Question: On Bond's obituary page M is typing up, after Bond's name is "C.M.G." and "R.N." What do these stand for?
Questions about specific movies, TV shows and more
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Question: When Clark gives his boss a Christmas present, he is told to put it with all of the others. There are plenty of presents there, but they are all the same, as they have the exact same shape. What are these presents?
Answer: They are desk organizers.
I'm wondering maybe it was one of the gags in the movie where the boss got the same gift from all the employees. I know there's a lot of gags in the vacation movies.
Answer: I've seen them in stores, it's a desk pen set with a matching business card holder.
Chosen answer: We don't know what is in the packages, but we can assume they are all the same, small, generic gift.
Answer: I think that they could all be tape holders.
Question: In season 2, there were 5 episodes made without one of the kids appearing in the episode. (Marcia, Jan, Cindy, Peter, and Bobby were each absent one episode). What was the reason behind this?
Answer: Much trivia has been written about "The Brady Bunch, " including the various interrelationships and dynamics among the members of the cast. For example, much has been written about why Robert Reed's Mike Brady did not appear in a couple of episodes, including the series finale, due to rancorous creative and artistic differences with series creator, Sherwood Schwartz. However, in contrast, I have never run across any reasons given why a particular child did not appear in specific episodes - only that the episodes were missed. This suggests the causes were likely unexceptional, such as illness, injuries, vacations, or real-life family obligations.
Although those options ARE possible reasons, it just seems a bit ironic that this happened all in Season 2 ONLY and within a short amount of nearly consecutive episodes. Never happened during the other 5 years of the show at all.
Answer: According to Lloyd Schwartz, in the book he wrote with his dad, Paramount studios made the decision to remove one child from each episode to save money. Sherwood Schwartz eventually told the studio that this was a mistake because "viewers have their favorites." The practice was eventually stopped.
Question: At the start of the episode "No Hope With Dope", Lisa runs into the hallway with exciting news, and Zack responds to Lisa using a sentence ending with "you'll crack your makeup." The audience (primarily young females) starts screaming and cheering very loudly to that line. I am trying to understand what about that "crack your makeup" line was there to scream and go ga-ga about.
Answer: Zack is always good for a sarcastic jibe. Lisa was written as the most fashion and make-up conscious of the Bayside High girls. She was also portrayed as serious and somewhat prissy. The "crack your makeup" comment was a throwaway line. Zack was suggesting Lisa doesn't often get overly excited for fear of having to reapply her face. The line is met by laughter and screeches from largely adolescent female audience that seem out of proportion to the humor. "Saved By the Bell" audiences were rather prone to such excessive ebullience for no apparent reason. The reaction didn't last long, and the scene moved on quickly.
Yeah that doesn't make any sense.
Answer: If there is a reference to "cracking" make-up, the inference would be that the person piles it on or simply wears way too much make-up; the more make-up is caked (or piled) on, the less of the person's real face is visible. The implication is that deep down (i.e, underneath all the make-up), the person's face is actually UGLY.
Zack and Lisa are friends (in fact the briefly date in one episode). He is definitely not calling her ugly. After re-watching the episode, it seems like some of the girls in the audience loved Lisa and wanted to cheer her in when she entered a scene. It happens another time when she walks in and it sounds like these same girls scream as soon as she enters the shot.
Question: At the end of the movie Amelia and Larry are saying their goodbyes - Larry tries to bring up what will happen to Amelia at sunrise, and Amelia says that she knows what will become of her. Is it implied that Amelia will not make it back to the Smithsonian before sunrise and turn to dust, or is it implied that she will make it back, but will not be able to come to life at night due to not having the tablet near her?
Chosen answer: Amelia has no idea about the turning to dust at sunset consequence, but what she does know is she will disappear and not be found, as what happened to the real Amelia Earhart.
Question: Santa doesn't come to Bikini Bottom, but then Squidward receives a thank you letter from him and sees him and his reindeer in the ocean's sky. Why didn't Santa come before? The one voiced by John Goodman appeared in "It's a SpongeBob Christmas" stop-motion special at the bottom of the sea talking to the characters. Can somebody clarify this for me?
