Non-Trivial Biographical Information

Dr. Jon Ross is not a "real" doctor, but plays one on television.  A PhD (Piled Higher and Deeper) doctor, he has always been a trivia buff, largely because he has few friends.  This trivial trivia preoccupation was nurtured and humus-ed in college, when his College Bowl team, "Aural Fixation," advanced to the semifinals of the University of Florida's tournament.  Alas, at the semifinal match's climatic moment, Jon buzzed in early on a question about guns, answered "Winchester" when "Colt" was the right answer, and his team suffered an ignominious defeat.  This is what happens when little boys who played with encyclopedias instead of guns or GI Joe have to answer questions about firearms.

Luckily, during his Piled Higher and Deeper education, he ran into to Chris, a/k/a Dr. Smith.  While they are both natives of suburban Philadelphia (pronounced "Phla-del-fyuh"), there their habits and tastes diverge - except for trivia, especially of a political nature.  They are an Odd Couple in many ways, though it's unclear who's Felix and who's Oscar.  Together, through this fun-but-not-only-fun endeavor, they aim to make American political trivia great again, and to produce trivia that's not trivial.

Dr. Christopher Smith is also not a "real" doctor, but plays one in a variety of classrooms. Dr. Smith's interest in trivia began in the late 1980s, when he realized his hometown AM station had in fact been home to noted southeastern Pennsylvania comet Bill Haley, prior to his meteoric rise. He fled the Philly suburbs in the late 1990s for the land of Phish and maple syrup; since that time, Dr. Smith's academic interests have ranged from postmodern, post-industrial, political poetic forms to radical, liberatory pedagogy, and the development of the recording arts and sciences during the 20th century. None of these pursuits appeared trivial at the time. These days he moves boulders in good weather and reorganizes his collection of non-professional recordings when the wind howls, and when he's not busy helping produce this podcast.