Answer: materialized from a mad scientist's thoughts
Professor R. E. Walgate, a sort of mad British scientist, was conducting experiments in mind control, mental telepathy, telekinesis and thought projection. His work led him to accidentally create invisible creatures which were materialized from his thoughts. They absorbed electrical energy, grew and reproduced, emanated radiation, and became visible. When these creatures escaped from his laboratory, they attacked people, sucked out their spinal fluids, and took their brains and spines to use as bodies.
From Quiz: Popcorn Crunchers, Reel 66
Answer: giant prehistoric mollusks
The creatures in "The Monster That Challenged the World" are enormous mollusks who are dislodged by an earthquake at the bottom of California's Salton Sea. They don't really look like mollusks; they sometimes appear without their shell. Most mollusks have one or two shells; a few, like squids, octopi, and these monsters, do not. These creatures look rather like a caterpillar, only with pincer jaws (like earwigs have on their other ends) and giant bulging eyes (like a tarsier). Where it goes, it spreads slime. When it attacks a human, it drains the body of its fluids and the victim's skin turns black.
From Quiz: Popcorn Crunchers, Reel 65
Answer: suitmation
The original plan to animate Godzilla was to use stop-motion animation. This plan was discarded when the potential expense was computed (and an estimate of seven years in production was made). The monster was designed with parts of Tyrannosaurus, Iguanodon and Stegosaurus in the mix. A crew built a human-sized suit in which a stunt man could interact with miniature sets. This technique was dubbed "suitmation." The first version, made of latex, weighed 220 pounds and the actor inside (Haruo Nakajima or Katsumi Tezuka) could move it only with the greatest effort. In one scene, Nakajima was inside the suit for only three minutes before passing out.
From Quiz: Popcorn Crunchers, Reel 64
Answer: to raise a uranium-powered-robot army
Von Housen is obsessed with the notion of world domination. He has designed a prototype for a uranium-powered robot with which to rule the planet. Only one of these robots has actually been produced and it is misdelivered to Mother Riley's store rather than to Von Housen's creepy manor house.
From Quiz: Popcorn Crunchers, Reel 63
Answer: to kill the crew and steal their spaceship
Because the atmosphere of the Moon is soon to be exhausted, the cat women plan to kill all of the male members of the Moon Rocket 4 crew and seize their spaceship. Their plan is to travel to the Earth in Moon Rocket 4 and take over. Their leader, Alpha, played by Carol Brewster, says, "We will get their women under our power, and soon we will rule the whole world!" The cat women have psychic powers to control the minds of Earth women.
From Quiz: Popcorn Crunchers, Reel 62
Answer: Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice"
One of the aliens is killed when their flying saucer lands at Skyhook. Part of their metallic armour is a helmet which has built into it a kind of universal language translator. This helmet is seized and Carol is invited to test the translation feature. She says "The quality of mercy is not strained / It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven" into the microphone. One of her colleagues recognizes that this is from Shakespeare but no one says from which play. It is from "The Merchant of Venice" Act IV, scene 1.
From Quiz: Popcorn Crunchers, Reel 61
Answer: a vengeful walking tree-stump monster
Kimo, the prince of a South Seas island, was falsely accused of his father, the king's, death by conspirators who wanted to seize power. Tano, the witch doctor, Maranka, the pretender to the throne, and Korey, Kimo's wife, all testified against him. He is sentenced to death by having a knife plunged into his heart. He swears revenge. The village buries him standing upright inside a hollow tree trunk. He sprouts and emerges as a vengeful walking tree-stump monster who kills Tano, Maranka and Korey. It is obviously him because he still has the sacrificial knife sticking out of his bark.
From Quiz: Popcorn Crunchers, Reel 60
Answer: reports of a meteor crashing into Earth
Dr. Erik Engström and Dr. Frederick Wilson, geologists, go to northern Sweden to locate a meteorite which has crashed into the Earth. That "meteorite" turns out to be a spherical spaceship, shaped rather like a COVID virus, which is wedged into the ice. Inside there are three aliens who peer out frosted windows and release a sort of giant sasquatch-like creature which they control psychically.
From Quiz: Popcorn Crunchers, Reel 59
Answer: atomic energy from a home reactor
In an attempt to modernize the story in "Frankenstein 1970" the script calls for Baron Frankenstein to have an atomic reactor in his basement. The high cost of such an installation explains why he would permit American movie makers to shoot a film in his castle; he needed the money. The reactor in question produced something called "atomic steam" which was both the source of the creature's life and the cause of its death.
From Quiz: Popcorn Crunchers, Reel 54
Answer: Atlantis on Earth
The astronauts from Earth discover a tiny colony called New Atlantis on the thirteenth moon of Jupiter. There are sixteen beautiful women and one very old man in their enclosure. They tell the astronauts that they escaped the earthly Atlantis as it slipped under the ocean.
