Savvy Minds Entertainment

23/06/2025

Bonus topic for the week of 06/22/25 - 06/28/25:

Last Friday marked the 50th anniversary of the release of one of my favorite movies, Jaws. It epitomized the term “summer blockbuster” and it became the highest-grossing film of all-time (not adjusted for inflation) until the release of Star Wars. The movie originally came from a 1964 newspaper article about a fisherman who caught a 4,500 lb. great white shark off the coast of Montauk, New York. Peter Benchley, once a sp*echwriter for President Lyndon Baines Johnson, read the article years later and was inspired to keep his career alive by writing a novel based on a monster shark. He was also reminded of a series of shark attacks that occurred off the Jersey shore in 1916 and had memories of catching sharks in his childhood when he went fishing with his father on trips to Nantucket. He began writing it in 1971 and was offered an advance by Doubleday Publishing. The novel was finished in 1974 and became a huge success, reaching the top on best-seller lists for almost a year. Despite this, book critics thought the writing was amateurish and the characters unlikeable, a sentiment shared by Steven Spielberg who said he was “rooting for the shark to win”. He did like the idea of the story though and eventually got the directing gig from the producers after the original director was sacked. Benchley wrote early drafts of the script but was passed over for Carl Gottlieb. Filming began in May of 1974, but was riddled with production issues leading to cost and schedule increases, due in large part to the mechanical sharks, one named “Bruce” after Spielberg’s lawyer, Bruce Ramer, continuously breaking down. Spielberg had to change his vision for the film by limiting the screen time for the shark and relying more on the music of John Williams to create suspense. Other problems arose from trying to shoot out on the ocean, the first major motion picture to do so. Cameras were damaged, the cast got seasick and the writer was nearly decapitated by the boat’s propellers. Despite the setback, the film opened to favorable reviews on June 20th of 1975. It took just 78 days to become the highest grossing film in movie history. Its success led to a sequel, Jaws 2, that opened in 1978. Spielberg declined to direct it however, basing it on the difficulties of filming the first film. He also believed that he had created the perfect shark movie already and that there was nothing more to add. It was followed by two more sequels in 1983 and 1987. Jaws has also inspired three different theme rides, several video games, pinball machines, and even two musical adaptations.

This week’s bonus question:

Although he only appeared in the original Jaws, Richard Dreyfus did make an appearance as a parody of his Matt Hooper character and the first victim in this 2010 horror-comedy film?

Bring your answer to this week’s trivia for a bonus point

16/06/2025

Bonus topic for the week of 06/15/25 - 06/21/25:

Last week I had a question mentioning CERN and the Large Hadron Collider, but let me tell you more about this impressive technological complex. The idea for CERN (Conseil Europ*en Recherche Nucleaire) began shortly after World War II. It was realized that European science was lacking during the war and a group of scientists decided that a consortium of their p*ers could improve their standing and reduce the cost of research, particularly in nuclear advancements. CERN was created in 1954 and their facility broke ground soon after. By 1957, the first particle accelerator was operating, which eventually led to advanced improvements, including the Large Electron-Positron Collider in 1989 and culminating with the nearly 17-mile underground ring known as the Large Hadron Collider in 2008. A particle accelerator or collider uses superconducting magnets to propel protons and ions at each other near the sp*ed of light resulting in massive collisions in order to document the interactions of each incident. It is used to try and attempt what may have happened during the Big Bang. Some of the most important discoveries that have occurred at CERN are the existence of antimatter, the identification of subatomic particles known as bosons, including the most important of them, the Higgs Boson, theorized nearly fifty years before it was proven. It can be referred to as the “Rosetta Stone” of physics, allowing for a better understanding of other particles and their mass. Outside of physics, another huge occurrence happened at CERN, the invention of the World Wide Web by Tim Berniers-Lee, who was searching for a more efficient way of sharing information on the fledgling internet. He introduced it in 1989 and by 1993 it was in the public domain. The first use of touch screen technology was always used at CERN in the early 1970's. Experiments are currently continuing but after discovery of the Higgs Boson, things have been somewhat stagnant. It costs about $5.5 billion dollars to maintain yearly, about 20 percent coming from CERN and the rest from private organizations.

This week’s bonus question:

The first particle accelerator introduced at CERN in 1957 had this name?

