Bad Blogmistress

Hello all!

Just a quick note from your friendly blogmistress to apologize for the huge gap in content. Neil and I got married on the 19th so the week before and after that are mainly a blur. To make it up to you, please enjoy the below sampling of the questions we asked as part of our rehearsal dinner trivia last Friday. I will post answers next week, but feel free to leave your guesses in the comments.


1. What DC landmark recently reopened after major renovation following a large fire, and is a favorite place for the couple to spend a Saturday?

2. According to the “Arlington Rap”, what footwear is most common for the gentlemen of Arlington?

3. “Adirondacks” is an Anglicized version of the Mohawk “ratirontaks” meaning what?

4. Lake Placid hosted the Olympics in which two years?

5. What is the New York state motto?

6. What US President was in the Adirondacks when he technically took over the office?

7. What is the name of the highest of the Adirondack High Peaks, also the tallest point in New York State?

8. What famous award is named for Coach John, the first full-time coach and athletic director at Rice University in Houston?

9. Although the yellow rose of Texas is very well known, what is the actual state flower?

10. What is the Texas state motto?

11. What six flags have flown over Texas?

12. What soft drink was invented in Waco, Texas in 1885?

13. Texas possesses three of the top ten most populous cities in the United States. What are they?

14. Who was the officiant at the opening ceremonies of the 1980 Olympic Games, held in Lake Placid?

15. Who was the only athlete to win 5 gold medals at the 1980 Olympics?

16. Lake Placid is one of only two cities in the United States with an active bobsled track. What other city has this honor?

Bonus!!!

According to Homer Simpson, how does Webster’s Dictionary describe a “wedding”?

Complete this quote by the great religious thinker, Rev. Timothy Lovejoy; “…it would've never happened if the wedding would've been inside the church with God, instead of out here in the cheap showiness of __________.”

Spooky News!

SPOOKY quiz will be back this year! The Tuesday before Halloween is the annual SPOOKY quiz---all halloween/scary movie trivia. Costumes are encouraged and perhaps extra points will be granted....

Jason is (almost) back!

Jason will be back the first week of October so get ready...

FYI

Trivia is happening this week but only on Tuesday. No Wednesday night trivia (just for this week only).

Reminder: No Trivia This Week

Just a friendly reminder: there is no trivia this week!

See you next week!

No Trivia on April 7th

FYI - we will NOT be having trivia on April 7th as Jason will be out of town. There will be trivia this week. YAY!

December Schedule for Rock Bottom Trivia

FYI, here is the schedule for the holiday season:

Tuesday, December 16 - Annual Holiday Trivia!
Tuesday, December 23 - Trivia is on; questions with a smattering of holiday trivia.
Tuesday, December 30 - New Years Eve Eve Trivia
Tuesday, January 6 - 2008 in Review Trivia!

Help out the Trivia Master

As some of you guys know, Jason is an elementary teacher and in an attempt to help motivate his students, he is looking for small prizes to give them (i.e. stuff from the dollar bin, stickers, McDonald's toys).

Please do not go out and buy anything, but if you have any swag at your home just collecting dust and want to make some third graders happy, please feel to bring it to trivia.

Newman's Own

Paul Newman, actor, film director, entrepreneur, humanitarian and auto racing enthusiast, recently passed away. Here's my tribute, in trivia form:

-Newman was born in Shaker Heights, Ohio (a suburb of Cleveland)
-He was the son of Theresa and Arthur Samuel Newman. His father was Jewish and his mother, who practiced Christian Science, was born to a Slovak Catholic family in the former Austria–Hungary.
-Newman had described himself as Jewish, stating that, "it's more of a challenge".
-Newman made his acting debut at the age of 7, playing the court jester in a school production of Robin Hood.

-Newman's first movie was The Silver Chalice (1954), followed by roles in Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956)/ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) and The Young Philadelphians (1959).
-Newman appeared in a screen test with James Dean for East of Eden but did not get the role of Aron Trask, for which he was testing.
-That same year Newman would co-star with Eva Marie Saint and Frank Sinatra in a live, color television broadcast of "Our Town".
-Newman would remake this production in 2003, taking on Sinatra's role as the stage manager.


