How well do you remember Bloom County?

By: Torrance Grey
Estimated Completion Time
4 min
How well do you remember Bloom County?
Image: Youtube

About This Quiz

The 80's are gone, but the Penguin Lust lives on! Revisit the crazy world of Bloom County and its citizens, including Bill the Cat and Opus the Penguin. If you don't enjoy this quiz, we have only one thing to say: Ackphhhpt!
What was the name of Bloom County's creator?
John Bloom
John Berkeley
Berkeley Breathed
Breathed created the strip while at the University of Texas.
Mike Binkley

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One long-running storyline was Opus's search for what?
His chicks
A truly honest politician
The world's best pickled herring
His mother
The quest took Opus to the Falkland Islands, where she was believed killed in the war with England.

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What war did Cutter John serve in?
Vietnam
His name recalls both "Trapper John" from "MASH" and Alex Cutter, the Vietnam vet in "Cutter and Bone."
Korea
The Falklands War
The War on Bad Toupees

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What kind of animals are Hodge-Podge and Portnoy?
Bluebird and penguin
Rabbit and groundhog
In early strips, they often rode on Cutter John's wheelchair.
Dog and cat
We never know for sure

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Which two words made up most of Bill the Cat's dialogue?
'Feed me'
'Ack' and 'Phhhpt'
Bill did speak in a few strips, but this was rare.
'Hello Ladies!'
He never spoke.

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Which neurotic character had an "Anxiety Closet"?
Michael Binkley
Binkley also interrupted his dad's sleep frequently with his fears for the future.
Lola Granola
Milo Bloom
Opus

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What was Steve Dallas's primary profession?
Lawyer
Actually, he probably would have thrived in any of these roles.
Record executive
Entertainment journalist
He lived off women

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Whom did schoolteacher Bobbi Harlow date?
Cutter John
Steve Dallas
Both Cutter John and Steve Dallas
She was Cutter's girlfriend, but did also go out with Steve, whom she liked less.
Binkley's father Tom

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Who did Lola Granola marry?
Steve Dallas
Cutter John
Dan Fogelburg
Opus
Lola had a tattoo of Dan Fogelburg, to Opus's chagrin.

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What was the original name of Bill the Cat's heavy-metal group?
Bill and the Hellcats
Hairrball
Iron LItterbox
Deathtongue
They were forced to change their name to "Billy and the Boingers".

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Why did the heavy-metal group become "Billy and the Boingers"?
Steve Dallas thought the alliteration sounded good
They were changing genres to soft rock
They were called up before a hearing on unhealthy influences in music
The name change was announced abruptly, in the middle of a hearing.
They were cashing in on the success of "Hootie and the Blowfish"

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Oliver Wendell Jones is skilled in what area?
Science and technology
Jones once hacked Pravda to try to bring an end to the arms race.
Investing
Cooking
Comedy and impressions

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What was Steve Dallas's characteristic fashion statement?
a perm
a bomber jacket
square-toed loafers
Aviator shades
The perm came much later in the strip's history.

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What was the name of Bobbi's cousin, who more enthusiastically dated Steve Dallas?
Peaches Melba
Barbie Harlow
Quiche Lorraine
Steve dated her, in part, to make Bobbi jealous.
Cozy Fillerup

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When Binkley meets his future self, who is president of the United States?
Sylvester Stallone
Donald Trump
Bruce Springsteen
It was "The Simpsons" that foresaw a future "President Trump."
Bill the Cat

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What causes Opus's near-death experience?
Bad pickled herring
A falling piece of space junk
In the afterlife, Opus feels at peace, even though "I regularly fibbed on my taxes!"
tarring-and-feathering by radical feminists
freezing in Antarctica, where animal-rights activists relocate him

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What was the name of Oliver's computer?
The Allegra
The Sirius
The Banana Junior
It was later revealed to have sold only two units.
The Aluminum Falcon

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Why did Oliver's hacking of Pravda fail to result in nuclear disarmament?
The Soviet paperboys union was on strike
His headline was grossly mistranslated in Russian
"Gorbachev urges disarmament!" was changed to "Gorbachev sings tractors!"
The whole Kremlin was vacationing at Soviet Disney World and never saw it
Steve Dallas talked the USSR out of it in his stint as an arms dealer

