Questions about specific movies, TV shows and more

These are questions relating to specific titles. General questions for movies and TV shows are here. Members get e-mailed when any of their questions are answered.

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Question: Did anything happen to either of Marge's parents? We almost never see or hear from them, especially her father.

Answer: Marge's mother, Jacqueline Bouvier, has appeared in several episodes, notably "Lady Bouvier's Lover" where she dated both Abe Simpson and Mr Burns. Her father appeared in the episode "Fear of Flying" where Marge revealed that her Fear of Flying was due to the shame of her father being a flight attendant. It was mentioned in "Bart the Lover" that after leaving the Navy, his swearing almost cost him his job as a baby photographer. Both Marge's parents appear in the flashback episode "The Way We Was" when both Homer and Artie Ziff arrive to take Marge to the prom.

Sierra1

Answer: At wikipedia.org Geoffrey's full name is listed as Geoffrey Barbara Butler. According to one episode, Geoffrey was an Olympic runner who had cheated during a run; the video of this incident that the family watches confirms Geoffrey's last name is Butler.

Sangie

Question: Do we know if Peyton's husband was really molesting his patients? I can't tell if he killed himself out of guilt, or because he was depressed that he had been accused of something like that.

Answer: Yes, Dr. Mott was molesting his patients, as was seen when he slipped off his plastic glove just before performing a pelvic exam on Claire. After Claire reported Mott to the authorities, a number of other women came forward and their accusations were made public. Mott never showed any remorse, and it appears he committed suicide because he was unable to face the ensuing scandal and criminal investigation.

raywest

Question: In the hotel, when Forrest calls about the flashlights in the room across the hotel keeping him awake, what is going on with the people in that room? I'm guessing it's not really a power outage, because if it was, Forrest wouldn't be able to use the phone.

Answer: Http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watergate_scandal - The Watergate Scandal. Burglars broke into the Democratic National Committee Headquarters at the Watergate Hotel. The implication is that Forrest is why they were caught. Also, in 1972, you didn't need electricity to power phones. You still don't unless the phone is cordless. When the guard answers the phone, the name he gives is the actual name of the guard who discovered the famous burglary - without the help of a call from Forrest - Frank Wills. Wills was a 24 year old privately contracted security guard in the Watergate office building, which was a connected structure with a different purpose from the Watergate hotel. The two structures sit across the street from the each other, and the Watergate burglars were caught with several portable 2 way radios, indicating that someone besides Forrest was watching them, probably to give the a warning if the police showed up. As it came out later in the investigation, the Watergate burglars were not the sharpest tools in the toolkit, and they apparently turned off their radios due to their noise, so that the warning from the hotel spotter - if he had time and was competent enough to give one - was not heard. This scene, except for the specific call from Forrest Gump, is pretty accurate since the police and Mr. Wills were responding to a call of a "possible burglar" in the Watergate Office complex.

CocoCami

Answer: The land line phones back then did work with the power out. The power to operate them cam from the phone company. You are thinking cordless bases that need power.

Question: Why can't people jack in when they are in Zion?

Answer: Because Zion is deep underground and apparently the broadcast equipment they use to hack in to the Matrix doesn't work over large distances (or through kilometers of earth).

Andreas[DK]

Question: When Jack and Carl are looking at the map, and one of them says "What's that?", we get a close-up of what looks like a blob to me. What do they see in the image?

Answer: They see what looks like the face of a gorilla, but they conclude that it must be a skull for Skull Island.

Ral0618

Question: When Henry and Lucy are getting intimate and Henry sees the two dolphins in the tank watching, he calls them Mary Kate and Ashley. I know who they are but why does he refer to them like this?

Answer: Probably because it was the dolphins' names. Someone probably thought the dolphins looked alike and that it would be funny if they were named after the famous twins.

Andreas[DK]

Show generally

Question: Has Joe (Pauline's husband) been a narrator for a children's program in the past? I recognize his voice and am sure its something to do with kids TV.

Answer: Yes he was the narrater for the kids TV show Mr Benn. This was the program where Mr Benn would go into a costume shop each episode and try on a different outfit. He would then "be" the character he dressed up as.

dgemba dgemba

Question: I heard there was something very important with the nationalities of the mermaids. They represented something. Does anyone know what they represent?

