Thursday , March 28 2024
The answers to the Blogcritics House, M.D. trivia contest.

Blogcritics House, M.D. Trivia Game: The Answers

I hope you all enjoyed my little summertime diversion and tried your hand at the Trivia Quiz — and entered the contest. I will post the winners later this week in the comments section.

I realize some of the questions were pretty tricky, but what fun would a trivia contest be if all the questions were easy? Anyway, without further ado, here are the answers:

I. General Knowledge

What does House like to drink when playing cards? House likes to down energy drinks while everyone else is downing all manner of alcoholic beverage. Notice in "House vs. God" that while everyone else at his poker game has an alcoholic beverage, House does not. In "All In," as Wilson and Cuddy drink, House abstains. When he tells Ian's parents he hadn't been drinking at the party he's being truthful. Of course he does pop a Vicodin in front of them. But that's another story.

Who's Wilson's favorite movie director? Who could miss the Alfred Hitchcock movie posters on Wilson's office walls? And what is on the tube when House arrives home (while Wilson was living with him) in season two's "Safe?" Hitchcock's Vertigo.

How do you test for a tapeworm in the brain? You look for it in the thigh. "Tapeworms love thigh muscle," House tells the fellows in the series pilot episode.

Why would Cuddy have had to call the RIAA? When a clinic patient shoves an MP3 player up his butt, House tells the clinic receptionist "the RIAA wants Cuddy to check for illegal downloads" ("Occam's Razor").

How much does a Reuben sandwich (dry, no pickles) cost in the PPTH cafeteria? About $3.80, House tells Lucas, the patient's son, in "Socratic Method."

II. Quotable Quotes: To what do these quotes refer, who said them, and when?

"I thought it was pithy," says House to Edward Vogler in "Role Model" after trashing his company's new "wonder drug" in a speech.

"It's like Oscar Wilde in the third grade!" Stacy quips about the childish repartee between House and her husband Mark in "Spin."

"He likes to see," remarks House to Stacy in the opening scene of "Honeymoon," referring to her crucifix.

"You have little people in you," House snarks to his disbelieving clinic patient in "Heavy," a somewhat zaftig and assertive woman as she and House trade barbs in the exam room.

"Wear a cup," House tells a lecture hall full of fellow-wannabes at the end of "Alone."

III. It's never lupus: Name the disease and episode in which these diagnoses occurred.

Cool coppery eyes. Wilson's disease ("Socratic Method").

It's not AIDS! Bite your tongue! Epilepsy, which House figured out from the scar on his patient's tongue (eventually) in "Role Model."

A horse in a herd of zebras. In "House Training," Lupe had a simple staph infection, which the team missed looking for something more exotic. By the time they figured it out, it was too late and she died.

Don't you know bird fighting is illegal? Psittacosis is what Alfredo, Cuddy's handyman, has in "Humpty Dumpty."

The incredible shrinking baby is Olive Kaplan, who has Dejures syndrome in "Babies and Bathwater."

Sand worms. Adam, the young autistic patient in "Lines in the Sand," has a case of roundworms (from raccoons) after eating the sand in his sandbox.

IV. Where have I seen that guy before? Who's the actor and what did he or she play on House?

George Washington was a doctor? David Morse (the Javert-like detective who relentlessly pursues House in part of season three) played George Washington in the HBO miniseries John Adams, and also an idealistic resident on the 1980s series St. Elsewhere.

Street performer in Billy Jack before he became a DJ. A very young Howard Hesseman appeared in Billy Jack before he became Dr. Johnny Fever, the aging rocker-DJ on WKRP, and long before he got a heart transplant on House. ("Sex Kills").

He orated and ogled in Harry Stone's courtroom. I know. This one was too easy. John Larroquette played the smarmy Dan Fielding on Night Court before playing the dying "vegetative-state guy" in season three's "Son of Coma Guy."

He played Mel Cooley's brother-in- law in a legendary 1960s comedy. Carl Reiner, the elderly clinic patient in "Both Sides Now," was long ago known as a comedy genius. He played variety show host Alan Brady on the iconic 1960s situation comedy The Dick Van Dyke Show.

He guided the IMF (and I don't mean International Monetary Fund) long before Tom Cruise got involved. Peter Graves, also of the hilarious film Airplane ("What's the vector, Victor?"), has a small problem with his girlfriend Ramona (something about droopy wood and Jeopardy!) in "Love Hurts."

