What links these two questions? A) Who played the saxophone solo on Gerry Rafferty’s mega hit “Baker Street?” B) What were the original names of the pirate underlings in “Captain Pugwash?”
Well, as I’m sure you know, they are questions which both have
very popular wrong 'urban myth' answers. The saxophone solo on “Baker Street” was played by
Raphael ‘Raff’ Ravenscroft. The pirate underlings of Captain Pugwash were Seaman
Willy, Seaman Barnabas, Master Mate and Tom the Cabin Boy. Ah yes, but if you’ve
been going to quizzes as long as I have you’ll have been told by a question
master that the late Bob Holness played the sax on Baker Street, and that the
original names of the pirates were Seaman Staines, Master Bates and Roger he
Cabin Boy. Of course, he didn’t and they weren’t. You may even know that Stuart
Maconie once claimed to have started the Bob Holness business, and Victor
Lewis-Smith claimed the Pugwash prank.
In an idle moment over his bank holiday weekend, I did have
a fleeting wish to have created one of this sort of non-question myself, and
watched it spread throughout quizdom. It isn’t easy. For one thing, you’d have
to have something plausible. Although to be honest, this preliminary hurdle is
surely one that should have unseated the rider of the Pugwash question. For another
thing, there needs to be the ‘no-really?!’ factor about the invented fact. What
I mean by this is it’s the sort of thing which is so interesting that I makes
you go ‘No? Really?!” when you first hear it. As a question master, you know that
the first time that you ask it, it’s going to go down a storm. So what if it
might not necessarily be true? After all, it MIGHT be.
It must be admitted that it is far easier to fact check in
2025 than it was when I made my first quiz in 1995. For example, Mozart was
only four feet 9 inches tall. It would take you less than 30 seconds to
disprove his with Google. Pre-internet it wasn’t so easy. But then that wouldn’t
really have the No Really factor anyway. So let’s try a little harder. In 1981
Smokey Robinson, who was topping the charts with his song “Being with You”
performed the Tweets’ Birdie’s Song on Top of the Pops when one member of the
band was taken sick, donning the costume and miming along. – It’s utter
cobblers – although I have been told that certain famous pop stars did at one
time or another don Womble suits on Top of the Pops when invited by Mike Batt just
for the hell of it. So, as I said, utter cobblers and so I urge you to try it
in the next quiz you compile – Motown legend Smokey Robinson appeared on Top of
the Pops in May 1981 with his hit “Being With You.” He also put on a mask and
costume so that he could perform on which one hit wonder on the same show?
Yes! Let’s make it happen.
2 comments:
I remember one doing the rounds a few years ago giving Stan Laurel as Clint Eastwood's father.
Hi Gary - yes, I nearly put that one in as another example in the post. Donkey's years ago when I started the blog I put up a few posts called The Question Master Is Always Right about them - including these and others like the fact that Tinkerbell in Disney's animated Peter Pan was not based on Marilyn Monroe at all.
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