LearnedLeague Live @ SporcleCon 2024 (Special Edition)
Sculptors, the Omnic Crisis, Jalisco, ND Stevenson, Allyn C. Vine, Hervé Villechaize, and more...
Detroit, Michigan recently hosted the 2024 iteration of SporcleCon, which featured an event called LearnedLeague Live. Below, you will find 10+ questions from the event. The first part of the recap includes just the questions so that you can quiz yourself if you want. The second part gives you some (hopefully!) interesting information about the clues and/or some related info.
P.S. Next week we finish our recapping of the 2024 Masters tournament.
ART
Edward Despard, Maximilien Robespierre, Marie Antoinette and other executed persons were among the subjects of works by Anna Maria Grosholtz, a sculptor better known by what married name?
FILM
In 1984, Jake Ryan was a senior here. In 1985, a computer-created woman became the new gym teacher. In 1986, the dean of students' computer got hacked. What is the name of this school?
GAMES
What 2016 first-person shooter is set six years after the UN signed the Petras Act, amid signs of a second Omnic Crisis?
GEOGRAPHY
What city is the capital of the Mexican state of Jalisco and the namesake of the Chivas, one of Liga MX's Los Cuatro Grandes?
LIFESTYLE
An accident-prone, shapeshifting villain's sidekick is the title character of what webcomic (later a graphic novel) that served as cartoonist ND Stevenson's senior thesis?
POP MUSIC
Coko Gamble, Taj George, and Lelee Lyons were Sisters with them, whereas Robert Pollard, Mitch Mitchell, and Tobin Sprout were among those Guided by them. What are they?
SCIENCE
The Wikipedia entry of oceanographer Allyn C. Vine is brief, especially compared to that of what still active deep-submergence vehicle named after him in 1964?
THEATRE
Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe—whose "last jam" was the basis of a 1992 musical by George C. Wolfe, Susan Birkenhead, and Luther Henderson—is best known by what stage name?
TELEVISION
In a 1992 Dunkin' Donuts commercial, Hervé Villechaize orders three types of donuts. The second and third were "the cinnamon" and "the chocolate." What was the first?
WORLD HISTORY
Though the exact whereabouts of her remains are unknown, it is presumed that Gelati Monastery, roughly 250 km from Tbilisi, is the burial place of what queen who reigned from 1184 to 1213?
BONUS CLUE #1
Evelyn Hugo (2017), Daisy Jones (2019), Nina Riva (2021), and Carrie Soto (2022) are the "famous women" protagonists in a quartet of novels by whom?
BONUS CLUE #2
Peace at the UN headquarters in New York and America Windows at the Art Institute of Chicago are stained-glass installations created by what Russian-born French artist?
ART
Edward Despard, Maximilien Robespierre, Marie Antoinette and other executed persons were among the subjects of works by Anna Maria Grosholtz, a sculptor better known by what married name?
***MADAME TUSSAUD***
Madame Tussaud [too-SOH] was born in 1761 in Strasbourg, France. She learned the art of wax modeling from Philippe Curtius, who employed her mother as a housekeeper. From 1780-1789, she was the art tutor of Madame Élisabeth (Louis XVI’s sister). After being imprisoned for royalist sympathies during the Reign of Terror, she made death masks and whole body casts of executed nobles. Curtius died in 1794 and left Tussaud his wax exhibition. She took it on tour in Britain and eventually established a museum of wax figures in London (originally on Baker Street, now on Marylebone Road).
A notable section of the wax museum Madame Tussauds (spelled without the apostrophe) is called the “Chamber of Horrors,” which originally included gruesome relics of the French Revolution. The chamber also included an effigy of Edward Despard, who was convicted of treason and executed in 1803 for plotting to assassinate King George III. Tussaud died in 1850, but there are now branches of her namesake museum all around the world. The cover of the album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was made mostly using photographs, but some wax figures from Madame Tussauds were also used. On the HBO show Hacks, Hannah Einbinder’s character uses a wax figure at the Las Vegas Madame Tussauds to unlock the iPhone of Jean Smart's character. Members of the British environmental activist group Just Stop Oil covered a waxwork of King Charles III with cake at the London Madame Tussauds in 2022.

FILM
In 1984, Jake Ryan was a senior here. In 1985, a computer-created woman became the new gym teacher. In 1986, the dean of students' computer got hacked. What is the name of this school?
***SHERMER HIGH SCHOOL***
The fictional Shermer High School in a suburb of Chicago appears in many movies written and/or directed by John Hughes (1950-2009). The character Jack Ryan was played by Michael Schoeffling in the 1984 movie Sixteen Candles. The movie starred Molly Ringwald as the high school sophomore Samantha Baker, whose family is preoccupied with her sister's wedding and forgets it’s Molly's sixteenth birthday. Molly has a crush on Jack and they kiss at the very end of the movie. As we learned (or were reminded) last week, the song "If You Were Here" by the Thompson Twins plays as they kiss. The movie’s other main characters included a Chinese foreign exchange student named Long Duk Dong and a geek played by Anthony Michael Hall. The movie’s title is mentioned in the Fall Out Boy song “A Little Less Sixteen Candles, a Little More 'Touch Me,’” which also mentions a Samantha Fox song.
John Hughes wrote and directed the 1985 movie Weird Science, which co-starred Kelly LeBrock as a computer-created woman named Lisa. She is created by two nerdy social outcasts named Gary and Wyatt, who were played by Anthony Michael Hall and Ilan Mitchell-Smith. Lisa helps them win over two cheerleaders. At the very end of the movie, Lisa becomes Sherman High School’s new gym teacher. The movie's title song was performed by Oingo Boingo, a new wave band formed by Danny Elfman.
Hughes also directed, wrote, and co-produced the 1986 movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Its title character (played by Matthew Broderick) hacks the computer of the dean of students (Ed Rooney, played by Jeffrey Jones) in order to change his attendance records. Ferris skips school with his best friend Cameron (played by Alan Ruck) and his girlfriend Sloane (played by Mia Sara). While playing hooky, they visit the Art Institute of Chicago, attend a Chicago Cubs baseball game, and go the Von Steuben Day Parade.
GAMES
What 2016 first-person shooter is set six years after the UN signed the Petras Act, amid signs of a second Omnic Crisis?