Comedy Movies Trivia
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This comedy movie trivia quiz has 100 free questions with answers and runs the whole history of screen comedy: silent-era Buster Keaton and Chaplin, the Marx Brothers and screwball classics, Mel Brooks and Monty Python, the SNL and National Lampoon era, and modern hits like Anchorman, Superbad, The Hangover and Bridesmaids. Expect questions on plots, casts, famous quotes, box office records and the odd production stories behind the laughs. It works for a solo brain-stretch, a movie-night showdown or a ready-made round for pub trivia hosts and teachers. Easy questions any casual fan will get sit beside expert ones that reward people who watch the extras and read the credits. Every answer has been checked against a primary reference, and each question shows its source, so you can settle arguments on the spot. Play through, then share your score.
30 of 100 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which line ends Some Like It Hot, after Jack Lemmon's character pulls off his wig?
Well, nobody's perfect!
'Well, nobody's perfect!' was only a placeholder: Billy Wilder and co-writer I.A.L. Diamond meant to find a better closing line and never did.
Q 02In Some Like It Hot, what names do Curtis and Lemmon adopt in the all-female band?
Josephine and Daphne
Curtis becomes Josephine and Lemmon becomes Daphne, who tangos until dawn with the millionaire Osgood and accepts his proposal, hoping for a divorce settlement.
Q 03Airplane! (1980) borrows its plot from which 1957 Paramount disaster film?
Zero Hour!
Zero Hour! turned up by accident: the Zuckers and Jim Abrahams were taping late-night TV to collect commercials to spoof, and found a deadly serious drama that begged for parody.
Q 04Which NBA legend plays co-pilot Roger Murdock in Airplane!?
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar finally breaks character to snap at the kid about dragging Walton and Lanier up and down the court for 48 minutes.
Q 05In Airplane!, what is the name of Leslie Nielsen's deadpan doctor who does not want to be called Shirley?
Dr. Rumack
Dr. Rumack ('I am serious, and don't call me Shirley') relaunched Leslie Nielsen, until then a dramatic actor, as a comic star and led to Police Squad! and The Naked Gun.
Q 06Which comedian was offered the role of Louis Tully in Ghostbusters (1984) before Rick Moranis took it?
John Candy
John Candy wanted to play Louis with a German accent and a pack of German Shepherds; the filmmakers felt the film already had enough dogs, and the part went to Moranis.
Q 07The Ghostbusters' firehouse stands in which Manhattan neighborhood, also home to a film festival Robert De Niro co-founded?
Tribeca
Tribeca's Hook & Ladder 8 supplied only the exterior: the crew couldn't take over a working fire station for long, so the interiors were shot in Los Angeles, partly in a disused firehouse.
Q 08Huey Lewis turned down writing the Ghostbusters theme because he was already committed to which 1985 film?
Back to the Future
Back to the Future had his commitment, so Ray Parker Jr. wrote the Ghostbusters theme instead, and Lewis later sued over its resemblance to his hit 'I Want a New Drug'.
Q 09Which town stood in for Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, in Groundhog Day (1993)?
Woodstock, Illinois
Woodstock, Illinois hosted the shoot from March to June 1992; its town square played Punxsutawney's, and the town began an annual Groundhog Days celebration for fans.
Q 10Which song does Bill Murray's Phil Connors wake up to on the radio every morning in Groundhog Day?
I Got You Babe
'I Got You Babe' was screenwriter Danny Rubin's pick: he liked that its lines keep repeating and that it is a song about love.
Q 11What happened to Bill Murray while filming his scenes with the groundhog in Groundhog Day?
It bit his hand
It bit his hand during the scene where Phil drives off with it, breaking the skin through his glove, then bit him again on a later take.
Q 12What is the name of Ron Burgundy's beloved dog in Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy?
Baxter
Baxter is punted off the San Diego-Coronado Bridge by an angry motorcyclist, somehow survives, and later talks a bear out of attacking the news team.
Q 13What was the straight-to-DVD film assembled from Anchorman's outtakes and abandoned subplots called?
Wake Up, Ron Burgundy
Q 21In Monty Python and the Holy Grail, what do the knights use instead of real horses?
Servants banging coconut shells
Servants banging coconut shells stand in for horses because the small budget ruled out real ones, and Germany even released the film as 'The Knights of the Coconut'.
