Skeleton Trivia for Thursday, 2025-08-14
Sierra Mist 4eva!! I’ve still never tried Starry
Hiya Skeleton Crew,
How’s your week been? Pretty good? A li’l rough?
Whatever’s the case, maybe now’s a good time to sit down with an ice-cold glass of your favorite sodey pop & distract yourself with a li’l spritz of trivia. My poison of choice’s Sierra Mist: I’m still workin through the horde of it I bought up after I heard it was gettin discontinued.
Answers to Last Time
- I admit this trivia was kinda weird. I started out by mentionin a kinda random antarctic mountain called Mount Reid, then asked ya what it DOESN’T have in common with a presidential estate & the lead singer of Living Color. Well, Mount Vernon is George Washinton’s estate, Vernon Reid is the lead singer of Living Colour ... so ya were supposed to answer Vernon.
- Mr. Jamie Foxx is the actor I was askin ’bout who first made his name on In Living Color. Fun fact about Jamie Foxx is that that’s a stage name—he was born Eric Marlon Bishop. He came up with “Jamie” ’cause it’s gender-neutral & “Foxx” was a tribute to the comedian Redd Foxx. (Another fun fact is that Redd Foxx got the “Foxx” in HIS name from the baseball player Jimmie Foxx.)
Today’s Trivias
Trivia 1
I mentioned yesterday that Jamie Foxx is one of only two fellas to’ve gotten TWO acting Oscar nominations in the SAME year for DIFFERENT movies.1 Ya might be curious who the other actor was? Well, that’d be Al Pacino at the 65th Academy Awards: he won Best Actor for Scent of a Woman & was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for Glengarry Glen Ross.2
That latter movie was more of an ensemble situation: the all-star cast included not just Mr. Pacino but also Alan Arkin, Ed Harris, Kevin Spacey, Jonathan Pryce, Alec Baldwin, & what two-time Oscar winner as Shelley “The Machine” Levine? Since I seem to love relaying lists of Oscar trivia to youse guys, I might as well add that this guy’s two wins came for 1955’s Mister Roberts (Best Supporting Actor) & 1973’s Save the Tiger (Best Actor).
Trivia 2
Back in the 19th century, some smartypantses discovered they could point a flame at a cylinder of calcium oxide (CaO) to get some intense illumination; then some theater kids figured out this tech’d be good to use for the stage. What were these lamps called? This equipment’s since been superseded by more modern electrical doohickeys, but the word still shows up in idiomatic usage.
OK then
Byeeeeeeeeeeeeee
1 In case ya were curious, that was for the 2004 movies Ray (which he won for Best Actor) & Collateral (which he didn’t win for Best Supporting Actor) (that went to Morgan Freeman in Million Dollar Baby) (fun fact, that was Mr. Freeman’s ONLY Oscar win (!)) (another fun fact, the one time I saw Million Dollar Baby was on a first date, & I can tell ya that it is NOT a great first date movie!). ⬏
2 Gene Hackman (RIP) won Best Supporting Actor that year for Unforgiven. ⬏