BBTranscriptTeam wrote:Art Kimbro
Northridge, CA
Voiceover actor
$8,000 * Chart Toppers
Chart-topping artist Taylor Swift is a young up-and-comer in what musical genre?
A: R&B B: Country
C: Gospel D: Rap
$16,000 * Take Me to the RiverAnswer
B: Country ( 21 )
Stretching more than 2,000 miles from northwest of Moscow to the Caspian Sea, what is the longest river in Europe?
A: Seine B: Danube
C: Rhine D: Volga
With 19 seconds left, Art decides to Phone A Friend.
Art's PAF team are his coworker, Mike, Woodland Hills, CA; his friend, Steve, Burbank, CA; and his father-in-law, Dave, Woodbury, MN. Art decides to call Dave.
Dave: Oh, my! What was the first one?
Art: The Seine, the Danube, the Rhine, the Volga. Ten seconds.
Dave: I would say the Danube.
Art: The Danube? How sure are you?
Dave: That's a guess.
Art: That's a guess?
Dave: Yep.
With 15 seconds left, Art decides to Ask The Expert.
Eric: Alright, it's definitely not the Rhine or the Seine. I'm almost certain that it is the Volga, B, which is definitely a river in Russia, and which is definitely--I'm almost certain flows by Moscow. So I would go with B: Volga.
Art: How positive are you about that?
Eric: I'm about 80% sure.
Art: 80%?
Eric: Yep.
[Answer
D: Volga ( 5 )
The juxtaposition of these questions puzzled me. I had no idea at all about the $8,000 question-- never heard of this guy, ever-- whereas the $16,000 question seemed, to me, to be something that belonged around $1,000, because there were no real distractors, and even if you did not know 'what is the longest river in Europe?' (which is a pretty common trivia question-- in fact, I think that any trivia expert ought to have a list of things like 'tallest mountain' and 'longest river' and 'largest sea' and 'largest city' and 'largest country by population/size,' etc., for each continent), when they tell you that the river is near Moscow (which I think everyone knows is well within Russia, at least, the European Moscow is in Russia, unlike the US Moscow which I think is in Idaho), it would seem pretty obvious that the answer must be a river that is in Russia, and the Volga is the only one of the four choices that is in Russia. WITHOUT the Moscow clue it might have been a little tricky, especially with the inclusion of the Danube (which is the second largest river in Europe), but with the Moscow clue you know that the river MUST be in Russia, and the other three rivers are all very famous rivers that are famous for being someplace OTHER than Russia, and two of them don't come anywhere NEAR Russia-- the Seine is entirely within France, and the capital that the Seine passes through is Paris; the Rhine is clearly associated with Germany, although it does pass through or border other countries (all of which are on the western-- away from Russia-- side of Germany), and while the Danube could be a bit of a distractor (it being the second longest river in Europe), it goes through and is associated with several European capitals (none of which is ANYWHERE NEAR MOSCOW), and it does go through Ukraine, which was part of Imperial Russia, and was part of the Soviet Union, but Ukraine is not now in Russia (and I would bet dollars to donuts that most people don't associate the Danube with Ukraine anyway), so Danube couldn't be the answer. But then, when other people who are supposed to be experts aren't sure of the answer, well, it's a puzzlement.
I still think, though, that the $8,000 question was a lot harder than the $16,000 question.
