Question: It's never explained why she couldn't be Wonder Woman without doing that whirling transformation, shouldn't she still have super strength and all those abilities?
Bishop73
29th Aug 2019
Wonder Woman (1976)
Answer: She does. However, if she were to use any of her abilities as Diana Prince, everybody, including her enemies would be able to make the connection that Diana Prince and Wonder Woman are the same person which could be used to get revenge on her. By not using her abilities in her civilian disguise, nobody would suspect anything at all and she could keep herself and her friends safe.
So it was more a choice that she decided an Ice Skating move was less conspicuous than say, ducking in a phone booth like Superman? If Clark Kent enters a a phone booth, and Superman comes out, don't you think even the dull of mind would get the connection?
That's because Clark Kent has super speed so he can easily run into a phone booth quickly and leave as Superman as quickly too or whenever Clark does need to change into Superman out in the open, there's never around to see him change. It's a plot device that's really effective.
Could one man or gal. We're supposed to just believe almost everyone these two are around can't figure out of the obvious. Characters like Spider-Man and Batman can do this because of their masks, so these excuses just don't pass with me.
Answer: As Diana Prince she didn't have the super powers that Wonder Woman has, although as an Amazon princess she does have greater strength than normal humans. Diana's mom taught her how to transform her ordinary clothes into her Wonder Woman outfit (as opposed to just doing a quick change like Clark Kent does). Her outfit, which her mother gives her when she leaves includes the "golden girdle of Gaea." The girdle provides enhanced strength and heightens her other abilities. As to why she spins, it was a stylized choice to add something extra to the show and hadn't been done in the comics. Although they did change it up a bit due to budget and time. Later, Wonder Woman comic writers would include the spin into the comics, but by then it was generally to put her into her secret identity, not to give her her powers. But as to why Diana Prince doesn't have super powers in the 70's show, as opposed to other incarnations of her; the original TV movie pilot had Diana powerless like the character was during the Bronze Age of Wonder Woman (late 60's) when Diana decided to stay on Earth and became mortal. That series was not picked up, but a 2nd attempt at it, starring Lynda Carter, was and the series loosely based Diana on the first pilot but through magic could transform into the superhero Wonder Woman.
16th Feb 2004
Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)
Question: When judge Doom is "dipped", the other toons ask who he was, does anyone out in movie land know who he was supposed to be?
Answer: Even though it's never known who Judge Doom was, a fan theory has sprung up about a possible identity. In Maroon's office is a framed picture of a toon called Pistol Packin' Possum. The theory is that Judge Doom is Pistol Packin' Possum in disguise. This is because the photograph of Pistol Packin' Possum has red eyes and so does Judge Doom and the gun that Doom uses to kill Mr. Maroon is the same gun that Pistol Packin' Possum is holding in the picture.
Answer: I don't think he was supposed to be any established cartoon character; they just wanted to know who the pile of goo on the floor used to be.
Answer: In the book "Roger Rabbit: The Resurrection of Doom", it is explained that Doom was originally Baron von Rotten, a toon that would play villains. But then he got a concussion and woke up thinking he was a real villain, and then sets out to rob the bank and killed Teddy by dropping a piano on his head.
21st Sep 2019
Matlock (1986)
Question: Did this whole episode actually take place in London or did a lot of the actors speak with British accents?
Answer: This episode was filmed in London. Most of the minor characters, outside the Gordon family, were British-born actors. Although Sybil Gordon was played by a British-born woman.
20th Sep 2019
Three's Company (1977)
Question: In the second episode Chrissy's mother comes to visit. In future episodes her father comes to visit - who is an actual "father" (i.e. priest). Aren't priests forbidden to be married?
Answer: He's not a Catholic priest. He's a pastor, with the title Reverend, at a community church who chooses to wear a clerical collar. Some people still address pastors as "Father" though. I'm not sure of his religious denomination, but most pastors can marry.
Answer: Yes Pastors can marry... I was asking for Priests since his collar appears to be that of a Catholic descent.
Some protestant pastors wear the clerical collar as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clerical_collar.
20th Sep 2019
Downton Abbey (2019)
Question: Lady Mary mentions George and Caroline in a sentence about carrying on Downton Abbey in the future. Who is Caroline?