-Newman appeared in such classic films as Exodus (1960), The Hustler (1961), Hud (1963), Harper (1966), Hombre (1967), Cool Hand Luke (1967), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969),The Sting (1973), The Towering Inferno (1974), Slap Shot (1977) and The Verdict (1982)
-Newman's last screen appearance was as a conflicted mob boss in the 2002 film Road to Perdition opposite Tom Hanks.
-He continued to provide voice work for films such Doc Hudson, a retired race car in Disney/Pixar's Cars.

-Newman founded Newman's Own, a line of food products, in 1982.
-He established a policy that all proceeds from the sale of Newman's Own products, after taxes, would be donated to charity.
-As of early 2006, this had resulted in excess of $200 million in donations.
-One beneficiary is the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, a residential summer camp for seriously ill children.

-Newman was an avid auto racing enthusiast, and first became interested in motorsports while training for and filming Winning.
Newman's first raced professionally in 1972, in Thompson.
-He was a common competitor in Sports Car Club of America events for the rest of the decade, eventually winning several championships.
-At the age of 70 he became the oldest driver to be part of a winning team in a major sanctioned race, winning in his class at the 1995 24 Hours of Daytona.

Info from Wikipedia

Interesting...

A contest for the best trivia name...? Interesting...

But who would judge...?

Request from the Trivia Master

From Jason himself:

"Hello kids-

Some folks have constructively suggested I make mention that some teams are just WAY too big for a fair trivia team. In the past I was strict with team sizes. No more than six people per team. Then I started slacking a bit and saying six-ish. But the past few weeks we've had teams at over 10 people per team. A LITTLE too big for a trivia team.

Truthfully, with everything else I'm doing, it's hard for me to police team sizes, just as it is hard for me to make sure people aren't using their cell phones. I have an honor system and believe if you need to cheat at trivia, then you have bigger issues in your life.

So here's the deal, please TRY to keep your teams around six players, no more. Again, I'm not going to police people on this but for everyone's enjoyment and spirit of fairness, please try to respect this suggested size."

Super Long Post for Mr Carlin

George Denis Patrick Carlin was born in New York City. Carlin was of Irish descent and was raised in the Roman Catholic faith.

After 3 semesters, Carlin left Cardinal Hayes High School and briefly attended Bishop Dubois High School in Harlem. He later joined the United States Air Force, training as a radar technician. He was stationed at Barksdale AFB in Bossier City, Louisiana.

During this time he began working as a disc jockey on KJOE, a radio station based in the nearby city of Shreveport. He did not complete his Air Force enlistment and was labeled an "unproductive airman" by his superiors then discharged on July 29, 1957. In 1959, Carlin and Jack Burns began as a comedy team when both were working for radio station KXOL in Fort Worth, Texas.

In the 1960s, Carlin began appearing on television variety shows, notably The Ed Sullivan Show and The Tonight Show. His most famous routines were:
* The Indian Sergeant ("You wit' the beads... get outta line")
* Stupid disc jockeys ("Wonderful WINO...") — "The Beatles' latest record, when played backwards at slow speed, says 'Dummy! You're playing it backwards at slow speed!'"
* Al Sleet, the "hippie-dippie weatherman" — "Tonight's forecast: Dark. Continued dark throughout most of the evening, with some widely-scattered light towards morning."
* Jon Carson — the "world never known, and never to be known"

During this period, Carlin became more popular as a frequent performer and guest host on The Tonight Show initially with Jack Paar as a host then with Johnny Carson. Carlin became one of Carson's most frequent substitutes during the host's three-decade reign.


Carlin was present at Lenny Bruce's arrest for obscenity. According to legend the police began attempting to detain members of the audience for questioning, and asked Carlin for his identification. Telling the police he did not believe in government issued IDs, he was arrested and taken to jail with Bruce in the same vehicle.

In the 1970s, Carling perfected what is perhaps his best-known routine, "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television", recorded on Class Clown. Carlin was arrested on July 21, 1972 at Milwaukee's Summerfest and charged with violating obscenity laws after performing this routine. The case, which prompted Carlin to refer to the words for a time as, "The Milwaukee Seven", was dismissed in December of that year; the judge declared that the language was indecent, but Carlin had the freedom to say it as long as he caused no disturbance.

Carlin was the first-ever host of NBC's Saturday Night Live, debuting on October 11, 1975. (He also hosted SNL on November 10, 1984, where he actually appeared in sketches. The first time he hosted, he only appeared to perform stand-up and introduce the guest acts.)

