Skeleton Trivia for Monday, 2025-11-10
Fritz & Franz
Hiya Skeleton Crew,
I forgot to say Happy November last week, so: Happy November! On to the trivias, eh?
Answers to Last Time
- Fritz the Cat was R. Crumb’s X-rated anthropomorphic character.
- Basil Fawlty of Fawlty Towers was inspired by real-life hotelier Donald Sinclair.
The secret mini-theme? Well, if something’s faulty, ya might say it’s on the fritz!
Today’s Trivias
Trivia 1
I tried lookin up the etymology of that phrase, “on the fritz” ... it’s basically a TOTAL MYSTERY.
Something to do with anti-German sentiment from WWI, maybe? Or is fritz an onomatopoeia for somethin electrical goin haywire? Nah: folks were sayin “on the fritz” at least as early as 1902, which is a skosh too early for either of those explanations to really make sense.
Honestly, the best explanation I could find is that the phrase comes from a certain newspaper comic strip starrin two Kids, Hans & Fritz. What word, a real mouthful of a German loanword meanin somethin like “hangover” or “depression”, is in that comic strip’s title?
Trivia 2
It’s not much of a jump to get from Hans & Fritz to Hans & Franz, eh? But I wasn’t able to spot any official connection between the newspaper comic strip & the SNL characters. Anyways, can ya tell me EITHER of the performers who portrayed Hans OR Franz on SNL?
Ya could also name BOTH performers—although that’d just be for funzies, no extra points for that. But you’ll enjoy the secret knowledge that someone else in the world (i.e., me, Mr. Skeleton!) know how much ya know ’bout SNL! Which I guess is its own kinda reward, ain’t it?
OK then
Byeeeeeeeeeeeeee