From Quiz: Popcorn Crunchers, Reel 53
Answer: explosion of an off-course Earth rocket
A manned space rocket misfires and the astronaut uses an ejection capsule to return to Earth. The rocket continues, with its atomic drive engaged, and explodes in the Delta asteroid cluster. This changes the course of those asteroids and they become a giant cluster of asteroids on a path directly toward Earth.
From Quiz: Popcorn Crunchers, Reel 52
Answer: They break the egg shell by shooting at it.
Acting on Sally's idea about what could have prompted the creature to come to this planet, the three go in search of a nest. The gigantic nest they find has a single egg in it. Pierre sees the creature and flees. Mitch and Sally shoot at the egg, break it, and destroy it. The monster bird (who we now know to be female) is furious, finds Pierre and kills him. Mitch and Sally escape.
From Quiz: Popcorn Crunchers, Reel 49
Answer: an invisible electric fence
Nyah warns the residents of the Bonnie Charlie Inn that she has erected a sort of invisible wall around the hostelry and its grounds. This is demonstrated by Professor Hennessy who injures himself by tripping over the invisible barrier and falling into it.
From Quiz: Popcorn Crunchers, Reel 48
Answer: the teenagers
The Air Force is more interested in covering up the UFO landing than in anything else. They accidentally blow up the (empty) flying saucer and then groom the scene to look like a military aircraft accident. The police are put off of the case because the army tells them it was an airplane crash and because they don't believe teenagers in general. It is the teenagers who figure out how to kill the aliens and who organize themselves in such a way as to destroy them all. This movie was made for a largely teenage audience so this message -- teens are smarter than the military and the police -- goes down pretty well with the intended viewer.
From Quiz: Popcorn Crunchers, Reel 47
Answer: the figurehead leader of Oceania
Of the three superpowers on the Earth, Oceania is run by the Party, the figurehead of which is Big Brother. He appears on television, on radio, in posters and elsewhere as the embodiment of the perfect government. Citizens refer to him affectionately as "B.B.".
From Quiz: Popcorn Crunchers, Reel 58
Answer: mockery and derision
Dr. Penner's story about the alien's warning message is ignored by the federal government. Penner is variously described as a crank, a mental case, and a doddering old fool by the press. One newspaper front page, under a banner headline claiming it has the first photograph of an invisible alien, runs it over a blank white box. The government refuses to act and the aliens begin to make real their threats by using the reanimated bodies of human dead to sabotage bridges, dams, buildings and the like, with fire and explosions.
From Quiz: Popcorn Crunchers, Reel 46
Answer: Francis Ford Coppola
The director of the original movie "Nebo Zovyot" was Mikhail Karyukov. The director of the Americanized version was Francis Ford Coppola. The name of the film was changed to "Battle Beyond the Sun". Credit for the original Russian stars Aleksandr Shvorin and Ivan Pereverzev were changed to Andy Stewart and Edd Perry. The Soviet directors Mikhail Karyukov and Aleksandr Kozyr were changed to Maurice Kaplin and Arthur Corwin (and rudely demoted to credit as "assistant directors"). Coppola added the scene where the two space monsters fight each other and also some crowd scenes from the Pasadena Rose Parade to use as the crowd reaction when the astronauts' return to Earth.
From Quiz: Popcorn Crunchers, Reel 56
Answer: cocoons them and drinks their bodily fluids
It is not immediately clear what happens to people when they fall into the "hands" of the "Beast from Haunted Cave". The beast attacks and carries off Natalie the barmaid. Marty Jones, one of the gang of robbers, later discovers her, barely alive, wrapped in a cocoon. The same thing happens to Imelda still later in the show. All of the human captives are depleted of the fluids in their bodies.
From Quiz: Popcorn Crunchers, Reel 45
Answer: pretending to vacation; robbing a bank
Alexander Ward is the leader of a small gang of robbers: Marty and Byron. Gypsy is his secretary/girlfriend. They come to Deadwood and ski, as a cover for their real mission. They rob a bank in Deadwood of gold bars kept in the safe there. Then they continue to vacation so as to arouse no suspicion.
From Quiz: Popcorn Crunchers, Reel 55
Answer: to create an atomic super-race
Professor Vladimir Strowski finds Doctor Vornoff and says he wants to bring him "home". Doctor Vornoff responds, "Home? I have no home. ... But I will show the world that I can be its master! I will perfect my own race of people. A race of atomic supermen which will conquer the world!" Nowhere in the film is it disclosed from where Prof. Strowski nor Dr. Vornoff originally came.
