The Call of Ktulu Trivia Quiz

Answer: Weird Tales

"Weird Tales" was first published in March 1923. Its original run ended in September 1954 after 279 issues. Lovecraft was a frequent contributor to the magazine.

The name Cthulhu has had many different spellings: Tulu, Clulu, Clooloo, Cthulu, Cthullu, C'thulhu, Cighulu, Cathulu, C'thlu, Kathulu, Kutulu, Kthulhu, Q'thulu, K'tulu, Kthulhut, Kulhu, Kutunluu, Ktulu, Cuitiliú, and Thu Thu. These names can also be preceded by Great, Dead, or Dread. According to the story the Cthulhu looks like a cross between "an octopus, a dragon, and a human caricature". It is supposedly hundreds of meters tall and able to change its appearance at will. It is a malevolent creature asleep in a South Pacific underwater city Lovecraft describes as "the nightmare corpse-city of R'lyeh" where "lay great Cthulhu and his hordes, hidden in green slimy vaults."

"The Call of Cthulhu" first introduced Lovecraft's idea of the "Great Old Ones", an ancient pantheon of aliens/deities who once ruled the earth but were now asleep. Chief among these was Cthulhu. One day they would be awakened and a cult seeking this exists. Lovecraft maintained that this world existed beyond human knowledge and that when exposed to the truth of this world and its creatures, humans would go insane. Most scholars agree that Lovecraft himself never intended for his mythos to be well developed or delineated but rather used it as a backdrop for his stories. Those who came after him, however, did develop his ideas into a cogent universe. August Derleth was one of the foremost developers of an expanded Cthulhu mythos.

Answer: Dark Shadows

"The Leviathans" storyline of "Dark Shadows" first aired in November 14, 1969 and continued until March 27, 1970. The Leviathans were based on the "Great Old Ones" from the Lovecraft mythos. According to the plotline, the Leviathans were a race of who ruled the Earth before mankind came into existence and desired to come back and take control once again.

The Leviathan cult sought to help make this happen. The story arc follows this plot and its eventual failure Jeb Hawkes and Barnabus defeat them by destroying the Naga Box, a box that allowed the Leviathan to control humans.

Answer: All Nightmare Long

The Metallica song is "All Nightmare Long" which was the fifth single from the ninth studio album "Death Magnetic". It was their 44th single overall. The song was the third to be based on the Cthulhu mythos, the first being "The Call of the Ktulu" and the second being "The Thing that Should Not Be". "All Nightmare Long" is the only one that was released as a single. "The Hounds of Tindalos" (1931) was not written by Lovecraft but by Frank Belknap Long. Lovecraft mentions them in "The Whisperer in Darkness" (1931). The two were friends until Lovecraft's death in 1937.

Although James Hetfield describes "The Hounds of Tindalos" as wolves that hunt people in their nightmares, the hounds are actually unknown as to how they appear because anyone who has seen them has not survived the encounter. The lyrics are written from the point of view of the hounds or of anything that hunts someone in their dreams or nightmares.

"The Call of the Ktulu" was an instrumental song on "Ride the Lightning", Metallica's second studio album.

"The Thing that Should Not Be" was included on their third studio album "Master of Puppets". The song actually references one of Lovecraft's most famous couplets from the "Necronomicon" as it appeared in "The Nameless City" (1921). The couplet from Lovecraft:
"That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die."
The lyrics:
"Not dead which eternal lie
stranger aeons death may die"

Answer: Stephen King

Stephen King first released the Hugo Award winning "Danse Macabre" in 1981. The book is a non-fiction look at the world of horror fiction in all forms of media. In the chapter "An Annoying Autobiographical Pause", King explains how he came to be interested in horror and credits the H.P. Lovecraft collection "The Lurker in the Shadows" as a major revelation to his young mind and the beginning of his fascination with the horror genre.

Laurell K. Hamilton's novel "Danse Macabre" is the 14th book in the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series and was published in 2006. The book has nothing to do with H. P. Lovecraft.