Answer: In day for night filters (which is what was used to film that scene to make it look like nighttime) Asian people can look quite eerie. And since the mermaids are supposed to be dark creatures, if they actually look eerie that makes the scene fit better.

Show generally

Question: Have Stan and Wendy gotten back together, since breaking up in the episode where Stan becomes Gothic/punk?

Answer: They get back together somewhere in the seasons because they spoke about just breaking up in season 18 episode 2, which was way after that episode which you are speaking of.

Show generally

Question: In the showcase episode, where Troy McClure shows deleted scenes and the alternate endings for Who Shot Mr. Burns. Were these really alternates and deleted scenes, or just made up for this episode?

Answer: They probably never intended for anyone other than Maggie to shoot Mr Burns, but by having the animators animate all the different characters shooting him, it meant that they couldn't spill the beans before the episode was shown. Other than Maggie, the only other real possibility would have been Waylon Smithers, because they didn't just animate him shooting Mr Burns, they animated the whole scene (including Mr Burns revealing who it was in the hospital). By doing two endings, it meant that the people working on the show wouldn't be able to leak the ending. It is not uncommon for this to happen - it happened with season one of 24 which is why there are two different endings on the DVD.

Sam Johnson

Show generally

Question: Is there a website which explains how some of the main character's die at the end of the show? I know how Keith, David and Federico die, but what about Ruth, Brenda and Claire?

Answer: http://www.hbo.com/sixfeetunder/obituary/episode63.shtml.

weetie21

Question: Why were the people singing in the streets shot at?

Answer: Because they were singing revolutionary songs. And at that time was strictly forbidden.

Question: In the scene where Marty's recently purchased sports almanac drops out of its plastic bag, Doc says that he did not invent the time machine for financial gain. In Back to the Future's first Twin Pines Mall scene, Doc says that he'll get to see who wins the next 25 World Series. Can we assume Doc would not have tried to profit from knowing those results in advance?

Answer: It seems that, yes, we can assume that. Doc's very clear on the dangers of meddling with the timeline - it's fair to say that he's intelligent enough not to risk it.

Tailkinker

Answer: He never intended on betting on it, he just wanted to see who won the 25th world series.

Answer: State.

Grumpy Scot

Answer: He isn't mentioned much, but in season 4, episode 2 - "Fast Times at Buddy Cianci Jr. High" when Brian introduces himself to Chris's class, it is revealed that Chris has been told that Brian's father's name was Coco and that he was hit by a milk truck.

Andreas[DK]

Answer: It was also revealed in one episode that Brain's father was a racist.

Question: What happened to General Grievous? Was he badly injured and put inside a droid-ish body?

Answer: That's pretty much it, yes. Grievous originally refused to take up the leadership of the Seperatist armies, so Dooku secretly planted a bomb on a shuttle carrying Grievous leaving behind enough evidence to implicate the Republic in the assassination attempt. The critically injured Grievous was then reconstructed into his cyborg form by the Geonosians. Filled with rage directed towards the Republic that he thought had maimed him, Grievous finally agreed to lead the Seperatist forces in battle.

Tailkinker

Question: According to movietome.com, Red Eye would be spoofed. I didn't see anything relevant to Red Eye in this movie (except the crashed plane, but that was in War of the Worlds), but I might be wrong, so was there any references?

Answer: The spoof of "Red Eye" was dropped, there is no reference.

Bjoern_Buller

Show generally

Question: I still cannot understand the dynamic of the plane crash. I mean, the tail breaks off at mid-air, and crashes into the let's say 'south' side of the island. The mid-section will end up at the other side ('north') and the cockpit crashes in the middle of the island, between the tail and the mid-section? I know this island is weird and full of mysteries, but this crash seems a little too bizarre. Any thoughts?

Answer: One plausible sequence of events is as follows. The tail section breaks off first and hits the ocean on the 'south' side. The plane is obviously not flying in a stable fashion at this point, and the loss of the tail is only going to make matters worse - it begins to tumble in mid-air, flipping end over end. Under those circumstances, it would be entirely plausible that the nose section could end up between the tail and the mid-section.

Tailkinker

Answer: A.A. Milne is the name of a famous author, but of course he never said "Get out of my chair, dill-hole!" Chandler is setting us up for a deeply philisophical comment only to deliver a crass insult.

Phixius

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