Pop Culture Quiz Answers

Well, some of these are debatable, but here are the answers to the quiz I posted early yesterday morning, at least as I sees 'em.

In some cases, I've been corrected by you guys. In one case (ABACAB/In the Dark), I might just have completely blown it; I'm hoping someone who knows music can set the record straight, as it were.

1) Name three songs by The Fixx.

Others named more songs, but I think the four gimmes would be One Thing Leads to Another, Red Skies at Night, Stand or Fall, and Saved By Zero.

Actually, there was a MAJOR gimme that no one got, which physically angers me, since so many of you claimed to be big fans of Streets of Fire. That movie spawned two big hits -- I Can Dream About You, by some guy whose name I can't recall (Dan Hardsomething?), and the first hit, the song played over the closing credits -- The Fixx's Deeper and Deeper, one of their best songs.

2) What was INXS's first legtimate hit? (I'm looking for the radio hit of Shaboo Shabah. That's before Listen Like Thieves and Kick.)

I was looking for The One Thing. I'm told that Don't Change was a hit first. Maybe, but The One Thing was bigger. At least that's when I heard of them. "Hit" is often a relative term.

3) Asked before, but I'll ask again, because it's a cool question series:

Note that I didn't see Alien V. Predator, and Lance Hendriksen was in that, so it's possible that movie adds to this list. I don't know. Assuming that AVP doesn't change things, the answers are:

a) Name the one human being who has been assaulted and/or killed by an Alien (from Alien), a Predator, and a Terminator.

Bill Paxton-- Killed by an alien in Aliens, killed by a Predator in Predator 2, and attacked (but not killed; runs off in horror) in The Terminator. He plays one of the punks the Terminator kills for clothing. The one punk has his heart ripped out. Bill Paxton runs.

b) Apart from the person who is the answer to a), name three other people who've been assaulted and/or killed by both an Alien and a Terminator.

Lance Hendricksen (cop in the Terminator, Bishop in Aliens), Michael Biehn (obvious, I should hope), and Jeanine Goldstein, I think her name is, who played "Vasquez" (the dykey Hispanic) in Aliens and the kid's foster mom in Terminator 2: Judgment day.

c) Apart from the person who is the answer to a), name one other person who's been assaulted and/or killed by both a Terminator and a Predator. (This is sort of a trick question.)

Arnold Schwarzenegger, attacked by a Predator in the original Predator (of course) and by the T1000 in Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

4) What is the (original) Green Arrow's real name? Bonus points for the new Green Arrow's name.

Oliver Queen. Current GA is Connor Hawke, who I believe is his son.

5) Name as many human Green Lanterns, former or active, as you can. Don't give me those silly alien ones. Well, you can show off, but I'll have no idea if you're right or not.

Alan Scott (Golden Age), Hal Jordan (Silver Age to modern), Kyle Rayner (current). Also Guy Gardner and, I don't think anyone named this one, John Stewart, the black Green Lantern, the one featured on the Justice League cartoon.

Someone also mentioned Jade. Is she actually a GL, or didn't she just acquire the power of the ring or something? I don't know. Gotta punt on that one.

6) Name the original leader of the IMF (the Mission Impossible team, not the int'l monetary fund); the actor who played him; where you've seen him lately; and (I think I know the answer to this!) why he quit the Mission: Impossible show.

More people got this than I expected! His name was Daniel Briggs ("Good Morning, Mr. Briggs"), played by Steven Hill, best known (I think) as the crusty DA on L&O before Dianne Wiest-- Adam Schiff, his character's name was, and he was fond of saying things like "I don't care if you've got a signed confession, the murder weapon, and a videotape showing the defendant committing the crime. The press is going to eat our lunch on this one! Make a deal!")

He quit M:I because he was an observant Jew and he had difficulty with the shooting schedule.

7) What is the connection between Genesis' ABACAB and Billy Squier's In the Dark? (Hint: This is a music-geek question; Caveat: I only heard a DJ say this, and I have no idea if it's actually true)

As I've said, I think I blew this one, and maybe I meant Lonely is the Night. The answer was supposed to be that the chorus of In the Dark (or Lonely is the Night) has the progression A-B-A-C-A-B.

8) (Asked before) Who's been defeated by James Bond, Axel Foley, and Prince?

Actor Steven Berkoff, he of the bump on the forehead, who played "Evil Russian General" in Octopussy, "Evil Art Importer/Drug Smuggler" in Beverly Hills Cop, and "Evil White Guy Who Wants To Get All Over Kristin Scott Thomas' Shit" in Under the Cherry Moon.