Bring your answer to this week’s trivia for a bonus point

09/06/2025

Bonus topic for the week of 06/08/25 - 06/14/25:

I heard some interesting things about the Hope Diamond this past week, thought I’d share with you. The original uncut stone was unearthed from the Kollur mine in India sometime in the 17th century and was a massive 116 carats. It was purchased by gem merchant Jean Baptiste-Tavernier in 1666 and sold to King Louis XIV in 1668. The stone was pared down to just over 67 carats, was set in gold and suspended by a ribbon to be worn by the king on special occasions. It remained with the royal family until the French Revolution and after the theft of the crown jewels in 1792, it disappeared for at least twenty years. References suggest that the stone was next seen in 1812 at a London diamond merchant and that King George IV purchased it in 1830, but there isn’t concrete evidence to prove either. The next documented owner was the man who gave the diamond its current name, Henry Phillip Hope. At this point, the diamond had been cut down to its current size of 42 ½ carats. He bought it in 1839 but died within the year lending itself to the idea that the stone was cursed. For generations the stone stayed with the Hope family, who suffered health issues and financial difficulties, furthering the idea of the curse, and was eventually sold in 1901. Ownership changed hands several times during the early 20th century, including Perrier Cartier, and was purchased by Harry Winston in 1947, the last private owner of the diamond. Winston donated it to the Smithsonian Institute in 1958. Surprisingly, Winston sent the diamond by first class mail from New York to Washington, D.C. It was placed in a box and wrapped in brown paper. Postage was $2.44 for the package, but insurance was $142.85 for one million dollars of coverage. The diamond remains on display at the Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of Natural History and is estimated to be worth up to $350 million.

This week’s bonus question:

Before it was known as the Hope Diamond, it was known in France as the “Blue Diamond of the Crown” or this name?

Bring your answer to this week’s trivia for a bonus point

02/06/2025

Bonus topic for the week of 06/01/25 - 06/07/25:

After watching a documentary about the tragic events of the Oceangate submersible, I began to wonder about the initial discovery of the Titanic. I don’t think many people know this, yours truly included until now, that locating the shipwreck was just a side quest as part of a top secret mission to find two nuclear-powered submarines that sank in the Atlantic in the 1960s. Prior to locating the wreck, the Navy commissioned the development of a remote-controlled submersible designed by former naval officer and oceanographer, Robert Ballard. The project was called Argo that included sonar and cameras and could be towed behind a ship. It also had a smaller robot attached to it called JASON that could get into tight spaces and closer to the ocean floor. Ballard had done similar work while in the Navy and had wanted to locate the Titanic as far back as 1973. His first attempt occurred in 1977 and he approached the Navy in 1982 to help fund another search for the ship. Although no one had any idea where it was located, salvage of the ship went as far back as the year it sank with some ridiculous ideas on how to either raise the ship or retrieve bodies. Some of these included filling the ship with copious amounts of ping pong balls, glass spheres, molten wax or Vaseline to allow it to reach the surface, surrounding the ship in nylon balloons and in a morbid suggestion, sending down explosives to dislodge bodies from the ship. Despite the fact that more recent attempts had been unsuccessful, the methods did help Ballard narrow down search locations. The Navy requested that Ballard was to carry out expeditions once a year for four years in search of the lost submarines and that any remaining time could be used to locate the Titanic. On the first one in 1984, his expedition located the USS Thresher, but a mass implosion left minimal salvage to recover. During the second one in 1985, the wreck of the USS Scorpion was found, revealing a large debris field. After spending time mapping out the field and the submarine, Ballard had 12 days left to search for his true mission. He enlisted the help of a French crew of oceanographers to assist in the search and around 1:00 am on September 1st, 1985, they were successful. A debris field was found first which formed a trail to the wreck and after finding one of the ship’s boilers, it was confirmed they had found the Titanic. The remaining four days of the expedition allowed filming and photographing of the wreck site, the first time the ship had been seen since it sank 73 years prior. Subsequent visits have resulted in the recovery and conservation of thousands of items and an extensive mapping of the wreck and debris field located between the separated sections of the ship. The removal of items from the site is considered by some to be disrespectful to those that perished and in an effort to limit “grave robbing”, salvage has been allowed by only one company, RMS Titanic, Inc. since 1994. Due to its continued deterioration, it has been estimated that much of the ship will disintegrate in a matter of decades although that remains open for debate.