Answer: Caroline Talbot is the half-sister of George Crawley. She is Mary Talbot's daughter.
Thank you.
18th Sep 2019
Goosebumps (2015)
Question: When Zach wrote that all of the monsters got pulled into the manuscript, why did Hannah get pulled in too? She wasn't a monster but a friendly ghost.
Answer: When they use the term "monsters", it isn't specially about evil creatures, it's anything R.L. Stine created in his books. All of Stine's creations were pulled into the book, including Hannah, who was never a real person. A ghost would be considered a monster, no matter how friendly or benevolent.
18th Sep 2019
Stargate SG-1 (1997)
Question: Why did O'Neill shoot Reese at the end of the episode?
Answer: Because Reese was controlling the replicators, or at least still linked to them, and he saw shooting her as the only way to stop the replicators. However, Daniel suggests that Reese deactivated the replicators prior to being fatally shot, so the audience is left to wonder who was right.
18th Sep 2019
General questions
There was a movie about a mad scientist who was trying to create a clone of his dead wife. He had a handsome young lab assistant. When the assistant's girlfriend falls into a coma after an accident, the scientist offers to clone her as well. The assistant declines, saying a clone wouldn't be the woman who fell in love with him; the girlfriend later recovers. The scientist realises he'll never be able to recreate the past and ends up marrying a much younger woman.
Answer: Sounds like the 1985 film "Creator", starring Peter O'Toole, although I can't be certain about the lab assistant and his girlfriend. But a young woman who agrees to donate her egg and the scientist fall in love. There's also the 2017 film called "Andover" where a scientist clones his dead wife, although that film has less in common with your description than the first.
Yep, 'Creator' was it. Thank you.
7th Sep 2019
Spider-Man 2 (2004)
Question: Why does Jonah Jameson hate Spider-Man so much?
Answer: Part of the reason in the film is based on the comic book character, especially in the early years of the comic. Jameson thinks Spider-Man is a vigilante and a menace with something to hide (i.e. why does he wear a mask?). In the early comics, Jameson didn't think kids should see Spider-Man as a hero but should instead look to people like his astronaut son, John, as a hero. Plus, the Daily Bugle is a tabloid paper, so Jameson is trying to sell newspaper with sensational headlines, even if it's libel.
7th Sep 2019
Mary Poppins Returns (2018)
5th Sep 2019
Breaking Bad (2008)
24th Feb 2019
Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992)
Question: After Peter yells at Kevin "You spent $967 on room service?!", where does Kevin run off to? It's not clear from what's onscreen.
Answer: He's heading back to the hotel most likely to apologize for spending such a huge amount.
Answer: It's Kevin's dad who screams out. You can tell because Buzz looks at the bill, smirks, and says, "Oh, Dad." I've always interpreted it as Kevin running away. The joke is that Kevin's dad screams so loud from the hotel room that Kevin can hear him from the park. So Kevin wouldn't want to face his dad.
25th Aug 2019
Seinfeld (1990)
The Jacket - S2-E3
Question: Does anyone know the actual price of the suede jacket? It's been bugging me all these years.
Answer: It was never revealed as part of the gag. Jerry admits to Kramer it was over $300 and seems to suggest it was over $400. But then Jerry stays silent when George starts to question him about the price and George leaves thinking The Jacket cost over $1,000. Whether or not Jerry remained silent to tease George or because he did in fact pay over $1,000 is also unknown.
23rd Aug 2019
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)
19th Aug 2019
The Brady Bunch (1969)
Question: There's a scene in this episode I haven't seen in over 30 years (edited out in more recent years) where the 4 kids upstairs are arguing (boys vs girls) and the kids continuously stamp their feet on the floor and then Alice is shown downstairs watching her cake in the oven. Periodically with all the stomping from upstairs, the cake gets flatter until very flat the end of the scene. Question is does anyone remember this scene and why does the cake in the oven get flatter every time a kid stomps from upstairs?
