That Reminds Me... Trivia Quiz

Answer: Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure

Bill S. Preston, Esquire (Alex Winter) and Ted "Theodore" Logan (Keanu Reeves) are skating through high school in San Dimas, California, and spending all their time on their terrible band -- The Wyld Stallyns. Little do they know that they are destined for greatness, and their music will make possible a utopian future. When their poor performance in history class puts them in danger of splitting up for good, Rufus (George Carlin) travels seven hundred years back in time to help them out. Landing in the parking lot of the Circle K (where our hapless heroes have been asking random customers questions for their history report), Rufus delivers a telephone booth, with which Bill and Ted "embark on an excellent adventure through time" (as a future version of Ted tells the present version of Ted).

The other three choices are also time-travel movies set in the 1980s, but Bill and Ted stand alone in the categories of air guitar and bodacious '80s vocabulary.

Answer: Nintendo

"Super Mario Bros." was the flagship game for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), ancestor of such popular systems as the Nintendo Wii. Players control either Mario or his brother Luigi, navigating them over pits and under bricks while fighting or stomping a variety of enemies. Their goal is the final castle, in which Bowser -- a bipedal turtle with a disturbingly spiky shell -- is holding the Princess as a prisoner. (There are many castles to get through first; in each, Mario or Luigi rescues a royal retainer, who then announces that "our princess is in another castle!")

The game sold tens of millions of copies and revolutionized home console gaming. It regularly pops up near the top of "best games" lists, and it made Mario and Luigi staples of popular culture.

Answer: Stirrup pants

A pair of stirrup pants is designed to fit tightly; each leg has a triangular shape with the point at the ankle, where the strap (or stirrup) slips under the arch and keeps the leg in the right place. This is still useful athletic wear for skiers and horseback riders -- but stirrup pants should never be used as a substitute for true stirrups, which help a rider stay in the saddle. After a heyday in the mid-1980s, though, stirrup pants fell out of fashion when people realized they didn't look flattering on anyone.

While the ladies were wearing stirrup pants, trendy young gentlemen could often be found in parachute pants, baggy nylon trousers that became popular because they were so practical while break-dancing. Bellbottoms, with pants legs that flare at the knees, were the signature trousers of the 1970s. Culottes were knee-breeches, commonly worn by men up to the early 1800s; in modern times, the word can also refer to a split skirt or skort.

Answer: Leonardo

As baby turtles stuck in a New York sewer, our heroes crawled into a mutagenic ooze, which gave them various human qualities -- such as size, wit, and the ability to walk on two legs. They were raised to fight crime by a human/rat hybrid (thanks to the same mutagenic ooze) called Master Splinter; Splinter also named them each after a different Renaissance artist. The theme song for the TV show provides a catchy mnemonic for all these characters' roles:

"Splinter taught them to be ninja teens.
Leonardo leads; Donatello does machines.
Raphael is cool but rude;
Michelangelo is a party dude!"

Since the characters' launch by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, they've starred in numerous TV shows and several full-length movies, the first of which (a gritty live-action piece) was released in 1990.

Answer: Bon Jovi

Anchoring the album "Slippery When Wet," "Livin' on a Prayer" follows a working-class couple -- Tommy and Gina -- as they try to make ends meet and keep hope alive. "We've got to hold on to what we've got," they say. "'Cause it doesn't make a difference if we make it or not. We've got each other, and that's a lot, so hold on -- we'll give it a shot!"

In 1986, the song landed at Number One on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100; more than two decades later, in 2009, it hit the top of the UK Rock Chart. Like Tommy and Gina, this is a song with staying power.

Answer: He-Man

The planet is called Eternia, and its peaceable people are under constant threat from the evil Skeletor and his various assorted minions. (Skeletor has a skull for a head. This was never a very subtle series.) When Prince Adam realizes that some nefarious plot needs to be thwarted, he finds a private place (so as not to reveal his secret identity), holds his magic sword high, and says "By the power of Grayskull!" As the music swells and various cartoon special effects light the scene, he follows this with "I have the power!" If his cowardly pet tiger, Cringer, is anywhere nearby, he will also be transformed -- into the indomitable Battle Cat!

If this doesn't make much sense to you, it may be because the whole concept was developed primarily in order to sell action figures. And it worked! The 130 episodes of "He-Man and the Masters of the Universe" were shown in syndication for years, launching a spin-off ("She-Ra: Princess of Power") and a terrible 1987 live-action movie.

Answer: The Cosby Show

"The Cosby Show" ran from 1984 to 1992, charming its viewers and helping to pave the way for a variety of other sitcoms centered on African-American casts. Comedian Bill Cosby starred as the family patriarch, Cliff Huxtable; Phylicia Rashād played his wife Clair.

When the show began, the pair had four kids at home and one at college; over time, they accumulated sons-in-law and grandchildren as well. Most of the humor came from interactions among family members, but -- after twenty years -- there's a lot of humor in their wardrobes, too. Cliff Huxtable, especially, rocked a number of loud, memorable sweaters.

Answer: Michael J. Fox

As "Back to the Future" begins, high-school student Marty McFly is helping out his friend -- an eccentric scientist named Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) -- with his new invention, a car that can travel in time when its speed exceeds 88 miles per hour. Of course, time travel takes a lot of power, so Doc has given the car its own nuclear reactor -- and he cheated a group of Libyan terrorists to get the plutonium! Marty and Doc are still in their radiation suits when the Libyans come calling, and Marty ends up fleeing back in time to 1955. Comedy gold arises from his culture shock in the past, and from his efforts to ensure that his parents end up together: Marty's teenage mom starts falling for him instead of for his teenage dad!

The incorrect answer choices are also famous movie actors from Canada. Fox wound up obtaining American citizenship in 2000.

Answer: Thriller

Michael Jackson's "Thriller" was an incredible success by any measure. With such enduring singles as "Beat It" and "Billie Jean," it sold well over fifty million copies and brought MTV into the big time. The album and its associated videos took home eight Grammy Awards in 1984, but all these facts -- impressive as they are -- still seem to undersell the album's impact.

The line quoted in the question comes from the album's title track, in which the singer conjures up various terrifying monsters in order to get closer to his date. It takes a few choruses for him to reach the main point: "'Cause this is thriller, thriller night / Girl, I can thrill you more than any ghost would ever dare try."

Answer: Calvin and Hobbes

"Calvin and Hobbes" was syndicated in daily newspapers from November 18, 1985, to December 31, 1995. I can still remember buying that last newspaper with my dad, and opening up the comics section while we were still in the checkout line so that we could read that last Sunday strip. (It was a beautiful and classy finale.)

Calvin, the six-year-old, is a hilarious and verbose force of nature; his poor, unnamed parents are definitely not equal to the task of civilizing him. His tiger, Hobbes, is a stuffed toy whenever any other character is in view -- but when Calvin and Hobbes are alone together, Hobbes is as loquacious and active as his owner. Some of the best scenes between the two best friends take place in the snow, whether they're philosophizing on death-defying sled rides, or constructing snowmen that turn into "mutant killer monster snow goons."