Carlin unexpectedly stopped performing regularly in 1976, when his career appeared to be at its height. For the next five years, he rarely appeared to perform stand-up, although it was at this time he began doing specials for HBO as part of its On Location series. His first two HBO specials aired in 1977 and 1978. It was later revealed that Carlin had suffered the first of his three non-fatal heart attacks during this layoff period.

Carlin's acting career was primed with a major supporting role in the 1987 comedy hit Outrageous Fortune, starring Bette Midler and Shelley Long. Playing drifter Frank Madras, the role poked fun at the lingering effect of the 1960s psychedelic counterculture. In 1989, he gained popularity with a new generation of teens when he was cast as Rufus, the time-traveling mentor of the titular characters in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and reprised his role in the film sequel Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey as well as the first season of the cartoon series. In 1991, he provided the narrative voice for the American version of the children's show Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends, a role he continued until 1998. Also in 1991, Carlin had a major supporting role in the movie The Prince of Tides along with Nick Nolte and Barbra Streisand.

In 1999, Carlin played a supporting role as a satirically marketing-oriented Roman Catholic cardinal in filmmaker Kevin Smith's movie Dogma. He worked with Smith again with a cameo appearance in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, and later played an atypically serious role in Jersey Girl, as the blue collar father of Ben Affleck's character.

n 2001, Carlin was given a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 15th Annual American Comedy Awards.

Carlin provided the voice of Fillmore, a character in the Disney/Pixar animated feature Cars who is presented as an anti-establishment hippie (and a VW Microbus with a psychedelic paint job). Fillmore's front license plate reads "51237" — Carlin's birthday.

On June 18, 2008, four days before his death, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC announced that Carlin would be the 2008 honoree of the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor to be awarded in November of that year.[41] After consulting with both Carlin's family and PBS (who will air the ceremony), Carlin will still receive the award, becoming its first posthumous recipient.

Have You Called Your Father Yet?

Father's Day is a celebration inaugurated in the early twentieth century to complement Mother's Day to honor and commemorate fathers and forefathers. Father's Day is celebrated on a variety of dates worldwide and typically involves gift-giving, and special dinners to fathers and family-oriented activities. In 2008, it will be celebrated on June 15 in most countries.

There are at least two claims to the origins of father's day in the United States; the first modern Father's Day celebration was held on July 5, 1908, in Fairmont, West Virginia or on June 19th of the same year, in the state of Washington. Today, Father's Day is celebrated on the 3rd Sunday of June.

In West Virginia, it was first celebrated as a church service at Williams Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church South, now known as Central United Methodist Church. Grace Golden Clayton, who is believed to have suggested the service to the pastor, is believed to have been inspired after a deadly mine explosion in nearby Monongah the prior December. This explosion killed 361 men, many of them fathers and recent immigrants to the United States from Italy. Another possible inspiration for the service was Mothers' Day, which had been celebrated for the first time two months prior in Grafton, West Virginia, about 15 miles away.

Another driving force behind Father's Day was Mrs. Sonora Smart Dodd, born in Creston, Washington. Her father, the Civil War veteran William Jackson Smart, raised six children as a single parent in Spokane, Washington. Although she initially suggested June 5, her father's birthday, she did not provide the organizers with enough time to make arrangements, and the celebration was deferred to the third Sunday of June. The first June Father's Day was celebrated on June 19, 1910, in Spokane at the YMCA.

Unofficial support from such figures as William Jennings Bryan was immediate and widespread. President Woodrow Wilson was celebrated by his family in 1916. President Calvin Coolidge recommended it as a national holiday in 1924. In 1966, President Lyndon Johnson made Father's Day a holiday to be celebrated on the third Sunday of June. The holiday was not officially recognized until 1972, during the presidency of Richard Nixon.

Americans are expected to spend at least $11 billion on gifts for Father's Day in 2008. This is about $7 billion less than the amount spent on Mother's Day, which is more steeped in traditional gifts, some of which tend to be more expensive than Father's Day gifts. The average per capita spending on Father's Day is expected to be about $27.60 in 2008.

Have you called your dad yet? Then you can read more at good ol' wiki.

Memorial Day Trivia

* Following the end of the Civil War, many communities set aside a day to mark the end of the war or honor those who had died. These observances eventually coalesced around Decoration Day, honoring the Union dead, and the several Confederate Memorial Days.

