Mr. Monk and the Music Trivia Quiz

Answer: Willie Nelson

In the eleventh episode of the first season, Willie Nelson was in San Francisco for a concert, and after he had confronted his road manager, Sonny Cross, about embezzling money, Cross ended up dead outside of a radio station where he and Nelson were doing an interview.

The only witness was a blind woman, Wendy Mass, who identified Nelson as the culprit by the sound of his voice. Monk didn't believe that Nelson was guilty, partially because he and Trudy were fans of Nelson's, but also because he found inconsistencies in the story that Mass told.

When he later found out that Mass had grown up in Tampa and that Cross had been arrested there, he began to unravel the story. During the investigation, Nelson had Monk join his band for a performance of "Georgia on My Mind" with Monk doing a clarinet solo, but Monk ended up whistling instead after one of the band members put the clarinet in his mouth.

But at the end of the episode, Monk did play the clarinet as Nelson played "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain" at Trudy's grave.

In an interview, Tony Shalhoub (Monk) admitted that he had learned to play the clarinet for the episode: "They found this simple piece and they brought this guy in who taught me and I'd never played a wind instrument before, but it was really fun to do it".

Answer: Betty Buckley

Although Betty Buckley first debuted on Broadway in 1969, she was perhaps better known initially as an actress for her role as Abby on the television show "Eight is Enough". But her later roles as the original Broadway Grizabella in "Cats" and as Norma Desmond in "Sunset Boulevard" established her as one of the major voices on Broadway.

In "Mr. Monk Goes to the Theater", Monk and Sharona (Bitty Schram) were in the audience when Gail (Amy Sedaris) appeared to stab her co-star to death during a play, and when Cheryl Fleming (Buckley) arrived later for a visit, she expected Sharona and "her partner" Monk to vindicate Gail.

Although Gail had insisted that she used the prop knife, her co-star was found with a real knife plunged into him, and Monk had to determine how it happened in front of the audience.

When Monk and Sharona discovered that Gail's understudy had pushed for the co-star to be hired, they realized that she may have helped Gail out of the starring role in the play. Although Amy Sedaris appeared in a few episodes of the show, Betty Buckley only appeared in this episode.

Answer: Danny Bonaduce

As a child, Danny Bonaduce portrayed the precocious Danny Partridge, the bass guitar player for "The Partridge Family". Although he didn't really play the instrument, he did have a self-titled solo album released in 1973. As an adult, he worked in several occupations, from acting to boxing and wrestling before settling on radio work.

In "Mr. Monk Meets the Playboy", he portrayed himself as a houseguest of a men's magazine publisher, Dex Larsen (Gary Cole). Larsen was a suspect in the murder of the CFO of the publishing company, but he claimed he never left his home on the night of the murder. Bonaduce told Monk that Larsen had insisted that he (Bonaduce) stay the night after a party because Larsen thought he was drunk, but Bonaduce insisted he wasn't.

When Monk looked in Bonaduce's car, he found the remnants of Larsen's cigar and realized that Larsen used Bonaduce's car that evening. Although he didn't appear in the episode, Bonaduce was also mentioned in "Mr. Monk and the Paperboy"; Monk's recently rich neighbor Kevin Dorfman was on a phone call with him.

Answer: Tim Curry

Tim Curry first gained prominence for "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" in which he portrayed the "Sweet Transvestite" Dr. Frank-N-Furter. Dale "the Whale" Biederbeck appeared three times in the "Monk" series and was played by a different actor each time (Adam Arkin, Curry, and Ray Porter). Monk had a history with Biederbeck; Trudy had written an expose article about him which he hadn't been able to squash so he sued her.

Although he didn't win the case, it dragged on for some time, ruining the Monks financially and making Trudy miserable. Monk had sent Biederbeck to prison, where he was doing well because of his money, but he wanted a window, and he couldn't get one until a murder case was resolved.

A man on death row had been poisoned, and the man owed Biederbeck $1200 which made him a suspect, but Monk knew that was an insignificant amount of money to Biederbeck - as Biederbeck pointed out, "I wouldn't bend down to pick up $1200 - I mean even if I could". Biederbeck told Monk that he would give him information on Trudy's murder if Monk could solve the case. Monk went undercover in the prison as a convicted embezzler and was able to solve the case. Biederbeck got his window, and he gave Monk information on Trudy's murder: Trudy was the intended victim, not Monk, and the man who planted it, Warrick Tennyson, was in New York.

At the end of this season two finale episode, as Biederbeck watched a plane through his window, he said, "Bon voyage, Mr. Monk".

Answer: Korn

The band Korn portrayed themselves in the season three episode, "Mr. Monk Gets Stuck in Traffic", which was the third to feature Natalie Teeger (Traylor Howard) as Monk's assistant. In the episode, Natalie was driving Monk and Julie (Emmy Clarke) home following Julie's field hockey game when traffic came to a stand-still due to a fatal crash. Korn's tour bus was also stuck in the traffic backup, and when Julie needed to use the restroom, Monk took her on the bus. Monk didn't believe that the crash was an accident, particularly when the band recognized the victim's name and told Monk that he was a member of a environmental group whose initials Monk had noticed on a fake paramedic's phone. Unfortunately for Monk, the police at the scene didn't know about his skills and eventually locked him in a squad car for interfering with their investigation.

It was then up to Natalie to find the evidence to prove the victim was murdered.

