Kaleidoquiz is a traditional 26-hour test of endurance
March 3, 2006
During a traditional quiz show, you wouldn’t be expected to make homemade Hobbit’s feet, know what basketball team Pope John Paul II belonged to (he is an honorary member of the Harlem Globetrotters) or travel to another state to find a bar coaster. Kaleidoquiz, however, isn’t your traditional quiz show.
A tradition started by Iowa State’s KURE radio station more than 30 years ago, Kaleidoquiz is a 26-hour event starting at 4 p.m. Friday. Every six minutes, a question is announced over the airwaves and teams are expected to phone in an answer by the time the next one is asked.
FASTTRAK
How good are you?
Each year, Kaleidoquiz asks teams questions ranging from the last line of “I Heart Huckabees” to the first British Poet Laureate. Take a look at questions from last year’s Kaleidoquiz to see if you have what it takes:
1. What mathematical equation was once used to drive a French atheist out of a city in Russia?
2. Who said “I’m the Martin Luther King Jr. of comedy”?
3. If you add up the buttons on the phone booth in “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure,” what do you get?
4. In “Twin Peaks” episode 102, how many candles surround the pile of dirt with the heart necklace on it?
5. What room is the KURE transmitter located in?
6. What are the dimensions of a 500 Euro note?
7. Who was the head of the Baker Street Irregulars?
8. What percentage of Miss America winners from 1921 to 2003 have been brunettes?
9. With what colors is the Empire State Building lit on Martin Luther King Jr. Day?
10. What amount of beauty is required for the launching of one ship?
Answers: 1. a + bn = x; 2. Arsenio Hall; 3. Infinity; 4. 12; 5. 600A Physics Hall; 6. 160 x 82 millimeters; 7. Wiggins; 8. 70 percent; 9. Red, black and green; 10. One milli-helen
“We found an old reel-to-reel tape that said the first one was in 1967, but we don’t know exactly,” said Carl Adams, senior in history and director of Kaleidoquiz for the last three years. Adams is now handing the responsibilities over to Alex Kharbush, sophomore in computer science.
Although the Kaleidoquiz history is ambiguous, the marathon radio quiz has come to be known as one of the stranger phenomena to occur at Iowa State. Strange and difficult questions are only part of what Kaleidoquiz is about, however. There’s also a scavenger hunt in which students are given a list of things to make, find, buy or acquire by any other means.
“They ask for the craziest stuff,” said Scott King, junior in materials engineering and member of last year’s winning team from Harwood House. “Like a LEGO campanile, an empty fire extinguisher – no person can get all of it.”
On top of the other challenges there is also a traveling question, where teams must trek across the state following clues to the prize. Last year, teams were given a fortune cookie with lucky numbers on the fortune, a CD of “Jane Says” by Jane’s Addiction and a Monopoly deed to Park Place. The answer was simple: The lucky numbers were the highways to get to the destination, “Jane Says” was referencing Janesville, Wis., and Park Place was a bar found in the city.
“One of the guys even tried calling up the lead singer of Jane’s Addiction to see if that was the answer. With KQ, you never know,” King said.
Adams said the road trips are what Kaleidoquiz is all about.
“For my first year I wanted to make something huge. I did a statewide scavenger hunt and they had 19 hours to complete it. There was a receipt from a Wal-Mart in Keokuk. Stuff from Dordt College. A cocktail napkin from a certain restaurant in Cedar Rapids,” Adams said.
Nathan Willis, junior in aerospace engineering and a member of last year’s winning team, found some of the challenges to be particularly humiliating.
“I had to go to KURE and sing [Gloria Gaynor’s] ‘I Will Survive’ over the radio,'” he said.
Prizes are determined by the KQ director, and in years past prizes have varied, such as three extra large Gumby’s Pokey Stix a week for a year.
The prize last year was something Adams finds to be one of the biggest: a 1989 Dodge Caravan, tricked out with plastic spinner rims, KURE decals, a sound system, 10 disc CD changer and even interior LED lights. Insuring a van for an entire college dorm floor, however, may be harder than it looks.
Keegan Gartner, junior in mechanical engineering, said the phone call didn’t go over so smoothly.