9) How fucking hot is Joanna Whalley Kilmer, especially in The Man Who Knew Too Little in the French Maid outfit? NOTE: If you say "not hot at all," you are no longer allowed to read this site.

Extraodinarily hot.

10) What was Val Kilmer's character's name in "Willow"? Bonus points: How bad did that movie suck?

Madmartigan. The movie sucked so bad it gives me a whole new appreciation for Star Wars: Episodes I and II.

11) What is Sylvester Stallone's improbable name in the arm-wrestling extravaganza Over the Top, and what signature move does he do to will himself to win?

His name was "Lincoln Hawk." The move I was looking for was just reversing the trucker's cap to show he was serious-- I think he calls it his "on switch" or something.

Others mentioned something about the way he grasps an opponent's hand. For Pete's sake, you know too fucking much about this piece of shit movie.

12) What's Kim Cattral's name in Big Trouble in Little China? Bonus: What is Jack Burton's answer when asked, "Aren't you even going to kiss her?" as he leaves at the end of the film?

Gracie Law. "Nope."

13) What are the first and last songs on Elvis Costello's Punch the Clock?

Let Them All Talk/ The World and His Wife.

14) In Prince's U Got the Look, he says "Your face is jammin'," and "your body's" something else. What?

"Heck-a-slammin'." Sorry, no credit for just "slammin'."

15) Name Badfinger's one and only hit. Who produced the record?

Okay, I blew this one. People say they had other hits. I was thinking of (If You Want It, Here It Is) Come and Get It. Produced by Paul McCartney. Released on the Beatles' Apple label.

16) You all know Ballroom Blitz. Name another song by The Sweet.

Love is Like Oxygen; Wee Willy (Won't Go Home). Also, "Fox on the Run" was mentioned by several people, but I don't think I've ever heard that.

17) Name one song by April Wine.

Between You and Me. Others mentioned I Like to Rock; others.

18) Name one song by (ahem-- no one's going to get this) by Planet P.

Confession: I couldn't remember the song when I posted this question; I figured I could look it up if no one got it. It was in fact Why Me?, which is probably the only song that got any radio play, and it's now running through my head. Toungueboy and Gerry got this.

19) Name one song by Red Rider. It's a big one, really. And bonus: What's that guy's latest hit? That's an undeniably big one.

The great, great song Lunatic Fringe, used in Vision Quest and for a thousand different live sporting events (just that wicked intro). Tom Cochran of Red Rider (maybe he was red rider) then did "Life is Highway" in the eighties or early nineties.

20) Name the only hit by Talk Talk.

I was just looking for Talk Talk, a song I loved as a kid. It was seen in the great eighties film Night Shift, in the nightclub scene where Billy Blaze panders to the two undercover cops.

Others mentioned "It's My Life," which I didn't know was Talk Talk, later covered (well) by No Doubt. The original Talk Talk version plays incessantly in the Grand Theft Auto videogame with the eighties soundrack.

21) Name two songs by Golden Earring. Everyone knows one. But I need two.

Radar Love is the gimme. The other one I thought was called Twillight Zone, but readers correctly identified it as When the Bullet Hits the Bone. I assumed they had to change the name to that for legal reasons, because hey, the song is plainly meant to be called Twillight Zone.

Update! OneDrummer says that the song actually IS called "Twillight Zone," and a check of the band's website confirms this. HOWEVER-- I do seem to remember it being called When the Bullet Hits the Bone; perhaps there was a legal dispute, and they were calling it that for a time in order to appease Rod Serling's estate? Don't know.

22) Duran Duran split up in the late eighties to form a couple of side-groups. What was the name of the Simon LeBon/Nick Rhodes group, and what was their hit (or semi-hit)?

NOT the Power Station, which scored hits with "Some Like it Hot" and a passable cover of the great T-Rex song "Bang a Gong (Get it On)," which is one of those songs you really want to have sex to, except that you're afraid your sex-partner will look at you as you cue it up and say, "Err, isn't that a little too on the nose? Mmmm....?" and so you just put on "Son of a Preacher Man." (Okay, that's a good one too.)

The actual answer is Arcadia. Their hit was "Election Day" (well, maybe not a hit per se, but MTV played it a lot), off the album (god, I'm so queer for knowing this) So Red the Rose.

23) What heavily promoted guitar prodigy sung and performed "Beat's So Lonely"?

Charlie Sexton.

24) What three fairly-major actors show up in bit parts in Fast Times at Ridgemont High? (I think they're all Spicoli's buddies.)

Someone named Forrest Whitaker, and yeah, he's in that, but I was looking for Eric Stolz, Nick Cage, and Anthony Edwards. I think Cage was actually cut out of the movie, but he can be glimpsed on some TV showings when they re-insert cut footage to fill out time.