Answer: Alice Cooper

Jimmy Cusack, the sanitation union boss, was found dead in his office, and although it was staged to look like a suicide, Monk realized that it was actually a murder. The union refused to negotiate an end to the strike until the murder was solved, but the piles of garbage were affecting Monk's crime-solving skills.

He eventually snapped, stole a garbage truck, and began to clean up the city himself. As he loaded trash bags into the truck, Monk explained to Stottlemeyer (Ted Levine), Disher (Jason Gray-Stanford), and Teeger (Traylor Howard) that he had already solved the case.

He found a flyer advertising an Alice Cooper concert, and he noticed that Cooper was sitting in an antique chair: "We were looking at this case all wrong... It was never about the garbage strike, it was never about the sanitation union.

It was about the chair". During the flashback sequence in which Cooper appeared, Monk hypothesized that Cooper collected antique chairs and that after seeing a picture of Cusack's chair, Cooper had to have it: "It's true, Alice Cooper is a hippie, but he's the bad kind of hippie.

He's the kind of hippie that breaks into people's offices and beats them up and shoots them in the head. Why? To steal their antique chairs". When Disher asked why Cooper didn't take the chair, Monk pointed out that it had a bullet hole and blood on it. Disher continued to question Monk, but Stottlemeyer stopped him: "I don't think we need to pick apart the 'Alice Cooper wants an antique chair' theory". Other than a few grunts, it was a silent, minute-long cameo for Cooper, who appeared in the stage attire. During a "Monk Cast Favorites Marathon", this fifth season episode was revealed to be one of Tony Shalhoub's favorites.

Answer: Sarah Silverman

Sarah Silverman debuted the video for the Matt Damon song on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!", and Kimmel responded with a similar song about Damon's buddy Ben Affleck, but he didn't get an Emmy for his song. Silverman first portrayed Marci Maven in the second season episode "Mr. Monk and the T.V. Star" in which she was such an obsessed fan of a television actor that she confessed to murdering his ex-wife to deflect suspicion from him.

After Monk solved that case, she decided to become an obsessed Monk fan instead. Silverman then returned in the sixth season opener, "Mr. Monk and His Biggest Fan" in which she needed to hire Monk after her dead dog was accused of murdering a neighbor. Monk took her up on her offer to be his assistant for free, but after the murderer came after her, she decided she wanted nothing more to do with Monk. Silverman also made a cameo appearance along with several other guest stars from earlier episodes in "Mr. Monk's 100th Case" in season seven.

Answer: Randy Newman

When "Monk" debuted, the show had a jazzy, lyric-less theme song written by Jeff Beal, but in the second season, the song was replaced by "It's a Jungle Out There", a Randy Newman composition which looked at the world from Monk's point of view. According to "Monk" co-creator and executive producer Andy Breckman, he loved the original theme song, but Newman was a fan of the show and had offered to write a theme song for it and being a Newman fan, he couldn't turn down the offer: "It was an embarrassment of riches, and at the end of the day it was impossible to say no". Beal, who also did score work for the show, said that he was fired but that he eventually was able to return to the show.

His original theme song also played over the ending credits.

The switch in theme songs did not sit well with fans; the network, USA Network, received many complaints, and they ended up incorporating the controversy into the show. In the episode "Mr. Monk and the TV Star", Monk's one-time biggest fan, Marci Maven alluded to the controversy when she said that she was petitioning to get the TV star's old theme song back: "Will you promise me something? If you ever do get your own show, you have to promise me that you will never change the theme song". Both songs won Emmy awards, as did the song "When I'm Gone" which Newman composed for the final episode of the series.

Answer: Snoop Dogg

Snoop Dogg portrayed a rapper and hip hop producer named Murderuss who was accused of killing a rival rapper with a car bomb. Monk was so intimidated by Murderuss and his crew that while he thought he declined the case, he actually accepted it. There was a mountain of evidence against Murderuss, including the lyrics to one of his songs called "Car Bomb", and Monk believed he was guilty, but he continued to pursue the case out of fear for his well-being. Natalie, however, believed Murderuss was innocent and provided Monk with much of the research on the case.

In the end, Monk realised that the case hinged on the time change for Daylight Savings Time, and he was able to prove that Murderuss didn't commit the crime. Not only did Snoop Dogg star in the episode, he also performed a hip hop version of the theme song "It's a Jungle Out There", and when it was time for the "here's what happened" summation, he rapped it for Monk.

Answer: Meat Loaf

In this eighth season episode, three victims received boxes containing voodoo dolls that were postmarked days before their death. Each doll was modified to display the cause of the victim's death, and although the deaths didn't appear to be murders, the dolls made the cases suspicious.

The dolls had all been purchased at Reverend Hadley Jorgenson's Voodoo Boutique, and Jorgenson (Meat Loaf, appearing as Meat Loaf Aday) became a suspect after he put a full-page ad in the paper to capitalize on the case.

But it turned out that he had solid alibis for the times of the deaths. When Natalie, who had some belief in voodoo, received a decapitated voodoo doll, Jorgenson performed a ritual on her to get rid of the curse, but instead of applying a potion to her skin, she drank it which led to an ambulance ride to the hospital, with Natalie in the ambulance with the murderer.

When Monk explained the cases had nothing to do with voodoo, Jorgenson was disappointed because he wouldn't be able to sell any more dolls.

Although Natalie had a fear of voodoo in this episode, in the sixth season episode, "Mr. Monk and the Wrong Man", Natalie told Monk that there wasn't any such thing as voodoo.