Cat and Mouse Trivia Quiz

Answer: a complicated presentation with little real content

A complicated presentation with little real content is a "dog-and-pony show", usually meant to bedazzle but offer little substance, perhaps to drive sales or to distract from the fact that the presenter has nothing to offer.

A cat-and-mouse game describes the relationship between the hunter and hunted or between a person who toys with the object of his attentions. It typically implies that one opponent has considerable advantage over the other, though it may also suggest that sometimes the roles are switched alternately between two adversaries. The cat-mouse analogy is also often applied to authorities who may do as they wish with those under their power. It seems that this would be an ancient expression, but the first attested use of the "cat and mouse" idiom in English was in 1675.

Answer: The Tin Drum

'The Tin Drum' (1979), adapted by Colker Schlöndorff, starred Swiss-born actor David Bennent as Oskar Matzerath, a little boy born in the Free City of Danzig, who consciously decides to stops growing to protest the growing nationalism and jingoism around him. American film critic Roger Ebert did not appreciate the bizarre magical realism and panned the film, as he called its protagonist a brat who distracted from the movie's message. Nevertheless, 'The Tin Drum' won the Palme d'Or at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1980 at the 52nd Academy Awards.

Answer: Aaron Copeland

Aaron Copland (1900-1990) carved a distinctly "American" space within the genre of classical music. He penned the humoristic piano scherzo 'The Cat and the Mouse' (1920), based on the fable by French poet Jean de la Fontaine, shortly before going off to study in Paris. At the end of his first year in France, Copland played it at a recital, after which the publisher Jacques Durand went backstage and expressed interest. Astounded, Copland sold it for a mere 500 francs; he later confessed, "I was so delighted that Debussy's publisher wanted my piece, I would have given it to him for nothing!"

One of his more famous works, 'Fanfare for the Common Man', was written in 1942 after the composer heard Vice President Henry A. Wallace give a speech on the dawning of the "Century of the Common Man". The "Hoe-Down" section from Copland's 'Rodeo' ballet was used as the background theme for the "Beef. It's What's For Dinner" advertising campaign in the USA in the 1990s.

Answer: Krazy Kat and Ignatz Mouse

Long before 'Tom and Jerry' and all the rest, there was 'Krazy Kat' (later sometimes styled as 'Krazy & Ignatz'), drawn by George Herriman between 1913 and 1944. It originally appeared William Randloph Hearst's newspaper 'New York Evening Journal' before being syndicated by King Features Syndicate, also owned by Hearst. When Herriman died, Hearst cancelled the strip rather than have anyone else draw it.

Besides originating as a comic strip, there are notable differences from other cat-and-mouse franchises. Whereas Tom, Scratchy, and Mr. Jinks are all male, Krazy Kat was conceived to be androgynous. When director Frank Capra asked Herriman to define Krazy Kat's sex, the artist replied that Krazy Kat was "a sprite" who "can't be a he or a she. The Kat's...a pixie -- free to butt into anything." In the silent film adaptations of the 1910s and 1920s, however, both Krazy Kat and Igntaz mouse were male. Then in the 1950s, Dell Publishing made a series of comic books in which Krazy Kat was female and Ignatz mouse was male. But that was flipped in the 1962 TV cartoons: Krazy Kat was male (voiced by Paul Frees) while Ignatz Mouse was female. (Hard to follow sometimes.)

Another difference is that Krazy Kat was in love with his/her tormentor, Ignatz Mouse, who did not reciprocate and invariably throw a brick at the feline's head, usually in response to something absurd Krazy Kat said. Finally, intellectuals were uncommonly impressed with the cartoon, including H.L. Mencken, Jack Kerouac, and poet e.e. cummings. American composer John Alden Carpenter scored a jazz ballet about Krazy Kat in 1922 which sold out all performances.

'Krazy Kat' influenced a number of artists. Chuck Jones set his Road Runner shorts in the same setting as 'Krazy Kat', the U.S. Southwest. Bill Watterson, author of the 'Calvin and Hobbes' comics, named 'Krazy Kat' as an influence (along with 'Peanuts' and 'Pogo').

Answer: The Twilight Zone

In "Cat and Mouse", which first aired on 4th March 1989, a mousy pharmacy technician named Andie Moffat is befriended by a black cat -- which turns out to be a man, cursed by a jilted lover to be a cat by day, though able to resume human form by night. At first, it seems an ideal match, but then as you might expect in the Twilight Zone, things get complicated and offbeat, and of course there's a macabre twist at the end as the "mouse" gets her revenge on the lecherous cat.