This week’s bonus question:

Robert Ballard also discovered the wreckage of the German battleship the Bismarck, the Lusitania and this American aircraft carrier sunk at Midway?

Bring your answer to this week’s trivia for a bonus point

26/05/2025

Bonus topic for the week of 05/25/25 - 05/31/25:

Glass. It’s very well known that its main ingredient is sand or sand-like material, but what is there to creating it and how was it discovered? Originally the ancient civilizations that lived near volcanoes found obsidian, and to paraphrase what they said, “Hey, we should try to make this for ourselves, let’s experiment”. Now while different theories exist, of course, it’s thought that glass production happened as the result of an accident. One story says that in ancient Mesopotamia, cooking pots were left on a beach and when the owners returned there was a material left behind that had the consistency of translucent obsidian. Another is credited to ceramics, a precursor to glasswork that included elements of metal oxides, with similar attributes to the silica found in natural sand. Different oxides also allowed for a variety of colored glass. Since early glass was expensive to make, it was usually reserved for royalty or wealthy people. Egyptians also had a form of glass-like ceramic work called faience, a porous substance that allowed for more vibrant colors. Glassblowing was invented around the 1st century B.C. (sorry, Dale Chihuly) reducing the time needed to create items and making it more accessible to the general public. It was also used to make the first glass windows but, due to the process they weren’t the highest of quality. It wasn’t really until the 17th century that plate glass became a reliable option for homes and businesses. Obviously more improvements have been made to the manufacturing of glass and glass products, of which we owe it all to volcanoes.

This week’s bonus question:

Designed by this architect for the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London, the 990,000 square foot Crystal Palace was the largest glass building at the time?

Bring your answer to this week’s trivia for a bonus point

20/05/2025

Just an FYI for my Monday show, we will be having trivia on Memorial Day.

Send a message to learn more

19/05/2025

Bonus topic for the week of 05/18/25 - 05/24/25:

Daylight Savings Time. The reason we observe it says so right in the name, but how did it all start? The idea for DST can be traced back to ancient civilizations who compensated for the change in seasons with different methods. For example, the Romans would use different water clocks at certain times of the year to maximize their daytime activities. The modern idea for Daylight Savings Time was first proposed by entomologist George Hudson in 1895, suggesting a two-hour time shift to allow more leisure time (for him to collect insects) and it would also help conserve energy by lowering the need for artificial light sources. His proposal was ignored. A decade later, WIlliam Willett, a British builder and frequent golfer came up with a similar thought in a pamphlet called “A Waste of Daylight” basically so he would have more free time to golf, but despite his petition to the British parliament, his request was also denied. It wasn’t until after the onset of World War I, that these ideas were formally adopted by several countries in an attempt to conserve energy and resources for the war effort. DST was originally used only during war time including World War II, but in 1966, the U.S. Congress passed the Uniform Time Act. This defined the dates that it would be observed and also allowed states to opt out, of which only two, Arizona and Hawaii, chose to do so. Around 70 nations now observe, or partially observe, Daylight Savings Time.

This week’s bonus question:

Although Daylight Savings Time wasn’t really used globally until 1916, this Canadian city adopted it on July 1st, 1908?

Bring your answer to this week’s trivia for a bonus point

12/05/2025

Bonus topic for the week of 05/11/25 - 05/17/25:

