I might suggest asking the audience if you still
have it. You get the contagion effect. Say one person
knows the answer. It is highly likely that many other
people who don't know it will look over that person's
shoulder and enter that same answer. The amount of
audience members that know the answer is inflated, but it
leads to a correct answer more often than
not.
As far as phone friends, I think that virtually
everything listed is a tossup. (If there's a question about
the solo career of Bjork, for example, you had best
be calling someone like me who has a prolific number
of her CDs.) And why hasn't anyone mentioned Kathie
Lee Gifford or Rosie O'Donnell?? lol