The Frankenstein quiz came to a fun and surprising conclusion when a 15-year-old kid turned out to be the winner -- he got about twice as many correct answers as all the longtime dues-paying graybeards who competed (about 15 of them). And I wasn't taking it easy on the kid. Okay, at the beginning I might have tossed him an easy question or two thinking, "I don't want him to end up with NO points," but I very quickly discovered that he was no slouch. Toward the end I hit him with a series of four questions that I'd intended to ask four different people, but I wanted to see if he could "run" the category:

What brain does the Monster get in FRANKENSTEIN?
In GHOST OF FRANK?
In HOUSE OF FRANK?
Whose brain is he SUPPOSED to get in A&C MEET FRANK?

And the kid came right back with,
"Abnormal brain."
"Ygor's brain."
"Ullman's brain."
"Wilbur's brain."

"Ullman's brain"??!!!?? ULLMAN's ****ing brain???!?!?! How did he get that? NObody should have gotten that. On the longest and best day of my life, I sure wouldn't have gotten that. But THIS kid did.

I wanted to know what dimension this kid materialized out of, so at the very end when it should have been over, I said, "Tell us about yourself" and handed him the mike and stepped off the stage. And he told the audience that he was writing a book on all the old Universal horrors.

Jeez, every generation of monstuh pitcha nut researcher-writer seems to put the prior one to shame -- and here we go again, maybe!

Two-Generations-Back-Already Tom