Saturday, January 14, 2006

The Jones-Berry Conundrum

Here is a hypothetical question: you are watching a wacky Disney comedy from thirty years ago, featuring the antics of a Volkswagen Beetle and its nutty owner. Who is Herbie’s owner? Is it Dean Jones, or Ken Berry?

How about another: you are enjoying the classic Walt Disney guffaw-fest featuring a well-trained cat and its nutty handler. Who is onscreen with the cat? Is it Ken Berry, or Dean Jones?

And which one of these guys had the Million Dollar Duck?

Frankly, thinking about the Jones-Berry Conundrum has given me a headache the size of Monte Carlo, and now that I have done the research I am more confused than I was when I began this blog. I am slowly coming to the conclusion that Ken Berry and Dean Jones are one and the same.

What is your Jones-Berry I.Q.? Take the handy quiz below. Leave your answers in the comments section (no cheating!) and I will provide results in this space in a few days.

THE JONES-BERRY QUIZ:

1. Who was born in 1931?
a. Ken Berry
b. Dean Jones

2. Who was born in 1933?
a. Ken Berry
b. Dean Jones

3. Who starred in That Darn Cat?
a. Ken Berry
b. Dean Jones

4. Who appeared in The Cat from Outer Space?
a. Ken Berry
b. Dean Jones

5. Who was behind the wheel in Herbie Rides Again?
a. Ken Berry
b. Dean Jones

6. Who traveled abroad in Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo?
a. Ken Berry
b. Dean Jones

5 comments:

Chuck said...

I couldn't get the first two questions without a little help from google. The other four, I knew. Our Friday Night Pizza and Movie night took us through each of the movies that you listed (BABAAB is my guess for your questions).

The Robert Stevenson Disney flicks are some of my favorites nastalgia flicks of those times. Mainly because I remember seeing many of them either at the Theater or on Sunday Night's Disney Program (right after Mutal of Omaha's Wild Kingdom).

The Love Bug was the best of the Herbie Movies, and my favorite scene was where Jim Douglas is searching the streets for Herbie. This features some fabulous mat paintings of San Fran at night by Peter Ellenshaw. PE work was featured in many Disney Flicks and his work is just excellent. Look for his name. His son, P.S. Ellenshaw was the artist who made many of the mattes in Star Wars (including the Death Star Interior Abyss that OBI Wan must not fall into while turning off the tractor beam).

With "Herbie Rides Again" we are re-introduced to Alonzo Hawk. He's going to build his giant H building right next to Herbie's fire statation. You may remember that the last time we saw Hawk, he was trying to get "Flying Rubber" from Prof. Ned Brainard in the Absent Minded Professor.

TCFOS did not work for me. It came out a year after Star Wars, and by that time, my taste in Sci-Fi did not include cats from outer space.

TTFN
Dave

Todd R. Vick said...

Can you believe those Wild Kingdom guys actually got paid for that show?

Todd R. Vick said...

Wonder if anyone in the blogosphere remembers Ken Berry in "F-Troop."

Chuck said...

Was he on Mayberry RFD?

Patrick said...

I've always thought that it was a brilliant move on Disney's part. After all, if one of them was busy, they could pull in the other and most people wouldn't notice...they'd think it was still "that guy I like in all the Disney movies."

Maybe not. But you never know...