Christmas Quiz: Can You Answer These Questions About Some Holiday Classics?
Posted December 25, 2007 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Christmas comes but once a year and so do those inevitable holiday TV specials that get run over and over and over again for generations. You’ve seen them all a million times and in many households, they’re as much a part of the Yuletide as the tree, gifts and Santa.
But how much do you really remember about them? In this year’s annual CityNews.ca Christmas quiz, we test some basic knowledge about the ‘who’ behind Whoville and the trivia about the shows that keep coming back every December – along with some other memorable moments from seasons past. We’ll start you off with an easy one.
1) Which unlikely rock star sang “The Little Drummer Boy” in a duet with Big Crosby?
2) This classic commercial showed a stop motion Santa going downhill sitting on top of the product. Who was the sponsor and what were they selling?
3) What is acknowledged to be the first Christmas special ever written for TV to be performed on the new medium?
4) What did Frank Borman say on Christmas Eve 1968 that was heard by almost a billion viewers – or one out of every four people on the planet?
5) Who was the narrator and played the title character in Dr. Seuss’ “How the Grinch Stole Christmas?”
6) Who sang the famous song, “You’re a mean one Mr. Grinch” in that show and what was he better known for?
7) What long running TV series started out as a movie called “The Homecoming” and what was so different about the show it would become?
8) Who narrates the TV cartoon “Frosty the Snowman” and who played Frosty?
9) What do the following actors all have in common: George C. Scott, Jim Backus, Patrick Stewart, Cicely Tyson.
10) What classic Christmas special shown every year is heavy on Canadian content?
Answers
1) David Bowie
2) Norelco electric shaver.
3) Amahl and the Night Visitors was written by Gian Carlo Menotti and first seen on Dec. 24, 1951. It was shown or restaged every year until 1966.
4) He was onboard Apollo 8 in space with the camera pointing at the moon and wished millions of people around the planet a happy holiday with this famous phrase: “Good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you upon the good earth.”
5) Boris Karloff
6) His name was Thurl Ravenscroft and until his death in 2005, he was the voice of Tony the Tiger in Frosted Flakes commercials for more than half a century.
7) The Waltons. The show first aired in 1971 and featured all the kids who would star in the series, but Patricia Neal played Olivia Walton, the mother, while Andrew Duggan was John Walton, the father – and the grandfather’s role was taken by famed radio ventriloquist Edgar Bergen.
8) Jimmy Durante told the story while comedian Jackie Vernon played Frosty.
9) All played Scrooge from Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol” in TV versions of the story. In case you don’t recognize all of them, Backus voiced the role in his famous “Mr. Magoo” cartoon episode, while Tyson played a female version – Ebenita Scrooge – in the 1977 TV movie Ms. Scrooge.
10) The Rankin-Bass stop motion “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer,” first shown in 1964, featured a parade of famous Canadian voices, including Paul Soles, Larry Mann and Carl Banas.
