Best of the Worst Trivia

Mike and Rich compete in a RedLetterMedia gameshow where the questions are all about "Best of the Worst" movies.

I'll be honest, I did not do as well as I would have hoped/expected.

RLM - The Jay vs. Mike Trivia Rematch

 

Not a single question about "The Straight Story"...

Super Bowl Trivia

A few facts about the game today...

• Quarterbacks who lead the league in passing yardage during the regular season are now 0-6 in the Super Bowl.
• This is a game where the losing team did not punt.
• Coming into the game, Tom Brady's record in the playoffs when playing teams he did not play in the regular season was 15-0. The Eagles and Patriots did not meet in the regular season.
• The Patriots won their first Super Bowl as underdogs in Bill Belichik's second year with a backup quarterback. Doug Pederson has won his first Super Bowl as an underdog in his second year with a backup quarterback.
• The Eagles won more playoff games this season than the Dallas Cowboys have in the past 21 years.
• The Philadelphia Eagles won their first Super Bowl the day after Brian Dawkins and Terrell Owens were selected for Hall of Fame induction.
• The Eagles did not give up a rushing touchdown at home this season.
• Nick Foles has been MVP of the Pro-Bowl and Super Bowl MVP and is currently a back up quarterback.
• The Eagles are the first #1 Seed to be underdogs in all 3 playoff games.
• The Eagles are the only team to defeat Vince Lombardi and Bill Belichik in championship games.
• Nick Foles is the first player to throw and catch a touchdown in the same Super Bowl.
• Foles is the only quarterback in history to earn a 100+ quarterback rating in each of his first 4 career playoff games.
• The last time the Eagles reached the Super Bowl, they played the Vikings, Falcons and Patriots. This time, they played the same teams.
• Doug Pederson is only the 5th coach in history to win the Super Bowl in his second year.
• There was only one sack in the game by either team. The one sack was the Brady forced fumble.
• The NFL Draft this year happens to take place in Dallas. That means that some variant of the phrase "With the 32nd pick, the World Champion Philadelphia Eagles select..." will be said in Dallas stadium.
• The Philadelphia Eagles won the Super Bowl on February 4th - Jerome Brown's birthday.

Cheers & The Internet

The internet can be a maddening place, sometimes.

There's a particular bit of trivia from the "Cheers" episode "Coach Buries a Grudge" that I found interesting from Cheers' Oral History. It's about Nick Colasanto (the Coach) and how, as his health deteriorated, he had increasing trouble remembering his lines and took to writing his lines on hidden places around the set:

"Ted Danson: When Nick had heart disease, he was getting less and less oxygen. There wasn't a surface on that set that didn't have his lines written down. There was one episode where a friend of Coach dies, and he says, "It's as if he's still with us now." Nick had written the line on the wood slats by the stairs the actors would use to enter the studio. Nicky dies, and the next year, we're all devastated, and the first night we come down the stairs, right there was his line: "It's as if he were with us now." And so every episode, we'd go by it and pat it as we'd come down to be introduced to the audience.

And then, one year, they repainted the sets and they painted over the line. People almost quit. Seriously. They were so emotionally infuriated that that had been taken away from them."

This trivia is repeated on imdb, the Seattle Times, the awful click-bait article "Secrets You Never Knew About Cheers", and "12 Frothy Facts About Cheers", and it goes on and on.

The only problem with this, of course, is that that line never appears in the episode. I've watched it twice now and downloaded a file of the subtitles... and Coach doesn't say that line.

The closest thing I see is that Coach says, "It'll be like having my old buddy back for all-time." That would make sense - Danson paraphrased the line from memory - but then the problem is that line is said no where near any stairs or a door (some sites claim it was written by a door). The only way the anecdote makes sense is if the line was written next to the physical location where it was spoken.

I wish there was some way to ask follow up questions to understand what the actual story is. I'm sure the trivia isn't entirely fabricated, someone just needs to so some research instead of just regurgitating the same misinformation over and over. Unfortunately the internet is the place where no one knows your name (wah wahh). Maddening. Even worse when I consider how bothered I am by something so amazingly inconsequential.

By the way, "Coach Buries a Grudge" is only in the second season but I'm pretty sure I can say I've already found my favorite episode of the series. If you want a single episode of "Cheers" to watch, that would be my recommendation. It's amazing.

And if you want to feel internet-crazy too, why not check out the never-aired episode of "Cheers" promoting savings bonds? Yes it's a real thing. Don't believe me? Then why is all this text a link? It's real and it's like something out of an alternate dimension. Never before have I seen a modern show from such a totally different era.

The Nerdiest Moment Ever

I was lying on the couch watching (I think) the History Channel over the weekend when a commercial came on for an upcoming special. "Did you know two U.S. Presidents were avid skinny dippers?" To which I replied (yes, I spoke out loud to the television), "John Quincy Adams and Theodore Roosevelt".

Now, I wasn't making a joke (to my tv) and I wasn't venturing a guess. I knew the actual two presidents to which they're referring. That's extreme nerdity (good or bad). Nobody should really know that offhand.

But I've come this far so I might as well go all the way....

I object to the term "skinny dipping" in this instance. It's a bit misleading. "Skinny dipping" is something high school kids do during games of "Truth or Dare"; it's something "Stiffler" would do in "American Pie 8: The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull". John Q. Adams and Teddy Roosevelt swam nude outdoors for exercise and health (it was believed that the shock of cold air and/or cold water was invigorating and good for one's constitution). Let's not degrade their legacy with stupid terms. Next they'll be saying that Archimedes yelled, "Eureka!" and went streaking.