Why The Long Face? Trivia Quiz

Answer: An inept person

The Collins English Dictionary defines sad sack as "a US slang term for an inept person who makes mistakes despite good intentions", which is certainly a good reason for a long face. If our sad sack had read Webster's College Dictionary they would have received even harsher treatment with "pathetically inept persons". George Baker's creation fitted the Collins' description rather aptly as it didn't seem to matter what Sad Sack's intentions were his actions always came to grief or were seen by his superiors in a poor light.

The end result would see the strip close with our bumbling hero in the kitchen peeling a small mountain of potatoes. In its early days the strip was aimed at military personnel which suited Baker's wry sense of humour and allowed him to impress some form of sexual innuendo into the storyline. Needless to say that when the strip was purchased by Harvey Comics in 1949 this humour did not translate as well to the wider (and younger) market and it wasn't until 1953, when Harvey introduced Fred Rhoads as their new writer, that the comic gained a greater acceptance.

Answer: Cheers

Cliff, played by John Ratzenberger, is a real misery guts who seems to have an answer or an opinion for almost everything. He's generally cranky and at odds with the world, he even seems to spite himself. The reason for his demeanour is never revealed. We can only guess that it stems from the fact that he stills lives with his mother or perhaps he carries a chip on his shoulder over his fugitive father who ran out on his mother when Cliff was still a young boy.

His poor outlook on life may be one of the reasons why he fails to have any luck with the ladies.

He is portrayed as being very macho with women but this is only from a distance and, as soon as they get up close and personal, he more often than not turns into quivering jelly. Despite this, it is revealed later, in a 1995 episode of the spin-off series "Frasier", that Cliff is one of only two men who had had sex with Sam's (Ted Danson) fiancée Sheila (Tea Leone).

This, like any of Cliff's relationships with women, is played out off-screen.

Answer: The Long Run

The Eagles have written some incredibly sad songs; "Desperado" is high on that list and "Life in the Fast Lane" produces a set of lyrics that paint an extremely tragic picture. It can be argued that, despite its title, "Sad Cafe" does not sit comfortably in the echelons of sad songs, that it is merely a song of reminiscing tinged with a taste of regret.

While the song provides a snapshot of the band's early days as fledging musicians meeting at The Troubadour Club in Los Angeles it has all the hallmarks of a sad and lonely song. Beginning with its melancholy title it is introduced by a plaintive keyboard that feels like a sombre walk in the darkness, which is then supported by the singer's almost morose request to "meet me at midnight" and "outside" rather than inside the Sad Cafe.

Then there is that moment when Don Henley cries out "I don't know why fortune smiles on some and lets the rest go free", a pained reflection on lost opportunity highlighted by David Sanborn's closing saxophone solo that cuts as deeply as Ronnie Ross' exquisitely forlorn closing to Lou Reed's "Walk on the Wild Side".

Answer: Roast Beef

Welcome to the sad, sad world of the cat known as Roast Beef Kazenzakis. How he got the nickname, Roast Beef, is a mystery and the only option we can put forward is that it may have something to do with his star sign, Taurus (he was born April 22). Roast Beef's life can best be described as a ball of misery.

He was born inter-sexed and everyone incorrectly put their money on him being a female so they christened him Cassandra. As a young boy he overhears his mother doing away with dad and gets sent to live in a trailer park with his Gramma K who turns out to be a real abusive piece of work. Roast Beef has since moved out of there and lives in his best friend's pool shed. Roast has been shot on three occasions and in one of those instances the bullet lodged in his spine and could not be removed.

This has created a little side benefit for Roast in that he now has permanent wireless internet access. One of those shootings was almost fatal leading Roast to have a near death experience. This journey took him to heaven and it was here that he met his wife to be, Molly.

He ends up visiting Molly a second time when he drives a golf cart over a clif while high on weed. Molly was so taken that she moved back to Earth and has generally been a positive influence on Beef though he still continues to post blogs that articulate how "awful" the world we live in is.

Answer: Tim Burton

Any quiz that deals with troubled souls would not be complete without some form of question on a mixed up super hero, so without any further ado we present for you .... Stainboy! "The World of Stainboy" is a series of very short flash animations that Tim Burton created back in 2000.

There were six episodes in total and each one ran for somewhere between three and six minutes. As to what may be Stainboy's hang-up I have no clues to pass on to you. He drifts through each brief adventure without saying a single word.

He also does very little, it's all a bit sad really. One of the few clues we get about his past arises in episode six where we identify that he was raised in an orphanage. Stainboy works for the Burbank Police Department and his mission in each episode is to bring into custody some new "freak" or "social outcast".

These include a bowling ball that talks (complete with ten-pin henchmen), Toxic Boy, Match Girl, Robot Boy and Stare Girl. Stare Girl is a classic Tim Burton villain whose evil power is her ability to stare you down. That's right, she stares at you. Stainboy stands there in silence and Stare Girl stares until Stainboy unleashes his stain power and brings Stare Girl to a (shudder) gruesome demise.

Answer: Amy Acker

One of the pillars of Joss Weedon's writing is his ability to create seemingly vulnerable female characters that possess an innate sense of strength. The cocktail he puts forward that represents Fred Burkle is one of a young woman who has a loving bond with family, a strong sense of what is right and loyalty to her friends.

