lowry. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/31898 "2016-09-26T13:53:46Z")
Bernard Malamud’s 1966 novel The Fixer is a fictionalized version of the Beilis case. Menahem Mendel Beilis was a Jew unjustly imprisoned in Tsarist Russia. The “Beilis trial” of 1913 caused an international uproar and Russia backed down in the face of world indignation. The book was adapted into a 1968 film of the same name starring Alan Bates (Yakov Bok) who received an Oscar nomination. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/31899 "2016-09-26T14:02:03Z")
Alan Breck Stewart is one of the two main characters in Stevenson’s _Kidnapped_. The novel is ambiguous whether he actually assassinated the Red Fox, Colin Roy Campbell, or just happened to be fishing in the area and may have seen the assassin. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/31900 "2016-09-26T14:09:23Z")
While Stephen Oliver and Tim Rice’s _Blondel_ was not a hit [The Assassin’s Song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlGK2C5TSTk) has some of the funniest and cleverest lyrics ever written. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_stainless_steel_rat/32/5727_2.png) [@The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Stainless_Steel_Rat)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/31901 "2016-09-26T14:22:53Z")
_Top Gear_ host Richard Hammond, during a trip across Botswana in 2007, named his car (a 1963 Opel Cadet) “Oliver”. It surprising made the 1,000 mile trip and was later brought back to England by Hammond. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/31902 "2016-09-26T14:29:42Z")
The 1977 UK TV series Top Gear originally was a half-hour motoring show on the BBC. The original format ran for 24 years and was transformed in 1912 into a revamped format starring Jeremy Clarkson, and a further incarnation in 2016 starred Chris Evans. It has since played in Australia, France, Korea, Russia, the United States, Russia, and Italy. ---
**Author:** ![gkster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gkster/32/14107_2.png) [@gkster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gkster)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/31903 "2016-09-26T15:26:17Z")
One of Jeremy Irons’ recent Shakesperean films is _The Hollow Crown_ series, where he plays Henry IV. Tom Hiddleston, playing his son, the fun-loving Prince Hal, has a scene where he does an effective comic impression of Irons’ famous resonant voice. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/31904 "2016-09-26T16:28:02Z")
In 2005, Sony made an out-of-court settlement and agreed to refund $5 each to dissatisfied customers who saw “Hollow Man” in American theatres, as a result of reviews attributed to the synthesized voice of the fictitious David Manning. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/31905 "2016-09-26T22:22:09Z")
Alan Smithee (also Allen Smithee) is an official pseudonym used by film directors who wish to disown a project, coined in 1968. Until its use was formally discontinued in 2000, it was the sole pseudonym used by members of the Directors Guild of America (DGA) when a director, dissatisfied with the final product, proved to the satisfaction of a guild panel that he or she had not been able to exercise creative control over a film. ---
**Author:** ![gkster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gkster/32/14107_2.png) [@gkster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gkster)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2016, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/31906 "2016-09-27T00:10:56Z")
“Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones entered the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in America in June 1965, and remained there for 14 weeks. It reached the top slot in July, displacing the Four Tops’ “I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)”. “Satisfaction” held the number one spot for four weeks, being knocked off in August by “I’m Henery the Eighth, I Am” by Herman’s Hermits. It received the Stones’ first of many gold disc awards in America. Billboard ranked the record as the No. 3 song of 1965. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657.md?page=1594) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657.md?page=1596)