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What happens to Steve Dallas when he is abducted by aliens?
He is nasally probed.
He is forced to defend them in Intergalactic Court
His personality is "flip-flopped."
Returned to earth, the newly-sensitive Steve gets a perm to make him "look more like Alan Alda."
He escapes via Cutter John's helium-balloon-powered wheelchair

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With which conservative figure did Bill the Cat have a romance?
Phyllis Schlafly
Jeane Kirkpatrick
Jeane sends Bill a box of chocolates shaped like Nicaragua
Margaret Thatcher
Kennedy the MTV VJ

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With whom did Oliver accidentally scramble his DNA?
Bill the Cat
The whole thing turned out to be a dream.
Opus
Portnoy
Steve Dallas

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What was the name of the strip in its University of Texas days?
Academia Nutz
Academia Waltz
The college newspaper was called The Daily Texan.
Bloom's Crew
The same title, Bloom County

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What was the name of the "last living basselope?"
Spuds
Tess
Marvella
Rosebud
The rest of the basselopes died of heart disease, due to a love of butter.

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What was the name of the female rock star who appeared in early strips?
Maggie Mayhem
Tess Turbo
Steve Dallas's hair is burned off in the filming of a Tess Turbo music video -- a spoof of Michael Jackson's Pepsi commercial accident.
Babe Ruthless
Iron Maven

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Who does Opus go up against in breaking his mother out of a cosmetics lab?
The Mary-Kay Commandos
"Even their Uzis are pink!" marvels Opus.
The elite Lancome Guard
The Revlon Radicals
The Armed Sisterhood Against Shiny Noses

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After the epic battle with Mary Kay, where do animal activists relocate Opus?
The Falkland Islands
Antarctica
The ice rink at Rockefeller Center
An ice machine outside a 7-11
Opus might have had the weirdest storylines in Bloom County, though closely followed by Bill the Cat.

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What character was revealed to be female during the strip's "sexism crisis"?
Portnoy
Hodge-Podge
Bill the Cat
Rosebud
The story revolved around a Supreme Court ruling against male-only clubs.

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"Bloom County" ended when which mogul bought it and fired the cast?
Ted Turner
W.A. Thornhump
Donald Trump
W.A. Thornhump was the fictitious owner who, in earlier years, caused the cast to go on strike.
The resurrected John Jay Rockefeller

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Where exactly is Bloom County?
Texas
Iowa
Colorado
We never learn this.
Iowa is strongly implicated, as that was where Breathed moved after college.

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Which is not the title of a "Bloom County" compilation?
Night of the Mary Kay Commandos
Penguin Dreams and Stranger Things
Bloom County Babylon
The Lives of Bill D. Cat: Vegisexual, Nazi, Liberal
There were seven compilations, in addition to other related books.

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What was the name of the strip that immediately followed Bloom County?
Outland
This strip ran only on Sundays, unlike Bloom County.
Bloomsville
Opus
Rosebud the Basselope

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Who was the central focus of "Outland" (at first)?
Lola Granola
Bill the Cat
Ronald-Ann Smith
Other characters from Bloom County eventually returned and stole the limelight.
Cutter John

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Where was the magic world of "Outland"?
It was all in Opus's dreams.
It was a on a holodeck invented by NASA
It was accessed by a magic door, but eventually revealed to be part of Bloom County
The "alternate universe" concept allowed for an even looser grasp on reality, but the storylines quickly came down to earth.
It was inside a snow globe shaken by a mentally-delayed Milo Bloom

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Which character got their own strip after "Outland"?
Bill the Cat
Opus
It was telling that Opus re-appeared in only the third installment of "Outland."
Steve Dallas
Lola Granola

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Who came out as gay at the end of "Outland"?
Milo Bloom
Mike Binkley
Steve Dallas
Supposedly, he was later cured by 'reparative therapy'.
Bill the Cat

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In what year did Breathed revive the actual "Bloom County"?
2012
2013
2014
2015
The first strip ran via Facebook.

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You Got:
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