This is tempered by a vengeful streak, as evidenced by her desire to kill a former professor, and social graces that are, initially, maladjusted. She grows to be a woman who can fend for herself, dispense evil monsters and becomes head of Wolfram and Hart's science division. There are a number of men who compete for her affections with the most notable being Charles Gunn who has a relationship with Fred that lasts about a year, Spike who flirts with her and the evil Knox who dates her but only wants her body to bring forth the "old goddess" Illyria.

There is one other man with desires for her and that's Wesley. For a number of seasons we watch while he remains unable to bring himself forward to ask Fred out.

It is Fred that makes the move and the pair is partnered for merely a week before Fred becomes afflicted by Knox's plot. We watch as Fred is slowly hollowed out by the invading spirit while Wesley remains at her side stoically nursing her through her final hours, until Fred utters her last words "Wesley, why can't I stay"?

Answer: Charlie Brown

The dog in question is Snoopy and he and Charlie are very much dependent upon each other. Without Charlie Snoopy would not get fed and there have been a number of occasions when Charlie has been called upon to bail his friendly beagle out of trouble. On the other hand Snoopy represents Charlie Brown's best friend and it is not uncommon to see the pair hug each other.

Despite this close association Snoopy, for some reason, struggles to remember Charlie's name and generally settles on calling him the "round-headed kid". In the world of comics Charlie Brown represents one of the world's biggest losers; he gets rocks when he goes trick or treating at Halloween, Lucy Van Pelt, despite her promises, always pulls the football away when he goes to kick it and our hero usually winds up flat on his back and on the single occasion he did manage to kick the ball successfully he was invisible and no one would believe it was him.

His baseball team is regularly humiliated and somehow Charlie is to blame and his attempts to fly a kite always end in failure. (The kite is usually swallowed by the "kite eating tree" and the one time he did get his kite airborne it spontaneously combusted).

However, there is no long face for Charlie Brown here. Despite all this and more Charlie remains the paragon of optimism, he's defiant in the face of overwhelming odds and he simply cannot wait for the next day to begin.

Answer: Eeyore

Eeyore lives in one of the most picturesque patches that England has to offer and yet A.A. Milne's creation appears to live a life of constant gloom, pessimism and depression. How he's managed to develop a relationship with Tigger, his polar opposite, is a mystery.

Then again, there is an old idiom that suggests that "opposites attract". What has bought Eeyore to this state is not explained. We're left to wonder if his synapses have snapped, the chemicals in his brain didn't mix right or something terrible happened to him in his childhood (now that would make an interesting back story). Whatever the reason Eeyore is one really sad donkey, his mood almost matches the colour of his hide, he expects bad things to happen to him and when they do he accepts them with a shrug and his catch-phrase of "thank you for noticin' me". All I can say is thank Heaven that there are no sharp objects in the Hundred Acre Wood.

Answer: Marvin the Android

Have you ever met that particular person who, when they walk into a room, seems to suck the air right out of it? Meet Marvin the Android, the robotic version of that person. "I didn't ask to be made" he morosely tells people, "no one consulted me or considered my feelings in the matter".
Marvin is one of the characters that appear in Douglas Adam's "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" series of novels and his melancholy is a great counterpoint to the manic rants of Zaphod Beeblebrox and the carefree attitudes of Ford Prefect. Adams pushes Marvin's bleakness to the edge with moments of extremely dark humour. For example, on the planet Magrathea he (Marvin) plugs himself into the computer of a police vehicle which, when it sees Marvin's take on life and the universe promptly commits suicide. Marvin is selected to open a new bridge on the planet Sqornshellows, it too cannot cope with Marvin's blues and decides to end its own life as well. However, we must also give Marvin his dues. He is loyal and shows extraordinary patience. When his masters teleport themselves some 576 billion years into the future to visit the Restaurant at the End of the Universe they find that Marvin is there waiting for them. "The first ten million years were the worst" he informed them "the second ten million years, they were the worst too".

(Note) Before I start getting little memos to say that it should be "Marvin the Paranoid Android" I should say that Marvin does not exhibit any level of paranoia through the series and the only character that refers to him in this manner is Zaphod.

Answer: On Her Majesty's Secret Service

There are literally thousands of films that have moved us with moments of great sadness and heartbreak; Clint Eastwood's Walt Kowalski getting gunned down in "Gran Torino" (2008), E.T. going home, Dumbledore getting killed and little Joey Stoddart's plaintive cries of "Shane, come back" to the diminishing figure of Alan Ladd's seriously wounded protagonist as he rides off into a future that only our imaginations can complete. I have selected this film (OHMSS) because it is slightly left of centre. To this point it had been Sean Connery who had provided us with the iconic illusion of James Bond, a fellow who was brutal, flippant in the face of danger and treated women merely as objects.

However, OHMSS introduced us to a new actor in the lead role and, at the same time, revealed a different side of the super spy, a gentler creation who displays feelings and falls in love. Whether or not Connery could have altered the persona of Bond that he'd concocted to create the same effect as George Lazenby managed in his debut is one for scholars and barroom enthusiasts to debate, I will not enter into that argument. In the scene above Bond has married Tracy (Diana Rigg) and the pair is heading off to their honeymoon location. Blofeld's car pulls alongside, a shot is fired and Bond's bride is killed.

The emotions that director Peter Hunt is able to draw from Lazenby in this scene are evidence that George was not as "wooden" as critics made him out to be. Initially panned, time has been kind to OHMSS and many critics now rate this amongst the best of the Bond films.