OPHIRA EISENBERG, HOST:
Let's welcome our next two contestants, Georgia Andrews and Monique Sulle. Hi.
MONIQUE SULLE: Hi.
GEORGIA ANDREWS: Hi.
(APPLAUSE)
EISENBERG: All right. Georgia, Monique, we're going to break it down. Let's get real for a second. I just want to know what about life is not fair. Georgia.
ANDREWS: Ooh. I don't know. I - there's expression: Fair only happens in Iowa in the summer.
JONATHAN COULTON: Ah. Nice.
EISENBERG: Oh. Wow.
ANDREWS: That's really my comment on fairness.
EISENBERG: Yeah. That's beautiful. Monique.
SULLE: Toe cleavage.
(LAUGHTER)
SULLE: I have a problem.
EISENBERG: You have a problem with toe cleavage?
SULLE: I do.
EISENBERG: Now, some people are attracted to toe cleavage, like, especially. Do you know that?
SULLE: I am aware.
(APPLAUSE)
EISENBERG: You've been in that situation.
SULLE: I learned it the hard way. Yeah.
EISENBERG: Right. See? Life is not fair, is it? Our next game is called That's Not Fair because history is filled with horrible snubs, cons, cheats and other assorted injustices. So in this game we'll be asking you about some of the wretched souls who didn't deserve the hand fate dealt them. So ring in when you know the answer. I know, it's a bit of a sad game.
For example, Elizabeth Magie felt that private property was unfair. So in 904 she created a little board game called The Landlord's Game to illustrate how property owners were gouging money from their tenants. Well, guess what? Thirty years later, Parker Brothers released a brand new board game that strangely resembled Magie's game. They paid her eventually $500 for her patent.
ANDREWS: Ooh.
EISENBERG: No royalties, and hushed-hushed her contributions to what classic board game?
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SULLE: Monopoly.
(LAUGHTER)
EISENBERG: Interesting thing to do in a game called That's Not Fair.
(LAUGHTER)
COULTON: Georgia rang in and Monique answered. So I don't...
EISENBERG: That's right. Sort of embodied the theme. I can't say that I didn't appreciate that on some level. I know. Isn't that terrible? Poor Elizabeth Magie had to live on Baltic Avenue in a little tiny plastic green house. She...
COULTON: It's the worst avenue.
EISENBERG: It's the worst avenue.
COULTON: Of all the avenues, that's the worst one to live on. Despite being one of the most renowned artist of all time, this man sold only one painting during his lifetime. It was called "The Red Vineyard," bought for 400 francs in 1890. He would pass away just a few months later at the age of 37. Who was this tortured master?
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
COULTON: Georgia.
ANDREWS: Van Gogh?
COULTON: That's right.
(APPLAUSE)
EISENBERG: In what some critics feel was the worst decision in Oscar history - and that is saying something - the film "Goodfellas" did not win the 1990 Academy Award for Best Picture, nor did Martin Scorsese win Best Director. What film and what director won instead?
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
EISENBERG: Monique.
SULLE: "Dances with Wolves," Kevin Costner?
EISENBERG: You are correct.
COULTON: Yes. All right.
(LAUGHTER)
EISENBERG: Yes.
COULTON: On Valentine's Day, 1876, two inventors filed patents for the same piece of technology within hours of each other. One of them was Elisha Gray, who did not receive the patent. What famous inventor beat Gray, got the patent, and launched a communications empire?
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
COULTON: Georgia.
ANDREWS: Thomas Edison?
COULTON: No, I'm sorry. Monique, do you have a guess?
SULLE: Alexander Graham Bell?
COULTON: You got it.
JOHN CHANESKI: Yes.
(APPLAUSE)
EISENBERG: Unfair. That is unfair. Right? Yeah. He also got the primo phone number: One.
COULTON: Yeah.
EISENBERG: This musician has won 20 Grammy awards and he's still selling out concerts in his 60s. Yet, after four decades of trying, this artist has never had a number one single on the Billboard's Hot 100 chart. His biggest song, 1984's "Dancing in the Dark" only hit number two. Who is this seemingly ageless rocker?
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
EISENBERG: Monique.
SULLE: Bruce Springsteen.
EISENBERG: Exactly.
(APPLAUSE)
COULTON: Bruce.
EISENBERG: Bruce.
COULTON: Bruce.
SULLE: Boss man.
EISENBERG: The Boss.
COULTON: The Boss.
EISENBERG: I know. Yeah. Successful.
SULLE: It's shocking.
EISENBERG: Famous, critically acclaimed, not a number one hit. He'll just have to deal with that failure.
COULTON: That poor guy.
EISENBERG: I know.
COULTON: Oh, my gosh.
EISENBERG: But tough life.
COULTON: Can you imagine how hard it must be to be Bruce Springsteen? What a terrible life.
(LAUGHTER)
EISENBERG: How does he do it?
COULTON: I don't know.
EISENBERG: How's he do it?
COULTON: In 1971, Portland State University student Carolyn Davidson got a gig from her accounting professor Phil Knight. He was paid just $35 to design a logo for Knight's new sportswear company. It's now one of the most iconic logos in the world. What is it?
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
COULTON: Monique.
SULLE: The swoosh for Nike?
COULTON: The swoosh, the Nike swoosh. That's right.
EISENBERG: Yeah.
(APPLAUSE)
EISENBERG: I really hope no one got paid to create that word swoosh.
SULLE: Swoosh.
COULTON: Swoosh. There is a happy ending, actually.
EISENBERG: There is?
COULTON: In '82 Carolyn was given 500 shares of Nike stock as a thank you gift.
EISENBERG: Oh.
COULTON: Which is now estimated to be worth over $600,000.
EISENBERG: That's not enough. Yeah, it's nothing. Everyone's like who cares? Like...
COULTON: You're going to sneeze at $600,000?
EISENBERG: Like in Nike money, though, that's like six cents. Right?
COULTON: I guess that's true. Yeah.
EISENBERG: Not fair.
COULTON: Not fair.
CHANESKI: Not fair.
COULTON: All right. This is your last question. In the late 1960s a professor at a Catholic women's college in New Orleans fell into depression after his novel was rejected by publisher after publisher. Sadly, he never recovered and he committed suicide at the age of 31. But thanks to his mother's efforts, his book eventually got published and he won a posthumous Pulitzer Prize. Who is this author and what was the title of the very funny book?
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
COULTON: Georgia.
ANDREWS: It's "Confederacy of Dunces."
COULTON: Yes.
ANDREWS: And it's Kennedy is his last name. I don't know his first name.
COULTON: We're going to give it to Georgia. Georgia, that was fine. It's John Kennedy Toole and "The Confederacy of Dunces" was the...
EISENBERG: That's right.
COULTON: ...was the answer. Yes.
In a very fair game, Monique won. Way to go, Monique.
EISENBERG: Congratulations, Monique. You'll be moving on to our final round at the end of the show.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GANGSTER'S PARADISE")
CHORUS: (singing) Ahhhhh, uhhhh, ahhhh. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.