Chevy Chase Trivia
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49 free Chevy Chase trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This Chevy Chase trivia quiz covers the whole career of the comedian born Cornelius Crane Chase. It starts with the strange facts of his early life — the Steely Dan connection, the cow at Haverford, the admiral grandfather — then moves through Saturday Night Live: Weekend Update, the Gerald Ford pratfalls, the two Emmys and the fistfight with Bill Murray. From there it works through the films everybody quotes: Foul Play, Caddyshack, the five Vacation movies (the Family Truckster, Walley World, the Jelly of the Month Club), Fletch, Spies Like Us, ¡Three Amigos! and Funny Farm, plus the Oscar-hosting years, the five-week Fox talk show, the 1990s flops and the Community comeback as Pierce Hawthorne. About a third are easy for any 80s comedy fan; the rest go deep into the details. Every answer has been checked against Wikipedia's articles on Chase and his films and the interviews they cite, and each explanation adds one more thing worth knowing.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is Chevy Chase's real first name?
Cornelius
He was named for his adoptive grandfather Cornelius Vanderbilt Crane, heir to the Crane Company fortune.
Q 02Which SNL menace did Chase voice, mumbling 'plumber' and 'candygram' to get victims to open their doors?
Land Shark
Land Shark, SNL's answer to Jaws: in its November 1975 debut it tried 'flowers', 'plumber' and 'candygram' through a locked door, then got in by swearing it was only a dolphin.
Q 03Chase's grandfather, Miles Browning, was chief of staff aboard USS Enterprise during which pivotal Pacific battle?
Midway
Midway was the battle: with Admiral Halsey in hospital, Browning advised his stand-in Raymond Spruance in June 1942, when American dive bombers sank all four Japanese carriers present.
Q 04At Bard College, Chase played drums in a band with two future founders of which group?
Steely Dan
Steely Dan's Walter Becker and Donald Fagen were his bandmates in The Leather Canary; Chase kept at music after Bard, playing drums and keyboards for the rock band Chamaeleon Church before comedy took over.
Q 05By a legend Chase himself half-confirmed, why was he thrown out of Haverford College?
Keeping a cow in his room
Keeping a cow in his room is the story Chase went along with on the Today show in 2009, but a former roommate says he simply left Haverford after a year for academic reasons.
Q 06Chase was the first host of which recurring Saturday Night Live segment?
Weekend Update
Weekend Update, which Chase devised with Herb Sargent, had him at the desk from SNL's October 1975 premiere, where he kept announcing that Spain's Francisco Franco was still dead.
Q 07Which US president did Chase famously portray on SNL as a bumbling klutz?
Gerald Ford
Gerald Ford really had stumbled on the steps of Air Force One in Austria in 1975, and Chase's pratfalls fixed a clumsy image on a man who had won two national football titles at Michigan.
Q 08Whose 1977 TV special won Chase a writing Emmy, nine years before the two shared a famous music video?
Paul Simon
Paul Simon's special brought Chase a third Emmy after two for Saturday Night Live; in the 1986 video for 'You Can Call Me Al', Chase mouths the lead vocal while Simon mimes along on a string of instruments.
Q 09Chase was contracted to SNL's first season in what capacity, only joining the cast during rehearsals?
As a writer
As a writer he had signed for a single year; added to the cast during rehearsals, he became the show's breakout star and was gone early in its second season.
Q 10Chase left SNL in late 1976, saying the main reason was what?
His girlfriend would not move to New York
His girlfriend would not move to New York, Chase said, so he left for Los Angeles and married her, Jacqueline Carlin, that December; they divorced four years later.
Q 11Which cast member replaced Chase on SNL when he left?
Bill Murray
Bill Murray joined the cast in January 1977 to fill the gap; the two came to blows backstage when Chase returned to host in 1978, then shared a scene in Caddyshack.
Q 12Which piano-playing singer was SNL's musical guest the 1978 night Chase fought his replacement backstage?
Billy Joel
Billy Joel sang on the February 1978 show Chase came back to host; just before air he and his replacement traded insults, then blows, and moments later Chase was in front of the cameras.
Q 13Which Animal House role, written for him, did Chase turn down for a Goldie Hawn comedy?
Eric 'Otter' Stratton
Q 21Which amusement park does the family cross the country to reach in National Lampoon's Vacation?
Walley World
Walley World replaced the Disneyland of the original magazine story and was filmed at Magic Mountain in California; the family arrives to find it closed for two weeks of repairs.
