The BipaPedia Challenge

[Electrophil]

It's time to stump Bipa. She's always finds an answer. Let's come with something legit that she can't answer.

I'll start out: Who came up with Mountain Dew and why?

[Landshark]

here's a stumper: why are political and religious debates useless (and boring) and never get resolved?

[Ron Mummert]

What rhymes with the square root of orange?

Ron.

[thundering02]

Originally Posted by Ron Mummert

What rhymes with the square root of orange?

Ron.

The rule was legit question....

[Royal Tiger]

What was the first American Auto company? Name the man, and the second car line he started that eventually turned to heavy trucks before being bought up by White-Autocar? Requires 3 answers.

Originally Posted by Electrophil

It's time to stump Bipa. She's always finds an answer. Let's come with something legit that she can't answer.

I'll start out: Who came up with Mountain Dew and why?

Here ya go.

A pretty good history can be found here.

Mountain Dew as we know it today had its beginnings with Hartman Beverages in Knoxville, Tennessee, Tri-City Beverages in Johnson City, Tennessee and the Tip Corporation of America, in Marion, Virginia. Its flavor and ownership changed before Pepsi acquired it in 1965, making it one of their major brands.
Charlie Gordon (see TRI-CITY BEVERAGE for more info) was told by Barney Hartman of Hartman Beverage on a train trip back from the Tennessee Bottler's Convention in Nashville about a product he made at his lake cabin and used locally. Barney and his brother Ally were known connoisseurs of the mixed drink and even kept an open bar in their Knoxville, Tennessee bottling plant. It seemed that the brothers had concocted their own private 'chaser', a special East Tennessee 'Zero Proof' soft drink for mixing with Jack Daniels, that they jokingly called "Mountain Dew".

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Another page has Jones as the inventor, but he actually only arrived later on the scene, when the flavour was changed.
Source: http://members.aol.com/seanborg/mtdew/trivia.htm
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Read about the confusion of who invented Mountain Dew here

While one Bill Jones, a resident of Marion and the president of the Tip Corporation, is generally credited with concocting the Mountain Dew flavor that is familiar today, the Mountain Dew story actually begins elsewhere. Evidently, in the late 1940s, Hartman Beverage Company of Knoxville, Tennessee, bottled a lemon-lime drink they called Mountain Dew. Although this drink had some regional success, it never really caught on.

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One last source, then I need a refill (looking into empty coffee mug)
http://www.sodamuseum.bigstep.com/generic.jhtml?pid=6

In 1925, a fellow by the name of William H. (Bill) Jones went to work for the National Fruit Flavor Company, selling the flavors used to make soft drinks to bottlers in the South. By all accounts, Bill was a great guy, who was not only a fruit flavor salesman, but also a good friend of the local bottlers. Bill and his friends could often be found playing golf, or hunting, or fishing, or having a drink together. No doubt about it, Bill and his friends were Good Ole Boys (by the way, a Good Ole Boy is a good thing). When one of those friends, Clay P. Church, started the Tip Corp. of America, Bill invested in the company and became a shareholder. Bill also became the manager of the Tip Corporation. Initially, Tip had been created to market a grape flavored drink that would compete with Grapette, a drink that was doing well on the soft drink market. Unfortunately, Tip's grape flavored drink never really caught on with the public. Church ended up filling for bankruptcy, and the Tip Corp. wasn't able to meet its obligations either. It wasn't long before other stockholders in the company started looking for someone to just take their stock in Tip, and relieve them from its obligations.

Bill didn't give up though, he started calling his bottling friends (who just happened to all be Pepsi bottlers), and he convinced them to invest in Tip. It turns out that none of these bottlers actually expected to make money with their investment, they actually thought they would never see their money again, but they wanted to help out an old friend. One of the new investors, Allie "Ollie" Hartman, also threw in an old dormant trademark by the name of Mountain Dew.

The original Mountain Dew had been a lithiated lemon-lime soda that Ollie marketed as a mixer for bars back in the 1940s (it was similar to 7 UP). The name of Mountain Dew had been given to this drink because of its use as a mixer, and because Mountain Dew was often used as a slang for the moonshine coming out of the hills in Virginia. The original Mountain Dew was even billed as "zero proof hillbilly moonshine." However, the original Mountain Dew seemed to have run its course, so Ollie just gave it to the Tip Corp.

Now, the first thing Bill did after he refinanced the Tip Corp. was to pay off its debts, and then he started working on a new flavor that would become Tip's new flagship product. Bill was a pretty bright fellow, and he realized two things. First, the majority of his buddies were Pepsi bottlers, as were all of the investors in Tip. Surely, these would be the same people that would be buying and bottling the new Tip flagship product (at least initially). Second, he realized that Pepsi didn't have a lemon-lime soda. Bill quickly through all of his efforts into making the best lemon-lime flavored soda on the market. He called it Mountain Dew, which had been a similarly flavored drink, and the new Mountain Dew quickly became the Tip Corp's leading product.