Writers have used "Cat and Mouse" also to name episodes in 'The Adventures of Ellery Queen' (1950-52), 'Star Wars: The Clone Wars' (2008-2020), and 'Grimm' (2011-2017).

Answer: Washington, DC

In the suspenseful Alex Cross books, a handsome psychologist, former MPDC officer, and former FBI agent solves violent and disturbing crimes at home and abroad. He's also a family man and stays active in the community in his southeastern Washington, D.C. neighborhood on Fifth Street. 'Cat and Mouse' (1997) is the second novel in which Cross deals with an insane, cold-blooded predator named Gary Soneji, while he also must solve the mystery of a monstrous London serial killer known only as Mr Smith.

Other series by Patterson include the Women's Murder Club series and the Maximum Ride series. He was the first author to sell one million e-books, and in 2015 the National Book Foundation gave him the Literarian Award. Although 'Cat and Mouse' has never been adapted to film, in the Hollywood adaptations of Patteron's 'Along Came a Spider' and 'Kiss the Girls', Alex Cross was played by Morgan Freeman.

Abbreviation note: MPDC = Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia, a.k.a. the DC Police.

Answer: suffragettes

Although sometimes used to refer to women agitating for enfranchisement in general, the term "suffragette" properly applies to members of the British Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), a women-only organization founded in 1903 by Emmeline Pankhurst which used direct action and civil disobedience to advance the goal of women's suffrage in the UK.

When suffragettes were imprisoned, they would engage in hunger strikes, during which they would be force-fed, sometimes in the most cruel and most humiliating ways imaginable. The Prisoners Temporary Discharge for Ill Health Act, popularly called the Cat and Mouse Act, banned the torturous practice but substituted another. Essentially, the striking prisoner was released on licence (paroled) until she began to eat again and restored her health; then she was returned to prison to finish the rest of her sentence. During her sentence a suffragette might find herself released and "recaptured" many, many times -- hence the nickname "cat and mouse".

Answer: oboe

In the Oboe system, a Mosquito Pathfinder bomber would be guided by two stations, Cat and Mouse, each of which was tasked with keeping the plane flying within a pre-determined arc near the target. The stations would transmit a signal returned by the transponder on board the plane. Comparing the time each signal took to reach aircraft, the distance between the plane and station was determined. Cat would keep the plane in its arc by sending Morse signals (dots if the plane was too close and dashes if too far); Mouse would notify the bomber to drop its load when it intersected its arc.

The system was very similar to radar, only the plane's transponder greatly amplified the signals which improved accuracy. One advantage to Oboe was that it kept the monitors on the ground rather than on the aircraft; in the earlier system used by Britain monitors were on the plane, but they were too cumbersome. British physicist R. V. Jones claimed: "As it turned out, Oboe was the most precise bombing system of the whole war."

Answer: Exodus

'The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language' (2002) is an simplistic, idiomatic (indeed idiosyncratic) translation of Scripture by the late Eugene H. Patterson, a Protestant minister and theologian who observed "the adults in my class weren't feeling the vitality and directness that I sensed as I read and studied the New Testament in its original Greek". Therefore, he wanted to create not a "study Bible" but a "reading Bible" to capture the spirit of the original words so as "to make the biblical text relevant to the conditions of the people".

In the passage from Exodus 10:1-2 above, where the MSG uses "how I toyed with the Egyptians, like a cat with a mouse", most English translations employ less colorful phrasing like "how I made a fool of the Egyptians" (NABRE) or "what things I have wrought in Egypt" (KJV).

Patterson also used the phrases "like a cat with a mouse" in Judges 16:15, "quiet as a cat" in 1 Samuel 24:1-4, "howling like a caged cat" in Job 1:6-7, "like a stray dog or cat" in Isaiah 10:24-32, and "cat and mouse" in Matthew 7:7-11.

As a matter of fact, the phrase "cat and mouse" does not appear in the original Hebrew or Greek Scripture; and in fact, the common cat is never mentioned at all! Why not? Some scholars have hypothesized that the omission was was reaction against the Egyptian worship of cats. Mice, however, appear a few times, such as in the directive not to eat them for being unclean (Lev 11:29).

Answer: For the cat's own safety

Cats are ambush hunters, with great power for jumping and pouncing but little stamina for chasing prey. Mice and rats will fight to stay alive, usually by biting. While they will not overpower a cat, they can spread disease and cause injury that could lead to infections, which in the wild could ultimately prove fatal or at least debilitating. Letting it go to scurry a few paces before pouncing on it again is a way to gauge the state the prey is in. Batting or tossing a small animal leaves it exhausted or injured.

The cat can then safely kill and conclude a hunt.