Common Bond Classic #1 - Monsters' Studio Quiz

Answer: hunchback

Richard III was described in Shakespeare's play as having a hunchback and a withered arm. The bard may have exaggerated Richard's deformities for dramatic effect and to illustrate his inner crookedness. The discovery of the bones of Richard III in an English parking lot showed archaeologists that the last Plantagenet king suffered from scoliosis, which causes curvature of the spine, but not from kyphosis, which produces the distinct hunchback.

Historians before Shakespeare described King Richard a little more accurately: Thomas More called him "crook-backed" rather than hunchbacked and Vergil noted he had one shoulder higher than another.

Answer: Notre Dame

The Gipper was George Gipp, a 25-year-old football player who died of strep throat just a few days after leading his teammates at Notre Dame University to victory over Northwestern University. (This was in 1920, before the discovery of antibiotics.) Ronald Reagan portrayed Gipp in "Knute Rockne, All American" (1940) and used the phrase "Win one for the Gipper" as a U.S. presidential campaign slogan.

Answer: vampire bat

The vampire bat MUST consume a tablespoon of blood per day to thrive (about 15 mL). It does not require human blood, however; the vital fluid of almost any warm-blooded animal will do! Tiny creatures that can fit inside a teacup, vampire bats live exclusively in the New World, from Mexico down to Argentina.

Vampire bats are quite altruistic. Females will adopt orphans if something happens to their mothers, and many vampires will regurgitate a small amount of blood to feed fellow members of their colony who were unable to find a meal that night.

Answer: wolf

The grey wolf (Canis lupus) and the domesticated dog (Canis familiaris) were once considered separate species, but now the dog is classified as a subspecies of wolf (Canis lupus familiaris). The grey wolf was once widespread throughout the North America, northern Africa, and the Eurasian continent, but its numbers have been reduced due to habitat and hunting by humans. Anthropologists believe the dog may have been domesticated in Europe as many as 33,000 years ago.

Answer: Frankenstein

"Frankenstein, The Modern Prometheus" was the only novel by Mary Shelley. She was the daughter of feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, author of "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman" and the wife of Romantic poet Percy Bysse Shelley, author of "Ozymandias".

Answer: St. Bride

St. Brigid of Kildare (A.D. 454-523) has several alternate spellings: Bride, Brigit, Bridget, and Bríd. She is also called the Mary of the Gael. Brigid was the abbess of a double monastery in Kildare, and a friend of St. Patrick (he baptized her parents).

She also founded an art school and a scriptorium that produced illuminated manuscripts of the Gospels (lost during the Protestant Reformation). Her feast day is the 1st of February.

Answer: Igor Stravinsky

The choreography and music were so experimental that "The Rite of Spring" caused a riot when it opened the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in 1913. Some of the audience even attacked the orchestra. (At least one critic, Adolphe Boschot, accurately predicted the uproar after he watched a rehearsal.) It became, however, one of the most formative works of the 20th century.

The ballet was not performed in the USA until the 1930s; a 1937 production replaced the Russian pagan setting with a cowboy-and-Indian theme, with adapted Native American dances.

Answer: a black cat

Nikki Horner of Shawnee Cattery in Louisville, Kentucky bred an American Shorthair with a Burmese cat, and in 1958 produced the world's first Bombay cat, also known as a "parlor panther". A Bombay is generally solid black with copper or golden eyes. Bombays are extremely social and crave attention from their owners; they love to cuddle and play. (Don't confuse them with the common black cat of no particular breed; Bombays tend to have rounder heads and ears and larger eyes.)

Answer: invisible

The word "invisible" entered English in the mid-1300s from Old French. "Covert" actually arrived a little earlier, around 1300, also from Old French for "covered". You might see the term "feme covert", a legalese term for a married woman.

Answer: Heckle & Jeckle

Heckle & Jeckle were meant to be Terrytoons' answer to Woody Woodpecker or Bugs Bunny: cheeky and cynical creatures who outwit their foes, often in conflicts they instigated themselves, with a good deal of slapstick and violence thrown in. Paul Terry considers Heckle & Jeckle to be his studio's best creation.

They were generally con artists taking advantage of slower opponents, but they often got their comeuppance before the final fade-out, only to appear unscathed (and no lessons learned) in the next cartoon.

Answer: Hyde Park

The Roosevelts called the estate Springwood, and guided tours are offered daily. It was FDR's home his entire life. Late in their marriage, Mrs. Roosevelt moved out to Val-Kill, a nearby house also available for tours.

Hyde Park was originally Stoutenbourgh, but its named changed in 1812. A nearby estate was named to honor Edward Hyde, 3rd Earl of Clarendon and 14th Colonial Governor of New York, and gradually everyone began to refer to the surrounding town as Hyde Park. Another nearby attraction is the Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Site, an example of the excesses of the Gilded Age. Also in Hyde Park you will find the prestigious Culinary Institute of America.