From Quiz: Popcorn Crunchers, Reel 44
Answer: funeral limousines
At the beginning of "House on Haunted Hill," the five guests arrive in five black limousines of the sort one often sees at funerals. The motorcade is led by a 1948 Packard Funeral Coach (hearse) with an autobody made by the Henney Motor Company for funeral directors. The hearse is empty. This is followed by five black Cadillac Fleetwood 75s (1950-1958), one for each of the guests.
From Quiz: Popcorn Crunchers, Reel 13
Answer: Detective Raby
Naolia gives Walter Paisley a vial of heroin as an expression of her appreciation of his artwork. This is observed by Det. Lou Raby, an undercover police officer, who follows him home to arrest him for possession. Walter freaks out and hits the detective with a frying pan, killing him. He repeats the "sculpting" procedure which worked so well on the dead cat and calls the newly-encased figure "Murdered Man".
From Quiz: Popcorn Crunchers, Reel 42
Answer: black unitards, beehive hairdos, lots of make-up
The cat women are all dressed alike in black unitards. Despite being part of a 200,000 year old civilisation, their hair styles (a beehive) are the same as those popular on Earth. They wear excessive and elaborate cosmetics. All of them appear to be accomplished in "modern dance" which they perform ensemble. They also have the power to disappear and reappear elsewhere.
From Quiz: Popcorn Crunchers, Reel 12
Answer: She was decapitated.
Dr. Cortner rushes to get to his family's summer house where he has a secret laboratory because of a phone call from his assistant Kurt saying that there was trouble. He drives recklessly, crashes the car and retrieves Jan's head which has been severed from her body. He wraps it in his jacket and takes it to his laboratory where he keeps it alive in an enamel pan of experimental serum. Jan is displeased and wants to die.
From Quiz: Popcorn Crunchers, Reel 24
Answer: Go away and don't come back.
After explaining that the Martians have been observing the Earth "since the first creature crawled out of the primeval slime of your seas to become man," the Martian typifies the Earth mission to Mars as an invasion. He describes Earthmen as "[t]echnological adults, but spiritual and emotional infants." The proof of this is the human propensity to interpersonal violence and war. Their return home has been prevented by the Martians, who will now permit the mission to return to Earth for one purpose: "Carry The warning to Earth. Do not come here. We can and will destroy you, all life on your planet, if you do not heed us. You have seen us, been permitted to glimpse our world. Go now. Warn mankind not to return unbidden."
From Quiz: Popcorn Crunchers, Reel 36
Answer: none
Despite the indication in the title of this motion picture, there are no zombies in "Zombies of the Stratosphere." The humans who assist the evil Martian invaders in this film are not zombies. One is a human scientist; the others are human mobsters, hired by the Martians. The Martians are also assisted by a robot (looking rather like a domestic hot-water tank with arms) of their own construction.
From Quiz: Popcorn Crunchers, Reel 34
Answer: There really isn't.
While the people shrunk by Mister Franz are not pleased to have been dealt with in this manner, they do not really attack him so much as struggle to regain their original size. They are attacked by a rat, a cat and a dog. The film's distributors thought the title would play better with teenage drive-in audiences if the word "attack" was in it.
From Quiz: Popcorn Crunchers, Reel 11
Answer: Tennessee Williams
The story is told that Tennessee Williams visited the set on which "The Wild Women of Wongo" was being filmed. Just for fun, director James L. Wolcott allowed Williams to direct several scenes, just so he could have the experience. There is no particular evidence of the truth of this anecdote. It seems likely that, had Williams actually worked on the film, he would have edited the dialogue due to its trite and hackneyed condition.
From Quiz: Popcorn Crunchers, Reel 25
Answer: The surface of Venus is not life supporting.
The atmosphere of Venus is primarily carbon dioxide and nitrogen. The surface temperature is 740 K (467 °C, 872 °F). The surface atmospheric pressure is 93 bar (1,350 psi) which is about the pressure under 900 meters/3000 feet of water on Earth. There is a sort of greenhouse effect on Venus -- it rains sulfuric acid constantly -- but this is not the sort of greenhouse in which plants grow. No breathing/no jungle.
From Quiz: Popcorn Crunchers, Reel 43
Answer: Venus has no moon(s).
Queen Yllana led a revolt against the men of Venus, killed off almost all of them, but kept the mathematicians and scientists in a penal colony on Venus' moon Tyrus. Venus has no moons; it is one of the only two planets in the solar system without at least one. There is no moon anywhere named Tyrus. In the video game "Gears of War," Tyrus is a fictional planet.
From Quiz: Popcorn Crunchers, Reel 23
Answer: They cook it with electricity.
