In honor of the 2011 Academy Awards, Quiz Guy Greg Pliska offers his own puzzle version, The Oxcars. The trick is that the nominees for Best Picture at the Oxcars have the same titles as this year’s real nominees for the Oscar, but with one letter changed. Example: What was this year’s installment of the hit animated series about headline news? Why, that would be “Top Story 3.” This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “The Oxcars Quiz”
You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Martha Barnette.
And I’m Grant Barrett. And here with us today is Greg Pliska, our master quiz guy.
So in the downtime from your big music career, you’re still writing puzzles in the margins of
Your sheet music, right?
Oh, I got to make a living somehow.
What do you got for us?
Do you remember William Snakespeare?
Yes, I do.
How did we forget?
Yeah, once you’re William Snakebit, then it’s all over.
Well, he’s the guy who wrote a whole bunch of plays that have titles just one letter
Different from the titles of plays by William Shakespeare.
Right, the bird of Avon.
That’s the one.
Very good.
Martha, you’re in.
Since we’ve just finished Oscar season, I thought we’d look back at the
Snakespeare Oxcar Award for the best pictures.
Oh, no.
Great.
What I’ll do is describe a film that’s been nominated, and to find the answer,
You take the name of a 2010 Best Picture Oscar-nominated film,
Change one letter to get the Snakespeare Oxcar nominee.
Okay.
Okay.
Let’s try it.
Natalie Portman stars in this biopic about a rapper with a split personality.
First he’s Puffy, then he’s Puff Daddy, then he’s Pudiddy, then he’s Diddy.
So the movie that she’s in is The Black Swan.
So the Black Sean.
The Black Sean, yeah.
Very good.
Sean Puffy Combs.
Black Sean.
Here’s your next one.
All the acting buzz has been about Christian Bale’s performance as a cross-dressing boxer.
Oh.
The movie is The Fighter, right?
Yeah.
And so The Tighter?
No.
No.
No.
You want to change a…
Yeah, Martha?
She Fighter?
She Fighter.
Oh, nice.
Tricky, tricky, because you don’t expect the article to change.
Very good.
All right.
A lesbian couple wrestles with relationship issues,
And as a result, their children get mediocre meals.
So the kids are all, the kids?
The kids M-R-E, all right?
No.
Oh, that’s very clever, but you’ve got the right word.
It is R you’ve got to change.
Really?
But not the first letter.
No, the kids ate all right.
That’s it.
The kids ate all right.
Yeah, it was okay.
It wasn’t great.
It ate all right.
Another one of my favorites.
James Franco sits in a cave, cuts off six of his fingers, and counts to 508.
Well, the movie, one of the movies you’re talking about is 127 hours, right?
Yep.
Well, what happens when he cuts off six of his fingers?
He has four left.
It’s multiplication we’re talking about.
Yep.
127 fours.
Exactly.
That’s how he gets 508.
Math!
Oh, no.
Oh, no.
This is a word show.
Okay.
Jennifer Lawrence stars as Ree Dolly, a 17-year-old who has to care for her catatonic mother, raise two younger siblings, save their home from foreclosure, find her missing father, and secretly work as a double O agent for the British Secret Service.
Winter’s Bond.
Yes.
Winter’s Bond.
Winter’s Bond.
The film itself is Winter’s Bone, of course.
Winter’s Bone.
Of course.
You just change one letter.
No, wrong song.
Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, Haley Steinfeld, and Colin Firth
Vie to be the most authentic citizen of the UK.
True Brit.
True Brit, exactly.
Based on true grit, of course.
And here’s yet another in the hit animated franchise about headline news.
So it’s Toy Story 3.
Headline news.
Top Story 3.
Top Story 3, exactly.
Tonight’s top story.
That’s it.
Awesome.
And one more for you.
Angered at being rejected by a college girlfriend,
A young programmer builds an interactive website for paid assassins.
The anti-social network.
The social network?
Social network.
Social wet work.
Social wet work.
Exactly.
Paid assassins.
When you kill, there’s blood.
People die.
Pink mist.
Yeah.
Brutal.
Brutal.
Pliska, thanks for the Oscar rundown.
I’m kind of chagrined how few of those films I’ve seen.
I’m chagrined that I didn’t see the ox car ceremony.
That would be great seeing those people walk up to the stage.
No, they were walking up to the ox car just picking some apples out of the back.
They just ride their horses up and pick them in war.
They all mumble like Jeff Bridges.
Great stuff, Greg.
Thank you so much.
It’s a pleasure.
Thank you.
And if you’d like to talk with us about grammar or slang or punctuation or words and how you use them
Or how we use them.
Call us 877-929-9673
Or send those emails to words@waywordradio.org.
