Two Centuries of Sci-Fi, Anagrammed! Quiz

Answer: Star Trek

Gene Roddenberry's NBC series 'Star Trek' (1966-68) started a worldwide phenomenon! Wisely, he hired iconic sci-fi writers including Richard Matheson, Robert Bloch, Theodore Sturgeon, and Harlan Ellison (who won a Hugo Award for his episode, "City On The Edge Of Forever"). A frequent writer was D.C. Fontana (first name Dorothy), who also wrote critically-acclaimed episodes. Despite this talent, it was cancelled in the middle of season three. Roddenberry's wife, Majel Barrett Roddenberry, voiced the Computer on every Star Trek series through 'Enterprise' (including the animated 1973 cartoon) and in all the movies prior to the 2009 reboot. The series spawned innumerable fan fiction, novels, comics, and even read-along records (in which you follow the story in a comic book as the vinyl record plays).

A kart is a miniature car used in recreational racing; it is also called a go-cart or go-kart, genericized from the trademark GoKart. It is generally low-framed, lightweight, with small wheels and a gasoline (petrol) engine.

Answer: Lost in Space

'Lost in Space' (1965-68) was produced for CBS by the "master of disaster", Irwin Allen, who based the series loosely on the 1812 novel "Swiss Family Robinson" and on the Golden Key Comics title 'The Space Family Robinson' (1962-82). (Allen would also attempt a 'Swiss Family Robinson' series in the 1970s.) The show was supposed to center on the patriarch, Professor John Robinson (Guy Williams) but eventually it became lighter in tone and centered on the comic villain Dr. Smith (Jonathan Harris), John's son William (Billy Mumy), and the Robot (body-acted by Bob May and voiced by announcer Dick Tufeld). More so than its competitor 'Star Trek', it was aimed at children. CBS has never explained why they cancelled the show. A movie adaptation was made in 1996, and Netflix released a rebooted series in 2018.

Contrary to popular belief, pelicans do not store food in the pouch on their bill.

Answer: Wonder Woman

The character Wonder Woman was invented for DC Comics by psychologist William Moulton Marston, the son of suffragists. She was originally a very American hero who fought against the Nazis in World War II, but by the 1970s she had become in the comics more of a spy heroine. She later returned to being a superhero in the comics, fighting supervillains like Cheetah, Circe, and Giganta.

The TV show 'The New Adventures of Wonder Woman' (1975-1979) was very much a sci-fi/superhero blend. The first season was set in World War II, and she frequently rescued Col. Steve Trevor, Sr. from enemies of the USA. Seasons two and three were set in the 1970s, with the immortal Wonder Woman's secret identity Diana Prince working with Steve Trevor, Jr. at the fictional Inter-Agency Defense Command (IADC). There were lots of gadgets, and usually the villains were technological geniuses with plans to rule the world, thwarted by Wonder Woman and her Magic Bracelets, her Invisible Plane, her ability to communicate with animals, and her overall Amazonian strength and endurance.

However, Wonder Woman appeared on TV earlier than that, in the animated 'Super Friends' series of the 1970s-80s. But her very first appearance on television was in an episode of the Saturday-morning cartoon 'The Brady Kids' in 1973.

There have been multiple movies with or about Wonder Woman (animated and live-action), including a 2017 film in which the Amazon attempts to stop World War I.

Answer: War of the Worlds

'The War of the Worlds' was published as a novel in 1898, but it had first been serialized in 1897 'Pearson's Magazine' in the UK and in 'Cosmopolitan' magazine in the USA. The novel inspired Robert H. Goddard to invent the liquid-fueled and multi-stage rocket, which made the first human landing on the moon possible.

Orson Welles wrote and produced an adaptation for his radio program 'The Mercury Theater on the Air' in 1938. It was presented as a series of news broadcasts interrupting a fictional musical program. Unfortunately, some of the radio audience did not understand what they were hearing, and mass panic and hysteria ensued, particularly in Grover's Mill, New Jersey, where the Martian invasion was allegedly occurring. Some six million people likely heard this broadcast, and about a third of them misunderstood it as real! Orson Welles met H.G. Wells in October 1940, just before the second anniversary of the infamous broadcast.

Answer: Frankenstein

Subtitled 'A Modern Prometheus', Mary Shelley, wife of poet Percy Bysse Shelley and daughter of Enlightenment philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft, wrote the novel 'Frankenstein' in 1818. The popular movie 'Frankenstein' (1931) by Universal Pictures starred the often imitated but never duplicated Boris Karloff as the Monster, who was never named in the movie, though in Shelley's novel he was called Adam. (Dr. Frankenstein, of course, is the mad scientist.) This movie was based not directly on Shelley's book, however, but on the 1927 play written by Peggy Webling, which opened in London in 1930. It was in this play that "Frankenstein" first referred to both the creature and his creator, creating the confusion which persists today.

The very first stage adaptation was 'Presumption; or, the Fate of Frankenstein', written by Richard Brinsley Peake for the English Opera House in London in 1823. Hammer Studios in England famously made color film adaptations in the 1950s-60s. The very first film adaptation was a silent movie produced in 1910 by Edison Studios, starring as the Monster Charles Ogle, a prolific silent film actor in over 300 movies. Robert De Niro starred as The Creation in 'Mary Shelley's Frankenstein' (1994), considered to be the film most faithful to Shelley's novel.