Q 22Who plays Clark's long-suffering wife Ellen across the Vacation films?
Beverly D'Angelo
Beverly D'Angelo played Ellen in all five theatrical films, while the couple's children were recast every time after Anthony Michael Hall passed on the first sequel to make Weird Science.
Q 23In Christmas Vacation, what does Clark receive instead of his expected bonus?
A Jelly of the Month Club membership
Eric 'Otter' Stratton went to Tim Matheson: director John Landis wanted unknowns rather than famous comedians and says he nudged Chase away by stressing the film was an ensemble.
Q 14Chase's first film hit and Golden Globe-nominated role came in which 1978 comedy?
Foul Play
Foul Play, which Chase picked over Animal House, earned him a Golden Globe nomination opposite Goldie Hawn, and the pair reunited for Seems Like Old Times in 1980.
Q 15What is the name of Chase's laid-back golfer character in Caddyshack?
Ty Webb
Ty Webb, the playboy son of one of the club's founders, hands out Zen-like golf advice to young caddie Danny Noonan, who is chasing a college scholarship.
Q 16What is the name of the exclusive golf club where Caddyshack is set?
Bushwood
Bushwood Country Club is where Danny Noonan caddies while angling for the club's caddie scholarship under the eye of Judge Smails.
Q 17What is the name of the family Chase heads in the Vacation films?
The Griswolds
The Griswolds — Clark, Ellen, Rusty and Audrey — drive from the Chicago suburbs to California because Clark wants more family time, and end the trip surrounded by a police SWAT team.
Q 18Who wrote the screenplay for National Lampoon's Vacation, based on his own short story 'Vacation '58'?
John Hughes
John Hughes based 'Vacation '58' on his own childhood family trips; Harold Ramis and Chase then rewrote his first draft to tell it from the father's point of view instead of the son's.
Q 19What is the ugly, oversized car Clark is forced to buy in Vacation?
The Wagon Queen Family Truckster
The Wagon Queen Family Truckster is forced on Clark when the shady dealer says the car he ordered is six weeks away and that his trade-in has already been crushed.
Q 20Which supermodel made her acting debut in Vacation as the woman in the red Ferrari?
Christie Brinkley
Christie Brinkley, then a top swimsuit model, made her screen debut as the flirtatious Ferrari driver Clark keeps meeting on the road; she reprised the role in Vegas Vacation (1997).
A Jelly of the Month Club membership arrives in place of the bonus Clark was counting on to pay for a swimming pool, so Cousin Eddie kidnaps his boss, Frank Shirley.
Q 24Who plays Cousin Eddie, the unwelcome relative, in the Vacation films?
Randy Quaid
Randy Quaid's Cousin Eddie, married to Ellen's cousin Catherine, was later given a TV spin-off of his own, the 2003 film Christmas Vacation 2: Cousin Eddie's Island Adventure, made without Chase.
Q 25Which actor played Clark's grown-up son Rusty in the 2015 Vacation reboot, in which Chase had a cameo?
Ed Helms
Ed Helms's Rusty, now an airline pilot, takes his own family on the road trip he made as a boy; it was the fifth theatrical Vacation film, and Chase had played Clark in the other four.
Q 26Fletch (1985) was based on novels by which author?
Gregory Mcdonald
Gregory Mcdonald kept a veto over casting and turned down both Burt Reynolds and Mick Jagger before agreeing to Chase, whom he had never seen perform.
Q 27What is Fletch's full name?
Irwin M. Fletcher
Irwin M. Fletcher files his column as 'Jane Doe' and almost never gives his real name: asked who he is, he answers, straight-faced, 'Ted Nugent'.
Q 28Which NBA player appears as himself in Fletch's dream of playing for the Lakers?
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had already sent himself up as a co-pilot in Airplane!; here he shares the court with a dreaming Fletch in an afro while announcer Chick Hearn calls the play.
Q 29Which arrogant tennis-club member's tab does Fletch run up on lunches and cabana bills?
Ted Underhill
Ted Underhill is the boorish member Fletch hears berating a waiter, so Fletch bills his lunches and cabana to 'the Underhills' for the rest of the film.
Q 30Chase co-starred with which fellow SNL alumnus in the 1985 John Landis comedy Spies Like Us?
Dan Aykroyd
Dan Aykroyd first wrote it for himself and John Belushi; filmed after Belushi's death as a homage to the Bob Hope and Bing Crosby 'Road' pictures, it gives Hope a cameo.