* It is believed the first memorial day was observed in 1865 by liberated slaves at the historic race track in Charleston. The site was a former Confederate prison camp as well as a mass grave for Union soldiers who had died while captive. A parade with thousands of freed blacks and Union soldiers was followed by patriotic singing and a picnic.

* The official birthplace of Memorial Day is Waterloo, New York which observed the day on May 5, 1866, and each year thereafter. General John Murray, a distinguished citizen of Waterloo, and General John A. Logan led the call for the day to be observed each year and helped spread the event nationwide.

* General Logan had been impressed by the way the South honored their dead with a special day and decided the Union needed a similar day. Reportedly, Logan said that it was most fitting; that the ancients, especially the Greeks, had honored their dead, particularly their heroes, by chaplets of laurel and flowers, and that he intended to issue an order designating a day for decorating the grave of every soldier in the land, and if he could he would have made it a holiday.

* Many of the states of the U.S. South refused to celebrate Decoration Day, due to lingering hostility towards the Union Army and also because there were very few veterans of the Union Army who lived in the South. A notable exception was Columbus, Mississippi, which on April 25, 1866 at its Decoration Day commemorated both the Union and Confederate casualties buried in its cemetery.

* The alternative name of "Memorial Day" was first used in 1882, but did not become more common until after World War II, and was not declared the official name by Federal law until 1967.

* The tradition of placing American flags on each of the 260,000+ gravestones at Arlington National Cemetery on the Thursday before Memorial Day was started in the 1950’s by the 1200 soldiers of the 3rd US Infantry began.

Dr Jones, I Presume?

In honor of the audio round clue, and the opening of the 4th movie:

* Indiana Jones' true name is Henry Walton Jones, Jr., after his father

* Jones is notable for his bullwhip, fedora, leather jacket, and fear of snakes.

* Tom Selleck was originally cast as Indiana Jones, but was not able to take the role because he was committed to "Magnum, P.I."

* Tom Selleck was Steven Spielberg's second choice for the role of Indiana Jones. Harrison Ford was his first, but George Lucas objected, since Ford had been in both American Graffiti (1973) and Star Wars (1977).

* In filming the Well of Souls sequence in Raiders of the Lost Ark, the producers scoured every pet shop in London and the South of England for every snake they could lay their hands on. Still, once all the snakes were on set, it became clear that there were not nearly enough of them, so Steven Spielberg had several hoses cut into lengths, and these were used as well.

* A sheet of glass separates Harrison Ford and the arched (and highly dangerous) cobra when he falls into the Well of Souls in Raiders; the snake actually did spray venom onto the glass.

* The opening scene of Raiders is partly based on a classic Disney comic adventure; exploring a lost temple, Donald Duck, his nephews, and Scrooge McDuck must evade a succession of booby traps, like flying darts, a decapitating blade, a huge boulder, and a tunnel flooded with a torrent of gushing water.

* Indiana Jones's hat came from the famous Herbert Johnson hat shop in Saville Row, London. The hat was the shop's Australian model. On the Bonus Features DVD, costume designer Deborah Nadoolman said that in order to properly age the hat, she grabbed and twisted the hat, then she and Harrison Ford both sat on it, and it eventually looked like "a very lived-in and well-loved" hat.

* Indiana Jones never loses his hat as an homage to the classic serials of the 1940s. In those serials, the heroes' hats stayed on heads through virtually any assault. Indy does, however, lose his hat once each in both Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989).

* When Raiders was originally submitted for an MPAA rating, it was given a rating of "R" because of the sight of an exploding head. In order to lower the rating, flames were superimposed over this image. The rating was lowered to "PG" (at the time, the PG-13 rating did not exist).

* The infamous scene in Raiders in which Indy shoots a marauding and flamboyant swordsman was not in the original script. Harrison Ford was supposed to use his whip, but the food poisoning he and the rest of the crew had gotten made him too sick to perform the stunt. Instead, someone's off-handed remark, "Why doesn't he just shoot him and get it done and over with?" caused an immediate change in the script.