[lhopp77]

Fellows, haven't you already figured out that Bipa has nothing better to do than research the net? It is useless to try to stump her on any question that can be found on the net.

Lee

Originally Posted by lhopp77

Fellows, haven't you already figured out that Bipa has nothing better to do than research the net? It is useless to try to stump her on any question that can be found on the net.

Lee

I use the net as a tool for my students to learn English. Thus I'm always finding funny and interesting stuff for them to improve reading and comprehension skills. The Mountain Dew search took about 7 minutes in total from first search to post. Not a lot of time to waste.

To put it in context, most North Americans spend anywhere from one to four hours daily watching television. So instead of watching soap operas or game shows, I read newspapers and articles online which I later use in my job.

[DarknessofDeath]

that shows that you are actually USING your brain then ~
period

[Royal Tiger]

Answer mine Bipa.

[It's Just Eric]

Hmmm....Montian dew...Good one.
...Who wrote / drew the Where's Waldo books?
Nevermind..I found that. too easy. Okay...um...
Might just be an America thing...but where did the term "The whole nine yards" come from? I mean..a first down is 10 yards in football...And thats the only close to making sence thing I could think of

[Electrophil]

Originally Posted by It's Just Eric

Hmmm....Montian dew...Good one.
...Who wrote / drew the Where's Waldo books?
Nevermind..I found that. too easy. Okay...um...
Might just be an America thing...but where did the term "The whole nine yards" come from? I mean..a first down is 10 yards in football...And thats the only close to making sence thing I could think of

Good one!!

[lhopp77]

Originally Posted by Bipa

So instead of watching soap operas or game shows, I read newspapers and articles online which I later use in my job.

Are you comparing yourself to North American female stay at homes or all North Americans? I don't know any males that watch soap operas and really not to many that watch game shows. You also seem to assume that watching television is more of a waste of time than surfing the net for trivia.

There are many good informative and educational TV channels that I watch such as the Discovery, Biography, History, NASA, Military and even government channels in addition to news channels. The ONLY game show that I ever watch is Jeopardy and it obviously has some educational value.

As you know by my comments in this forum, I do get on the net daily for a while. I might spend a bit more time on the net, but I only have dialup service and accessing everything is very slow. I live in the mountains and DSL service is not available. I never get to look at most of the videos posted in this forum because download times are excessive.

I might add that it seems quite a few people on here are either jobless, retired, self employed or cheating their employer by spending so much time on the internet surfing or posting.

Lee

[noqu26]

[QUOTE=It's Just Eric]but where did the term "The whole nine yards" come from? I mean..a first down is 10 yards in football...And thats the only close to making sence thing I could think of

I thought I knew that and it was about how much cement came in a load (approx. 9 cubic yds) and then I read this...

http://www.yaelf.com/nineyards.shtml

...now I am just really confused

Originally Posted by Tigershark

What was the first American Auto company? Name the man, and the second car line he started that eventually turned to heavy trucks before being bought up by White-Autocar? Requires 3 answers.

This is a trick question, right?

First, a few assumptions I’m making:
American = USA
Company = licensed, commercial, registered enterprise expressly set up to manufacture gasoline powered vehicles.

I believe you are thinking of the Pittsburgh Motor Vehicle Company, est. 1897, its president, Louis S. Clark, and his business partner William Morgan. The patent for their first vehicle has Morgan as the inventor. In 1899 the firm changed its name to Autocar Company and started also producing trucks in 1907. It stopped making cars in 1911, concentrating only on trucks. White Motorcar Company bought controlling interest in 1953, but declared bankrupcy in 1980 and sold the name to Volvo in 1981. In July, 2001, it was again sold to Grand Vehicle Works Holdings LLC.

There’s a problem here, though. That answer is incorrect.

Charles Duryea, along with his brother Frank, founded the Duryea Motor Wagon Company in September, 1895. In 1896 they built 13 nearly identical cars – the first commercial production run of a model in the US. In 1898 they sold their interest to their business partner, Munroe Seiberling, who in turn sold out to National Motor Carriage Company in 1901.

Charles Duryea had gone to work for Canda Company, but was shortly fired so he tried again with the incorporation of the Duryea Manufacturing Company in 1898. Lacking money, he contracted with the Peoria Rubber and Manufacturing Company. The Duryea Motor Trap was his second production car, but only about 15 were produced in 1899 because Peoria Rubber’s attention was diverted by the Great Bicycle Trust (1899 – 1903). He kept trying with various enterprises, but was never successful at getting any major production going.

Frank Duryea went on to collaberate with J. Stevens Arms and Tool Company. Together they formed the Stevens-Duryea Company in 1904. By 1915 they had manufactured about 14,000 cars. In 1915 it was sold to Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Co.


Exhibit in the Henry Ford Museum. Of the 13 automobiles made in 1896 by Duryea, this is the only known survivor.