CITY GAMES PRESENTS THE SMUG REPORT

Know more. Gloat responsibly.

Sunday, October 25, 2026 | 5-minute read

Good morning. Hollywood has been recycling a man’s scream, Britain is rearranging time, and Picasso has found a use for your old bicycle parts. Meanwhile, you have opened an email. An excellent start, but the competition is formidable.

In the 1951 western Distant Drums, a soldier gets attacked by an alligator. The filmmakers needed a convincing scream, so one was recorded for the scene. That brief burst of professionally manufactured anguish went on to have a career most actors would envy. It became the Wilhelm scream, a stock sound effect that has escaped its original swamp and spent decades turning up wherever movie characters have an exceptionally bad few seconds.

The name comes from a different film. In 1953’s The Charge at Feather River, a character called Private Wilhelm takes an arrow to the leg and delivers the familiar cry. Same recorded distress, new workplace injury. So the Wilhelm scream did not originate with Wilhelm. Its most recognizable name arrived through a later customer, which is a very Hollywood arrangement.

Sound designer Ben Burtt helped turn it into an industry-wide inside joke. He and fellow film student Richard Anderson had noticed the sound in older movies and slipped it into their student work. As professionals, they kept the game going. Burtt used it in Star Wars, where a stormtrooper falls from a ledge, and in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Anderson used it in Poltergeist. What began as sound-library reuse became a little exchange between people whose names most viewers never stayed through the credits to read.

Who actually performed the original scream? Actor and singer Sheb Wooley, also known for “The Purple People Eater,” is widely considered the likely voice. But that attribution is not conclusively documented, so “probably Wooley” is the responsible version. The recording and its movie history are real; the performer’s identity retains an asterisk. That is your useful distinction, along with the larger revelation: a familiar movie scream may be neither the person on screen nor a newly recorded performance. It may simply be Hollywood’s hardest-working sound file accepting another assignment.

Windows XP became available worldwide on October 25, 2001. Today marks 25 years since its retail launch.

The “XP” stood for experience. An admirably broad promise, given the range of experiences people have while using computers.

Microsoft’s New York launch included Bill Gates, Regis Philbin, and a free Sting concert in Bryant Park. This was apparently the correct amount of ceremony for a new operating system. Somewhere, a printer driver was quietly preparing to make the evening about itself.

Pablo Picasso was born in Málaga, Spain, on October 25, 1881, making today the 145th anniversary of his birth.

In 1942, he made Bull’s Head by combining a bicycle saddle and handlebars. The seat becomes the face; the handlebars become horns. Two familiar objects, one remarkably convincing animal. The rest of us call this sort of inventory “stuff I should probably clear out of the garage.”

Birthday question: Which artist developed Cubism alongside Picasso?

A) Henri Matisse
B) Georges Braque
C) Salvador Dalí

Today, U.K. clocks go back one hour, ending British Summer Time. At 2 a.m., the clock returns to 1 a.m.

Most of the United States waits until November 1 to make its autumn change. For the intervening week, London is four hours ahead of New York instead of the usual five.

Future trivia question: At 1 p.m. in London today, what time is it in New York?

A) 8 a.m.
B) 9 a.m.
C) 10 a.m.

International coordination remains a group project in which nobody agrees on the deadline.

Today’s theme: Your Halloween decorations are showing off their chemistry.

SMUG: Glow sticks produce light through a chemical reaction called chemiluminescence. Bending the stick breaks a small internal glass container, allowing the chemicals to mix. A tiny chemistry demonstration has been disguised as something you wave around.

SMUGGER: Tonic water can glow blue under ultraviolet light because its quinine fluoresces. It absorbs ultraviolet energy and emits visible light. Your spooky beverage is performing an optical trick without requiring a single floating eyeball.

SMUGGEST: Many scorpions also fluoresce under ultraviolet light because of compounds in their exoskeletons. They are not producing their own light like fireflies. They are responding to incoming light, which makes them less like tiny lanterns and more like extremely unwelcoming party decorations.

Three questions. Your Sunday confidence has been given a small clipboard.

Board Meeting: Which chess piece can jump over intervening pieces during its ordinary move?

A) Bishop
B) Rook
C) Knight

Orchestral Maneuvers: Who composed The Planets?

A) Gustav Holst
B) Edward Elgar
C) Ralph Vaughan Williams

Slow Turn: Which planet takes longer to rotate once on its axis than to orbit the Sun?

A) Mars
B) Venus
C) Jupiter

No changing your answers after developing a sudden interest in astronomy.

Birthday Bragging Rights: B) Georges Braque. He and Picasso developed Cubism through a close artistic exchange. Even radical reinvention sometimes involves a colleague.

Future Trivia: B) 9 a.m. London is four hours ahead of New York during this brief mismatch between their autumn clock changes.

Board Meeting: C) Knight. Its move can clear intervening pieces. The destination square still has to be legal. Even the horse has paperwork.

Orchestral Maneuvers: A) Gustav Holst. The Planets includes “Mars, the Bringer of War” and “Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity.” An ambitious range of moods for one solar system.

Slow Turn: B) Venus. One rotation takes about 243 Earth days; one orbit takes about 225. That is its rotation period, not the interval between successive sunrises.

Your standing:

3/3: Smuggest. A substantial burden for your brunch companions.
2/3: Smug. You may casually introduce one fact.
0–1/3: Three new things learned. Still a productive Sunday.

Knowledge improves with a little exercise. Preferably somewhere people keep score.

Play daily puzzles and trivia at City Games. Everything plays directly on the website. No download required.

Bring your brain. Supply your own dramatic sound effect.

Know more. Gloat responsibly.