What Tickles Your Fancy? Trivia Quiz

Answer: Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin believed that for tickling to be effective, the person being tickled must not know the location to be tickled. This is why the vast majority of people are unable to tickle themselves. For tickling to be effective there must be a small element of surprise.

Answer: Acarophilia

The correct answer is Acarophilia. Do not let the suffix fool you. This condition does not have an overtly sexual overtone to it and is not considered a paraphilia. The other choices are not real conditions.

Answer: Roman

In ancient Rome tickle torture was used as a form of punishment. One of the more common uses would involve soaking a person's feet in a salt solution. They were then tied down and a goat was brought in to lick the salt off their feet. At first it was very ticklish, but by the time it was over it was very painful.

It was a sadistic practice that could be repeated over and over without the subject becoming immune to the feeling.

Answer: Elvis Presley

"Tickle Me" starring Elvis Presley comedy-musical that used a western motif. Elvis stars as a singing cowboy who gets a job at a ranch that is employed by all females. In the end he falls in love and saves the beautiful damsel in distress. The movie was designed to tickle your funny bone. But as we know, everyone is not ticklish in the same way!

Answer: True

This statement is true. This kind of tickling is what is done by parent to baby or as an affectionate gesture. It will not usually cause laughter but can sometimes cause itching. It can be caused by physical touch by another person, by bugs crawling on your skin and sometimes by a very light electrical current.

This is also the kind of tickling that is observed when someone strokes the area under the snout of a great white shark and causes it to go into a trance-like state.

Answer: False

What this study showed was that the tickle response may be absent in the majority of people who suffer from schizophrenia. This may be because this disease prevents social bonding which is vital to the act of tickling. Other reasons include the fact that it is impossible to tickle yourself and the schizophrenic has problems discerning between internal and external stimulation.

Answer: delighted

If someone was "tickled pink" it meant they were pleasantly surprised, happy, or very pleased with an occurrence. The term comes from the idea that tickling could make someone smile and be happy and also the glow that came from the face of the smiling person.

Answer: Hypergargalesthesia

Hypergargalesthesia can cause some people to be very sensitive to being tickled. There are unsubstantiated reported of tickling causing death. This is usually from being tickled for very long periods of time causing cardiac and respiratory distress. It is believed that gargalesis is experienced by humans and other higher primates exclusively, although there have been experiments that show that it may be possible to tickle a rat.

Answer: Boone's Farm

Boone's Farm is a subsidiary of the Gallo Brothers winery. Very popular in the 1970's, some of the flavors included "Strawberry Hill", "Blackberry Ridge", "Melon Ball", and of course, "Tickle Pink". Anyone who was an American teenager in the 1970's has probably had a sip (or more) of one of Boone's Farms many flavors.

Answer: Tickle Me Elmo

"Tickle Me Elmo" was a bright red children's toy that was inspired by a "Sesame Street" character. Squeezing the toy's tummy would make it giggle. If the toy was squeezed repeatedly it would make the sound of laughter and would have a shaking motion. There were reports of assaults by parents vying to get the toy for their children.

A "Surprise Edition" of this toy was released in the fall of 2001. On January 9, 2002 five of the toys quit laughing when they were squeezed and announced to the toy owner that they had just won a prize. All five toy owners won a cash prize, with the grand prize being $200,000!