Decade-old decade-old trivia

My parents recently decided that they are, for some reason, uninterested in keeping the boxes of magazines and scrap paper that I left in their house when I moved out a decade ago. I suppose someone else will have to become my archivist. I assume that I should have archivist, because whenever historians are trying to understand people they look back at their personal correspondence. If I become famous, perhaps the world will be enlightened by the marginalia and doodles in my "global studies" notebook. Until then, my parents quit themselves of the boxes. Feeling that it is inappropriate to be my own historian (that would be conceited), I am throwing much of it away. But one piece of paper caught my eye.

Some background: When I was in high school I was in the Student Congress, and one year during Homecoming Week I organized a school-wide trivia contest. The questions were read during the morning announcements (by me). Each homeroom got an answer sheet, which was collected, scored, and returned to them each day (by me). The homeroom with the best score at the end of the week won some sort of prize. Or maybe it was the class with the highest total points from all the classrooms. I don't remember the logistics, but I do remember that people got really into it and I was really proud that this whole idea came together. But the best part was the topic. What kind of trivia would I ask during homecoming week? Surely it was sports trivia, you say, and I say No, I don't care about that. Maybe something about the school. Or recent movies, or history, or fun facts. No, no, no, no. Or what about super nerdy stuff that only a sliver of the high school population would know anything about? And I say, BINGO.

So I now present to you, for the first time in its entirety, "Homecoming Homeroom Trivia: Old School Cartoons." The following is copied directly from my decade-old handwritten notes when I came up with the questions. Mind you, these were in the days before Google. (Remember WebCrawler?) There was just enough internet in the world for me to find the GIF's you see below (which decorated the answer sheet), but not enough for people to cheat while sitting in homeroom. So same goes for you, gentle readers, no Wikipedia allowed. See how you do...

Day 1: Thundercats
1. What was Lionel's sword's name?
2. What was the red insignia on the sword called (pictured on the right)?


Day 2: Masters of the Universe
1. Who was He-Man's twin sister and accomplice as a Master of the Universe?
2. What was He-Man's tiger named?
3. [BONUS QUESTION] He-Man's arch nemesis was Skeletor. What was Skeletor's lair called?


Day 3: Ninja Turtles
1. Name all 4 turtles and the colors of their bandanas.
2. What substance created the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?



Day 4: Gummi Bears
1. What did the Gummi Bears live in?
2. What magic potion was the source of the Gummi Bear' powers?
3. What monsters were the Gummi Bears always outsmarting?


Day 5: Transformers
1. The brave and fearless Autobots were in a constant battle with what group of evil transformers?
2. What was the name of the leader of the Autobots (pictured here)?






DELETED SCENES The following was originally scheduled for Day 3, but it was deemed too difficult by the other people who were helping me...
Day 3 (original): Voltron
1. How many lions were in the Voltron Force?
2. Name one of the Voltron Force's three arch nemeses.



This was also in the days before the 80's were nostalgic and cool, before Transformers became a (live action) movie, before the TMNT got reworked as "edgy" anime-influenced nonsense, and before Cartoon Network began rebroadcasting almost all of these shows. So if you've seen the shows since their original before/after-school or Saturday morning timeslots, that's cheating too. But I'm glad that these shows are coming back. If anything, I wish they'd bring back DinoRidersand Silverhawks. But my age group is only beginning to flex our nostalgia muscles, and everything gets brought back eventually, so here's hoping. Until then, here are the answers...

Thundercats
1. The Sword of Omens
2. Eye of Thundera ("Eye of Thundera, give me sight beyond sight!")

Masters of the Universe
1. She-ra
2. Battle-Cat ("Cringer" was also acceptable, though that was his name before Prince Adam turned into He-Man. Nobody put that though, because nobody cared about stupid Prince Adam or his scaredy-tiger.)
3. Snake Mountain (if you said Castle Greyskull you are WRONG. That was He-man's castle, and Skeletor's perennial goal.)

Ninja Turtles
1. Leonardo (blue), Donatello (purple), Raphael (red), Michelangelo (orange).
• (As a colorblind kid, I was always annoyed that the blue and purple looked very similar to me. Especially because Donatello was my favorite and Leonardo was my least favorite.)
• BONUS QUESTION: What were each of their weapons? (L=katana blades, D=bo staff, R=sais, M=nunchaku)
2. Retromutagen ooze (half credit for "ooze")

Gummi Bears
1. Inside a tree (not just "in the forest")
2. Gummiberry juice
3. Ogres

Transformers
1. Decepticons
2. Optimus Prime (This was the only picture that I couldn't match to the one I used back in the day. At the time I used one that was almost identical to this, including the logo, but didn't have his big ol' gun. Columbine still was very fresh at the time and public schools were jumpy about anything related to guns. I guess that as it's gotten farther away people don't mind their cartoon characters having guns. That or school violence has become so ubiquitous that people aren't trying to blame cartoons anymore. But that's a different blog post.)

DELETED SCENES
1. Five lions (I would say that Power Rangers was a terrible rip-off, but it was made by the same people so it was more of a re-make. The main hero(s) looked almost the same, except that it was live action, set in a high school not a cool space base, and used robot dinosaurs instead of robot lions.)
2. Zarkon, Prince Lotor, Haggar the witch.

How did you do? And what do the results of this quiz tell us? Specific answers not withstanding, if this took you on a trip down memory lane, you may be a nerd. Talk to your doctor. Or treat by looking up clips on YouTube all night.

As a final note, let's face it, the Voltron theme was downright inspiring. That horn fanfare almost brings a tear to my eye!