Robin: :) Thank you Magic Eight Ball of Long Beach.

Miss Scarlet: Ha, I agree, you certainly could. Also, remember that jumping downed power lines with your back is a very bad idea.

Kthrne: I'll throw you (and anyone else who is mystified by my obscure remarks) a bone. Don't read if you want to find out for yourselves (yea, right, whatever).
1. Glomer was a character from the Saturday morning cartoon spin-off of the sitcom Punky Brewster called It's Punk Brewster that aired from September 14, 1985 to September 5, 1987 (and then in repeats from November 5, 1988 to September 2, 1989). This animated version followed the adventures of Punky and her magical friend, Glomer, who came from the world at the end of the rainbow. Glomer can transport Punky and her friends (Margaux, Cherie, and Allen) to any part of the earth in the blink of an eye. Like Punky, Glomer is an orphan, being unable to return to his home. He often searches for a way back, but inevitably when he finds a way he must choose between home and his new found friends. Glomer looks a little bit like Gizmo from Gremlins with a goatee.

2. In the 1985 Steven Spielberg movie, The Goonies, there is a scene at the end where "The Goonies" end up on a beach after their adventure. Swarmed by reporters, Data, the Asian kid, tells one of them, "Yeah, and the part with the octopus was really scary!" In the theater release of the movie, there is no scene with an octopus. As it turns out, it was cut out for time, but the line Data utters remained. In some later releases on TV or on DVD, the octopus has been reinstated.

3. "Only you can prevent forest fires" is the long time mantra of Smokey Bear, the Forest Service's iconic 60 year old spokesbear. Recently the wording has changed from "forest fires" to "wildfires".

4. "How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop" is an ad campaign for the product of the same name. It debuted in 1970 featuring a cartoon boy, a turtle, and an owl, and existed in its original form well into the 1980's. Here are the storyboards for the original. Neither the turtle or the owl are able to give an accurate answer, both unable to resist biting the lollipop to reach the tasty treat inside. A group of engineering students from Purdue University recorded that their licking machine, modeled after a human tongue, took an average of 364 licks to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop. They tried the same licking test on 20 volunteers and found that the average number of licks to the center was 252. A chemical engineering doctorate student from the University of Michigan recorded that his licking machine required an average of 411 licks per Tootsie Pop. A group of students at Swathmore School used human lickers in a scientific experiment and determined it took an average of 144 licks to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop. So, as the commercial says, the answer to the question is: "The world may never know."

5. ALF was an Alien Life Form (real name: Gordon Shumway) from the planet Melmac that was the title character of the popular NBC show of the same name which aired from 1986 to 1990. His body is covered with orange fur, he has a rippled snout, eight stomachs and likes to eat cats. Between 1987 and 1989 there were two spin-off Satruday morning cartoons called Alf: The Animated Series, and AlfTales. Inexplicable he has resurfaced some 10-15 years later in long-distance calling plan commercials and his own half-hour talk show, Alf's Hit Talk Show, co-hosted by Ed McMahon on the TV Land network. Whether or not he has genitalia is debatable.

Bonus: Miss Scarlet makes reference to the G.I. Joe cartoon series that ran from September 1983 to November 1986. Most (if not all) episodes concluded with a public service announcement featuring kids doing something (usually stupid) and being chided by a member of the Joe team. Each PSA ended with a kid saying "blah blah blah, now I know!" and the G.I. Joe replying, "And knowing is half the battle."