Answer: Matty
It's not clear who exactly Matty is, or what the "damp-lung" is, but it sounds fairly gruesome to me. With the letter, Jayne's mother enclosed a multi-colored wool cap that has become an icon of "Firefly" fans everywhere.
From Quiz: Kaylee's Inter-Engine Fermentation System
Answer: Zac Efron
Zac Efron made his debut in a brief appearance as Simon Tam as a young man in a flashback scene. He would go on to fame in the High School Musical series.
The flashback scene shows the interaction between Simon and River when they were children, and illustrates the pressure that the young man had from his well to do, expectant father.
From Quiz: "Firefly": Episode "Safe"
Answer: Browncoats
Independents (such as Mal and Zoe) who fought against the Alliance in the Unification War were known as Browncoats.
From Quiz: You Can't Take The Sky From Me
Answer: People who talk at the theatre
Although the Shepherd and Jayne do not get along particularly well, he does not assign him to "special hell". Along with people who talk at the theatre, Book says child molesters are also going to the same hell. He mentions it as Mal has accidentally landed himself with a wife.
From Quiz: "Firefly" - Quote me, Kaylee!
Answer: Gina Torres
Gina has been a guest star on a lot of shows, including the serene Jasmine on another Joss Whedon show, "Angel". She is arguably best known for her role as Zoe Washburne in "Firefly".
From Quiz: "Firefly" Episode 4: "Shindig"
Answer: Unification Day
Mal and Zoe were fighting against the Alliance in the war. They don't take it lightly if you toast the Alliance, but for some reason they always find themselves in Alliance-friendly bars during U-Day.
From Quiz: Episode: "The Train Job"
Answer: management not responsible for ball failure
The pool balls are holographic, and will blink out on occasion. I suspect this feature was to prevent the loss of balls, and to prevent them from being thrown in bar brawls.
From Quiz: The Little Details 5- "Shindig"
Answer: silver
Inara: "Who's winning?"
Simon: "I can't really tell. They don't seem to be playing by any civilized rules that I know."
Inara: "Well, we're pretty far from civilization."
From Quiz: The Little Details 4- "Bushwhacked"
Answer: flashing blue and orange
The belly dancer was put in to show the cultural diversity of the 'Verse. Another thing to add to the flavor was Mal and Zoe playing Chinese Checkers.
From Quiz: The Little Details 3- "The Train Job"
Answer: Osiris
He was the top 3% in his class. He gives this speech just to impress upon everyone how smart River is.
From Quiz: The Little Details 2- "Serenity"
Answer: red vests
You can see this best on the soldiers running down the hill away from the skiff. Even Zoe was wearing a red vest. Maybe the brown coats were underneath the vests?
From Quiz: The Little Details 1- "Serenity"
Answer: Amnon
Mal says his name in "The Message" while walking and talking with Inara.
From Quiz: Obscure "Firefly" Trivia
Answer: His "pretty floral bonnet"
Mal and Jayne are riding on a wagon when they are stopped by the bandits. Mal is disguised as a woman, ostensibly Jayne's wife, complete with dress and "pretty floral bonnet". Mal and Jayne keep up the disguise for quite a while in front of the bandits, with Mal exclaiming in mock-outrage, "How can you shame me in front of new people?" when Jayne confides to the bandits that he married himself a "powerful ugly creature".
From Quiz: How Come You Got a Wife?
Answer: To drop off Inara
Inara, as a Guild Companion, is required to undergo a physical examination every year. This is also the site of a heist, but they don't plan it until they've landed.
From Quiz: "Firefly" - "Ariel"
Answer: "The Train Job"
River utters this litany during "Train Job" while the rest of the crew is arguing over whether to return the medicine to Paradiso. These "Hands of Blue" are then shown at the end of the episode to be the ones pursuing River Tam and her brother.
From Quiz: Fickle "Firefly" Facts
Answer: Triumph
This might trick some of you first-time viewers, so I apologize. I can't remember where it is exactly that it is said that they were on Triumph, but that is the correct planet. Jiangyin is where the previous episode "Safe" took place and Beaumonde is where they were headed after their job on Triumph.
From Quiz: "Firefly"- "Our Mrs. Reynolds"
Answer: 6
Yes, this was 11 years from the present, so River is only just starting school. But as she demonstrates when she attempts to correct Simon's book, she's brighter than people would expect of normal 6-year-olds.
From Quiz: "Firefly"- "Safe"
Answer: He nudged his shoulder
This is a different henchman than the one we saw in 'Train Job' as Mal kicked him into Serenity's engine.
From Quiz: 'Firefly' - 'War Stories'
Answer: slave traders
Mal had no compunction stealing from slave traders.
From Quiz: 'Firefly' - 'Shindig'
Answer: for Inara's annual physical
Inara needs a physical examination every year to renew her licence as a companion.
From Quiz: 'Firefly' - 'Ariel'
Answer: a belly dancer
A belly dancer dances across the room until she reaches Mal's table where she slips a note into his hand.
From Quiz: 'Firefly' - 'The Train Job'
Answer: catalyzer
Captain of Walden: "Compression coil, you say?"
Mal: "It was the catalyzer."
Captain of Walden: "Catalyzer's a nothin' part."
Mal: "It's nothin' till you don't got one. Then it appears to be everything."
