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50 free Coming to America trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
42 free Coming to America trivia questions with answers. Coming to America opened in June 1988 to sniffy reviews and became one of the biggest comedies of the decade, then spent thirty years being quoted in barbershops before Coming 2 America finally arrived on Prime Video. This quiz covers both films: Prince Akeem's forty days in Queens, McDowell's and its legally distinct golden arches, Soul Glo, Sexual Chocolate, the Duke brothers turning up homeless, and the many faces of Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall under Rick Baker's makeup. The questions run from easy plot points to the production stories: what Paramount insisted on in the casting, why Murphy and John Landis fell out, the humourist who sued and won, the Oscar nominations, the Nile Rodgers jingle, and the failed CBS sitcom pilot. The sequel round covers General Izzi, Lavelle, the Atlanta shoot in a rapper's mansion, and James Earl Jones's final film role. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the two films and carries its source. Play it before a rewatch or use it as a round at movie night; the difficulty scores tell you which ones are the gimmes.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who directed Coming to America, reuniting with Eddie Murphy five years after their first film together?
John Landis
John Landis directed it, five years after their first film together; the two fell out badly on set, yet reunited for Beverly Hills Cop III in 1994.
Q 02Prince Akeem decides to find his own bride on which birthday?
His 21st
The trigger is meeting Imani, the arranged bride who has been trained since birth to obey his every word.
Q 03How many days does King Jaffe give Akeem to see the world before marrying?
40
King Jaffe grants 40 days; Akeem has just made Imani, the chosen bride, bark like a dog and hop on one foot to prove she has no will of her own.
Q 04In which New York borough do Akeem and Semmi go looking for a queen?
Queens
Queens is the borough: Akeem reasons that a land called Queens must hold a queen, so he and Semmi rent a run-down tenement flat there.
Q 05Lisa's boyfriend Darryl Jenks is heir to which hair-care fortune?
Soul Glo
Soul Glo, the Jenks family's hair-care product, leaves a grease stain on every sofa Darryl sits on, and its glossy TV jingle is one of the film's running jokes.
Q 06Eddie Murphy's soul singer Randy Watson fronts which band at the neighbourhood rally?
Sexual Chocolate
Sexual Chocolate, fronted by the ageing soul man Randy Watson, performs 'The Greatest Love of All' at the Black Awareness Rally to a mostly silent room.
Q 07Besides Semmi, which of these characters is played by Arsenio Hall?
Reverend Brown
Reverend Brown, the sweating preacher who hosts the Black Awareness Rally, is Arsenio Hall under prosthetics; he also plays Morris the barber and the Extremely Ugly Girl, while Clarence and Saul are Eddie Murphy.
Q 08Who plays King Jaffe Joffer?
James Earl Jones
James Earl Jones plays the king and returned for the 2021 sequel; he died in September 2024 at 93.
Q 09Which actress plays Queen Aoleon, and would later voice Sarabi in The Lion King?
Madge Sinclair
Madge Sinclair, the Jamaican-born actress who won a 1991 Emmy for Gabriel's Fire, plays Queen Aoleon; she died in 1995, a year after voicing Sarabi.
Q 10Who plays Cleo McDowell, Lisa's father and Akeem's boss?
John Amos
John Amos, who played patriarch James Evans on Good Times, is Cleo McDowell; he returned for the 2021 sequel, in which McDowell's has a Zamunda franchise.
Q 11Who plays Lisa McDowell?
Shari Headley
Shari Headley plays Lisa McDowell; the other three are also in the film, as the arranged bride Imani, Lisa's sister Patrice and one of the royal rose bearers.
Q 12Which future ER star plays Lisa's obnoxious boyfriend Darryl?
Eriq La Salle
Eriq La Salle plays Darryl; he went on to play Dr. Peter Benton on ER for eight seasons from 1994.
Q 13According to Arsenio Hall, why did Louie Anderson end up playing McDowell's employee Maurice?
Paramount insisted on a white actor
Q 21Which humourist sued Paramount in 1990, saying the film came from his 1982 treatment about an African potentate?