Answer: In the "Christmas Who?" episode's intro, Patchy the Pirate is reading a letter where a fan ask if Spongebob loves Christmas as much as he does. Patchy explains they didn't always celebrate Christmas and this episode is a flashback to the first time Bikini Bottom had heard of Christmas. Santa had never visited before because nobody had believed in him before. Santa finally does visit because of Squidward's Christmas spirit. The "It's a Spongebob Christmas" episode aired 12 years later. So by this time, Bikini Bottom had been celebrating Christmas for quite sometime. Santa comes for a special visit because of how everyone in town, except Plankton, is on his naughty list.
Question: How does the show account for money? Truman obviously has real money so he doesn't get tipped off that he's living in a fake town, but how do they go about money for everyone else and any change Truman might get when he purchases items? I don't think the director would risk having any movie money (used in TV and movies to stand in for real money) within the world in case Truman should be handed some by accident.
Chosen answer: The world of "The Truman Show" is created as an actual functioning world. As such, even though Seahaven is a simulation, everything within it is made to seem as "real" as possible. There are actual newspapers and magazines. The snacks Marlon stocks in vending machines are actual snacks. The products in stores are real (and many are available for sale by catalog to the viewing audience). As such, there is every reason to believe that money used in Seahaven is actual legal tender. Why wouldn't it be? Every store and business can be stocked with money for change. Every actor and extra in Seahaven can be provided money for whatever transactions are needed, just as they are provided cars and briefcases and clothes and food. Accountants for the show can track the money just like everything else is probably tracked. The logistics seem overwhelming, but the economic operations of Seahaven have probably developed as the town has developed to meet Truman's needs.
Question: It says in Guinness world records 2013 that one of the scenes parodies Star Wars. Which scene?
Answer: It's at the end of both The Simpsons Movie and Return of the Jedi, during the celebrations, and it's not actually a scene parody. At the end of The Simpsons Movie, when Homer and Bart show up and the crowd gathers around them, we see Carl happily shaking his fist, and after Bart's dog shows up, when it cuts to the wideshot we see Carl raising his arm way up (as if he were showing something zooming up to the sky). At the end of Return of the Jedi, after Lando hugs Chewie, we see Lando shaking his fist in the background, and then in closeup raising his arm way up as he's explaining to Chewie what happened.
Question: Wouldn't going into the Iranian embassy and opening fire with guns be seen as a declaration of war? Especially since they shot/killed dozens of Iranian citizens while escaping.
Chosen answer: Perhaps, but against whom? The Americans, the Brits, the Koreans? And having an American citizen found tied to a chair, abused, and murdered would be hard to explain. In addition, their involvement in a narrowly averted nuclear holocaust may keep them from saying too much.
Question: In this episode after Dean comes back from hell, he and Bobby go see Sam at the hotel. There is a woman with him who says her name is Kristy. It is the girl who's body Ruby later uses. Is this actually Ruby, or the real Kristy?
Chosen answer: In a later episode, it shows a flashback, revealing that "Krissy" was actually Ruby the whole time. She has possessed the girl beforehand. I think when ruby saw Dean, she started to improvise, which is why Sam was so surprised when the girl told him he got her name wrong. It's because it was really Ruby, and Sam was well aware of that.
Question: When the monkey puppet on Mrs. Doubtfire's show says "Here's a monkey bite!", sometimes the monkey is shown on the TV screen next to Lundy and sometimes it's not shown and only zoomed in on Lundy watching (without the monkey at all seen). It seems TV or cable stations/DVD all have one of these versions or the other. Why is it different? Was something inappropriate about a puppet monkey "biting"?