From Quiz: "Firefly"-"Out of Gas"
Answer: "I would be there now."
Simon had been telling Kaylee a funny story about the day he made surgeon - and he's clearly thinking that, if he hadn't had to rescue River, he would still be working at the hospital he loved, on top of the world.
The other choices were uttered by other crew members. Mal, upset about Inara's leaving, thinks "None of it means a ... thing." Jayne, guilty about having betrayed Simon and River in the episode "Ariel," explains to himself that he "got stupid. The money was too good." Shepherd Book apparently doesn't care whether River is innocent or not, a confusing thought from a mysterious man.
From Quiz: "Firefly": "Objects In Space"
Answer: Jiangyin
Reading a painted plate in the gift shop, Simon reads, "Jiangyin Prairie Paradise." He then makes fun of the plate, making Kaylee feel a little bad, because she really liked it.
Beaumonde is the planet Serenity was headed to before Saffron hijacked the ship. Sihnon is where Inara was born, and Triumph is the place they picked up Saffron in the first place.
From Quiz: "Firefly"-"Safe"
Answer: The Alliance
The browncoats were forced to surrender at the battle of Serenity Valley, although the war was not officially over at that point, most people believe that that is where the Browncoats were done for.
From Quiz: The Ultimate "Firefly"
Answer: Vera
Jayne attempts an unsuccessful trade with Mal: Vera for the woman who claims to be Captain Reynolds' wife.
From Quiz: The Universe of "Firefly"
Answer: Serenity
Joss Whedon has said that he wrote the spaceship as the tenth cast member - as important to the series as all the actors.
From Quiz: Joss Whedon's 'Firefly'
Answer: his pretty floral bonnet
In the episode "Our Mrs. Reynolds", Mal and Jayne disguised themselves as a married couple who are transporting their belongings in a Conestoga-style wagon along a wooded trail, when they're set upon by a gang of highwaymen. Mal, dressed as the wife, pulls his gun on the lead bandit and promises him that, if he goes for his weapon, "I swear by my pretty floral bonnet, I will end you." This is the first episode to feature Christina Hendricks as Saffron/Brigid/Yolanda, the con-woman/thief with more husbands than she can count.
From Quiz: Kaylee's Inter-Engine Fermentation System
Answer: Cattle
During the previous episode "Shindig", Mal makes a deal with a rancher to deliver a load of cattle to the border planet. As so often happens in the series the deal goes wrong and a gunfight ensues.
From Quiz: "Firefly": Episode "Safe"
Answer: Mandarin
English and Mandarin Chinese were both dominant languages in the Union of Allied Planets.
From Quiz: You Can't Take The Sky From Me
Answer: sheep on its hind legs
Kaylee is the ship's mechanic but secretly fantasises about being more of a girl,especially with the glamourous Inara on board. The fluffy cake-like creation in the shop window is her dream dress.
From Quiz: "Firefly" Episode 4: "Shindig"
Answer: Hair
This upsets Mal, seeing as the engine room looks like space monkeys got loose in there. "We work before we play..."
From Quiz: Episode: "The Train Job"
Answer: we are so very pretty
Mal likes to make comments like these in stressful situations, it probably takes his mind off his impending demise! But as always he seems to get out of sticky situations with his famous charm.
From Quiz: "Firefly" Pilot Episode
Answer: 8.6 seconds
River: "The human body can be drained of blood in 8.6 seconds given adequate vacuuming systems."
Mal: "See, morbid and creepifying, I got no problem with. Long as she does it quite-like."
From Quiz: The Little Details 6- "Safe"
Answer: Red
This is a two-piece outfit, very reminiscent of Indian style dresses. Inara wears a gold dress to the ball which was the costumer's personal wedding dress that she had adjusted to fit Morena (Inara) for this episode.
From Quiz: The Little Details 5- "Shindig"
Answer: it has rings
These two planets are awfully close. It is possible that the one they just left was actually a moon. Many of the worlds they travel to are actually moons.
From Quiz: The Little Details 3- "The Train Job"
Answer: 8 months
Most of the room seems pretty impressed by this, but Jayne gets bored and gets himself a drink.
From Quiz: The Little Details 2- "Serenity"
Answer: 6 years
That battle wasn't the last, but it was the turning point of the war.
From Quiz: The Little Details 1- "Serenity"
Answer: Grizwald
During "War Stories", Kaylee asked why Mal and Zoe always cut into their apples before eating them.
From Quiz: Obscure "Firefly" Trivia
Answer: Mud (or clay) for ceramics
The first thing our intrepid crew notices is the smell -- "I vote we do this job really really fast," Wash proposes, speaking for his crewmates. But the smell is only a signature of Canton's mud-based economy. Kaylee, as usual, knows a great deal about it; she quiets Simon's disbelief by observing that even "Serenity's got more than a few ceramic parts in her." A little later, when Simon is posing as an interested buyer, the site foreman goes into more detail about the mud's amazing properties: "... You add the right catalysts, kiln it proper, this stuff is stronger'n steel ten times over, at half the weight." No wonder it's so popular! And it's cheap, too: "We got over two thousand workers, mostly indentured, pay 'em next to nothin', so we can pass the savings directly on to you, the customer ..." The indentured workers nearby do not look thrilled by this arrangement.
From Quiz: "Firefly": "Jaynestown"
