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Brush Up Your Shakespeare

play pause stop mute unmute max volume 00:0005:31repeat repeat off Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin. JONATHAN COULTON: From NPR and WNYC coming to you from The Bell House in beautiful Brooklyn, N.Y., it's NPR's hour of puzzles, word games and trivia, ASK ME ANOTHER. I'm Jonathan Coulton. Now here is your host Ophira Eisenberg.

(CHEERING, APPLAUSE)

OPHIRA EISENBERG, HOST: 

Thank you, Jonathan. We have a great show for you. Four brilliant contestants are backstage, visualizing future success while they wait to play our nerdy games. But only one will be our big winner. And our special guests are director Ti West and actor James Ransone. Their latest film is a Western called "In A Valley Of Violence."

Now, a lot of people don't know this, but trivia was actually invented in the Old West. Wild Bill had a nerdy little brother named Mild Willy, and he told two gunslingers that they could settle the score with a trivia game. It unfortunately ended with a tie, so they had to shoot each other any way (laughter). One was dead, but the other one that was left alive got a Rubik's Cube.

(CHEERING)

EISENBERG: That's how the West was won. Let's get things started with our first two contestants. First up, Robyn Stype. You are visiting from Columbus, Ohio, and you're here for your bachelorette party.

ROBYN STYPE: I am.

EISENBERG: Congratulations.

STYPE: Thank you very much.

EISENBERG: And is this the entire bachelorette party - you coming on stage as a contestant?

STYPE: No, it started on Saturday night, and it's pretty much been rolling ever since.

(LAUGHTER)

EISENBERG: OK, and how many more days in the bachelorette party?

STYPE: This is the final...

EISENBERG: This is the final day.

STYPE: ...Event. I go to sleep tonight, and then we leave tomorrow.

EISENBERG: Your opponent is Andrea Kebalo, and you research how people use apps.

ANDREA KEBALO: Yeah, so I work at a media company.

EISENBERG: Yeah.

KEBALO: And my job is to kind of bridge the gap between the people who are building the app - so tech...

EISENBERG: Yeah.

KEBALO: ...And the people who are going to want the information from those apps - so business.

EISENBERG: OK, so what do people want?

KEBALO: They just want to know what people clicked on.

(LAUGHTER)

EISENBERG: That seems very simple.

KEBALO: Or that's it.

EISENBERG: That's it.

KEBALO: Yeah, that's it.

EISENBERG: That's it.

KEBALO: Just what's the top thing that people looked at?

EISENBERG: OK, so what is the top thing people are looking at? It's whatever you put at the top of your app.

(LAUGHTER)

EISENBERG: Wow, you make humans sound so simple.

KEBALO: Yeah, it's...

EISENBERG: OK, Robyn, Andrea, the first of you who wins two of our games will move onto the final round at the end of the show. So let's go to your first game called Brush Up Your Shakespeare.

This game was written by someone who studied Shakespeare's plays a long time ago but since has forgotten almost everything about them, so let's go to Jonathan Coulton for an example.

COULTON: Sure. If I said, I think this play was about some guys who all had the same first name and their last names were Hudson, Thoreau, Ford, Kissinger and then Cavill came along, you would answer, "Henry V."

EISENBERG: Yeah, OK.

(LAUGHTER)

COULTON: Everyone in the room is stunned into silence.

EISENBERG: Yeah.

(LAUGHTER)

EISENBERG: It's good to give that a minute to sink in.

COULTON: Yeah, you're not wrong. This is a hard game.

EISENBERG: (Laughter) So buzz in when you know the answer. You're going to give us the name of the play. You don't have to give us the author, Shakespeare.

(LAUGHTER)

EISENBERG: And the winner will be one step closer to the final round at the end of the show. Here we go. I think this one was about the Roman Empire and what happened when a food court store that sells orange drinks merged with America's third-largest pizza chain.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

EISENBERG: Andrea.

KEBALO: "Julius Caesar."

EISENBERG: "Julius Caesar" is correct, yes.

(CHEERING, APPLAUSE)

EISENBERG: Et tu, food court?

(LAUGHTER)

COULTON: I'm pretty sure this one is about a general who was tricked by that parrot from "Aladdin" into playing a frustrating board game with black and white pieces.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

COULTON: Andrea.

KEBALO: "Othello."

COULTON: You got it.

EISENBERG: Yeah.

(APPLAUSE)

COULTON: I remember this one is about a meerkat from Greece who spends too much time singing "Hakuna Matata" with his buddy Pumbaa.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

COULTON: Robyn.

STYPE: "Timon of Athens."

COULTON: Yeah.

EISENBERG: Wow.

(CHEERING, APPLAUSE)

EISENBERG: The question I have is, how did you know that? I mean it's impossible. That's an impossible one, OK?

(LAUGHTER)

STYPE: Is a drama major.

EISENBERG: OK, yeah.

(LAUGHTER)

STYPE: That's how I knew that.

EISENBERG: I wrote, no one knows this.

(LAUGHTER)

EISENBERG: I think Seinfeld co-wrote this or something. Beatrice banters with Benedick about yada, yada, and hero dies from licking stamps on Claudio's wedding invitations.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

EISENBERG: Robyn.

STYPE: "Much Ado About Nothing."

EISENBERG: That's right.

(CHEERING, APPLAUSE)

EISENBERG: What's the deal with stagecoach food? I don't know.

(LAUGHTER)

EISENBERG: All right, this is your last clue.

COULTON: This one is about Queen Elizabeth II, Kate Middleton and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, and they're all happily married.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

COULTON: Robyn.

STYPE: "The Merry Wives of Windsor."

COULTON: That is correct.

(CHEERING, APPLAUSE)

EISENBERG: That's like the pre-, pre-, pre-precursor to the real housewives of Atlanta. Puzzle Guru Art Chung, how did our contestants do?

ART CHUNG: All's well that ends well for Robyn. She's one step closer to the final round.

(CHEERING, APPLAUSE)