Pop Quiz

Late fall always meant going back to school for me, and going back to school always meant the end of my summer tradition of watching too much TV even when the weather was nice enough to be outside, at least until
I got home in the afternoons. So that prompted this question: do you recognize the lyrics from the themes to these classic TV sitcoms?

(Note that some of these shows used instrumental versions but originally had lyrics written for them while others had extended versions that never made it to the air.)

1. A smile is just a frown that’s turned upside down

So smile, and that frown will defrost.

 

2. Memories help me hide my lonesome feelin’

Far away from you and feelin’ low

It’s gettin’ late my friend, I miss you so

Take good care of you, I’ve gotta go

 

3. My heart was under lock and key,

But somehow it got unhitched.

I never thought that I could be had

But now I’m caught and I’m kinda glad

 

4. Roll out of bed, Mr. Coffee’s dead

The morning’s looking bright

And your shrink ran off to Europe

And didn’t even write

 

5. Fish don’t fry in the kitchen

Beans don’t burn on the grill

Took a whole lotta trying

Just to get up that hill

 

6. We’ll have no need to call the roll when we get to The Fishin’ Hole,

There’ll be you, me, and Old Dog Trey, to doodle time away.

 

7. Take me in your arms and hold me tight,

Tell me that your love is mine tonight,

Say that everything will turn up right,

It hurts to say goodbye.

 

8. Everybody knows in a second life

We all come back sooner or later

As anything from a pussycat

To a man eating alligator

 

9. Skin yourself alive, learn to speak Arapahoe,

Climb inside a dog, and behead an Eskimo.

Now you’ve heard it once, your brain will spring a leak, 

And though you hate this song, you’ll be humming it for weeks!

 

10. And when we both get older

With walking canes and hair of gray

Have no fear, even though it’s hard to hear

I will stand real close and say

 

11. This is the music that you hear as you watch the credits.

We’re almost to the part of where I start to whistle.

Then we’ll watch…

 

12. I spend my nights just howling at the moon

Or hanging out in a creepy black lagoon…

 

13. That game of life is hard to play

I’m gonna lose it anyway

The losing card, I’ll some day lay

So this is all I have to say

 

14. Just like the light of a new day

It hit me from out of the blue

Breaking me out of the spell I was in

Making all of my wishes come true

 

15. You’re all invited back again to this locality

To have a heapin’ helpin’ of their hospitality

Scoring:

12-15: Your mother told you more than once that if you didn’t stop sitting so close to the TV you were going to grow square eyes.

10-11: Every once in a while you stop on one of the nostalgia channels before you go look for something better to watch.

7-9: You found an old TV in your parents’ attic once, plugged it in, and assumed all the color seeped out years ago.

5-8: If you rolled your eyes at this list and said, “Okay, Gen-Xer” give yourself ten bonus points.

2-4: You have never lived in a time when DVR didn’t exist.

0-1: Congratulations on having done something useful with your summer vacations.

The Answer Key is below the video.

Answer Key:

1-The Dick Van Dyke Show

2-WKRP In Cincinnati

3-Bewitched

4-Cheers

5-The Jeffersons

6-The Andy Griffith Show

7-Alfred Hitchcock Presents (not a sitcom and the lyrics are of questionable provenance since the original was an instrumental piece by Charles Gounod but are taken from The TV Theme Song Sing-Along Songbook by John Javna)

8-If you said “My Mother The Car” you guessed WRONG. This was never a classic sitcom.

9-Not a theme song but the infamous Chicken Song from Spitting Image.

10-The Golden Girls

11-It’s Garry Shandling’s Show

12-The Munsters

13-M*A*S*H

14-The Greatest American Hero

15-The Beverly Hillbillies

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fishing Lure Or Early 20th Century Dance Craze?

1. Lindy Hop
2. Bagley Balsa B
3. Balboa
4. Lunker Lure Buzzbait
5. Heddon Torpedo
6. Collegiate Shag
7. Charleston
8. Jitterbug*
9. Hula Grub
10. Foxtrot
11. Gitzit
12. Shimmy
13. Blue Fox Foxee Jig
14. Panther Martin
15. Toddle
16. Big Apple
17. Rooster Tail
18. Turkey Trot
19. Castle Walk
20. Gibbs Pencil Popper
21. Spoonplug
22. Quadrille
23. Mepps Aglia
24. Maxixe
25. Brain Wash Blue

Scoring:

20-25—You regularly trip the light fantastic at a Friday night fish fry.

