Stately People (Part 5): Fictional Characters Quiz

Answer: "Looking for Alaska"

All these Alaska-titled books are romance novels ("Love Grows in Alaska" by, Michelle Lynn, "Alaskan Sweethearts" by, Janet Trnstad and "Alaskan Summer" by Marilou H. Flinkman), but "Looking for Alaska" is the coming-of-age novel of Miles Halter who meets Alaska Young.

Miles "Pudge" Halter heads off to Culver Creek Boarding School saying, "I go to see the Great Perhaps", a quote from a favorite poet of his named Francois Rabelais. There, he meets the most alluring young woman he's ever seen before, the stately-named Alaska Young, who lives down the hall. She's beautiful, witty, sexy, has a great sense of humor, but...she's also self-destructive. The two fall into a tumultuous young lovers' relationship.

Answer: Doctor Who

Hey! Canton Delaware is both a city-named character AND a stately-named one! Anyway, Doctor Who, Amy, Rory and River first make friends with the younger Canton in 1969 in the episode called "The Impossible Astronaut". Back then, Canton (played by actor Mark Sheppard) was witty, confident, and unintimidated by authority which we observed when he tells President Nixon he wants to marry a man. Canton becomes good friends with Doctor Who and will reappear in other episodes such as "The Wedding of River Song".

Answer: The Hotel New Hampshire

The novel, a National Book Award Finalist by John Irving is "The Hotel New Hampshire", about John Berry and his family and all the oddball characters the novel was noted for (and also depicted in the movie adaptation by director Tony Richardson). Actor Wilford Brimley played Iowa Bob, the grandfather of the Berry children. He was called Coach Bob after getting the job as head of physical education at a private school nearby. He was a huge advocate of exercise and physical activity.

Answer: James Caan

All these actors were in the film "El Dorado", about two old friends, Sheriff J.P. Harra (Robert Mitchum) and gun-for-hire Cole Thornton (John Wayne), who reunite at The Broken Saloon in El Dorado. Harra learns that Thornton has been hired by Bart Jason (Edward Asner). Thornton resigns from Jason's employ and after getting ambushed, he leaves town for several months. One day at a cantina on the Mexican border, Thornton meets Mississippi (Caan). Mississippi confronts the last of the men who murdered his father, killing him with a knife.

Another gunslinger in the bar informs Thornton that J.P. Harra has become an alcoholic. Before Mississippi leaves, Thornton makes sure that the gunslinger calls off any attack that awaits them. Thornton and Mississippi bond and share a meal and the two men head to El Dorado and attempt to sober up Harra and prepare for a showdown.

Answer: "Slaughterhouse Five"

In Chapter 5 of Kurt Vonnegut's science fiction novel "Slaughterhouse Five", the lead character, Billy Pilgrim travels to the planet Tralfamadore and then travels back to Earth, appearing at a Nazi prison camp amongst other places. He time travels back again to Tralfamadore where he is confined to a geodesic dome.

The aliens watch him as he performs household chores naked, and then they engage in a question and answer conversation. Later, they pair him with the porn star Montana Wildhack (played by Valerie Perrine in the film adaptation).

She had been an actress in X-rated films on Earth. After about a week she asks Billy to sleep with her. They make love and conceive a child.

Answer: Jeff Goldblum

In the 1984 sci-fi comedy, Buckaroo Banzai is a brain surgeon, rock musician and adventurer who along with his crime-fighting team called the Hong Kong Cavaliers tries to stop the evil Dr. Emilio Lizardo (John Lithgow) from using the Oscillation Overthruster to summon an evil army to destroy Earth. Jeff Goldblum is a member of the team playing Dr. Sidney Zweibel, aka "New Jersey". Screenwiter/director W.D. Richter met Jeff Goldblum when the two had worked on "Invasion of the Body Snatchers". Richter had wanted Goldblum to be in "Buckaroo Banzai" and when Goldblum read the script he was eager to be in it.

He especially liked the motley cast that Richter was assembling.

Answer: Don Adams

Don Adams, famous for playing agent Maxwell Smart in "Get Smart", was the voice of Tennessee Tuxedo, and Mr. Adams pretty much used the same voice for both characters. He described the voice as being an exaggerated version of actor William Powell's voice. Powell was famous for playing detective Nick Charles in "The Thin Man" series of films.

Answer: "Anna Lee"

Liza Cody wrote six "Anna Lee" books in her series of detective novels, and there were five episodes comprising the TV series. Actress Imogen Stubbs played the title character, and Mary Conlon ("EastEnders", "Shadow of the Noose") played Jane Vermont in episode three of the series titled, "Diversion." It aired March 13, 1994.

In the episode the Notting Hill Carnival Committee receives notes threatening great harm unless the Carnival is cancelled. Adrian Wesley is running a political campaign to take over power running the Carnival, and at the end of the episode, among his other humiliations, his wife Jane Vermont leaves him for another woman.

Answer: Robert A. Heinlein

Heinlein's novel won the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1967. It is about a former penal colony on the Moon that has rebelled against its Earth masters. Wyoming is a political reformer from a colony called Hong Kong Luna, and she opposes the Lunar Authority because when she was sent to Luna as a little girl, radiation exposure caused her to later to give birth to a "monster" child that is destroyed.

She blames the Lunar Authority for not acting more swiftly to transport the passengers to the surface.

Answer: "Cowboys & Aliens"

In the New Mexico Territory in 1873, a man named Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig) wanders into the town Absolution suffering from amnesia. His only clue is a metallic shackle on his wrist. The town is ruled with an iron fist by Harrison Ford's Colonel Dolarhyde. Nat Colorado is a Native American and is cattle baron Dolarhyde's second-in-command.

When Sheriff Taggart has to arrest Dolarhyde's son for shooting at the deputy, Nat Colorado urges the sheriff to reconsider. Later on, after aliens have launched an attack, Nat Colorado finds himself pinned down with other members of a posse.

In the end, Dolarhyde realizes that Colorado was more of a proper son to him then his own real son, the trouble-making Percy.