Calvin and Hobbes, the Story of a Friendship Quiz

Answer: Bill Watterson

William 'Bill' Boyd Watterson II was born in Washington D.C. in 1958 and his family relocated to Ohio when he was a young child. The first 'Calvin and Hobbes' comic strip about six-year-old Calvin, accompanied by his stuffed toy tiger, Hobbes, and his rich imagination, first appeared in newspapers in 1985 and ran for ten years. It was hugely popular and widely syndicated around the world, and there are also several 'Calvin and Hobbes' books.

In 1995, after much thought, Bill Watterson made the decision to retire and to discontinue the strip, which appeared for the final time on 31st December that year. He is an intensely private man and chooses to keep a very low public profile, rarely giving interviews. He also decided that, with very few exceptions, he would not authorise any merchandising based on the strip, because he felt it would compromise his work.

Chic Young created the 'Blondie' comic strip, which was continued after his death in 1973 by his son, Dean Young. Jim Davis brought us the strip about the lasagne-loving feline, 'Garfield', and Hank Ketcham (1920-2001) was the creator of 'Dennis the Menace'.

Answer: Susie

Calvin and classmate Susie Derkins appear to have a love/hate relationship; Hobbes just thinks she is cute and tries to 'dress to impress' when she is around. Interestingly, Susie is the only character in Calvin's world that has both a first name and a surname. We are never told Calvin's surname, and his parents are only ever referred to as 'Mom' and 'Dad' throughout the strip.

Susie is the complete opposite of Calvin in the classroom, being very diligent about her schoolwork, whereas Calvin is known to pay little or no attention. The two are often paired together for class projects, with Susie doing almost all the work and Calvin pestering her for the answers. Like Calvin with Hobbes, she also has a favourite stuffed toy. In her case this is Mr Bun, the rabbit, who, with various other dolls and stuffed animals, seems to spend a lot of time partaking of imaginary 'tea parties' set up by Susie.

In the winter, Calvin can frequently be seen lying in wait for Susie to pelt her with snowballs, which he goes to great lengths to do. Sometimes these find their mark and at other times they are skilfully deflected and the tables turned on Calvin, showing that Susie can stand up for herself very well.

Answer: Calvinball

The whole point of 'Calvinball', which Calvin plays with Hobbes, is that it is not bound by rules. Every game has to be different, which certainly makes for an element of surprise from start to finish, even between the contestants. It can be played on any surface and in any situation, and can utilise props such as a croquet mallet, baseball bat etc. Masks are often worn and the alphanumeric scoring system follows no logical sequence. Each game usually comes to a natural end when both players are too exhausted to continue.

The game seems to have originated from Calvin not being fond of organised sports at school, so he decided to invent his own 'sport' with Hobbes as a participant, whether willing or unwilling being another mysterious factor in the game, although they both look happy enough when playing.

Answer: G.R.O.S.S.

The acronym for the G.R.O.S.S. club, exclusive to Calvin and Hobbes, stands for 'Get Rid Of Slimy girlS', its objective being to throw water balloons at Susie and otherwise torment her. The club was a hive of activity. There were club meetings, an anthem was sung, minutes were taken and newspaper 'hats' were worn at meetings. It was featured several times in the strip.

One of the most memorable storylines was when Calvin kidnapped Susie's doll and held it to ransom, whereupon Susie promptly retaliated by kidnapping Hobbes. After negotiations both were restored to their rightful owners. Another notable plot was when Susie foiled Calvin's plan to drench her with water balloons dropped from the treehouse above by lying in wait for him with a hosepipe and soaking him.

The treehouse was the second choice of venue for club meetings; the first had been the garage, which was already occupied by the family car. Calvin and Hobbes pushed the car out of the garage to make room only to discover too late that the driveway was on a slight slope, whereupon the car began rolling, eventually crossing over the road and ending up in a ravine - and a whole heap of trouble. Fortunately no other cars were on the road at the time and there were no injuries. G.R.O.S.S. subsequently relocated to the treehouse, a much safer venue!

Answer: Miss Wormwood

Throughout the strip Calvin and his classmate Susie are in the first grade and Miss Wormwood is their class teacher. Unsurprisingly, Calvin frequently plays up in class and is made to sit in the front row so she can keep an eye on him, and she often sends him to the Principal's office when she catches him misbehaving.

Although she is very dedicated to her profession, Miss Wormwood would dearly love to be able to retire. She is approaching retirement age and can sometimes be observed silently counting the number of years till retirement in her head. She is fair-minded though; Calvin is notoriously poor at maths, but when he does get a question right (normally quite by accident) she is quick to acknowledge his success.