15-19—You know your way around a dance floor and your grandfather took you fishing regularly when you were a kid.

10-14—You’ve been to a lot of wedding receptions and your grandfather took you fishing once when you were a kid.

5-9—You took a salsa class on a dare and once saw a copy of The Compleat Angler in a bookstore.

1-4—You once ate a worm while hopping on one leg and tell people you did it on a dare.

Answer Key:

Little Shop Of Horrors (1961)-You look forward to going to the dentist.

Little Shop of Horrors (1986)-Your dentist dreads your appointments.

Basket Case (1982)-You’re sincere when you say you like sunsets and long walks on the beach.

Re-Animator (1985)-You were the first person in your neighborhood to buy a Prius.

The Blair Witch Project (1999)-You’re still the only person in your neighborhood who owns a Prius.

Paranormal Activity (2007)-You tell everyone you’re getting a hybrid vehicle next year.

The Thing (1982)-You think your man bun draws attention away from your attempts to grow a beard.

Get Out (2017)-You have at least three NPR tote bags.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)-You were once arrested for indecent exposure at a nude beach.

Saw (2004)-Your safe word is “tricycle”.

Hellraiser (1987)-Your safe word is “pinhead” but you’ve never used it.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)-You have no safe word.

The Black Cat (1934)-You’ve unironically described an office party as “a hootenanny”.

The Amityville Horror (1979)-You once electrocuted yourself changing a light bulb.

Hocus Pocus (1993)-You check under the bed before you go to sleep.

The Babadook (2014)-You sleep under the bed.

It’s Alive! (1974)-One of your grade school report cards said “Plays a little too well with others.”

Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1956)-You laugh at conspiracy theories.

Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1978)-You laugh at people who don’t take conspiracy theories seriously.

Sssssss (1973)-You’ve been banned from zoos because you disturb the animals.

The Hills Have Eyes (1977)-You’ve been banned from watching Sesame Street because you disturb the puppets.

Frankenstein (1931)-You once won a goldfish swallowing contest.

Q: The Winged Serpent (1982)-One of your summer jobs was raising rats for a reptile house.

Suspiria (1977)-You had to give up your dream of teaching kindergarten and settle for working in the ballet.

The Shining (1980)-Your bathroom has an enormous ball of soap made up of leftover hotel soaps.

Rosemary’s Baby (1968)-When asked about breastfeeding you say, “Thanks, but I’m trying to quit.”

Doctor Giggles (1992)-At every checkup your doctor has to listen to you read a list of obscure diseases from your smartphone.

Dracula (1931)-The Halloween aisle at Walgreen’s gives you the creeps.

An American Werewolf In London (1981)-You prefer stout over lager.

Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)-You’ve told the joke about the three bartenders, the Franciscan monk, and the cross-eyed turtle as part of a wedding toast. Twice.

Halloween (1978)-The barbershop quartet you were in broke up over creative differences.

Halloween III: Season Of The Witch (1982)-You once gave a nine year old a dictionary as a gift.

Night Of The Living Dead (1968)-You’ve chosen a restaurant solely because it serves blood pudding.

Dawn Of The Dead (1978)-You’ve said, “Don’t be confused by the name. It’s really more of a sausage.”

Day Of The Dead (1985)-You’ve made your own blood pudding.

The Fly (1958)-You kept a praying mantis as a pet when you were a kid.

The Fly (1986)-You’ve chosen a restaurant solely because it serves fried grasshoppers.

The Exorcist (1973)-You don’t understand why people have a problem with the word “moist”.

The Creature From The Black Lagoon (1954)-You tried out for but didn’t make the high school swim team.

Beetlejuice (1988)- Next phase, new wave, dance craze, anyways it’s still rock and roll to you.

Scream (1996)-You’ve spent more than twenty minutes listing the inaccuracies in a film someone casually brought up at a dinner party.

Alien (1979)-You can belch the alphabet.

Carrie (1976)-You attended your thirty year high school reunion but you’re still not sure what Homecoming is supposed to be.

The Raven (1963)-You have unusually strong opinions about the difference between jelly and marmalade.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer (1992)-You made the high school golf team because they were short a player.

The Wolf Man (1941)-You’ve ordered chicken “medium rare”.

Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983)-You dressed up as Nikola Tesla for Halloween when you were a kid.

Ringu (1998)-You still own a VHS player.

Nightmare On Elm Street (1984)-You’ve said to a nurse who was about to give you a flu shot, “Here, let me do it.”

