Monday, February 27, 2017

Radio station Oscar trivia

So somebody at work mentioned during the lunch break that they were trying to win concert tickets or something and were able to call in to the radio station whereupon they had to answer a trivia question. That question just happened to be Oscar-related: Who is the only person named Oscar to win an Oscar?

Now, the guy told us this after he had called in, which was during the morning break, so it's not as though there was anybody to help him. But I thought about the question for several seconds, and came up with the right answer. And then I thought, what movie did this Oscar win for? The second question, it turns out, is rather harder; the next answer is in the next paragraph and should be spoiled if I've formatted the HTML correctly. You'll have to highlight the text to read it:

Oscar Hammerstein II is the Oscar-winner. Now, figuring out what he won for was more difficult since he was a lyricist and original songs have to be, well, original. All those musicals he wrote with Richard Rodgers? The ones that premiered on Broadway wouldn't be eligible for the Oscars. It turns out that Hammerstein won two Oscars, for co-writing the song "The Last Time I Saw Paris" from Lady Be Good (with Jerome Kern) in 1941; and then for the sont "It Might As Well Be Spring" from the 1945 version of State Fair (with Richard Rodgers). Oscar Homolka was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for I Remember Mama but lost, which I knew; there were two screenwriters named Oscar who were nominated but lost. And there's on Oskar, Oskar Werner, who was nominated but lost for Ship of Fools.

No comments: