Shirley Temple Classics: "Poor Little Rich Girl" Quiz

Answer: Spinach

The movie is centered around spinach, somewhat. The subject of spinach comes up quite often. Whilst eating her spinach, Barbara sneezes and is immediately sent up to bed by her nursemaid, even though Barbara feels fine. Apparently Mr. Barry, Barbara's father, asks that extra precautions be taken for his only child.

Answer: Leave

Upstairs, Barbara begins singing to her dolls the song "Oh My Goodness". The dolls soon begin to dance quite magically before our eyes, whilst Barbara smiles as if it happens every day. A very cute song it is.

Answer: When I'm With You

Barbara is downstairs later, when Tony Martin comes on the radio singing "When I'm With You". Barbara reprises it for her father, changing some of the words to make it fit their situation. My favorite lyric is "Oh daddy, how I miss you. You're busy all your life. I long to hug and kiss you - marry me and let me be your wife."

Answer: "You will be married within a year."

It is decided that Barbara will go to boarding school, so that she can be with other children. Once they arrive at the train station, Barbara uses a machine that tells her her weight. She weighs 48 pounds. Since Collins does not want to tell Barbara the correct fortune, she fibs and says that the fortune says "you will go on a vacation and meet lots of interesting people.". Barbara's response? "What a smart machine!"!

Answer: "Can I go home with you?"

Barbara wanders off at the train station, and comes across an accordion-playing Italian man with a monkey. She role-plays her favorite story, telling Tony that "My name is Betsy Ware, and I used to leave in an orphanage. But they were mean to me - awful mean - and now I'm on a vacation! To see new faces... Your face doesn't look very new".

She follows Tony home and winds up spending the night with him, his wife, and children.

Answer: Bojangles

Even though Bill "Bojangles" Robinson does not make an appearance in this film, he was mentioned. Just like in a movie made nowadays, someone might say "Tom Hanks couldn't even pull off this!", they mentioned a popular actor (or in this case, dancer).

In the scene, Jerry wants to give up on show-business, but Jimmy doesn't. He is determined, and wants to prove to his wife that they have talent by showing her a new tap step he invented. He performs the step that is supposed to be super genius, to have Barbara hear it from downstairs in Tony's apartment and mimic it to a T.

Answer: Bonnie Dolan

When Jimmy and Jerry meet Barbara, they know that she is just what they need for their act. They give her the name "Bonnie", and tell her to pretend that she is their child. Barbara loves the idea of playing, so she goes with them to audition for radio programs. Eventually, they audition for "The Peck Radio Hour".

Answer: Popeye

Yet another spinach reference, the song is called "Ya Gotta Eat Your Spinach" (one of my favorite songs in the movie). It begins with Jerry and Jimmy singing about spinach and why you should eat it, and then Barbara coming out, arguing about why you SHOULDN'T eat spinach. In the song, Barbara fails at her attempt, and winds up saying 'okay - spinach!".

Answer: A Jack-In-The-Box

Barbara has to stay alone in the apartment, because Jimmy and Jerry are afraid that they will get charged for kidnapping once Mr. Barry finds out that they have her. But a real kidnapper lurks around the corner, making for an hilarious fighting scene between several characters.

Answer: Military Man

"Military Man" is a very short song sung by Barbara, Jimmy, and Jerry at the end of the film, for the radio. The end features a very long and complicated tap dance routine. It was so complicated, in fact, that the studio had to record Shirley Temple's, Jack Haley's, and Alice Faye's tap separately to combine the sounds, to ensure that it sounded just perfect onscreen, because in tap dancing, if you mess up even slightly, the audience can tell. By recording the sounds separately, each actor would be able to do it right just once, instead of having to do it over again due to just one of the other actors messing up.