Art Buchwald
He won the breach-of-contract case, and Buchwald v. Paramount became the textbook example of Hollywood 'net profit' accounting.
Q 22Akeem tells Lisa's family that he comes from a family of what?
Poor goat herders
Akeem claims to be from a family of poor goat herders; the lie holds until the king and queen and their entourage descend on the McDowell house.
Q 23Where does Akeem finally catch up with Lisa to explain himself and propose?
On a subway car
Paramount insisted on a white actor, Hall said in 2020: the studio supplied a list of three white performers, and he and Murphy picked Louie Anderson because they knew and liked him.
Q 14Which future star plays the McDowell's robber stopped by Akeem's mop handle?
Samuel L. Jackson
Samuel L. Jackson, then a little-known stage and TV actor, plays the shotgun-wielding robber whom Akeem disarms with a mop handle, six years before Pulp Fiction.
Q 15Which future Oscar winner made his film debut as a boy getting a haircut in the barbershop?
Cuba Gooding Jr.
Cuba Gooding Jr., later an Oscar winner for Jerry Maguire, is credited as 'Boy Getting Haircut' in his first film role; Ruben Santiago-Hudson also debuted, as a street hustler.
Q 16The homeless men Akeem hands cash to are Mortimer and Randolph Duke, from which film?
Trading Places
Trading Places (1983) introduced the Duke brothers; Don Ameche and Ralph Bellamy reprise them as the bankrupt pair who, handed Akeem's cash, exclaim 'Mortimer, we're back!'
Q 17Which South African choir sings 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight' over the opening sequence?
Ladysmith Black Mambazo
Ladysmith Black Mambazo, the Zulu isicathamiya group that had just appeared on Paul Simon's Graceland, performs 'Mbube', better known as 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight', over the opening.
Q 18Eddie Murphy's personal salary for the film was reportedly how much, plus 15% of rentals?
$8 million
Eddie Murphy's deal was $8 million up front plus 15 percent of the film's rentals; co-star Arsenio Hall, then a stand-up comic, earned a fraction of that.
Q 19The director's trademark in-joke 'See You Next Wednesday' appears in the film as what?
A subway poster for a sci-fi movie
A subway poster for a sci-fi movie carries the director's in-joke, glimpsed in a station scene late in the film.
Q 20Coming to America received two Academy Award nominations, one for costume design and one for what?
Makeup
Rick Baker's makeup turned Murphy and Hall into a Jewish pensioner, a soul singer, a barber and a woman nobody wanted to dance with.
On a subway car, Akeem confesses he is a prince and asks Lisa to marry him; she turns him down, and he returns to Zamunda heartbroken.
Q 24The film opened in the US on which date in 1988?
June 29
Coming to America opened on Wednesday, June 29, 1988, debuted at number one and finished as the year's third-highest-grossing film in America, behind Rain Man and Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
Q 25Roughly what was the film's production budget?
$36 million
The budget was about $36 million, and the film earned it back many times over, finishing as one of 1988's biggest hits.
Q 26The unsold 1989 sitcom pilot based on the film starred which In Living Color comedian as Prince Tariq?
Tommy Davidson
Tommy Davidson played Prince Tariq in the pilot, which CBS burned off in its Summer Playhouse anthology on July 4, 1989, with Paul Bates back as the servant Oha.
Q 27Which group performed the film's promotional title song 'Coming to America'?
The System
The System, the synth-funk duo of Mic Murphy and David Frank, recorded the title song 'Coming to America', released as a single in 1988.
Q 28In 2022 Paramount took legal action against a company for doing what?
Opening pop-up McDowell's restaurants
The pop-ups had operated in Springfield, Virginia and Cherry Hill, New Jersey; the case went to the new Copyright Claims Board.
Q 29Siskel and Ebert gave the film 'two thumbs down'. What did Murphy say about that in 2016?
He had not read a review in over 20 years
He noted the same pair later called it 'the classic Coming to America' in a retrospective.
Q 30Which grade did audiences polled by CinemaScore give the film?
A
Critics were far cooler: Metacritic's score is 47, and the New York Times said the script had escaped before it was ready.