Is it super? Well, it’s over 4,850 entries spread over 506 pages, mostly on popular culture with heavy emphasis on films, so it’s big.
Is it trivia? Well, some of it is. A lot of it, though, depends upon phone numbers, house numbers, and license plate numbers of sets in films, sometimes the sort of thing you only glimpsed once. These researchers were thurough, and probably only working from videocassettes or laser discs when they compiled the book.
Is it incredible? Here’s the entry for KITT:
Michael Knight’s (David Hasselhoff) special black Pontiac Trans-Am in the TV series “Knight Rider.” KITT, which stands for Knight Institute Two Thousand, is voiced by William Danielson.
Incredible, as in you cannot believe any of it. Quick, what’s wrong with that entry?
Since it’s from 1984, all of the sports records have been broken since then except for Ivory Crockett’s 100-yard-dash record, which this book fails to mention. What it does rely on, though, is a very, very good knowledge of the author’s or the researchers’ favorite films, which explains why so many entries deal with Time Bandits or Somewhere in Time.
At any rate, it’s something that I kinda flipped through as I was winding down for bed or during sporting events over the course of months. I don’t know how much of it I’ll retain for Trivia Nights (the one item I’ve worked hard to retain is the name of the only singer to chart a rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner”.) It also reminded me of how many interesting old movies I’ve not yet seen, and it assured me that Kate Mulgrew had done something else besides "Alien Lover" (which I have seen in its entirety) before Star Trek:Voyager.
Is it worth reading? If you’re a trivia masochist like I am.