Answer: The Outer Limits

'The Outer Limits' (1963-65) was famous for its opening that instructed its users to sit quietly for the next hour while "we" control their television sets. Writers included Joseph Stefano, screenwriter for 'Psycho' (1960), and Harlan Ellison, who wrote "Demon with a Glass Hand" and "Soldier". Ellison sued the producers of 'The Terminator' for plagiarizing "Soldier"; the parties settled out of court. A microbe costume in the episode "The Probe" was later used as the Horta in an episode of 'Star Trek' ("The Devil in The Dark"), and an ion storm in another 'Outer Limits' episode became the Transporter effect in 'Star Trek'.

During the show's revival (1995-2001), it aired originally on Showtime (then on the Sci-Fi Channel in 2001) and was filmed mostly in Canada. In each series, Leonard Nimoy (Mr. Spock in 'Star Trek') acted in the "I, Robot" episode, based on the short story by Isaac Asimov.

Answer: Battlestar Galactica

Battlestar Galactica' starred Lorne Greene as Adama, the leader of the last "battlestar" (a space-battleship), after the Twelve Colonies of human beings were massacred by the robotic Cylon Warriors. Adama led the remaining humans to search for the lost Thirteenth Colony. Technically, the show only lasted a year and was replaced 'Galactica 1980', which revealed that the previous series was set in the past, and the current series, in which Adama had become an old man, was set in the present, when the Galactica finally reached Earth.

A Glen A. Larson creation, 'Battlestar Galactica' (1978-79) was criticized in its day for "copying" Star Wars, although it really was quite different. The pilot was re-edited into a cinematic release in Latin America, Canada, and Europe. Two other feature films were made in 1979 and 1981. The Sci-Fi Channel broadcast a reboot (2004-2009), with higher production values and much darker themes than the family-friendly original series.

Answer: Buck Rogers

Anthony "Buck" Rogers was created by Philip Francis Nowlan in the novella Armageddon 2419 A.D., first published serially in the magazine 'Amazing Stories' in 1928. Radioactive gas from an abandoned coal mine caused the state of suspended animation from which WWI veteran Buck Rogers awakened after 492 years. Together with Wilma Deering and Dr. Elias Hunter, Buck Rogers saved his new home from many threats. A daily comic strip debuted in 1929, followed shortly by a Sunday strip. Larry "Buster" Crabbe, an Olympic swimmer, played Buck in the 1939 film serial. Many comic books about Buck, including some from Golden Key Comics, have been released since the 1930s as well.

The TV series beginning in 1979 featured an opening narrative by William Conrad, who relates that Buck was pilot who in 1987 became frozen in outer space. Glen A. Larson (with Leslie Stevens) developed and produced 'Buck Rogers in the 25th Century' (1979-1981) for NBC and recycled effects, props, and sets from 'Battlestar Galactica'. The made-for-TV pilot was released theatrically in 1979. In season two, the show changed from Buck helping protect the Earth from extaterrestrial threats to becoming part of a crew looking for descendants of a human diaspora, remarkably similar to 'Battlestar Galactica'. Mel Blanc voiced a robot called Twiki in season one, but was replaced in season two for most episodes by Bob Elyea. Conrad's opening voiceover was also replaced. The series flopped.

Answer: Flash Gordon

Inspired by the 'Buck Rogers' franchise, Alex Raymond created the comic-strip character Flash Gordon for King Features Syndicate in 1934. Buster Crabbe, who also played Buck Rogers, starred in three separate film serials about as Flash Gordon between 1936 and 1940. Some of the serials were condensed into feature films that are in the public domain. A live-action TV series (1954-55) starred Steve Holland as Flash, and Filmation produced the animated 'New Adventures of Flash Gordon' for one season (1979-80). Other live-action series were tried in 1996 and 2007, but failed.

The rock group Queen wrote and performed the entire soundtrack for the 1980 film adaptation starring Playgirl-centerfold Sam J. Jones, and the theme song was a modest hit (though the film was not). The radio serial 'The Amazing Interplanetary Adventures of Flash Gordon' lasted 26 episodes in 1935 and starred Gale Gordon, better known as Mr. Mooney in the TV series 'The Lucy Show' (1962-68).

Answer: Star Wars

'Star Wars' (1977), renamed 'Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope', was conceived and produced by George Lucas, and it raised the bar for what a science-fiction movie should look and sound like, with its amazing visual effects and Dolby stereo sound. The middle trilogy of Star Wars films was released between 1977 and 1981, and the first trilogy was released in the early 2000s, while the third trilogy began release in the 2010s. George Lucas based the original 'Star Wars' movie in part on Joseph Campbell's book, 'The Hero with a Thousand Faces', and on Akira Kurosawa's movie 'The Hidden Fortress', about a maverick general saving a princess from behind enemy lines. The word "Jedi" came from the Japanese word 'Jidaigeki' meaning "period dramas".

The body-actor for Darth Vader was David Charles Prowse, MBE, who did not know at first that his voice would be overdubbed. When he found out he started spewing nonsense and expletives instead of his lines, forcing his fellow actors to pretend he had given them the right cues. The voice of Darth Vader almost went to Orson Welles, but James Earl Jones won the part, which he completed in all of two hours and a half.