25) In Fast Times, Ratner is advised that he shouldn't care if a girl "something, something, something, or something." His toes should still be "tapping." Fill in the blanks.

Comes, stays, lays or prays. On TNT showings, it's changed to something like "shops, pops, hops or drops," which a friend of mine would always say and then giggle like monkey.

26) "No, take that back." What's the context? (For some reason, we said this a lot in high school. Like, a lot.)

When Stacey confronts Damone about the fact that she's pregnant, he retorts: "Hey, you wanted it more than I did!" To which she replies, "No... take that back."

27) Ratner is advised that he should always, whenever possible, play a certain side of a certain album on a date. What album, which side? And: how well does he take this advice?

There seems to be some conflict on this one. I always thought it was Side 2 of Led Zeppelin 4, but some say Side 1. In any event, Ratner doesn't quite take the advice; he plays "Kashmir" from Physical Graffiti.

Probably because the rights to "Stairway to Heaven" were too pricey and they thought "Four Sticks" or "When the Levee Breaks" would be too obscure.

28) What color are Peter Parker's eyes in the comic books?

No one ever gets this. I always figured he'd be blue-eyed, but in fact his eyes are brown. You can look it up and everything. (Unless they've changed it now to make him look more like Tobey MacGuire.)

29) In Blade Runner, how many androids does Dekker's chief tell him have escaped and must be hunted down? How man androids actually seem to actually be named and accounted for in the film?

He says SIX, but only FIVE are ever accounted for, which is taken to be one of the "clues" that Dekker is in fact the sixth replicant.

The actual backstory is more mundane. There WAS a sixth replicant, a motherly-type to the "family" of androids named Mary, but she was cut out of the script mid-filming due to the movie's serious budgetary problems. They never re-shot the early scene mentioning SIX androids.

30) What band did Joan Jett start out with, and which band-mate from that band turned out to have a so-so career as a heavy metal chick?

The Runaways/Lita Ford. "The Blackhearts" was the band she got famous with, not the one she started out in.

31) Cory Haim has an, ahem, curious poster up on his wall in The Lost Boys. Who's on that poster? HINT: It ain't Nastassia Kinsky with the snake, I'll tell ya that.

It's that stupid eighties poster of Rob Lowe, in a white jacket but shirtless, reclining sexily.

32) What's Robocop's actual full name?

Alex J. Murphy. Actually, I guess I should know the middle name, but I don't.

33) What TV show does Robocop's son enjoy watching, from which Robocop gets his gunslinging manuever?

T.J. Lazer.

34) What's Kurt Russel's character's name (first initials required!) in The Thing?

RJ MacReady.

35) No one's going to get this, because it was left on the cutting room floor: In The Thing, Childs and Palmer have a joint, ahem, project together. Their mutual hobby and interest is actually never shown in the actual movie. But hey-- it's trivia. What do these two do together in their spare time?

As JeffB notes, "they grow high-grade, hydroponic weed" together in some basement hothouse.

36) Deleted from some television showings and early videotapes of The Thing is a pop song (the only one, I think) that appeared in the original movie. What was the song?

Stevie Wonder's "Superstition." I think it plays as Nauls roller-skates around the base, but don't hold me to that. It was cut from TV showings and from the earlier videotapes because, back in the early eighties, they hadn't yet begun routinely securing the rights for non-theatrical or non-televised exhibitions of a movie. This problem plagues a lot of early-eighties movies; if you watch some older and cheaper ones, you may find that a song you really liked has been replaced by some craptacular synthesizer filler.

37) What is spray-painted on the broken-down tractor-trailer seen in the first few minutes of The Road Warrior? (The trailer is of course seen later on, too.)

"Earth."

38) Who do the Oasis Children mistake Mad Max for in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome? (Need a name; we all know what they think his job is.)

Captain Walker.

39) In the Mad Max series, it's always kind of vague about what the nature of the apocalypse was that destroyed the world. But in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, there does seem to be a clue. What's the clue?

He is offered water for sale and he scans it with a geiger counter; it clicks to indicate it's radioactive. So, looks like it was a nuclear war after all. And I had thought it was the more interesting, less done-to-death idea that society simply collapsed and turned barbaric, as seems to be the trend in Mad Max (the original).

40) What's Mad Max's actual name?

Max Rockatansky.

Thanks for playing! I hope those who took the quiz had fun. And I apologize for not being able to provide more female-skewing questions. But once I get past Overboard and The Princess Bride, my female trivia gets pretty weak.

Well, except for the Duran Duran stuff.