Tony Award-winning Actress. Cynthia Nixon, who played Anica in the second season episode "Deception," won a Best Actress Tony Award for her role in Rabbit Hole in 2006.

Mighty Aphrodite. That would be Mira Sorvino, Cate Milton in season four's "Frozen."

Ironically, she played Sean Connery's sister-in-law in Marnie. Diane Baker played Lil Mainwaring in Marnie. Ironic because, as Wilson notes in "Birthmarks," House's suspected biological father strongly resembles Connery. Okay, so it was only slightly ironic.

This father and son each guest-starred on House. John Rubinstein and his son Michael Weston each guest-starred on House. John played a transplant surgeon in "The Mistake" (season two) and Michael played private investigator Lucas Douglas at the beginning of season six.

"Vilkomen, bienvenu, velcome…" That, of course, refers to Joel Grey, who guest starred in "Informed Consent" (season three). Grey starred in Cabaret as the Master of Ceremonies on Broadway and in the film.

Dual role in an early X-File. Zelijko Ivanek played Dr. Arthur Grable and his brother Roland Fuller in the first season X-Files episode "Roland."

V. Mixed Metaphors: Name the episode and what House was talking about.

Tumor as a terrorist organization. “The tumor is Afghanistan; the clot is Buffalo,” explains House about Andie’s blood clot in season two's “Autopsy.”

How do the Inuit fish? “They look for the blue heron circling overhead,” explains House in “Role Model” about how to find hairy cells.

"Like a bad doubles partner," is how House explains his patient’s “alien DNA” in “Cane and Able.”

Your kitchen's on fire! House’s apt metaphor as he argues with Foreman trying to find the cause of his patient’s failing heart in “Safe.”

This train skipped a few stations on its way to death's door. The rapid progress of Ian’s illness compared to Esther’s in “All In.”

Blitzing linebackers. Otherwise known as fungi in “Role Model.”

Embolic buses. House tries to explain clots, but takes the metaphor too far in "Euphoria Part One.”

VI. Where in the House-verse would we find:

Fiji: House's chosen bottled water brand.

Sota: House’s high-end turntables (he has one in his office and one at home).

NOS: The power drink sometimes consumed by House (and occasionally in large quantities).

Eames: House's office lounger is an Eames chair.

Bose: House has Bose headphones and (what appears to be) a Bose sound system in his apartment.

Hill-Rom: The medical equipment manufacturer whose beds are used on set (and in many hospitals).

Flying V: House’s vintage (and very expensive) Gibson electric guitar, which was kidnapped in “Alone” (season four).

And now for the contest questions. Are you ready for the answers??

1. House sings “The Trolley Song” in “Both Sides Now,” a song made famous by Judy Garland in the movie Meet Me in St. Louis. That film was directed by Vincente Minnelli, and it was in that film that he and Garland met and became an item (and later married). In the 2001 film Life with Judy Garland, Hugh Laurie played Minnelli to Judy Davis’ Garland.

2. House’s favorite artist (or presumably so) is Leroy Neiman. When House is treating Lucy Palmieri in “The Socratic Method,” Wilson wonders why he’s so interested in a “woman with a bump in her leg.” Wilson equates House's involvement in the no-brainer case to “Picasso white-washing a fence.” House says “I’m more of a Leroy Neiman man.” Yes, I know it’s obscure…

3. Auric Goldfinger, James Bond's nemesis in Goldfinger, surely would have appreciated the woman who poisons her husband with gold in season two’s “Clueless.”

4. The two incredible shrinking tumors happened in season one’s “Socratic Method” when House shrinks Lucy’s tumor to con the surgeon into operating on it, and in the next season, when Grace’s tumor shrinks, magically “healed” by Boyd in “House vs. God.”

5. And finally, “cocaine with a PG rating” is Ritalin (“Need to Know” from season two).

Don’t forget to enter the drawing for a free copy of the season five DVD set.

About Barbara Barnett

A Jewish mother and (young 🙃) grandmother, Barbara Barnett is an author and professional Hazzan (Cantor). A member of the Conservative Movement's Cantors Assembly and the Jewish Renewal movement's clergy association OHALAH, the clergy association of the Jewish Renewal movement. In her other life, she is a critically acclaimed fantasy/science fiction author as well as the author of a non-fiction exploration of the TV series House, M.D. and contributor to the book Spiritual Pregnancy. She Publisher/Executive Editor of Blogcritics, (blogcritics.org).

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