Answer: When movies are shown on TV they are often edited using what is called a "pan and scan" format to fit the television screen. Movie screens are much wider, and when movies are shown on television as they were originally filmed, the image on the sides are cut off. Sometimes movies are shown on TV in a "letter box" format, where you see the black lines at the top and bottom of the TV screen. This shows the entire scene, but it is much smaller overall. "Pan and scan" is edited to cut back and forth between the scene to show the different characters, usually when it is their time to be speaking. Otherwise, one character may be talking, but the audience cannot see them, confusing the plot. The version of "Mrs Doubtfire" that you were watching is done in "pan and scan."
Question: This might be a dumb question and more character choice or ignorance, but when Mary Jane is fired from the play she asks "One critic?" to which she gets the response of "No. All of them." Why would she just read or hear of one review? Even if they all said the same thing she would have probably read more than one to look for even the slightest chance of a positive review.
Answer: She most likely knows how bad she was, has gotten poor reviews from previous plays, and couldn't bring herself to read or hear more than one terrible review this time. Nobody wants to read/hear negative things about themselves, and she may be hoping someone will tell her that there is at least one positive review about her.
Question: Why are Dr Lester and his friends all planning to go into one mind? Surely they'd want to go into a mind on their own, otherwise they'd be just trapped in someone else's head. Something that Dr Lester was afraid of in the first place?
Answer: Using John Malkovich extends their life. After Malkovich turns 44, the next portal is a newborn baby. So they couldn't, or didn't want to, wait for another mind to go into.
Question: Is Charlie Sheen playing himself, or is he just playing a character called Charlie?
Answer: He's playing himself.
Question: In this episode, several teams of human "harvesters" wander through a greenhouse filled with vegetable-hybrid zombies, searching for specific seed pods that might cure the zombie virus. None of the harvesters survive very long inside the greenhouse, even though the translucent plastic/fiberglass greenhouse walls are never more than a few steps away. In fact, the prized "Batch 47" is discovered just feet away from the translucent wall. Why couldn't the harvesters escape from the zombies by simply charging straight through the flimsy greenhouse walls? Or, even better, why didn't they just tear out the flimsy walls from the outside and search for Batch 47 from around the perimeter? I mean, it's just a greenhouse, not Fort Knox.
Answer: When the plant zombies would attack they would wrap people with the vines and hold them, so they couldn't escape.
Question: How does the movie really end? Are the family trapped in a snow globe for all eternity, or were they given a second chance and Krampus is just watching them?
Answer: The ending is that they are all alive and Krampus gave them a second chance. Evidence of this comes from the director's commentary and the comic book prequel "Krampus: Shadow of Saint Nicholas".
Question: What's the deal with Howie, Jr.?
Answer: He's just an odd little boy.
The Expedition Approximation - S8-E6
Question: Is the mining song Sheldon sings on this episode a real song? If so, what is it called?
Chosen answer: The song is called "Dark as a Dungeon" and was written and first performed by singer-songwriter Merle Travis in 1946. It has been performed by a wide array of artists, including Tennessee Ernie Ford, Harry Belafonte, Dolly Parton, Queens of the Stone Age, Kathy Mattea and Amy Grant. But it was made most famous when it was performed and recorded by Johnny Cash during his concert at Folsom Prison in 1968. According to Wikipedia: "It is a lament about the danger and drudgery of being a coal miner in an Appalachian shaft mine. It has become a rallying song among miners seeking improved working conditions."
Question: Why is the lawyer visiting the mines at the beginning of the film? He ultimately brings along Dr Malcolm so why go see a 'digger' who is not Grant?
Chosen answer: Hammond was being pressured to have outside consultants evaluate the feasibility of the park's ability to function in both a safe and profitable manner. Hammond relents to the demands but he wants Dr. Alan Grant, whose research he has been supporting for the past three years, to evaluate the park. Hammond believes Grant will endorse the park, especially after Hammond offers to continue funding Grant's dig for another three years. That potentially makes Grant's conclusions biased, and the other investors want more varied opinions, including one about Dr. Grant, which is why the lawyer visits the other paleontologist.
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Chosen answer: Companion of the Order of Saints Michael and George and Royal Navy.
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