The Wombat File Is Yours to Keep

FYI, in the interest of full disclosure, the Dependent Clauses were competing with one brain hemisphere tied behind our respective backs in order to even the playing field. All of us actually majored in Advanced Omniscience in college, although we are currently waitressing until those thinktank jobs develop.

When's the lightning round? When does round 5 start?

Congrats to the Rebellion, kings of the lightning round!

What color am I thinking of?

I demand the finest wines known to humanity!

So, what were the answers?

I, for one, welcome our Whiskey Rebellion overlords.

I will mention that there were no stumpers in this round, and in fact the performance of all teams post-clue was very good. Nobody got #1 right pre-clue, and nobody guessed Eisenhower until after the clue, but I think everybody got it right post-clue.

Even though #4 proved to be one of the easiest, I had not been aware before researching it of the weird marketing history of heroin.

#2 and #3 were perhaps the hardest, even with clues.

The list of Fauchard's innovations and inventions was long, and it was very hard to leave them out of the question for #3.

I regret only that there was no way to get points for =Joanie Loves Chachi=.

The answers, I'm pretty sure:

1. Buccaneer
2. George Bernard Shaw
3. Dentistry
4. Morphine and heroin
5. Eisenhower and Churchill
6. Love, American Style; Happy Days; Mork and Mindy, Laverne and Shirley

We were torn between Shaw and Wells for #2, but happily stuck with our original guess.

If it had been up to me, we'd have gone with Jimmy Carter for #5:

http://www.amazon.com/Why-Not-Best-Jimmy-Carter/dp/0553101986

...and if it were up to me, it would have been right.

Props to Scott for bringing up Pinky Tuscadero

In re: President Jimmy, I recalled that in addressing the 2004 Democratic Convention he referred to being close to turning 80 years old, which 30 years earlier in 1974 would have him close to 50, not 58. So, I went with my gut, or rather the much more ample ones of Ike and Winston.
Now that we're King of the Molehill, I suppose we should start throwing our weight around?

It didn't take us long to deduce that Happy Days was the lynchpin of #6, but we also briefly considered All in the Family and the Mary Tyler Moore Show. A in the F begat Maude, The Jeffersons, Archie Bunker's Place and Gloria (also 704 Hauser, but we didn't know that). MTM begat Rhoda, Phyllis and Lou Grant (we wrongly thought there were also shows starring Betty White's and Ted Knight's characters). Sitcoms today seem considerably less procreative.

...and Maude begat Good Times, and the Jeffersons begat some short-lived thing starring the maid.

Lightning round - name a sitcom spun off from "Family Ties."

Something with Skippy?

"The West Wing" -- right? Isn't that Alex P. Keaton, having acquired a conscience, played by Rob Lowe?

And thank you for increasing our Tupi vocabulary from zero to one word. Knowing some Taino & Carib words— barbacoa became barbecue—turned out to be a false lead. Even Webster's thinks buccaneer is French. Can't wait to go to Surinam & throw "buccaneer" around. Sure to get a warm welcome.

The Jeffersons begat 227, starring Florence their maid, who, incidentally was (according to IMDB) "one of the very few actors to play the same regular character on two different series simultaneously. In April 1981, she played Florence Johnston on both "The Jeffersons" (1975) and "Checking In" (1981)."

I happened to flip through the channels last weekend and see a few minutes of George and Weezy on The Fresh Prince of Bel Aire which was determined to be a cross-over rather than a spin off. This site has some info, although it fails to mention "Amen" in which Mr. Hemsley plays a preacher who is the twin (or cousin) of George Jefferson.

site:
http://www.poobala.com/allandjeff.html

and change "see" to "saw" above

No (on the Family Ties spin-off).

The spinoff was about somebody not in the Keaton family.

Was the spin-off about Mal's boyfriend, Nick?
=========
(still avoiding work)

Here's a list of AITF spin-offs and crossovers that goes back and forth across the pond.

[COMEDY PLAYHOUSE]
spunoff TILL DEATH US DO PART

->[TILL DEATH US DO PART]
spunoff TILL DEATH...
spunoff IN SICKNESS AND IN HEALTH
spunoff WITHOUT WALLS: THE NATIONAL ALF
spunoff THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ALF GARNETT
spunoff A WORD WITH ALF
was adapted into TILL DEATH US DO PART (Dutch series)
was adapted into ONE HEART AND ONE SOUL (German series)
was adapted into JUSTICE FOR ALL (US pilot)

-->[JUSTICE FOR ALL]
was adapted into THOSE WERE THE DAYS (pilot)
was adapted into ALL IN THE FAMILY (pilot)

--->[ALL IN THE FAMILY]
spunoff MAUDE
spunoff THE JEFFERSONS
spunoff ARCHIE BUNKER'S PLACE
spunoff GLORIA
spunoff 704 HAUSER

---->[MAUDE]
spunoff GOOD TIMES
spunoff ONWARD AND UPWARD (pilot)
was adapted into NOBODY'S PERFECT (UK series)

----->[GOOD TIMES]
was adapted into THE FOSTERS (UK series)

----->[ONWARD AND UPWARD]
was adapted into MR. DOOLEY (pilot)
was adapted into MR. DUGAN (pilot)
was adapted into HANGING IN

---->[THE JEFFERSONS]
spunoff CHECKING IN
crossed over with E/R
crossed over with THE FRESH PRINCE OF BEL-AIR

----->[THE FRESH PRINCE OF BEL-AIR]
crossed over with DIFF'RENT STROKES
crossed over with OUT ALL NIGHT
crossed over with IN THE HOUSE
crossed over with FAMILY MATTERS

------>[DIFF'RENT STROKES]
spunoff THE FACTS OF LIFE
crossed over with HELLO, LARRY
crossed over with SILVER SPOONS

------>[FAMILY MATTERS]
was spunoff from PERFECT STRANGERS

Don't they all just exist in Tommy Westphall's head?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Westphall

Um, yes, the spinoff was about Mallory's boyfriend Nick.

"The Art of Being Nick."

Transitioning from Good Times, let's visit the Mary Tyler Moore Show juggernaut. Actor John Amos (the father on GT before his character died) was also the weatherman on MTM. Everyone knows the 3 MTM spin-offs, namely Rhoda, Phyllis and Lou Grant. From one of these, a pilot was made for an "animated" spin-off centering around a popular recurring character. For bragging rights, who was the character?

That thing with Ted Knight as a cartoonist.

That photographer on the "Lou Grant" show that blinded himself with his flash in the opening credits.

Nope, and nope. Bonus clue: the actor who portrayed the pilot's title character also later voiced another animated character of the feline variety.

Hello, this is Carlton, your door man.

That Thing with Ted Knight was the most popular Skidmore-college-based band during the 1995-1996 academic year.

Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner. Carlton the Doorman was a "heard but not seen" character on Rhoda. The Carlton animated pilot was not picked up by the networks, but actor Lorenzo Music later voiced Garfield the cat. Why am I suddenly craving lasagna?

Please note that this exhausts the legal limit on Garfield mentions for 2007.

Drats, and my next question was going to be "which assassinated ambidextrous US President with the initials JG could concurrently write in Latin and ancient Greek? Oh well, a quota is a quota.