Hello, from Toonstack’s headquarters here in your e-mail, it’s Jason Adam Katzenstein! I’ll be your host, you are the audience and also the contestants in a (board or bored) game that is as esoteric and it is inconsequential. Let’s! PLAY! TRIVIA! Or was it Trivial? Both words come from the Latin “Trivium” which means “place where three roads meet.” If you like to comment, I’d encourage you to contribute this week by leaving a comment with your very favorite fun trivia(l) fact!
Jason Chatfield
I’ve had more than a few New Yorker cartoons rejected with the note: “What is this please?” Sometimes an obscure fact, a meme, or an esoteric bit of trivia can make the greatest comedy bit. Sometimes, it can also make you look like a complete dork. But hey, ‘Find your people’ right?
Ellie Black
I drew this one right after learning some new giraffe fact, but I can’t remember what it was. I think it had something to do with their knees? When drawing animal cartoons you usually have to stick to really common knowledge to make it make sense, so I enjoy the idea of the animals being as enchanted by obscure trivia as we are.
Emily Bernstein
Some people think that gossip is trivial. I think people talking about other people behind their backs is basically the meaning of life. When I arrive at the pearly gates, I expect to be personally greeted by God. We would bond over our love of smiting people who have wronged us. By the time I get there, all the real housewives will probably also be dead, which will ensure that there are plenty of seasons for me to catch up on. My only fear is that some of the most chaotic and, sadly, interesting people may have gone to hell instead and thereby escaped my schadenfreude. Hopefully, God and Satan are on speaking terms and can exchange some tawdry stories for my benefit. Unfortunately, the editors at the New Yorker found this cartoon to be unrelatable, sacrilegious, or otherwise unfunny, and did not buy it from me *quietly adds them to my smiting list*
Jason Adam Katzenstein
If you’re into New York local celebs? Well this one is for YOU.
Hilary Campbell
I call this trivia for young girls whose mothers are depressed. TOO DARK??? Or maybe I just really don’t know what a macchiato is so I’m deflecting. Either way I love drawing tiny horses.
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If you order a vanilla soy latte you are drinking three different types of beans.
Bonus cartoon trivia: The creator of Aeon Flux, Peter Chung, also animated the main title sequence for Rugrats!
Favorite etymology trivia: a closet under stairs is called a fornix. But modern dictionary only have anatomical definitions for arch-shaped structures.