The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)-You were once arrested for setting an inflatable Santa on fire in July.

The Stuff (1985)-You make your own granola.

The Addams Family (1991)-You sleep with the lights on.

The Ghost And Mr. Chicken (1966)-You sleep with the lights on during the day.

How do you know if it’s a cold or an allergy? Here’s a helpful guide to distinguishing the two.

1. Symptoms include sneezing, coughing, or a sore throat.
2. Symptoms include fever.
3. Symptoms include itchy, watery eyes.
4. Symptoms include general achiness.
5. A skin rash is present.
6. Caused by a viral infection.
7. Caused by the immune system reacting to something usually harmless.
8. Symptoms last several weeks.
9. May be treated with an antihistamine.
10. Only requires medical attention in extreme cases.
11. Was the star of an ‘80’s sitcom.
12. Speaks fluent Portuguese.
13. Prefers West Coast hip-hop.
14. Never leaves a tip.
15. Always falls for spam email.
16. Doesn’t make threats, only promises—oh, and a good pork roll.
17. Doesn’t know the way to San Jose.
18. Arrested several times for jaywalking.
19. Can’t read cursive.
20. Presents as blisters on the hands and feet after exposure to cold and humidity.

It wouldn’t be Christmas without caroling, except in places where it’s not a Christmas tradition. Years ago when I was in Britain, going to school at Harlaxton College, a group decided to go out caroling in the nearby village and I went along even though I can’t carry a tune in a bucket. There was a home in the village that had a pond that was home to three-thousand ducks, though, and every day after lunch I’d take some bread and walk up there and feed the ducks. They must have recognized my voice because as the group marched along singing the ducks came out and joined us in “Here We Come A-Waddling”, but that’s another story. The strange thing is people who lived in the village were baffled by a group caroling just for fun and thought we were collecting for charity so they kept trying to offer us money, and by the third house I’d collected ten pounds. Anyway see if you can identify these Christmas carols just from a few of the words.

1. The horse was lean and lank
Misfortune seemed his lot
He got into a drifted bank
And then we got upsot.

2. Myrrh is mine, its bitter perfume
Breathes of life of gathering gloom

3. And ye, beneath life’s crushing load,
Whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way
With painful steps and slow…

4. We’ll have lots of fun with mister snowman,
Until the other kids knock him down.

5. And surely ye’ll be your pint-stoup!
And surely I’ll be mine!

6. Bring me flesh and bring me wine
Bring me pine logs hither…

7. The bells on Penguins ring,
Make Riddler wanna fight…

8. Don’t cry for me next door neighbor…

9. May we warm him, needy and lying on hay,
With our pious embraces

10. Bring us out a mouldy cheese,
And some of your Christmas loaf.

11. Goreu pleser ar nos galan,
Tŷ a thân a theulu diddan…

12. The boar’s head, as I understand,
Is the rarest dish in all this land…

13. Somebody waits for you,
Kiss her once for me.

14. There’ll be scary ghost stories
And tales of the glories of
Christmases long, long ago…

And before you get to the answers go to Mum Revised for a hilarious and accurate list of Twelve Additional Christmas Songs That Deserve to be Removed from the Radio.

It’s not quite Fall in the northern hemisphere but already the days are noticeably shorter. The mating calls of the crickets, cicadas, and katydids are louder with the fierce urgency of the late season. The sky is more blue, the mornings are more crisp, or that just might be the drugs kicking in. Soon it will be harvest season. All these combined to prompt the following pop quiz: Apple variety of classic American burlesque performer?

1. Granny Smith

2. Lily St. Cyr

3. Beverly Hills

4. Birgit Bonnier

5. Mamie Van Doren

6. Royal Gala

7. D’Arcy Spice

8. Sally Rand

9. Carolina Red June

10. Chesty Morgan

11. Gypsy Rose Lee

12. Pacific Rose

13. Paula Red

14. Pink Lady

15. Yakety Sax

16. Ginger Gold

17. Golden Delicious

18. Ann Corio

19. Honeycrisp

20. Honey West

21. Kerry Pippin

22. Jayne Mansfield

23. Fanny Brice

24. Al Lewis

25. Roxbury Russet

Scoring:
1-5: Like the crickets, cicadas, and katydids your mating calls are louder at this time of year.

6-10: Cider? You hardly knew her!

10-15: Your tassels are showing.

15-20: You really like them apples.

20-25: You’ve spent more time in burlesque clubs than Morey Amsterdam.