Constable George Crabtree Trivia Quiz

Answer: The Curse of the Lost Pharoah

Crabtree's novel is released in season 5's "The Evil Eye of Egypt" and is quite well received. The plot of the episode also happens to involve an ancient Egyptian curse.

An online mini-series was also produced around the same time, called "The Curse of the Lost Pharoahs". In this online series, part live action and part animation, the "Murdoch" characters act out the plot of Crabtree's novel.

Answer: Freemasons

In "Victor, Victorian", a death occurs inside a Masonic lodge during a ritual. Crabtree is present because he is a Mason. As it turns out, Inspector Brackenreid is also a Mason and is also present, but as George outranks him, the head Mason wants George to investigate the case. George quickly passes the reins to Detective Murdoch who solves the case with Dr. Ogden's help, though the Masons first try to refuse entry to Dr. Ogden as women are not allowed inside the lodge.

In a bit of a twist, the dead person in the lodge is also a woman, who lived her life partially as a man.

Answer: Pizza

In this episode, an Italian man is selling pizza on the street near the station house, for 5 cents a slice. George takes a liking to the new-to-him food and even mentions how great it would be if you could just phone up and ask for a pizza, and have it brought right to you. At the end of the episode, he takes Dr. Grace to the pizza man and introduces her to pizza as well.

Answer: False

Season seven's "Loch Ness Murdoch" takes place during a heat wave in Toronto and a lot of the action occurs at the beach. When a young woman (and later another) turns up dead with a large bite mark on her body, speculation is that there is a large monster in the lake.

In a bit of a twist for the show, George Crabtree, who is shown to believe in ghosts, zombies, mole people, etc., is the one in this case who does not believe there is a sea monster in Lake Ontario who is killing people. Now don't get him wrong - he does believe in sea monsters, he just doesn't think one could live in a lake. In this instance, it is Murdoch and Brackenreid who are convinced there is a sea monster - they see it with their own eyes. It turns out, however, to be a man-made monster designed to scare people, and the murders are human-committed after all.

Answer: Dog

George acquires his dog, Violet, in the first season episode "Power" and mentions her from time to time. He mentions being a dog owner in season three's "Future Imperfect" while investigating a series of dog-nappings. Another example is in the season four episode "Dead End Street", when Dr. Ogden questions whether the killing of one's cat would be motive for murdering the pet killer; George jumps in to say that, as a pet owner himself, he agrees that it would be.

Answer: New Year's Eve ball

The episode "20th Century Murdoch" is set primarily on December 31, 1899. There is a ball being held for the constabulary. Crabtrees asks Murdoch if he thinks it's a good idea to invite Dr. Grace, as he's concerned that he is not of a high enough class for Dr. Grace. Murdoch encourages it, and George asks Emily to go with him to the ball.

Unfortunately, Emily turns him down as she already has plans with friends. George is disappointed, but he attends the ball anyway, and Emily shows up to be with him.

They then begin a romance, until breaking it off in season seven.

Answer: Penny

George's cousin is Penny Renton, 16 years old in season three. George is tasked with looking after her while she's in the city. While she insists she does want to attend the secretarial school, it turns out that she has also moved to the city for a boy. George catches them together partially undressed and arrests the young man! They later settle the matter, and in season seven George mentions to his aunts that cousin Penny is engaged to be married.

Penny is played in season three's "Love and Human Remains" by Brianna Bisson, the daughter of Yannick Bisson (who stars as Detective Murdoch).

Answer: False

In season two, George tells Murdoch that he was a foundling; his mother left him on a church doorstep and the reverend took him in to raise him, with the help of George's many 'aunts'. In the episode "Big Murderer on Campus", George puts an ad in the newspaper, looking for his biological mother. Two women answer the ad and Murdoch comes up with a plan to find out which one is really George's mother.

It is a bit odd though that George, being from Newfoundland, finds his mother in Toronto.

Answer: The truthizer

In the fifth season episode "Invention Convention", Murdoch attends an invention convention and is surprised to find George there, marketing the truthizer (a lie detector) to potential buyers. In the time period of the episode, lie detectors were unheard of and Murdoch builds a device of his own invention to monitor whether a suspect is telling the truth.

Murdoch first is annoyed with George for trying to sell his invention (which he insists is of no great value) but ends up giving him permission to find a buyer if he wants to. Arlene Dickinson from the TV show "Dragon's Den" guest stars as the interested investor, who ultimately decides not to buy the truthizer.

Answer: Take care of a big snake

In an early first season episode, "The Knockdown", Murdoch has George wear a dress and shoot a pig carcass, so that he could study the resulting blood spatter.

In season four's "Monsieur Murdoch", the constabulary investigates the supposed disappearance of a girl who is visiting from France. Murdoch wants a photo of the girl and devises a way for her father to wire him a photo (not easily done in this time period), by looking at it as a grid and figuring out which squares needed to be shaded in. George, with the help of Henry thankfully, has to recreate the photo on their end by shading in squares on a giant grid. George and Henry specifically mention that their task might be a fun leisure activity and could perhaps be called "paint by numerical values".

George has to go undercover in the nudist community (yes, in the nude) in season six in "Murdoch Au Naturale". He gets a shock when he finds Dr. Ogden is part of the nudist community!