State Fair Trivia Quiz

Answer: The Frake family will each return home happy

Based on the original music by Rodgers and Hammerstein, and directed by Walter Lang, this 1945 film "State Fair" opens with Abel Frake (played by Charles Winninger) making a foolhardy bet with his neighbour, Dave Miller (Percy Kilbride) that he, his wife Melissa (Faye Bainter), daughter Margy (Jeanne Crane) and son Wayne (Dick Haymes) will all have a lovely time at the Iowa State Fair to which they are heading, and will return home happy. Will this eventuate, ladies and gentleman? Will the Frake family have a lovely time at the Fair? Tune in and see.

Answer: That his prize pig, Blue Boy, will win at the fair

Abel's huge champion pig, Blue Boy, has been tended carefully and lovingly for months leading up to the Fair by Abel, and Abel is quite certain that it will take out first prize, hence his rather rash bet with his neighbour, Dave. Will Abel's pig win first prize at the Fair? Or will Blue Boy be turned into bacon? Watch the next exciting episode to find out.

Answer: Esmeralda

When the Frakes arrive at the Fair, with Blue Boy in tow, the champion pig develops a type of worldly weariness and depression. You could even say he was disgruntled. He lies down and refuses to get up. One of Abel's friends brings in his champion female pig, Esmeralda, hoping it will revive Blue Boy, and this has an immediate and very positive effect. Blue Boy is smitten with Esmeralda on sight, jumps up onto his trotters, and grunts away happily to her.

The unfortunate thing, however, is that when Esmeralda is out of his sight, he loses all interest in life once again. And that is precisely what happens just as the championship judging is about to take place. Will Esmeralda return in time for Blue Boy to win? Can this piggy tale have a happy ending? Read on and see.

Answer: It ends up with a double dose.

Although Melissa doesn't believe in putting alcohol into her famous mincemeat dish, Abel does, and while Melissa is out of the kitchen where she has been preparing her entry for the Fair, Abel slips a generous helping into it, then quickly leaves. When Melissa returns to the kitchen, she has a change of heart about the brandy and puts another generous dose into the mincemeat.

This goes on to have a potent effect at the judging ceremony and one of the judges cannot stop sampling the dish. It is reported in the paper the following day that he had an attack of the delirium tremens. Did this interfere with Melissa's chances of winning first prize? Did she go home happy? Watch this space for news.

Answer: Yes

Margy has been engaged to Harry Ware (Phil Brown) for some time when the movie opens, but she isn't really in love with him, and looks on the Fair as the perfect excuse to get away from him for a while and his boring talks about cows. At the showground, Margy gets onto a rollercoaster seat for two, only to have a strange young man, a reporter named Pat Gilbert (played by Dana Andrews), get on beside her.

They spend the next couple of days together and fall in love, but while Pat says he'd made a bad husband, Margy says she couldn't dream of marrying anybody but him.

They agree to meet on the last night when the Fair is closing, but Pat fails to turn up. Margy returns to the farm heartbroken. Will Margy find true love? Who will be the man she marries? Read on, ladies and gentlemen, and find out.

Answer: Ring tossing

Wayne has a girlfriend named Eleanor (uncredited) at the beginning of the film, but she cannot attend the fair with him as her mother is ill. Because he lost all his money on the ring tossing game at the fair the previous year, he has been practising for months to win it back.

He achieves this and more, but is accused of cheating by the barker, only to be defended by a strange girl who saves him by saying she is the daughter of the Chief of Police. He later seeks out the girl, Emily Edwards (played by Vivian Blaine) but finds out that she is really a singer with the band playing at the fair.

As the movie unfolds, Wayne falls in love with Emily, sings with the band, becomes drunk, gets into a fight, and asks Emily to return to the farm with him. Does Emily return to the farm with Wayne? Does he recover from his hangover? All will shortly be revealed.

Answer: Outside being weighed for her category

When Blue Boy is taken into the ring to be judged for the final leg of his class, he sees Esmeralda being taken outside to be weighed. Thinking she has gone forever, his little piggy heart breaks in two, and he lies down on the floor of the ring, refusing to get up.

It is only at the last moment that she is brought back in and he spots her just in time. Leaping up, they lovingly grunt to each other across the ring and Blue Boy wins first prize! Abel is absolutely delighted, and you can rest assured that Blue Boy and Esmeralda lived piggily ever after. Meanwhile, you'll be delighted to hear, Melissa not only takes out first prize for her mincemeat, but also for her pickles as well.

Answer: She is already married.

Alas, this is indeed the case. After Wayne asks Emily to return to the farm with him, it is revealed that she cannot because she is already married, even though it is an unhappy relationship. She runs away from Wayne, and that is the last we see of her. Wayne's heartbreak doesn't last too long, however, for he quickly reunites with his girlfriend Eleanor, and the last we see of them is driving past the house, happily hugging.

Answer: He had to be in Chicago for a job interview.

Poor Margy waited all night for Pat to show up on that sorrowful evening, as the fairground was being dismantled all around her. He didn't come, and her heart was dismantled in tiny little pieces along with the Fair. We later find out that he was offered a very promising job at a newspaper in Chicago - with his own syndicated column - but that if he didn't leave immediately to meet his boss, the job would be offered to someone else.

Answer: No

Although Abel returned from the Fair in a happy mood because of Blue Boy's win; although Blue Boy was also very happy as well because of Esmeralda; although Melissa was happy because she'd won not one, but TWO prizes; although Wayne was happy with his winnings and his reuniting with Eleanor - Margy, it seemed was about to let the family down and declare she had a terrible time at the Fair.

At the last minute, however, the phone rang. It was Pat. He asked Margy to marry him and move to Chicago to live.

She VERY happily accepted - And Abel won his bet.