The only other character apart from Susie and Miss Wormwood who Calvin really interacts with at school, although not by choice, is Moe, the school bully. He is generally after Calvin's lunch money, which he obtains by threatening to beat him up.

Answer: a large cardboard box

The Transmogrifier first appeared quite early on in the strip's history, and has been the focus of several of Calvin and Hobbes' adventures. It is, quite simply, a large cardboard box. It started off with a labelled dial pointing to various choices of what to turn someone or something into, although the dial itself was later dropped. The idea is that the 'subject' can be put inside the box, the dial is then set and the person or item emerges from the box in the chosen form. The first time it was used was to turn Calvin into a tiger, like Hobbes, although he was disappointed that he emerged as a very tiny and unthreatening tiger.

Other versions of the Transmogrifier included a water pistol which could be pointed at something to change them into something else, and the 'Duplicator'. This was only used a couple of times. It caused considerable havoc when Calvin duplicated himself and his duplicate then duplicated four more so Calvin ended up with five rather rebellious duplicates. This unforeseen problem was only resolved when he tricked them back into the box and turned them into worms before taking them outside to the garden.

Answer: Hamster Huey

The adventures of 'Hamster Huey and the Gooey Kablooie' is Calvin's all-time favourite bedtime reading choice, no matter how many times he hears the tale. When his Dad comes to read him a bedtime story he always insists he reads it to him again. And again... According to Bill Watterson it is intentional that the reader is never told what the story of 'Hamster Huey and the Gooey Kablooie' entails, so it remains a mystery.

Other reading matter in the 'Calvin and Hobbes' world includes Calvin's favourite regular read, 'Chewing Magazine', which extols the many properties of chewing gum. Hobbes isn't impressed by the magazine, which he feels is too commercial, but Calvin reads it avidly from cover to cover.

Answer: Spaceman Spiff

When Calvin's attention wanders, which happens frequently, particularly in the classroom, he daydreams that he is Spaceman Spiff, a fearless space traveller. Spaceman Spiff journeys through the universe in a small red spaceship shaped like a flying saucer which, despite its size, has an impressive range of weapons such as the Death Ray Blaster. He visits many imaginary planets, encountering various aliens along the way. These make-believe space travels invariably involve a rapid crash landing when Calvin's imagination is jerked back to the present to find his teacher, Miss Wormwood, viewed by Spaceman Spiff as a large and hideous alien monster, asking him a question.

As well as Spaceman Spiff, Calvin also has other fantasy alter egos including Chandleresque private eye Tracer Bullet and the superhero Stupendous Man. For this character he dresses in a cape and mask made by his Mom.

Answer: Rosalyn

Calvin's encounters with the school bully, Moe, pale into insignificance compared to his genuine fear of Rosalyn. She is Calvin's babysitter, a high school senior who does childminding because she wants to save money to help get herself through college. She also works as a swimming instructor, which gives Calvin a nasty surprise when he goes for a swimming lesson.

Rosalyn is very strict; she insists on an early bedtime and doesn't put up with any of Calvin's antics. Any attempt by his parents to go out for the evening is always met with howls of complaint when he realises she will be coming. He uses any diversionary tactic he can think of, but Rosalyn is the only person his parents know who can manage him and will agree to sit with him, despite their ringing round several other people. She invariably asks for an advance on her money for the next time she comes as Calvin has played up.

Calvin's Uncle Max is his Dad's brother, who appeared in the strip only briefly when he came to visit the family. Jessica is a classmate and a friend of Susie Derkins. She is only mentioned briefly and does not appear in the strip.

Answer: snowmen

Calvin created all of these sculptures from snow over the years, but it was snowmen that had the dubious honour of being the 'Snow Goons'.

Like many six-year-old boys (and some considerably older!), one of Calvin's favourite winter pursuits, apart from enjoying hair-raising adventures with Hobbes on his sled, is building snowmen, in his opinion the more grotesque the better. Not content with a jolly-looking chap with a bowler hat, a carrot nose and a brightly-coloured scarf, Calvin's snowmen range from the bizarre to the horrifying. Some have even been beheaded, stabbed or have otherwise met an untimely and painful end. Calvin is always careful to build a snow fort too, which he fills with snowballs waiting for an unsuspecting Susie to appear.

Published in 1992, the title of the seventh 'Calvin and Hobbes' book, 'Attack of the Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons' may give some idea of the monstrosities unleashed, much to the consternation of Calvin's parents!