Need more Indy? Try the Indiana Jones Wikipedia

A Brief History of Chess

Chess originated in India, with a game known as chaturanga, which translates as "four divisions of the military". These four divisions are infantry, cavalry, elephants, and chariots, represented respectively by pawn, knight, bishop, and rook. In Persia around 600 the name became shatranj and the rules were developed further. Shatranj was taken up by the Muslim world after the Islamic conquest of Persia, with the pieces largely retaining their Persian names. In Spanish "shatranj" was rendered as ajedrez and in Greek as zatrikion, but in the rest of Europe it was replaced by versions of the Persian shāh ("king").

The game reached Western Europe and Russia by at least three separate routes, the earliest being in the 9th century. By the year 1000 it had spread throughout Europe. Introduced into the Iberian Peninsula by the Moors in the 10th century, it was described in a famous 13th century manuscript covering shatranj, backgammon, and dice named the Libro de los juegos.


Around 1200, rules of shatranj started to be modified in southern Europe, and around 1475, several major changes rendered the game essentially as it is known today. These modern rules for the basic moves had been adopted in Italy and in Spain. Pawns gained the option of advancing two squares on their first move, while bishops and queens acquired their modern abilities. This made the queen the most powerful piece; consequently modern chess was referred to as "Queen's Chess" or "Mad Queen Chess". These new rules quickly spread throughout western Europe, with the exception of the rules about stalemate, which were finalized in the early nineteenth century.

This was also the time when chess started to develop a corpus of theory. The oldest preserved printed chess book, Repetición de Amores y Arte de Ajedrez (Repetition of Love and the Art of Playing Chess) by Spanish churchman Luis Ramirez de Lucena was published in Salamanca in 1497. Lucena and later masters developed elements of openings and started to analyze simple endgames.

In the eighteenth century the center of European chess life moved from the Southern European countries to France. Centers of chess life in this period were coffee houses in big European cities like Café de la Régence in Paris and Simpson's Divan in London.

As the nineteenth century progressed, chess organization developed quickly. Many chess clubs, chess books and chess journals appeared. There were correspondence matches between cities; for example the London Chess Club played against the Edinburgh Chess Club in 1824. Chess problems became a regular part of nineteenth century newspapers. In 1843, von der Lasa published his and Bilguer's Handbuch des Schachspiels (Handbook of Chess), the first comprehensive manual of chess theory.

For all things chess, visit you local Wikipedia

Legend of the Octopus

The Legend of the Octopus is a sports tradition during Detroit Red Wings home games in which an octopus is thrown onto the ice surface for good luck during a playoff run. This tradition dates back to the 1952 playoffs when NHL teams played two best-of-seven series to capture the Stanley Cup. The octopus, having eight arms, symbolized the number of playoff wins necessary for the Red Wings to win the Stanley Cup.

The whole started on April 15, 1952 with Pete and Jerry Cusimano, brothers and storeowners in Detroit's Eastern Market. The team swept the Toronto Maple Leafs and Montreal Canadiens en route to winning the championship, as well as winning two of the next three championships.

The tossing of octopuses is generally viewed as a successful symbol of good luck and has persisted each year. In one 1995 game, fans threw 36 octopuses, including a 30-pounder. The Red Wings' unofficial mascot is a purple octopus named Al, and during playoff runs two of these mascots are also hung from the rafters of the Joe Louis Arena, symbolizing the 16 wins now needed to win the Stanley Cup.



The octopus tradition has launched a couple of other object-tossing manias. During the 1996 Stanley Cup Playoffs, fans of the Florida Panthers threw thousands of toy rats on the ice whenever the Panthers scored, inspired by the octopus toss and the story of Scott Mellanby killing a rat in the Panthers' dressing room. The NHL eventually cracked down on the rat-tossing because of the lengthy delays they could cause, and it ceased altogether shortly after the Panthers' Cup Finals run ended.

The Wings' Central Division rivals, the Nashville Predators, have mocked this tradition by throwing catfish onto their home ice, in response to the Red Wings tradition.

See Wikipedia for all you could ever want to know about the Red Wings.

This Outta Tide You Over

Your friendly neighborhood spider-man, er, trivia blogger, is going to be out of town for a few days, so this extra long (some might call it "boss") post will have to suffice for a few days.

Enjoy!


Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen was born September 23, 1949

Springsteen was inspired to take up music at the age of seven after seeing Elvis Presley on The Ed Sullivan Show. At 13, he bought his first guitar for $18.

