Mr. Write's Page

The Questions…

1. In 1978, cartoonist Jim Davis abandoned his first newspaper comic strip and launched Garfield, which became a nationwide hit. What was his original cartoon series, the one that flopped?

2. Bruce Springsteen has sold more than 120 million albums and racked up numerous awards as a singer and songwriter. But he wrote only one song that became a Number One hit, and he didn’t sing it. What was the song, and who recorded it?

3. What was the first toy advertised on national television in the U.S.?

4. What unique name was given to a town in the state of Washington to honor America’s first president?

5. In the Star Trek universe, what are “dilithium crystals”?

The Answers…

1. The comic strip Davis abandoned was Gnorm Gnat, which ran in only one Indiana newspaper, the Pendleton Times.

2. The song was Blinded By the Light, by Manfred Mann’s Earth Band, which topped the Billboard charts in 1977. Bruce’s version was on his 1973 debut album, “Greetings From Asbury Park, NJ.”

3. The Mr. Potato Head funny-face kit, 1952.

4. The town was named George, making it the only George, Washington, on the planet.

5. In the world of Star Trek, dilithium is a crystalline mineral, as yet unknown to our primitive science, that powers the warp drive of a starship and allows it to travel faster than light.