Answer: Chaosium

Chaosium was founded in 1975 by Greg Stafford and "White Bear and Red Moon" was its first role-playing game (RPG). This RPG introduced the Fantasy world Glorantha, which would be the setting for "RuneQuest" (1978), "HeroWars" (2000), "HeroQuest" (2003), and "HeroQuest Tentacles ed." (2009). The basic rules for "RuneQuest" were condensed into a format that became known as Basic Role-Playing (BRP), which would form the basis for "Call of Cthulhu", "Stormbringer", "Nephilim", and "Ringworld".

In 1981, "Call of Cthulhu" was first released. The game was based more broadly on the Cthulhu mythos, not just on the story of the same name. Its initial setting was the 1920s as this was the time period of many Lovecraft stories. Other versions were set during different times including the "Cthulhu by Gaslight" supplement set during the 1890s and the Holmesian mystery "Cthulhu Now" set in 1980s England. The game is designed to be an investigation that leads inevitably to a global conspiracy that is so evil that the player is not expected to survive and if he does survive, not remain sane. Some of the adventures were "Shadows of Yog-Sothoth" (1982), "Fungi from Yuggoth" (1984), "Spawn of Azathoth" (1986), and "Masks of Nyarlathotep" (1984), the most highly acclaimed of the bunch. Incarnations of the game are still being developed and published. In fact, 2005 saw ten releases for the game.

Answer: South Park

"South Park" based the Cthulhu plotline on an episode from season 13 called "The Coon", episode two of the season and episode 183 overall. In that episode Cartman becomes a would-be superhero vigilante named 'The Coon'. The episode also introduced the character Mysterion, whose identity is not revealed.

These characters are featured in season 14 episodes "Coon 2: Hindsight" (episode 11 and 206 overall), "Mysterion Rises" (episode 12 and 207 overall), and "Coon vs. Coon and Friends" (episode 13 and 208 overall), all of which have the Cthulhu in the villain role. These episodes feature the revelation of Kenny as Mysterion and the identities of the other crime fighters. They are also significant in that they reveal what happens to Kenny each time he dies and how this is perceived by him and the rest of the cast. He remembers when he dies but no one else does, which proves very frustrating to him.

In "Coon 2", Cartman as the Coon has formed a team of crime fighters that include Mysterion (Kenny), Toolshed (Stan), Iron Maiden (Timmy), TupperWear (Token Black), Mosquito (Clyde), Mint Berry Crunch (Bradley), and Human Kite (Kyle). When BP accidentally releases the Cthulhu while drilling for oil in the Gulf, the team sets out to fight the monster. The Coon has been removed as leader of the team and sets out to seek revenge by joining forces with the Cthulhu.

In "Mysterion Rises", the Coon befriends the Cthulhu in order to get revenge on his friends. The group of crime fighters seeks out the cult of Cthulhu. There they hear the famous Lovecraft couplet:
"That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die."
Mysterion gets killed but wakes up the next morning in bed just like always when he gets killed. The episode ends with the other kids wondering why he ran away from the cult.

In "Coon vs. Coon and Friends", Coon (Cartman) has Cthulhu transport the crime fighting team to R'lyeh where Mysterion (Kenny) kills himself to escape back to earth and learn how to defeat Cthulhu. In the end, it is Mint Berry Crunch (Bradley) who defeats Cthulhu and sends him back to the dimension from which he came. Bradley's father was an alien who had sent Bradley to Earth to save it from evil and his powers were real, not imagined.

Answer: Iron Maiden

Iron Maiden is clearly fans of H. P. Lovecraft as are many metal bands. They paid homage to Lovecraft by having this quote and its attribution to Lovecraft on Eddie's tombstone. The actual Lovecraft couplet was:
"That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die."
The quote comes from the Lovecraft short story "The Nameless City" (1921) which was published in amateur press journal "The Wolverine". This story tells of a city on the Arabian Peninsula that was once a thriving metropolis of a reptilian race but is now just a ruin. Even so the race still lives in a cavern beneath the city. The story introduces Abdul Alhazred the mad poet and gives this couplet. In later stories it is revealed that Alhazred is the author of the "Necronomicon" and that this couplet comes from it.