You may have heard of “Banana Ball” by now, but I hadn’t seen it until I watched it on TV this weekend, so let me tell you more about it. Originally, the Savannah Bananas were a replacement team in the collegiate Coastal Plain League (CPL) in 2016. They were a successful team having won three titles in the six years that they were in the league. During their stint in the CPL though, they created a different set of rules, wanting to become a more barnstorming team. In 2018, the owner of the team, Jesse Cole, formed Banana Ball, just as an intersquad exercise. Due to its popularity (they were shattering attendance records), they played home games under these rules while playing away games under the CPL rules. Cole was still disappointed however as to how many empty seats remained in the latter part of the games and a further departure from typical baseball began to form. A rival team, the Party Animals were founded in 2020 and by 2022, the Bananas left the CPL and played exclusively under the Banana Ball regulations. By October of 2024, the new league added The Firefighters, The Visitors and The Texas Tailgaters. Banana Ball is all about entertainment and while the players are very talented athletes who are capable of getting big hits and making acrobatic plays, they often attempt to make trick plays to bolster their stats. The players engage in dance routines, have interesting choices in their uniforms and there’s even one player who pitches on stilts. The officiating crew also gets in on the action, with a dancing and singing umpire and a ninja-dressed first base official. The difference in rules include that runs aren’t counted over the course of the entire game, but rather, teams win innings based on their run total for that inning except for the ninth when every run counts. There is also a two-hour time limit on games which means no new inning can start after one hour and fifty minutes. There is no bunting, but a batter can run to first base at any time during their at-bat after a wild pitch or passed ball. Walks are called “sprints” where the batter attempts to advance as far as they can until all the fielders, minus the pitcher, have touched the ball before they can get the batter out, sometimes resulting in multiple bases. Another rule, which is being considered for the Major Leagues, is the Golden Batter. This means at one time in a game you can send up a chosen hitter, no matter the place in the lineup, in hopes of having a clutch hit when a game is on the line. A fun rule is that a spectator can make an out, if they catch a foul ball. There is so much more that can be said about Banana Ball, but you just gotta see for yourself. Attendance has been off the charts with 500,000 people coming out for the 2023 world tour including 80,000 at one game. The Bananas will be in Seattle on September 19th and 20th, but to get a ticket, you have to be picked from a list of lottery entrants just to have the ability to purchase them (tickets can range from several hundred to thousands of dollars depending on the city).

This week’s bonus question:

When the Savannah Bananas came into existence in the CPL in 2016, they replaced this other Savannah team, who became the Fireflies in Columbia, South Carolina?

Bring your answer to this week’s trivia for a bonus point

05/05/2025

Bonus topic for the week of 05/04/25 - 05/10/25:

On Sunday, we “celebrated” Star Wars Day, which happens to be one of my favorite movie franchises and I decided to give you a brief history of its origin story. Star Wars creator George Lucas didn’t plan to be a filmmaker in his early days, but wanted to be a race car driver. In a near fatal auto accident, in which his car flipped several times and hit a tree, he was saved only by a faulty seat belt that broke, and he was ejected before impact. He suffered multiple broken bones, bruised lungs and was in critical condition. Deciding that racing wasn’t for him, he focused on educational pursuits and became interested in filmmaking. He later went to USC, where he was a schoolmate, rival and friend of Steven Spielberg and became an acquaintance of Martin Scorsese. A longtime fan of science fiction, yes, George Lucas is a Trekkie as he freely admits, his collegiate short film of 1967 was developed into his first feature film, the dystopian sci-fi thriller, THX-1138, which came from his phone number at the time. The title also lent its name to his audio division, multiple references in the Star Wars franchise, and to a license plate in his second feature film, American Graffiti, which was an homage to his love for cars. The idea for Star Wars began in the early ‘70’s, when Lucas had the plans for making a Flash Gordon-inspired 12-part space opera, split into four trilogies. He wanted to create a world of good versus evil, courage, self-discovery and also something that teenagers would enjoy. He struggled with the first few drafts and received negative responses from his colleagues, including Spielberg and Francis Ford Coppola. He was rejected by several studios and the project almost never happened until the fourth draft was finally accepted by 20th Century Fox. Some of the changes included the switch of the leading character from a veteran war hero, at one point known as Mace Windu/Windy, into a young farm boy known as Luke Skywalker/Skykiller. Han Solo was originally meant to be a reptilian creature and another was the inclusion of a black-clad villain, who you of course know as Darth Vader, originally just a general for the empire. Despite the fact that Lucas had a long term series in mind though, he didn’t yet know one of the most shocking plots in movie history, when it was revealed that Darth Vader was Luke’s father (Hope I didn’t give away anything there). The final draft was completed on January 1st, 1976. Lucas and his collaborator, Gary Kurtz, estimated the budget of the film at $18 million, 20th Century Fox countered with $8.25 million. Lucas and Kurtz were eager to begin shooting and accepted the offer. Filming began on March 25th, 1976 in Tunisia and despite the grueling conditions, budget issues and production delays, Star Wars Episode IV - A New Hope was released on May 25th, 1977. It was an immediate success and was the top earning film for the year bringing in over $300 million, nearly tripling the second-best earning film. Adjusted for inflation, it’s now estimated to be the second-highest grossing film in North America in history, trailing only 1939’s Gone with the Wind. And to think we owe that in part to a broken seat belt in 1962.