Q 22Which pair of rock bands helped finance Monty Python and the Holy Grail?
Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin
Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin were among the rock acts who invested; with Britain's top income tax near 90%, Terry Gilliam said, the film looked like a good write-off.
Q 23Monty Python and the Holy Grail shot most of its castle scenes at which Scottish castle, later Outlander's Castle Leoch?
Wake Up, Ron Burgundy was built from the original plot about bank robbers called The Alarm Clock, which tested so badly that much of Anchorman was rewritten and reshot.
Q 14In The Hangover, at which Las Vegas hotel do the friends book their suite for the bachelor party?
Caesars Palace
Caesars Palace is where they book a suite; Phil, Stu and Alan wake in its wreckage to a tiger in the bathroom and a baby in the closet, with the groom nowhere to be found.
Q 15The Hangover took the record for highest-grossing R-rated comedy in US history from which Eddie Murphy film?
Beverly Hills Cop
Beverly Hills Cop had held the record since 1984, though once ticket-price inflation is counted The Hangover earned less than half as much.
Q 16Which Bridesmaids cast member earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress?
Melissa McCarthy
Melissa McCarthy beat rivals for Megan including Rebel Wilson, whose hour of improvising at the audition so impressed the filmmakers that they gave her the part of Brynn.
Q 17In Bridesmaids, what failed business did Kristen Wiig's Annie run?
A bakery
A bakery, Cake Baby, went under in the recession; Officer Rhodes, once a regular customer, spends the film urging Annie to bake again.
Q 18Tina Fey's screenplay for Mean Girls was based on which non-fiction parenting book by Rosalind Wiseman?
Queen Bees and Wannabes
Queen Bees and Wannabes is a parenting guide with no story, so Fey wrote the plot from scratch, drawing on her own school days at Upper Darby High.
Q 19Which Mean Girls role was Lindsay Lohan first set to play before moving to Cady Heron?
Regina George
Regina George was Lohan's first assignment, but executives feared a mean-girl role would alienate her fans, so she took the lead and the part went to Rachel McAdams.
Q 20Where was Mean Girls' Cady Heron homeschooled for years before transferring to an American high school?
Africa
Africa had been Cady's home for twelve years before North Shore High, and her schooling mattered enough to the story that the film was first going to be called Homeschooled.
Doune
Doune Castle played nearly every castle in the film, shot from different angles, after officials refused permission for the others just before filming began.
Q 24Which former Beatle arranged funding for Monty Python's Life of Brian through his new company, HandMade Films?
George Harrison
George Harrison mortgaged his home to fund it through HandMade Films, reportedly because he wanted to see the movie; the Pythons called it the most anyone ever paid for a cinema ticket.
Q 25Life of Brian reused the sets of Zeffirelli's Jesus of Nazareth in which country, where Star Wars filmed Tatooine?
Tunisia
Tunisia's Monastir still had the sets, and local extras who had worked on Jesus of Nazareth kept telling Terry Jones how Mr Zeffirelli would have done it.
Q 26Life of Brian's Swedish posters boasted it was so funny it had been banned in which neighboring country?
Norway
Norway banned it for a year and Ireland for eight, so Swedish posters called it 'the film so funny it was banned in Norway', all over a film ending with a sing-along at a crucifixion.
Q 27Which comedian was Mel Brooks's original choice for Sheriff Bart in Blazing Saddles, but stayed on only as co-writer?
Richard Pryor
Richard Pryor co-wrote the script, but accounts differ on why he didn't star, and Cleavon Little got the badge. Brooks, who had final cut, later refused studio demands to trim the campfire scene.
Q 28Which actor took over as Blazing Saddles' Waco Kid after Gig Young collapsed on his first day of shooting?
Gene Wilder
Gene Wilder was flown in after Young, cast as the shaky gunslinger, collapsed during his first scene from what proved to be alcohol withdrawal.
Q 29Where had the original 1931 Frankenstein lab props been stored before Young Frankenstein reused them?
A home garage
A home garage: Kenneth Strickfaden had kept his 1931 gear there, and for Mel Brooks he reassembled it, built new devices and earned a thank-you in the opening credits.
Q 30How did Mel Brooks insist on shooting Young Frankenstein, a rarity for a 1974 studio comedy?
Entirely in black and white
Entirely in black and white was Brooks's condition: Columbia balked at that and at his budget, so he took the film to 20th Century Fox.