Answer: In the Mouth of Madness

"In the Mouth of Madness" (1995) is the John Carpenter movie, the other three belong to Gordon. "In the Mouth of Madness" was the third installment of Carpenter's "Apocalypse Trilogy". The first two movies in the trilogy were "The Thing" (1982) and "Prince of Darkness" (1987). "In the Mouth of Madness" starred Sam Neill, Julie Carmen, Jürgen Prochnow, David Warner and Charlton Heston. The movie told the story of John Trent (Sam Neill), a psychiatric patient as he recounted his story of travelling to another dimension and the evil that followed him back to this world.

The movie was inspired by two Lovecraft stories - "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" (1936) and "At the Mountains of Madness" (1936). Both stories revolve around insanity, especially the insanity that comes from understanding or seeing the evil that most people do not see or have to confront. The movie remains faithful to these ideas.

All three of these Gordon movies were inspired by Lovecraft. "Re-Animator" (1985) was based on the Lovecraft story "Herbert West-Reanimator" (1922). "From Beyond" was a 1986 movie based on the Lovecraft short story of the same name (1934). "Dagon" (2001) was based on Lovecraft's novella "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" (1936).

Answer: Miskatonic University in Arkham, Massachusetts

The Miskatonic University in Arkham, Massachusetts is the fictional institution, all the rest are real. Arkham is a fictitious town in Essex County and the university is named after the fictitious Miskatonic River. Both Arkham and the university feature prominently in the Lovecraft stories and the Cthulhu mythos. The university first appeared in "Herbert West-Reanimator" (1922).

The "Necronomicon" was never intended to be a fully developed book because Lovecraft felt to create it would lose much of the mystery surrounding the book and that it could never live up to what people conjured up in their own imaginations. But he did provide a backdrop for the book with the "History of the Necronomicon" which was written in 1927 but was not published until after his death in 1938. According to Lovecraft, Abdul Alhazred is the author of the "Necronomicon", which was originally called "Al Azif". "Al Azif" was Arabic for "that nocturnal sound (made by insects) supposed to be the howling of demons" according to Lovecraft. Alhazred was a worshiper of Yog-Sothoth and Cthulhu and finished the book just prior to his mysterious death in 738. In 950, it was translated into Greek and given the title "Necronomicon" by Theodorus Philetas. From there it was suppressed by the church throughout the ages so that only the five copies existed.

Answer: The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets

"The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets" are a rock band that formed in 1992 in Chilliwack, British Columbia, Canada and take their name from a line in Lovecraft's "The Tomb" (1922). The line is: "I will tell only of the lone tomb in the darkest of the hillside thickets." "The Tomb" is the first story written by Lovecraft as an adult. All of their music is inspired by Lovecraft but it takes a less than serious approach to his works.

"The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets" are not the first band to be totally dedicated to Lovecraft or to have entire albums influenced by him or his works. 1967 saw the formation of a psychedelic rock band named H. P. Lovecraft, which used his writings for inspiration. The band released two albums but broke up in 1969. Rudimentary Peni released "Cacophony" in 1987 with all 30 songs influenced by Lovecraft's life and the Cthulhu mythos. Nox Arcana released the album "Necronomicon" in 2004 with all 21 songs inspired by the Cthulhu mythos.

As has been noted, Lovecraft's influence on metal bands Metallica and Iron Maiden was profound. Black Sabbath's "Behind the Wall of Sleep" from their 1970 debut album was based on Lovecraft's short story "Beyond the Wall of Sleep" (1919). The Black Dahlia Murder, Dream Theater, Portal, Septic Flesh, Catacombs, Sinister, Electric Wizard, Runemagick, Solstice, Deathchain, Nile, Without Face, Ctulu, The Axis of Perdition and Massacre have all featured songs based on Lovecraft or his writings.