Dr. Steve's Brain Teasers

Steve West | November 3, 2011
We recently had a department decorating contest in which my crew decided on a haunted house theme. Lots of creepy decorations abounded and my part was to come up with monster trivia and give away token prizes (giant plastic martini glasses filled with chocolate eyeballs). This is a sample:

1. Who sang Bela Lugosi's dead?

2. What is the name of Casper's pet ghost horse?

3. In the movie Halloween, all car license plates read California but the film was actually set where?

4. What are werewolves called in Canada?

5. For the movie Friday the 13th, writer Victor Miller named the killer Jason after whom?

Steve West | November 3, 2011
Other questions had their validity questioned like the name of the Wicked Witch of the East and the name of Bobby Pickett's back-up group for the Monster Mash. But all legitimate arguments received a prize.

Erik Bates | November 3, 2011
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Steve West | November 3, 2011
Everyone was encouraged to use Google.

Erik Bates | November 3, 2011
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Steve West | November 6, 2011
Answer #1: Bauhaus

Scott Hardie | November 6, 2011
Oh, crap, I didn't realize that you meant for us to guess these. And #1 was the only one that I knew already, thanks to Rock Block. Hmm, Google says #2 is "Night mare." Ha ha, that's terrible.

Steve West | November 6, 2011
Number 2 is indeed Nightmare and I agree, is hokey.

Samir Mehta | November 6, 2011
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Samir Mehta | November 6, 2011
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Steve West | November 6, 2011
Number 3 is spot on but Number 5 differs from my source which is questionable.

Scott Hardie | November 6, 2011
My first thought for #4 was "manitou." In high school, I listened to a lot of 80s death metal, and Venom recorded a "classic" song by that name. Intrigued at the time, I looked up the meaning of the word and saw that it was the Native American term for "werewolf," especially in Canada. The trivia stuck in my head. Years later, I ran a role-playing game where a werewolf character was called "Manitou" as a nickname, and the player behind that character expressed strong doubts about the meaning of the word since he'd never heard it in that context, but I stood fast on my definition. Today, curious whether I should guess "manitou" in Dr. Steve's trivia, I looked it up and learned that "manitou" means nature spirit. Oops. Thanks for filling my head with nonsense, 80s death metal.

Steve West | November 7, 2011
The Wikipedia entry for Jason Vorhees claims the name is a combination of Josh and Ian, Victor Miller's two son's names. The story I had read from a different source (Nutshell Movies.com) claimed that Miller originally wanted to name the character Josh but that seemed too nice and therefore named him after a school bully from his past. I'm pretty skeptical now.

Steve West | November 8, 2011
Number 4 is the French equivalent Loup Garou.

Scott Hardie | November 8, 2011
Besides Count Chocula, Franken Berry, and Boo Berry, what was the fourth monster-themed cereal introduced by General Mills, that didn't last long as the others? Or the fifth cereal that came along for a few years in the 1980s?

Steve West | November 8, 2011
I'm trying to come up with this without Google's help. I have a dim recollection of a mummy(?) but that's as far as I'm getting.

Scott Hardie | November 8, 2011
You're on the right track. One was a rhyming pair of words, the first being Fruit.

Steve Dunn | November 8, 2011
Fruit Brute made a cameo in Pulp Fiction!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-68s4g1-pVY

Steve West | November 8, 2011
I think his name was Zed. Oh, yeah - I went there.

Scott Hardie | November 8, 2011
Fruity Yummy Mummy was the other, the one that Steve semi-remembered. That one reached pretty far for a rhyme.

Scott Hardie | November 16, 2011
The 2004 action movie Van Helsing pitted Hugh Jackman against three of Universal's classic movie monsters: Frankenstein, Dracula, and the Wolf Man. What other three Universal monsters were planned to take their place in the sequel that never happened?

Samir Mehta | November 16, 2011
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Scott Hardie | November 16, 2011
The Creature and the Mummy are right. Any other guesses on the third? It's the least "monster"-like of the bunch, but still supernatural.

Steve West | November 16, 2011
Abbott and/or Costello? That movie sucked!

Steve West | November 16, 2011
What about The Invisible Man, Bram Stoker, or perhaps...SATAN!!!

Scott Hardie | November 16, 2011
Indeed, the Invisible Man. Although I would have seen it if Van Helsing had teamed up with the Church Lady.