Trivia Show’s Got Real Teeth (Review)

History’s Lost & Found has a thing for teeth, not to mention articles of clothing, graves and misplaced body parts.

It’s the kind of stuff that’s displayed behind glass in small and large museums, rest on mantle pieces in private homes or lies in storage in the back rooms of libraries and archives.

The makers of History’s Lost & Found believe there is enough of such material in the world to fill an hour of TV week after week. And they’re right. Past shows have told the fascinating stories behind such eclectic historical objects ad Albert Einstien’s brain, Adolf Hitler’s skull and George Washington’s dentures. The objects’ present locations — and how they got there — are also part of the story.

This Friday, the History Channel starts another flight of new installments featuring another set of false teeth (they’re Ty Cobb’s), Marylin Monroe’s sheer, rhinestone dress from JFK’s birthday, Herbert Hoover’s medicine ball and Eva Braun’s home movies of her life as Hitler’s mistress (after all, this wouldn’t be the History Channel without a little Hitler thrown in).

The best segment of all, though, traces the evolution of the wireless remote control, complete with interviews with the inventors.

History’s Lost & Found is an ingenious concept, and not just because the supply of subject matter is seemingly bottomless. More importantly, the show is tailor-made for our trivia-hungry age, of which the current mania for quiz shows is an integral part.

Who but a few scholars knew, for example, that President Hoover required the members of his cabinet to join him on the White House lawn to toss the medicine ball around for excercise. Not only does Lost & Found tell you all about it, the show’s producers have actually found movie footage of Hoover and his pals engaged in the game that came to be known as Hooverball. Where’s the medicine ball now? In West Branch, Iowa, at the Hoover Presidential LIbrary.