What Does "Neo-maxi-zoom-dweebie" Really Mean and Other "Brat Pack" Questions?

Answer a series of forehead-slapping anecdotal factoids. It's up to you to weigh each fact in each anecdotal factoid. They're tricky. One might seem like total B.S. until it's revealed to be strangely and disturbingly "True." Another anecdotal factoid might seem to contain all solid and verifiable facts until it's revealed to be yet one more big fat garden variety "Bald-Faced Lie." And here's the trickiest part: an anecdotal factoid might even be "Half-True"; in other words, a mishmosh of truths and bald-faced lies, where you don't know where one ends and the other begins, much like the usual slop served by Madison Avenue, Washington D.C., and the Internet in its entirety.

Category: The Demi, Downey, and Friends Quiz

Decide for yourself, and mark "T" for "Truth", "F" for "Bald-Faced Lie" or "TF" for "Half-Truth" in the blank slot next to each factoid.

The answers will be revealed on the next page.

1) __ The phrase "Eat my shorts" didn't originate with cartoon character Bart Simpson. It actually came from actor Judd Nelson's Bender character in the quintessential "Brat Pack" movie, "The Breakfast Club."

"Simpsons" creator Matt Groening was a fan of this movie. In his series "Futurama", Groening named his cartoon robot character "Bender" after Judd Nelson's character.

2) __ Before she started filming "St. Elmo's Fire", another emblematic Brat Pack movie, director Joel Schumacher told Demi Moore to get drug and alcohol treatment or she'd be fired. She complied.

In an interview with "People Magazine", Schumacher said, "I didn't want to do what they had done with John Belushi, which was just give her (Demi) the money to kill herself."

3) __ After the 1991 film "Curly Sue", director John Hughes went into retirement. However, in a recent "Time Magazine" interview, he stated that he'll come out of retirement in 2010 to do a "Breakfast Club" 25th high school reunion movie with the original cast members.

4) __ In 1988, Brat Packer Rob Lowe, while campaigning for Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis, took two young women to his hotel room and videotaped them having sex. Unknown to Lowe, one of the girls was underage. Unfortunately for Lowe, the women stole the videotape and the underaged female's mother sued the actor. In the meantime, pornographer Al Goldstein showed an excerpt from the tape on his New York City public access television show, Midnight Blue.

While this notoriety adversely affected Lowe's career, he bounced back in the late nineties with his role on the hit television political drama, "The West Wing." When the cast of the show visited the White House, President Clinton was in the middle of his own sex scandal. When Rob Lowe met Bill Clinton, they shook hands and Lowe said, "I know what you're going through."

Clinton smiled and winked at the actor.

5) __ Brat Packer Robert Downey Jr's father Robert Downey Sr is an avante garde filmmaker. His son made his movie debut in his father's 1970 film "Pound" where humans played dogs waiting to be adopted or gassed. Five-year-old Robert Jr played a puppy.

6) __ The name "Brat Pack" was coined by "New York Magazine" reporter David Blum when he was actually doing a story on Emilio Estevez, who was directing his first film. While writing the story, Blum hung out with Estevez, Judd Nelson, and Rob Lowe. When he went back to New York, he decided to change the focus of his story to the group of young actors.

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Here are the answers for the The Demi, Downey, and Friends Quiz.

Answers:

A reminder: "T" is for "Truth", "F" is for "Bald-Faced Lie" or "TF" is for "Half-Truth".

1) T: It's true that "Eat my shorts" was an adlib from actor Judd Nelson in "The Breakfast Club." It's also been said that the term "dweeb" was derived from "neo-maxi-zoom-dweebie", another Judd Nelson adlib in the film.

It's also true that Matt Groening named the "Futurama" robot character "Bender" after Judd Nelson's "Breakfast Club" character.

2) T: It's true that "St. Elmo's Fire" director Joel Schumacher told Demi Moore to get drug and alcohol treatment or she'd be fired.

3) F: It's false that John Hughes went into retirement in 1991. While "Curly Sue" was the last film that directed, Hughes has written several screenplays under the pseudonym "Edmond Dantes". It's also false that he has stated that he'll direct a "Breakfast Club" 25th high school reunion movie with the original cast members.

4) TF: This anecdote is both true and false. It's true that Rob Lowe was involved in a sex scandal involving a videotape and an underaged girl. It's also true that Lowe did meet Bill Clinton at the White House as a cast member of "West Wing." It's false, however, that Lowe or Clinton had made any reference to sex scandals past or present.

5) T: It's true that Robert Downey Jr made his movie debut, playing a puppy in his father's 1970 film "Pound."

6) T: It's true that the name "Brat Pack" was coined by "New York Magazine" reporter David Blum when he was actually doing a story on Emilio Estevez.

SOURCES:

http://movies.aol.com/feature/summer_movies/photos/brat-pack-where-are-they-they-now

http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0000193/bio

http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0088847/trivia

"Lowe profile", Jessica Behrens, Guardian, URL: (http://film.guardian.co.uk/interview/interviewpages/0,6737,518317,00.html)

http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0000375/bio

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002049/bio

"Actor Andrew McCarthy is bitter about Brat Pack past", Andrew Goldman, New York Observer, URL: (http://www.observer.com/node/41921)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eat_my_shorts

http://www.people.com/people/demi_moore

http://www.amazon.com/Midnight-Blue-Vol-3-Celebrities/dp/B000CFX7DU

"Downey and out in Beverly Hills", David Hochman, Entertainment Weekly, URL: (http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,282372_4,00.html)