This week’s bonus question:

In the early days of the creation of Star Wars, George Lucas wrote a two-page handwritten partial outline of the story titled what?

Bring your answer to this week’s trivia for a bonus point

26/04/2025

Bonus topic for the week of 04/27/25 - 05/03/25:

In last week’s first round, I had a question that associated the pretzel with Easter and some of you were curious as to how they could be related, so let me tell you about it. As far as we know, legend has it that French/Italian monks in the 7th century created baked goods from leftover pieces of bread that were twisted into an appearance of folded hands given to students after learning their prayers. Rumor also has it that they equated the three holes in the pretzel to the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. The etymology of the word pretzel has been attributed to a couple of sources. The first is pretiola which is Latin for “little rewards” which makes sense given the supposed origin. The other is brezitella from Old German taken from the Latin word bracchiatus meaning “arms”. Monks were also known to give pretzels out to the poor in support of their religious beliefs and since the ingredients of the pretzel were simple, followers were allowed to eat them during Lent, which leads into Easter, hence the correlation between the two.

This week’s bonus question:

The original pretzel is believed to be soft, but the first hard pretzel was accidentally created in 1850 by this Pennsylvania baker?

Bring your answer to this week’s trivia for a bonus point

20/04/2025

Bonus topic for the week of 04/20/25 - 04/26/25:

The final question last week was about the main material used to build the White House, which you now know to be sandstone. I thought for this week’s bonus category I would expound on that topic. After George Washington became president in 1789, plans were made to build a residence for him. An architectural contest was held for the best design of the building and work on it began in the early 1790’s. The cornerstone was laid in 1792, but due to expansions to the White House the location of it has been lost. The construction took eight years and was nearly completed in November of 1800 when John Adams and his family first took residence there. It was built in the newly established federal district in donated land between Virginia and Maryland which would later become Washington, D.C. Appropriately enough, it was built with a white-gray sandstone from a quarry in Virginia and some red sandstone from Maryland. In 1798, it was painted with a lime-based white wash which gave it its nickname, although it wasn’t officially designated as such until Teddy Roosevelt’s presidency in the early 1900’s. After the British burned it down during the Battle of 1812, it was rebuilt using mostly the original exterior. Many renovations have occurred over the years and more material was used to bolster the structure including steel beams, concrete, and marble for the interior. Features include a swimming pool, movie theater, chocolate shop and bowling alley. The White House is now six stories with 132 rooms over 55,000 square feet.

This week’s bonus question:

The winning design for the White House was awarded to this Irish-American architect?

Bring your answer to this week’s trivia for a bonus point

14/04/2025

Bonus topic for the week of 04/13/25 - 04/19/25:

This week’s bonus topic has come about from my recent dietary choices, which in turn can be attributed to the amazing deals I found on my favorite vegetable, asparagus ($.99/lb and $1.49/lb at QFC, but don’t tell anybody). Now, as many of you know, but maybe not all of you, asparagus may affect the smell of a bodily fluid, yeah, your p*e, but how? In the chemical makeup of the vegetable, there is a compound appropriately named asparagusic acid that contains sulfur and it’s generally agreed that this is the major source of the pungent odor. There are other compounds that consist of sulfur and nitrogen known as thiols or mercaptans that also contribute to the ammonia-like smell. Not everyone who eats asparagus however is affected by this. It has been cultivated for over 2,000 years and as you could imagine it raised some questions, recorded as far back as the early 18th century. More recent studies revealed that of a small sample size of about 40 people, only around 8% didn’t create the smell. This may be due to a lack of an enzyme that metabolizes the acid and results in urine that is not affected by it. In a larger related study of about 7,000 subjects, it was found that only about 40% of people can actually smell the difference, known as asparagus anosmia, also related to variations in DNA. Regardless of the aroma, I’m gonna keep on eating it!

This week’s bonus question:

The source of the offending smell, asparagusic acid is identified by this molecular formula?

Bring your answer to this week’s trivia for a bonus point