Can You Imagine These Places? Quiz | Entertainment by Themes

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. In the 1950s I traveled to many interesting locations via the 10-cent comic book. Your editor is agitated. "Great Caesar's ghost!" He expostulates. "You are without exception the worst cub reporter ever to work for the Daily Planet." In what city is your newspaper located?

Answer: Metropolis

The Daily Planet in Metropolis was the newspaper for which Clark Kent worked. The editor of the newspaper, Perry White, was chronically exasperated with cub reporter, Jimmy Olsen. (The odd spelling of "Olsen" just begs to be incorporated into a quiz question, doesn't it?)

2. Not infrequently, novels have been the vehicle used to transport me to imaginary places. Sometimes the term "hijack" might be more appropriate than "transport." In 1962, when I read this book, the action it described was 22 years away. You are in Room 101 and about to be broken as you are confronted with the thing you most fear. If only you'd listened to Big Brother! In what "country" are?

Answer: Oceania

"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen." With this sentence George Orwell began his disturbing tale that would ultimately lead Winston and Julia to face their fears and be broken in the infamous room 101. In Orwell's world there remained only three states: Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia.

The book was set in Oceania, which was composed of Britain and the Americas.

3. I watched lots of television in the 1950s and 1960s. I visited quite a number of small towns. You and Opie will go fishing if it's OK with Opie's father, the sheriff. Maybe his deputy, Barney, will go with you. In what town do you live?

Answer: Mayberry

Unbelievably, until researching this quiz I had no idea that Ron Howard played Opie! This oversight might be partially due to the fact that I never watched a single episode of Happy Days. However, I have been aware of the fact that Otis, the drunk on the Andy Griffith show, was the voice for John Avery Whitaker of the "Odyssey" radio-drama.

4. Some towns exist only in the realm of a poem. There is no joy in your town. Mighty Casey just struck out. Where do you live?

Answer: Mudville

"Casey at the Bat" by John Thayer was not an instant hit when it first appeared in the San Francisco Examiner in June of 1888. In August of 1888, an actor, De Wolf Hopper, recited the poem at a performance in New York that was attended by both the New York and Chicago baseball teams.

The poem's popularity soared following this. Hopper did not know who the author of the poem was at the time of the original performance. When Thayer became aware of Hopper's recitations of his poem, he attended one.

After hearing the performance, he allowed Hopper to perform the poem without royalties.

5. I learned a lot about a town that Grace Metalious created in the 1950s for a book I was not permitted to read. This town was notorious for sleaze, lust and gossip. The book spawned a movie and a television series. If your town is like this one, then it might it end up being called a little what?

Answer: Peyton Place

Mark Twain once described a classic as "a book everyone wants to read but nobody has." In the 1950s, Peyton Place was an anti-classic, a book everyone seemed to read but nobody seemed to own (in either sense of the word "own").

6. My parents disliked sentimental movies. I didn't visit this town until the 1990s. If you're sufficiently down on your luck you might meet an angel named Clarence in this town from a Frank Capra movie. I believe Clarence even has his wings now. To what town do I refer?

Answer: Bedford Falls

James Stewart! Donna Reed! "Buffalo girl won't you come out tonight, and dance by the light of the moon." Need I say more? Bedford Falls, the imaginary setting of "It's a Wonderful Life" is said to have been patterned after Seneca Falls, NY. Surely everyone knows that Frostbite Falls, Minnesota is home to the moose, Bullwinkle, and his intrepid partner, Rocket J. Squirrel. Castle Rock is an imaginary setting Stephen King has created for several of his novels.

7. In the 1960s, comic book characters invaded TV land. One show did not take itself very seriously. You're returning to the Bat Cave after a busy night of crime fighting in the big city. From what town are you likely returning?

Answer: Gotham City

"Camp" was the word always applied to the Batman television series that debuted in 1966. I was a sometime fan of the show, with the result that I have never been able to take any of the later incarnations of the caped crusader the least bit seriously. I'm always waiting for the comic strip bubbles with "POW" or "WHAM" to appear.

8. On occasion, while growing up, teachers forced me to read what they termed literature. When I was particularly unlucky, a teacher saddled me with a classic. You're going to visit F. Scott Fitzgerald's famous character, the Great Gatsby. In which town will you find him?

Answer: West Egg

Gatsby lives in the less prosperous West Egg. The imaginary island is patterned after the real Island of Great Neck where F. Scott Fitzgerald resided in 1922 while writing the novel. Ash Heap was the area between West Egg and East Egg. (How many of you think I finished reading this book?)

9. Occasionally I'll tackle a book despite its reputation for being literature, even before I see the movie! Most of the books that I have not finished once I've started fall into this category. However, some of the most engrossing novels I have read are guilty of being literature. Scout stands transfixed as her attorney-father raises the rifle and shoots the dog staggering down the street. She had no idea that her father was an expert marksman. In what town is Scout standing?

Answer: Maycomb, Alabama

This scene from "To Kill a Mocking Bird" is strongly etched into my memory. It surely contributed to the American Film Institute naming Atticus Finch as the all-time top screen hero.

10. In high school I wandered Middle Earth with Frodo and Sam. In my favorite place, the Mallorn leaves turned golden in the fall but then stayed on the trees, falling only with the growth of new leaves in spring. In spring the leaves fell, transforming the forest floor into a golden carpet under the green roof of the newly leafed trees. What forest did I long to visit in spring?

Answer: Lothlorien

There is a place that, for a few days each October, seems to rival the imaginary beauty of Lothorien in the spring. This locale bears the unlikely name of "Snag Lake" and is located in Lassen National Park, California, USA. In the first or second week of October a stand of Aspens on the southeast end of the lake will have shed, perhaps, half of their yellow leaves.

As you approach the area from the trail on the East side of the lake, you see crystalline blue water against a white sand beach. The beach reaches the stand of aspens, the shed leaves of which have carpeted a portion of the beach and the forest floor in gold.

The snow-white boles of the aspens, light against the darker furs behind, reach up into golden-clad boughs -- the boughs themselves framed in the green of the surrounding pine and fir trees.

As the trail passes through the Aspens and into the evergreen forest, bright yellow aspen leaves decorate the pine and fir like Christmas tree ornaments. I always look for elves as I pass by.

Source: Author uglybird

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor DakotaNorth before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.

Can You Imagine These Places? Trivia Quiz

The creative works of others have carried me to a number of memorable places that do not exist outside the realm of imagination. See if you can recognize the places from the clues. It will be easy...if you've been there too.

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