Answer: Mummy

Saying "Mummy" to mean Mother is said far more in the UK than in the USA, if at all; so is "Mum". American children tend to use "Mommy" until they are older, when they may switch to "Mom" or the more formal "Mother".

Answer: lagoon

Lagoons may be coastal lagoons or atoll lagoons, and they are found all over planet Earth. Banana River in Florida and Lake Illawarra in New South Wales are both actually lagoons, despite their names.

There is an amusement park in Farmington, Utah called Lagoon, which has been in operation since 1886! It's roller coaster was built in 1921 and has become an American Coaster Enthusiasts Landmark. The Disney Channel movie "The Luck of the Irish" (2001) was filmed at Lagoon.

Answer: psychotic

Sometimes psychotic people are colloquially referred to as psychos, a term which is also applied to psychopaths. Those latter persons, however, are more professionally called sociopaths, and they suffer from antisocial personality disorder, characterized by a lack of empathy, or even a conscience, and are often quite clever and dangerous.

Neurasthenia is an obsolete term that refers to mental exhaustion, aches and pains, chronic fatigue to the point of prostration, and the inability to cope with any task -- i.e. having a nervous breakdown.

Answer: Universal

The oldest motion picture studio in the USA, Universal Pictures was founded by Carl Laemmle, Pat Powers, Jules Brulator, and others in 1912.

The series known as the Universal Monsters or Universal Horror began with "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" (1923) starring Lon Chaney (Sr.) and ended with "The Thing That Couldn't Die" (1958). One might include Hitchcock's "Psycho" (1960) as the transition between the classic monster series and the new Universal era. (It was originally a Paramount release, but it was filmed on the Universal lot and Universal bought the rights and made subsequent releases and the sequels.)

Most of the classic monsters (Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster, Wolf Man, etc.) had already been retired by the 1950s, appearing only in spoofs like "Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein" (1948). Following the success of "The Creature from the Black Lagoon" (1954), however, the monster movies were re-released for a younger generation, and Universal made new spin-offs and sold merchandise. Television syndication rejuvenated the movies through the 1970s and into the next millennium.

So here's a summary of the ghoulish clues:

1. & 2. "The HUNCHBACK of NOTRE DAME" (1923), starred Lon Chaney (Sr.), the man of a thousand faces, and began Universal's horror series. Chaney also played the title role in "The Phantom of the Opera" (1925).

3. VAMPIRE of course refers to "Dracula" (1931) and all the movies that featured Bela Lugosi as the classic Prince of Darkness with the thick Hungarian accent (even though Transylvania is in Romania).

4. "The WOLF Man" (1941) starred Lon Chaney, Jr., the man of only one or two faces. But he was a very successful character actor and a favorite of director Stanley Kramer.

5. "FRANKENSTEIN" (1931) starred Boris Karloff (uncredited) as the Monster, whose flat head and electrodes looked nothing like the creature described in Mary Shelley's novel.

6."BRIDE of Frankenstein" (1935) starred the incomparable Elsa Lanchester in the title role, and Karloff reprised his role, too, this time credited. It is one of the few sequels considered better than the original.

7. What's a mad scientist without a deformed, slightly dimwitted assistant? Baron von Frankenstein's hunchbacked helper, however, was not named IGOR but Fritz. We first meet Ygor (note the spelling) in "Son of Frankenstein" (1939) -- played by none other than Bela Lugosi disguised by a scraggly beard (and not imbecilic but insanely crafty).

8. Universal produced two versions of "BLACK CAT". The first (1934) pitted a heroic Bela Lugosi against a diabolic Boris Karloff who conducts a ~disturbing~ Black Mass, while the second (1941) and much lighter film paired Lugosi with the dashing Basil Rathbone.

9. "The INVISIBLE Man" (1933) was based on H.G. Wells' novella and starred the impeccable Claude Rains as Dr. Jack Griffin, the man driven mad by self-experimentation. Pioneering double-exposure techniques created the illusion of invisibility. The effects were less spectacular in "Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man" (1951).

10. & 11. In 1953, Universal gave us "Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. HYDE" (the pun is on JECKLE). The definitive Fredric March film (1931), based on Robert Louis Stevenson's novella, was a Paramount production, though Jekyll/Hyde gets grouped with the Universal Monsters.

12. "The MUMMY" (1932) was one of many films about vengeful, dead Egyptians, like "The Mummy's Hand" (1940), "The Mummy's Tomb" (1942), and my favorite, "Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy" (1955). (Was there anyone they didn't meet?)

13. Jack Arnold's "The Creature from the Black LAGOON" (1954) starred Julia Adams as the lady in the white bathing suit abducted by a man in a rubber costume. This movie had two sequels and revived Universal Horror for a few years until...

14. Alfred Hitchcock's "PSYCHO" featured the memorable shower scene, and its ending was a shocker in its day. "Psycho", a Paramount picture bought and re-released by Universal and filmed at Universal Studios, marked the end of Universal Horror/Monsters era, although Universal did later bring us "The Birds" (1963) and the blockbuster "Jaws" (1975).