Odd Man Out 40

Ah, yes, you may observe as you gnash your teeth in rage, it's time for another round of that most frustrating enterprise, Odd Man Out. Then again, since this is the month that ends with All Hallows' Eve, do not simply gnash your teeth. Instead, do the gnash; do the monster gnash.

Neverth, as they say, eless, there are questions to be asked and answers to be fumbled around for, so let's get to it. By way of some small compensation, this quiz will be among the easiest in the history of Latin Christendom.

Group 1

David Koresh
John Dillinger
Joe Hill
Bonnie Parker

Group 2

Edelweiss
Mule Skinner Blues
I'm Casting My Lasso Towards the Sky
The Lonely Goatherd

Group 3

Bob Feller
The first President Bush
Cobie Smulders
Stephen King

Group 4

New Year's Day
Independence Day
Thanksgiving Day
Christmas Day

Group 5

Perquackey
James A. Garfield
toadstools
permission

And now, he announced with a clearance of his well-frogged throat, it is time for the intervening view-blocker. On the other hand, you might very well find this intermission to be the most hilarious since the long-ago quiz, Odd Man Oot.

It was Saturday night and already the couple was an hour late for the dinner party they had been invited to. That was because the man had come in several hours late from his golf game that afternoon.

Where the hell were you?" his wife angrily demanded to know. "Do you have any idea what time it is?"

"Look, I'm sorry, it's just that-"

"Yes, yes, I know, just that you wanted to stop someplace on the way home and get loaded, isn't it?" his wife went on.

"No," the husband protested, "it was nothing like that."

"Oh, please," his wife sneered.

"Look, will you give me a chance to explain? It just so happens that, on the fourth tee, our friend Charlie dropped dead from a massive heart attack."

"Oh, my goodness, that's terrible!"

"Now do you understand why I was so late getting home?"

"Yes, of course," the wife agreed. "That must have taken up a lot of time."

"You bet it did. For the next fourteen holes it was hit the ball, drag Charlie, hit the ball, drag Charlie."

Group 1

David Koresh
John Dillinger
Joe Hill
Bonnie Parker

Some people have recently been whining about the killing of Muslim terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki, because, they maintain, he was an American who did not get "due process." As though his being an American made him less of a danger to innocent people. The reason your narrator is raising this point is that a number of Americans have been forcibly escorted to "the other side" without their putative defense attorneys being able to collect a fee. In fact, three of the four names in this group fit that description.

John Dillinger and Bonnie Parker were both famous stick-up persons who were gunned down in the same year (1934), but not with the same guns. David Koresh was one of our most cynical and destructive cult leaders with his Branch Davidian Sect. While nobody knows precisely who killed him, he ended up dead after an attack by agents of the ATF.

Ironically, the Odd Man Out, Joe Hill, is the only one who was shot after a "trial," and also the only one of the four who was truly a victim of injustice. He was arrested on trumped-up charges and convicted on perjured testimony to silence him as an effective labor leader. He ended up being executed by a Utah firing squad. You may have heard about him in this context.

Group 2

Edelweiss
Mule Skinner Blues
I'm Casting My Lasso Towards the Sky
The Lonely Goatherd

Veteran players of this game will note the tossage of the bone as they cleverly seek the entries in the supporting links. There they will find, as is often the case in these circumstances, a number of songs, two of which are from the Rogers and Hammerstein musical, The Sound of Music, and two of which are not, but which, taken together, provide a big clue to the answer.

They (and you if you have somehow wised up during the above space-break) will note that the last three items, whether they played on the Broadway stage or not, feature yodeling. That first tune does not.

When your narrator was more active in community theater, he once saw an audition notice for The Sound of Music. In it, the people who posted the notice said it was all right to audition with a song from the show, which it is typically not all right to do. Then, at the very last minute, they must have gotten a vision of several dozen middle-aged men, all singing the same song. As a result, they added one final line to the notice in bold type: Don't sing Edelweiss.

Group 3

Bob Feller
The first President Bush
Cobie Smulders
Stephen King

Before you plunge headlong into the wrong answer, let me read you your Miranda rights: you have the right to dance around in a polka-dot dress wearing a big bowl of wax fruit for a hat. Also, choosing an item because it is dead or another because it is female will avail you nothing. If it is the lady or the dead guy, it is so for some other reason.

Here's the deal: the first three in the group, Robert William Andrew Feller, George Herbert Walker Bush and Jacoba Fransisca Maria Smulders, all had an extra middle name. Stephen Leroy King, on the other hand, only had the one, and there is some doubt about whether that name is entirely factual.

Group 4

New Year's Day
Independence Day
Thanksgiving Day
Christmas Day

The Odd Man Out in this festive lineup is the one that is the closest to coming about: Thanksgiving Day. Why might that be? It is because, unlike the other three, it does not have a fixed date. Yes, it is always a certain Thursday in November, but Thursdays in November have a habit of falling on many different dates, as I'm sure you well know from a careful study of your TV football listings.

Group 5

Perquackey
James A. Garfield
toadstools
permission

No, wait, don't throw those hands up in despair. This one is the boniest bone your narrator ever threw. No, seriously, even if you're stumped, take a wild guess. Don't think, just guess. Well, what do you know? YOU NAILED IT!

As a last parting gift before the OMO closes down for the holidays/winter doldrums, you get to go out with a win. Each one of these items is different from the others, so you can't go wrong, unless you decided to get silly and guess "Altoona." Aw, jeez, you did, didn't you? Ah, well, happy whatever-you celebrate and a prosperous Year of the Dragon.

Sources

Wikipedia

YouTube