The airmens' attempts to shoot the creature with their guns have no effect; the bullets pass through its vegetable structure. At Nikki Nicholson's suggestion, they douse the Thing with kerosene and light it on fire but it flees into the snow and puts the flames out. The alien shuts off their heating fuel supply. They retreat into the station's power-generating room and set a sort of electrical "fly-trap" for the Thing. Dr. Carrington tries to reason with the beast but it knocks him to one side and steps into the trap. The electricity is turned on and the Thing is reduced to a small pile of vegetal ash.
From Quiz: Popcorn Crunchers, Reel 40
Answer: He falls overboard and is decapitated.
The sailors need to ferry supplies from the seaplane to the shore. They load them into two rafts and are bringing them ashore when Seaman Tate, played by Charles B. Griffith, falls overboard. Lt. Quinlan, played by Ed Nelson, orders him brought back onto the launch but, when they haul him out of the water, it is without his head!
From Quiz: Popcorn Crunchers, Reel 32
Answer: nothing
The Phantom removes his suit and helmet to become invisible to pursuers. They retrieve the suit and helmet and take them to the observatory in a lead-lined box. The suit disintegrates into fog or gas and leaves no remainder. When newspaperman Joe Wakeman tries to photograph the alien, he startles the Phantom who drops the helmet to the floor where it shatters, like glass, and dissolves into smoke. When the Phantom runs out of breathing gas, he falls to the floor and his body becomes visible without ultraviolet light. His naked body turns to vapor and then disappears.
From Quiz: Popcorn Crunchers, Reel 10
Answer: Robby
Robby the Robot was built specifically for "Forbidden Planet." His cost was about seven percent of the total film budget of $1.9 million. Inside Robby was stuntman Frankie Darro who had to be let go for endangering the expensive robot by operating it while intoxicated. He was voiced by Marvin Miller. Robby's high cost was amortized over a large number of film and television appearances. He was in "The Invisible Boy" (1957), "Invasion of the Neptune Men" (1961), "Gremlins" (1984), and "Cherry 2000" (1988). Robby also appeared (often in cameo) on television's "The Perry Como Show," "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis," "The Twilight Zone," "Mork and Mindy," "Wonder Woman," "The Man from UNCLE," and "Lost in Space."
From Quiz: Popcorn Crunchers, Reel 57
Answer: a woman who can become a cobra
There is a remote connection between the Lamians in "Cult of the Cobra" and the Greek mythical figure Lamia. She was a beautiful queen who had offspring by Zeus, which children were all killed by Hera, Zeus' wife. She turned into a child-eating monster, half human and half snake. The English poet John Keats wrote a poem which derived (somewhat) from this myth in 1820. The Lamians in "Cult of the Cobra" are still farther derived from it, if at all. They are described as an Asian religion which worships a goddess who can turn herself from a woman into a snake.
From Quiz: Popcorn Crunchers, Reel 22
Answer: a large bird with claws
Curucu is a very large bird-like monster with sharp and strong claws, capable of tearing a person apart. It can swim underwater. Curucu is reputed to live somewhere upstream behind a waterfall.
From Quiz: Popcorn Crunchers, Reel 50
Answer: a lush prehistoric jungle
Once the search party reaches the plateau atop the mountain, they find a dense jungle, with steaming pools, cloaked in green mist, inhabited by dinosaurs. There is also a large field of uranium which is what affected the guidance systems on the atomic rocket and on the DC-3 search plane. Doctor Robert Phillips, played by Hugh Beaumont, says "You are looking at a kind of world that hasn't existed for millions of years."
From Quiz: Popcorn Crunchers, Reel 21
Answer: a blob of radioactive glowing mud
The creature comes out at night. It glows because everybody knows that radioactive things glow and it is radioactive. It is amorphous and one scientist compares it to a mass of mud. In search of radioactive substances, it terrorizes a Scots village. When fed with radioactive stuff, it grows.
From Quiz: Popcorn Crunchers, Reel 31
Answer: a transparent dome
The Mysterians Earth-base appears to have broken through the Earth's surface from below. It is covered by a transparent dome which is impervious to the Japanese military's weapons. To this impregnable outpost, near Mount Fuji, the Mysterians invite five scientists to express to them their demands.
From Quiz: Popcorn Crunchers, Reel 35
Answer: With a radioactivity neutralization ray.
There is doubt among the scientists about their ability to kill the creature. Doctor Royston asks "How do you kill mud?" The army tries flamethrowers and various explosives and even seals up the crack in the ground through which it came with concrete. Royston has invented a "scanner" which can neutralize radioactivity using radio waves and cause substances to explode. They use cobalt to lure the creature within range. Under the ray's influence, the creature appears to explode but there is another explosion from deep within the Earth suggesting that it might not be dead.
From Quiz: Popcorn Crunchers, Reel 41