Answer: I think I remember that episode - but, more importantly, my mother always told me (and my siblings) to stop jumping/ stomping, running in the kitchen, and opening the oven door when a cake was baking... because these could make the cake fall. I believed my mother... and I, as a child, also caused a few "fallen cakes" because I didn't quite always listen (right away, anyway). I'm sure Alice's fallen cake episode was exaggerated, but cakes really CAN fall from stomps and opening the oven door too soon. Usually, it has something to do with the baking powder and how the air bubbles change during the baking process. Doing something that might cause the oven and cake inside to move/shake can suddenly change the air bubbles inside the cake and cause a collapse. I don't know all factors that have to occur for a cake to fall (collapse in the middle), but I've seen fallen cakes during my adulthood and... well... caused at least a few myself. Regarding Alice's cake falling each time one of the Brady kids stomped upstairs, I'm not sure if a series of falls could occur. IF it is possible, I think there would have to be way too much baking powder in the batter or some other inaccurate combination of ingredients that alter the chemical process during baking.
Answer: Realistically, a cake would not deflate in that way. There are some desserts, like delicate, airy souffles, that can deflate during and after baking, and that must be served almost immediately from the oven. The scene, broadly played for humor, is merely meant to show the argument's growing intensity gauged against the rate of the deflating cake.
Answer: I haven't come across a scene like that, but maybe over time what you remember got mixed up with episodes of other shows, so this is just a suggested episode. "Try, Try Again." In the episode, Mike is preparing a gourmet meal for Saturday. Jan is practicing tap dancing in the kitchen and his soufflé that he had spent 3 days preparing is knocked to the floor. While it is true soufflés can "fall" (meaning deflate), it's because the cooking time was wrong (or opening the oven door too soon) or the structure of the egg whites is too weak. Noises don't make them collapse.
This was not from "Try, Try Again" (though I do remember that scene too). That was in a later season when the kids were older. The one I was talking about was during the first season when all the kids were young. I know the scene in question were the 4 youngest kids and the scene started by each the boys and girls arguing that Greg/Marcia (running for student body president) doesn't stand a chance against him/her to win (boys for Greg, girls for Marcia).
That's "Vote for Brady", s01e11. I watched it and for some reason Carol tells Mike to be careful, after he makes too much noise, indicating noise will ruin the cake. Alice does keep checking on the cake with the oven light every time the kids make too much noise. However, the cake is always fine, and in fact getting bigger. Then, realizing the cake is fine, Alice is relieved and leans against the counter, knocking over the cutting board. The cutting board crashes to the ground, which this time does cause the cake to flatten. It seems like an exaggerated prop, I've never see a cake rise like that, it looks like how a muffin might rise. Then it's somehow deflated, as if it was hollow, like a puffed pastry, or too raw. If it was too raw, it shouldn't flatten in the oven. But the look of the cake doesn't remind me of any puffed pasty, which is made from a dough, not a batter and the cake looks like a batter cake to me. So, it just deflates for irony or comedy of error reasons.
18th Nov 2013
Batman Returns (1992)
Question: When Selina/Catwoman has Schreck cornered, she says that him, the Penguin and Batman killed her leaving her with only six lives left. I understand that Schreck "killed" her by pushing her out a window and that the Penguin "killed" her when she fell through a greenhouse, but how could Batman have killed her? She landed safely in a truck filled with kitty litter after she got knocked off the roof, so that can't count.
Answer: In each of Selina's 3 falls, there was something that broke her fall enough to save her. In the film, she never died from any of the falls. Her line about having 6 lives left isn't literal. So while the kitty litter did save her, she still attributes the fall to a loss of life at the hands of Batman, because were is not for being lucky and landing in the truck, she might have actually died. Just like she was lucky enough to survive the fall at the hands of Schreck and Penguin but still blames them for a loss of life.
Answer: Having nine lives is all about luck. They refer that to cats who appear to have nine lines because they are able to survive high falls. But for a human it refers to having a lot of luck. She was lucky to land on the kitty litter whilst she should have died from the fall, therefore she lost a life.
6th Aug 2019
General questions
This has been annoying the hell out of me for years. I'm thinking of an early 1960s (?) black and white American movie that features numerous cameos by A-List Hollywood actors who are so heavily made-up (with wigs and latex facial prosthetics) that they are all thoroughly unrecognizable. At the end of the film, as a complete surprise, there is a sequence of each of these otherwise unremarkable cameo characters removing their makeup for a big reveal. For example, a plain, middle-aged woman who only appeared for a few seconds onscreen grandly removes her latex face to reveal none other than Burt Lancaster. I believe Robert Mitchum and Tony Curtis were also among the reveals. What is this film?
