Week 111: Ask Backward V
Regis Philbin and T.S. Eliot
Art Fleming but Not Alex Trebek
Pharmacists on Roller Skates
Pulp Friction
Celebrating the Splendors of Paraguay
Heather Has Two Mommies and a Duck
Tippecanoe and Gephart Too
The Hero, Robert McNamara
1) Connie Chung, and 2) Io, the Second Moon of Jupiter
Nancy Sinatra on Toast
The Bridges of East Brunswick, N.J.
Joseph Romm's Underpants
This week's contest was occasioned by the passing of Art Fleming, the original host of "Jeopardy!" back during the Johnson administration. Pretend old Art is still with us, in your living room on one of those black-and-white TVs that were as large as Dumpsters but had screens the size of a piece of "spoon-size" Shredded Wheat. Anyway, here are the answers. What are the questions? Do one or more. First-prize winner gets a genuine antique wooden 1964 Bedroom Mood Meter. You hung this item on your bedroom door and, by manipulating plastic arrows, informed your spouse of your degree of personal horniness. This tasteful item of Americana was purchased for $ 11 but is obviously worth much more. Runners-up, as always, get the coveted Style Invitational losers' T-shirts. Honorable mentions get the mildly sought-after Style Invitational bumper stickers. Winners will be selected on the basis of humor and originality. Mail your entries to the Style Invitational, Week 111, The Washington Post, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071, fax them to 202-334-4312, or submit them via the Internet to this address: losersaccess.digex.net. Internet users: Please indicate the appropriate Week Number in the "subject" field. Entries must be received on or before Monday, May 8. Please include your address and phone number. Winners will be announced in three weeks. Editors reserve the right to alter entries for taste, appropriateness or humor. No purchase necessary. We need new bumper sticker slogans on account of people are sick to death of the two we have. Any ideas? Best two will win drinking ducks and plastic snot. Employees of The Washington Post and their immediate families are not eligible for prizes.
Report from Week 108, in which we asked you to come up with bad first drafts of famous lines in history, literature or entertainment.
We hate to be gratuitously nice, but your answers were spectacularly good. Clapclapclapclapclapclap.
Seventh Runner-Up: "Once upon a time there were four little rabbits, and their names were Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail and Adolf." -- Beatrix Potter (Jamal Jafari, Gaithersburg)Sixth Runner Up: "I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. And believe me, senator, you're no friend of mine." -- Lloyd Bentsen (Paul Moran, Falls Church)
Fifth Runner-Up: (The sheet music from Beethoven's 5th, with the final note being a sharp) Ludwig Van Beethoven (Jay Snyder, Chantilly)
Fourth Runner-Up: "A rose is a rose, of course, of course." -- Gertrude Stein (J. Calvin Smith, Laurel)
Third Runner-Up: "And God saw that it was scrumdiddlyumptious." Genesis 1:10 (Kevin Mellema, Falls Church)
Second Runner-Up: "The Giants win the NLCS! The Giants win the NLCS!" -- Russ Hodges (Paul J. Kocak, Syracuse, N.Y.)
First Runner-Up: "You know how to whistle, don't you? Juthst thtick two fingerth in your mouf like thith and blow." -- Lauren Bacall (Joel Knanishu, Hyattsville)
And the winner of the World War II Plumber poster:
"We hold these truths to be, like, Duuuh. . . ." -- Thomas Jefferson (Joseph Romm, Washington)
(Note: Mr. Romm has now won first prize for two consecutive weeks, the first time anyone has done this, according to the Official Style Invitational Historian, Elden Carnahan of Laurel. If Mr. Romm wins next week, we shall be forced to publish photographs of him in his underpants.)
Honorable Mentions:
"The sled I had when I was a kid." -- Charles Foster Kane (Joseph Romm, Washington)
"I want to hold your second mortgage." -- Lennon/McCartney (Dave Zarrow, Herndon)
"Where have you gone, Joe Garagiola?" -- Simon and Garfunkel (Joe Anderson, Alexandria)
"Four more years! Or less if events force an early resignation!" -- 1972 Nixon supporters (Ken Krattenmaker, Landover Hills)
"Johnny's Heeeeeeeeeeere." -- Ed McMahon (Ira P. Robbins, Bethesda)
"Good night." -- Gracie Allen (Toby Bushkin, Arlington)
"How do I love thee? Let me get back to thee on that ..." -- Elizabeth Barrett Browning (George Friedman, Towson)
TRUMAN DEFEATS DEWEY -- The Chicago Tribune (Gary Dawson, Arlington)
"I have nothing to offer but blood, sweat and phlegm." -- Churchill (Chuck Smith, Woodbridge)
"Je suis un Berlinois" -- John F. Kennedy (Michael Connaghan, Silver Spring)
(Hamlet, in Russian) -- But at the last minute, Will Shakespeare decides to write Hamlet in English. (Gil Renberg, Arlington)
"Twas brillig, and the slithy toves/ Did gyre and gimble in the vabe ..." -- Lewis Carroll. (Toby Bushkin, Arlington)
(eye symbol) Love N.Y. (Bruce Brothers, Alexandria)
"There is a hemorrhoid growing on the presidency." -- John Dean (Elden Carnahan, Laurel)
"Brevity is without doubt considered by many to be the soul of that attribute commonly considered 'wit.'" -- William Shakespeare (Elliot Greene, Silver Spring)
"Watson, help! I spilled something on my crotch!" -- Alexander Graham Bell (J. Calvin Smith, Laurel)
"Bark!" -- Sandy (Jean Sorensen, Herndon)
"I float like a butterfly and sting like a really, really angry butterfly ..." -- Muhammad Ali (Ken Krattenmaker, Landover Hills)
"Get a grip, Virginia." -- The New York Sun (Jessica Steinhice, Washington)
"Who's on first?" "Gehrig" "Oh." -- Abbott and Costello. (Jamal Jafari, Gaithersburg; also, Eric Ehrenberg, Washington)
"Get the Cheez Whiz." -- Marlon Brando, in "Last Tango in Paris" (J. Calvin Smith, Laurel)
"This nation should commit itself to achieving the goal of sending a man -- 'Bang! Zoom!' right to the moon." -- John F. Kennedy (Mike Collins, Dale City)
"This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang but a kind of low whining sound." -- T.S. Eliot. (Joseph Romm, Washington)
"Hey, Judge Ito, you mook, whatsamatta fo' you?" -- Sen. Al D'Amato. (Dave Zarrow, Herndon)
"And that's the way it is. You got a problem with that, buttface?" -- Walter Cronkite (David M. King, Washington)
"This is your brain. And this is your brain in a frying pan..." (K. C. Bahry, Gaithersburg)
"'Tis a far, far, far, far, far, FAR better thing I do than I have ever done ..." -- Charles Dickens (Paul Moran, Falls Church)
"E equals mc with a little 2 up in the air next to the c." -- Einstein (Bob Schlosser, Herndon)
"I am SHOCKED! Shocked to find that some credit cards charge interest from the day of purchase!" -- Capt. Renault (Albert Diaz, Rockville)
(signed) John Q. Hancock -- (Gary Patishnock, Laurel)
Next Week: Send Us Your Mail Parts