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60 free Clue trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
51 free Clue trivia questions with answers. Clue is two things at once: the whodunit board game Anthony Pratt patented in wartime Birmingham and Waddingtons finally shipped as Cluedo in 1949, and the 1985 ensemble comedy that flopped in cinemas, then became one of the most quoted cult films of its decade. This quiz covers both. The board-game half runs from Pratt's original ten-character design and the weapons that never made the box, through the suspects, secret passages, and the UK-versus-US name changes, to Hasbro's Dr. Orchid swap and the much-mocked 2008 redesign. The film half is for anyone who can recite the flames monologue: casting near-misses, the scrapped fourth ending, the true identity of the butler, the Dynasty connection, and where the $15 million went. A final stretch covers the Off-Broadway musical, the ITV game show that Chris Tarrant loathed, the 1985 VCR game and the 2011 miniseries. Every answer was checked against the primary references for the game and the film before publication, so the dates, names and numbers here are the real ones rather than trivia-site folklore. Expect a mix of easy warm-ups and questions that will stump lifelong fans.
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Q 01Before the war, Cluedo's inventor Anthony Pratt earned his living doing what?
Playing the piano
He played recitals in country hotels and on cruise ships, and the murder-mystery parlour games staged at those hotels seeded the idea for the game.
Q 02Which company first manufactured Cluedo in the United Kingdom in 1949?
Waddingtons
Managing director Norman Watson bought the game on the spot in 1945 after Pratt demonstrated it, but post-war shortages held up production for four years.
Q 03The name Cluedo is a play on the word 'clue' and which board game?
Ludo
The name was the publisher's idea; Pratt had called his invention Murder!, and it was renamed Clue in North America because the pun would not land there.
Q 04Which American company licensed the game for the US market in 1949, renaming it Clue?
Parker Brothers
Its first American slogan was 'The Great New Detective Game', and early advertising even licensed Sherlock Holmes from the Conan Doyle estate.
Q 05In which year did Anthony Pratt file his original patent application for the game?
1944
The application went in on 1 December, in the middle of the war; the patent itself was granted on 1 April 1947 as 'Improvements in Board Games'.
Q 06How much did Pratt receive when he sold the game's international rights in 1953?
£5,000
The publisher told him the game was selling poorly abroad; the cheque let him buy a sweets and tobacco shop, though he kept UK royalties until the patent expired in 1967.
Q 07How many characters did Pratt's original design call for, before the published game cut them to six?
Ten
One of them was to be picked as the victim by random draw before play began, leaving nine suspects and up to eight players.
Q 08Which of these characters was in Pratt's original design but dropped before the 1949 release?
Mr. Gold
Mr. Brown, Miss Grey and Mrs. Silver were cut alongside him, and two of the survivors were renamed for the shipping version.
Q 09Which suspect did Hasbro replace with the new character Dr. Orchid in 2016?
Mrs. White
Dr. Orchid, a young biologist and the victim's adopted daughter, got a pink token; the housekeeper returned as Chef White in the 2023 edition.
Q 10The victim is Mr. Boddy in North American editions. What is he called in the UK edition?
Dr. Black
Hasbro's 2023 relaunch finally reconciled the two names by calling him Boden 'Boddy' Black Jr.
Q 11Which UK suspect is renamed plain 'Mr.' in North American editions, losing his clerical title?
Reverend Green
North America is the only region that still makes the change; the US character was recast from a shady businessman into a young playboy.
Q 12With six suspects, six weapons and nine rooms, how many possible solutions does the classic game have?
324
Three cards go into the envelope and the rest are dealt out, so with more players each hand is smaller and the deduction is harder.
Q 13Which of these is NOT one of the nine rooms on the classic board?
Drawing room
The centre space, often called the cellar or the stairs, holds the solution envelope and cannot be entered by players.
Q 21In what year is the game's mansion, Tudor Mansion in Hampshire, said to be set?
1926
The board has carried several names over the years, including Tudor Close, Tudor Hall and Boddy Mansion.
Q 22The mansion's layout is reputed to be based on a hotel in which English seaside town?
Rottingdean
Early editions were subtitled 'Murder at Tudor Close' after the Tudor Close Hotel there.
Q 23Pratt's neighbour Geoffrey Bull, who introduced him to a publisher, had invented which board game?
Buccaneer
Pratt's daughter credits Bull with planting the idea of turning the parlour game into a board game in the first place.
Q 14Taking the secret passage from the study lands a player in which room?
Kitchen
Each corner room's passage runs to the diagonally opposite corner, which is why Professor Plum's start beside the study is a strong opening.
Q 15How many of the nine rooms contain a secret passage?
Four
Only the corner rooms have them, and Mrs. Peacock's start beside the conservatory lets her use one on her very first turn.
Q 16The UK edition's 'spanner' goes by what name in North American editions?
Wrench
The dagger became a knife and the lead piping a lead pipe across the Atlantic, though the 2016 US edition switched the knife back to a dagger.
Q 17Which weapon appeared in Pratt's original design but was left out of the 1949 release?
Syringe
A bomb, a shillelagh and a fireplace poker were also cut, while the axe and poison from his list turned up in later spin-offs.
Q 18Which suspect was added to the cast in 1988's expanded Clue Master Detective?
Miss Peach
The bigger game has 12 rooms, 10 characters and eight weapons, adding a horseshoe and poison to the arsenal and a gazebo and fountain to the map.
Q 19In the 2008 relaunch Discover the Secrets, where must a player go to make the final accusation?
The swimming pool
The redesign also swapped the lead pipe and spanner for a baseball bat, axe, dumbbell, trophy and poison, and fans and critics hated it.
Q 20In Hasbro's 2023 edition, Mrs. Peacock was given what new title?
Solicitor
The same refresh turned the clergyman into a mayor and brought the housekeeper back as a chef.
Q 24Pratt, an accomplished musician, was at one time accompanist to which renowned soprano?
Kirsten Flagstad
He was an aspiring composer and a huge admirer of Edward Elgar before wartime factory work gave him time to think up a game.
Q 25Roughly how many copies of Cluedo had been sold when the publisher went hunting for its inventor in 1996?
150 million
The search revealed that Pratt had died two years earlier, aged 90; a blue plaque now marks the Birmingham house where he designed the game.
Q 26A 1979 US TV commercial for the game featured a bumbling detective resembling which film character?
Inspector Clouseau
Earlier ads leaned on Sherlock Holmes: a 1972 spot showed Holmes and Watson locked in a fiercely competitive game.
Q 27In what year was the Clue film, based on the board game, released in cinemas?
1985
It opened on 13 December and fell just short of recouping its budget before finding a cult audience on video.
Q 28Who directed the film, and finished its screenplay?
Jonathan Lynn
He later adapted his own screenplay for the stage, and Clue: On Stage premiered in 2017.
Q 29Which actor plays the butler who greets the guests and reconstructs the night's events?
Tim Curry
The whole cast received identical salaries and billing despite their differing fame at the time.
Q 30Which British comedian was the second choice for the butler role but was judged not well known enough?
Rowan Atkinson
The first choice, Leonard Rossiter, died before filming commenced.