Jeopardy! is the long-running US quiz show where contestants are given an answer and must respond with a question for that answer.
“Ken Jennings”, for example, is the correct answer to the following question:
Who holds the record for most Jeopardy! wins in a row – 74 episodes in 2004 – and since 2023 has been its sole presenter?
And it is also the answer to this question:
Which US TV personality is the author of the Kennection, a pleasurable conundrum that mixes trivia and problem solving and which appears in this column today?
Below are five Kennections. Each one consists of five questions, whose answers share a common theme. Can you find it? You don’t need to answer all the questions correctly, but it helps.
QUESTION 1
1. In 1988, Curtis Strange became the first person to win $1 million in a single season of what sport?
2. What month is celebrated every year with a moustache-growing movement for men’s health as well as National Novel Writing Month?
3. What new Argentine dance was condemned by the Vatican in 1913 as “offensive to the purity of every right-minded person”?
4. Shaka was the first king of what African empire that clashed with the British in 1879?
5. What was the name of Alan Harper’s hard-living brother on TV’s Two and a Half Men?
WHAT’S THE KENNECTION?
QUESTION 2
1. Which Lewis Carroll character is drawn wearing a label reading “In this Style 10/6”?
2. At the end of the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz, whom does Dorothy tell, “I think I’m going to miss you most of all?”
3. “Leaves of three, let it be” is a reminder about what plant that produces a natural irritant called urushiol?
4. What kind of bird is the mascot for the Linux computer operating system as well as for Sidney Crosby’s NHL team?
5. What playing card was first introduced to decks in the 1860s as the top trump in the game of euchre?
WHAT’S THE KENNECTION?
QUESTION 3
1. What kind of possession was King Arthur’s Excalibur or Beowulf’s Hrunting?
2. What precious element is the most ductile medal, since just one ounce of it can be drawn into a 50-mile-long wire?
3. In what 2007 film did Elliot Page play a spunky high school junior whom friends call “the cautionary whale”?
4. What’s the only US state whose capital has a three-word name?
5. Financier Warren Buffet is often called the “Oracle of” what Midwestern city?
WHAT’S THE KENNECTION?
QUESTION 4
1. What kind of body of water off northeastern Canada is named for explorer Henry Hudson?
2. What’s the name of Guy Woodhouse’s pregnant wife, played by Mia Farrow, in Roman Polanski’s classic 1968 horror film?
3. What seven-year-old character in the book To Kill a Mockingbird was based on a young Truman Capote?
4. The famous onion-domed cathedral in Moscow’s Red Square is named for what Russian Orthodox saint?
5. For collectors, what is the highest-quality grade of coins and comic books called?
WHAT’S THE KENNECTION?
QUESTION 5
1. What Australian city is home to an iconic Harbour Bridge as well as Jørn Utzon’s famous opera house?
2. What destructive Labrador retriever is the subject of John Grogan’s 2005 memoir subtitled Life and Love with the World’s Worst Dog?
3. What’s the specific name for a dot on dominoes and dice?
4. Who had an unlikely hit in 1968 with his ukelele cover of “Tiptoe Through the Tulips”?
5. What illusionist and Claudia Schiffer ex was the first living magician with a star on the Hollywood Walk of fame?
WHAT’S THE KENNECTION?
I’ll be back at 5pm UK with the answers. PLEASE NO SPOILERS. Instead kentribute your own similar kenundrums.
Today’s examples are taken from Jennings’ new book, The Complete Kennections, which has one thousand of them. His knowledge of trivia is unparalleled, but what I loved more is his ingenuity and wit in choosing the themes.
The Complete Kennections: 5,000 Questions in 1,000 Puzzles is out on July 29 in the US.
I’ve been setting a puzzle here on alternate Mondays since 2015. I’m always on the look-out for great puzzles. If you would like to suggest one, email me.