Season 16, Day 1 - “Mr. Roboto”
It's Short week, and today's quiz inspired by Short Circuit.
New players: Welcome! For division placement, you can either: 1. play the preseason quizzes (linked below) and I will slot you in a division based on your results (please do this before completing today's quiz if you choose this option), or 2. simply start with this week's quizzes and I will place you in Freshman-B by default.
Previous players: Welcome back! No changes in the rules, so feel free to skip that section if you don't need a refresher.
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Rules and other things to know
I think this pretty much goes without saying, but no Googling or any other form of research in attempt to find an answer is allowed. However, in the rare instance that you do inadvertently come across an answer in the course of life before you've submitted, that's OK.
The bolded text of each question points to the type of answer that I'm looking for. If your answer does not match the bolded text, it's possible you will still get credit if it is a form of, or adjacent to, the correct answer, but you are leaving it in the hands of the judges, so to speak. This is a pretty easy mistake to make and I see it a lot in grading, so it could help to double-check your answers before you submit.
For a question that asks for a name, a last name by itself is acceptable unless otherwise specified (or unless the last name is already provided in the text of the question), with at least one notable exception: for U.S. presidents named Adams, Harrison, Johnson, Roosevelt, and Bush, I will need the full name to distinguish between two possible answers. For fictional characters, first names are acceptable unless otherwise specified.
Correct spelling is not required unless otherwise specified, however there must be a possible pronunciation of your answer that matches a possible pronunciation of the correct answer. In general, adding or taking away a syllable, and adding or taking away an "s" on the end of a name, will unfortunately both usually result in answers that are not accepted.
Titles must be exact, except for the leading article (A, An, or The as the first word). Example: I will accept "Christmas Carol" or "The Christmas Carol" but not "For Whom A Bell Tolls".
Quotation marks in the text of a question are used in three main situations: a. for a quotation or a title, b. to signal that the answer contains the exact quoted word, or c. figuratively, as in the example "COLORFUL" MOVIE for the answer CRIMSON TIDE.
Try to be as specific as you need to be, and submit only one answer, unless more than one is required (I will take the first answer listed if more than one is provided.) It is possible for your answer to be not specific enough to be acceptable, despite not technically being incorrect. Example: for a monarch, I will generally need the name and regnal number unless otherwise specified (or unless there is only one monarch with that name). Another recent example: "mother's milk" was not accepted for the alliterative animal product "mare's milk." If you have any doubt as to how specific you need to be (hopefully this won't be the case often), you can put the more specific part in parentheses, e.g. "(blue) whale."
All of the week's quizzes are “due” on Sunday at midnight ET, but for anybody who needs an extra day I will accept submissions until Monday at midnight ET. Continuing with the school analogy, I like to think I'm the nice professor that really doesn't want to dock anyone's grade for lateness. So if you really couldn't get to a quiz by Monday, just let me know and I will generally still accept it if you can submit it in a reasonable amount of time. Any player who misses any quizzes (with the exception of the G and Fr divisions) will be separated from the season rankings to avoid demotion due to non-participation. However, such a player will still be demoted if their “implied rank” (their rank when their per-quiz average is extrapolated to a full season) lands them in the demotion zone.
I grade all the quizzes manually, so don't worry if the answer key marks you wrong. The answer key is in caps, so it will make my grading ever-so-slightly easier if you type your answer in caps, but no worries either way. You can receive a copy of your answers by checking the box in the lower left-hand corner, and you can receive your score by email and/or check the leaderboard page, which I update throughout the week (the question stats tab is updated weekly).
In case of a misclick in assigning confidence points, I will automatically assign the lowest possible point value to any questions that are left blank. For this purpose, I will consider non-qualifying answers (e.g. the name of a person, when I’m asking for a country) to be equivalent to a blank response.
The season will run for 20 quiz days, with the next season starting on the first Monday of the month (April 3). Don't hesitate to reach out if you have any questions about any of the above, or anything else. Thank you so much for being here and allowing me to run this little trivia league for you! I hope you all enjoy the season (and sorry for the extra reading material today).
Links
Short Circuit
Short Circuit is a 1986 science fiction comedy film about an experimental military robot that gains sentience after being electrocuted by lightning. The robot, Number 5, escapes its facility to learn more about the world. Skip a few sentences if you don’t want any plot spoilers! He is pursued, eventually by the U.S. Army, and appears to be destroyed by a helicopter missile. But it turns out that he survived, having built a decoy of himself from spare parts. As the main characters drive off at the end of the movie, Number 5 says that his name should be “Johnny 5” after hearing the El DeBarge song “Who’s Johnny” on the radio. Directed by John Badham (Saturday Night Fever, WarGames), the movie stars Ally Sheedy (The Breakfast Club), Steve Guttenberg (Three Men and a Baby), and in a questionable casting decision, Fisher Stevens (Hackers) as an Indian robotics expert with a thick accent. (For his part, Stevens has said the role “haunts” him and he would never do it again.) The movie received mixed reviews, with Roger Ebert calling it “too cute for its own good.” At the box office, Short Circuit was a decent hit, ranking 21st for the year and prompting a sequel movie (Short Circuit 2) with Johnny 5 and Fisher Stevens’ character.
Season 16, Day 1 - “Mr. Roboto”
[Q1] DERIVED FROM THE GREEK FOR “MANLIKE,” THIS WORD FOR A ROBOT THAT RESEMBLES A HUMAN IS ALSO A TRADEMARK OF GOOGLE
[Q2] THE CLASSIC SCI-FILM “FORBIDDEN PLANET” IS SAID TO BE LOOSELY BASED ON “THE TEMPEST,” WITH ROBBY THE ROBOT STANDING IN FOR THIS SHAKESPEAREAN SPRITE WHO SHARES HIS NAME WITH A DISNEY HEROINE
[Q3] OFTEN CALLED THE “MICKEY MOUSE OF JAPAN” (NOT HOUSTON), THIS ROBOT “BOY” SEEN HERE WAS THE FIRST ANIMATED CHARACTER IN THE ROBOT HALL OF FAME
[Q4] THE LAST NAME OF “MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000” ROBOT TOM, THIS 5-LETTER PREFIX APPEARS BEFORE “MECHANISM” IN THE NAME OF AN AUTOMATIC FEEDBACK DEVICE THAT ALLOWS ROBOTS TO SELF-CORRECT
[Q5] ROBOT POLICE CONTROL THE POPULATION IN THIS DIRECTORIAL DEBUT FILM OF GEORGE LUCAS, WHOSE TITLE WOULD BE “849-1138” IF IT WERE CONVERTED INTO A PHONE NUMBER (BASED ON THE LETTER MAPPING OF THE INTERNATIONAL STANDARD TELEPHONE KEYPAD)