Bruce is mostly known for playing guitar and harmonica however, he also knows how to play the mandolin, organ, piano and percussion.

Ronald Reagan wanted to use the song "Born in the USA" for his campaign, but Bruce refused because he felt that Reagan was misinterpreting the song's meaning. Reagan offended him by quoting the song in campaign speeches anyway.

Bruce wrote "(41 Shots) American Skin" about Amadou Diallo, an unarmed African immigrant who was fatally shot by four white police officers in New York. Although many people appreciated the song, including Diallo's parents, the NYPD was offended and urged people to boycott Bruce's New York concerts.

After Hurricane Katrina, Bruce re-wrote an old folk song called "How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times And Live" and added lyrics specifically about the disaster in New Orleans and the inadequate government response. He performed the song several times with the Seeger Sessions band and dedicated it to "President Bystander."

Bruce has covered the Tom Waits song "Jersey Girl" in concert several times and it is included on his "Live 1975-1985" album. He performs it in honor of the Jersey girl that he married.

Bruce won an Academy Award for Best Song for "Streets of Philadelphia" from the movie "Philadelphia."

In July 2006, Bruce’s oldest son, Evan, was pulled from Lake Placid in New York. He had been kayaking and the kayak overturned. Fortunately Evan was not injured. [blogger's note: Lake Placid is right next door to my home town]

Released as a single prior to the album's release, the song peaked at #2 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart in July 1984 (and was kept off the #1 spot by that year's song of the summer, Prince's "When Doves Cry"). It was also the first of a record-tying seven Top 10 hit singles to be released from Born in the U.S.A.

Although the song only peaked at #5 in Australia, it remained on the charts for most of 1984 and was that country's highest selling single of the year. It spent a total of 64 weeks in the Top 100.

"Dancing in the Dark" won Springsteen his first Grammy Award, picking up the prize for Best Rock Vocal Performance in 1985. It also won the MTV Video Music Award for Best Stage Performance.

Further trivia here and here.

It aint me, it aint me...

"Fortunate Son" is a song by Creedence Clearwater Revival featured on their album Willy and the Poor Boys released in 1969. It was also released as a single, together with "Down on the Corner," in September 1969.

According to John Fogerty, the song was indirectly inspired by David Eisenhower, the grandson of President Dwight David Eisenhower who married Julie Nixon, the daughter of President Richard Nixon in 1968. Eisenhower later enlisted in the Navy Reserve.

This song was popular during the Vietnam War and is included in several Vietnam films and computer games. The song symbolizes the thoughts of a man who is being drafted and speaks out against the war in Vietnam while being supportive of the soldiers fighting there. It is sung from the perspective of one of these men, who ends up fighting because he is not a "Senator's son" or a "fortunate one."

Fogerty performed the song in front of President Bill Clinton and a national TV audience on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the "America's Millennium" show on December 31, 1999.

On Fogerty's new album (revival) he performs a song called "I Can't Take It No More," which he wrote to be the song that comes after "Fortunate Son."

See Wikipedia

The Othe Penguins

Here's some information on The Penguins (the music group, not the super adorable animals).

From Wikipedia:

The Penguins were an American doo-wop group popular in the 1950s and early 1960s. They are best remembered for their only Top 40 hit, "Earth Angel" also call "Will You Be Mine". This was one of the first rhythm and blues hits to cross over to the pop charts, peaking at #8 on the national charts.

The original members were:
Curtis Williams (baritone / bass)
Cleveland Duncan (tenor)
Dexter Tisby (tenor)
Bruce Tate (baritone)

The Penguins were one of several doo-wop groups of the period named after birds. Others included The Orioles, The Flamingos, and The Crows. Supposedly the name originated with the smoking habit of the members. At the time, Kool cigarettes used a mascot called "Willie the Penguin" as its cartoon advertising character. Therefore, because they considered themselves "cool", they decided to call themselves "The Penguins".

In a common practice of the time, radio stations frequently featured segregated playlists. Thus, "Earth Angel" was simultaneously recorded by the white group, The Crew-Cuts, in 1955. The Crew-Cuts cover peaked at #3 on the national charts, five spots higher than the Penguins version. The single's success launched the Crew-Cuts' own successful career of recording "crossover"-friendly covers of R&B hits.

The Penguins never had another national hit, but their 1957 cover of "Pledge of Love" reached #15 on the R&B chart.