Answer: "The List of Adrian Messenger" (1963). Burt Lancaster, Robert Mitchum, and Tony Curtis, along with Kirk Douglas and Frank Sinatra, remove their heavy makeup during the epilogue to reveal who they are. Although Lancaster and Sinatra didn't actual portray the characters they claimed to have been.
Thank you. The name of this movie has been on the tip of my tongue for many years.
Incidentally, director John Huston (who also made a cameo appearance in the film) tried to convince Elizabeth Taylor to play a disguised part in this movie; but, when Taylor learned that her lovely face would be completely hidden under heavy latex, she turned down the role.
4th Aug 2019
Spider-Man 2 (2004)
Question: If Doc Ock were to die, would the arms attached to him also die? Also, if they did, could they be removed from him, and attached to someone else and come back to life?
Answer: It's hard to say. The film shows Doc Ock dying, and the arms seem to "die" with him. (Notice the lights on them slowly blinking out as he sinks into the water.) But at the same time, we don't know 100% how they work, so there's always a chance if they were removed and attached to someone else, they may come back alive and resume their "mission." Outside of the inhibitor chip, which seemed to have its own power source, the arms themselves didn't seem to "come alive" until the unit attached itself to his spine. So I always assumed they got their power/electricity from a host body. Which would explain why they appeared to "die" when Ock died.
Answer: How the tentacles work in the film differ a bit from the comics, so any answer would be speculation (and not really relevant since any future Doc Ock movie character is going to be a reboot with rules based on the writers' whims). In the film, the tentacles were attached to his nervous system along the spinal cord and he was able to control them mentally (mentally controlled prosthetics are a real thing). In the comics, they were more remote-controlled and his exposure to radiation gave him telepathic control over them and he could control them psionically, even when severed from his body. In the film, the tentacles had been built with more A.I. than in the comics, and the blast from his sun experiment actually caused the tentacles to gain control of Doc Ock because of the A.I. If Doc Ock died, the tentacles could continue to "live" if they had a power source. They could then be attached to someone else in the same manner, i.e. connected to the nervous system. However, whether or not they would be in control of that person or "alive", without going through another similar accident, would be speculation and up to the writer.
4th Aug 2019
Beetlejuice (1988)
Question: When Beetlejuice tried to get the Maitland's business - I don't recall hearing what he expected for payment from them - does anyone know?
Answer: He didn't really talk about payment from the Maitlands. He made it seem like he was good at getting rid of the living and just wanted to help out. But really, he was trying to get "hired" so they would say his name 3 times so he could be summoned. Then by marrying Lydia, he could escape the Neitherworld.
19th Apr 2004
Finding Nemo (2003)
Question: When the turtle first meets Marlin, he talks about how he brought up his turtle offspring and says, "You know, you leave them on the beach to hatch on their own... and coo-coo-cachoo, they find their way back to the big old blue." Coo-coo-cachoo is also mentioned in the song 'Mrs. Robinson' by Simon and Garfunkel in the beginning of a chorus saying "Coo coo ca-choo, Mrs. Robinson, Jesus loves you more than you will know." Does anyone know if there is any connection between the phrases containing coo-coo-cachoo, or what the phrase's possible meaning?
Answer: The actual lyrics are "Koo-koo-ka-choo, Mrs. Robinson", but it most certainly is a part of the song "Mrs. Robinson" by Simon and Garfunkel. There is likely not a connection of any kind, or any hidden meaning, it's just a nonsense sound that is in more than one song.
Answer: Coo-coo-cachoo is not in Mrs Robinson, they actually sing woo hoo hoo and wow wow wow in that song. Coo-coo-cachoo is from a Beatles (and then Oasis) song called I am the Walrus. Other than the aquatic nature of the walrus being similar to that of the turtle there is no connection. The turtle was supposed to be a hipp-esque character prone to use unusual words and phrases like whoa, and like whoa!
"Koo-koo-ka-choo" is from "Ms. Robinson." The line in "I Am the Walrus" is "Goo goo g'joob"
Join the mailing list
Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.
Answer: The transformation twirling was invented for the 1970s TV series only, to explain her quick change from Diana Prince to Wonder Woman. However, it would have been nice to do a little spin homage in the movie.