Joker Trivia
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100 free Joker trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
45 free Joker trivia questions with answers. The Joker was supposed to die in his second appearance in 1940 and instead became the most famous villain in comics. This quiz covers the character on the page and on the screen: the disputed creation by Finger, Kane and Robinson, the Conrad Veidt grin from The Man Who Laughs, the Red Hood and the chemical vat, the Comics Code prankster years, Arkham Asylum, the crowbar and the phone-in vote that killed Jason Todd, Alan Moore's Killing Joke and 'one bad day', Harley Quinn's debut on Batman: The Animated Series, and Emperor Joker. Then the actors: Cesar Romero's painted-over moustache, Jack Nicholson's Jack Napier and his top-billing deal, Mark Hamill's voice, Heath Ledger's hotel room and posthumous Oscar, Jared Leto's tattoos, Barry Keoghan's cameo, and Joaquin Phoenix's Arthur Fleck, the Bronx stairs, the Golden Lion and the first R-rated billion-dollar film. Easy questions ask what colour his hair is and who played him in The Dark Knight. Medium ones cover the films, the origin stories and Harley. Hard ones want the editor who saved him from death, the issue that introduced the Red Hood, the year Arkham first appeared and the toxin Nicholson's Joker put in cosmetics. Every answer has been checked against reference articles on the character, the comics and the films, and each question shows its citation once you have answered.
30 of 100 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which future Batman foe debuted beside the Joker in Batman #1?
Catwoman
Catwoman began in that issue as 'the Cat', a thief written as a romantic interest for Batman, a 'friendly foe' rather than a killer like the Joker.
Q 02Which three men share the disputed credit for creating the Joker?
Finger, Kane and Robinson
Bill Finger, Bob Kane and Jerry Robinson share the credit uneasily: Robinson said his sketch of a joker playing card came first, while Kane insisted Robinson 'had absolutely nothing to do with it'.
Q 03The Joker's rictus grin was inspired by Conrad Veidt's character Gwynplaine in which 1928 silent film?
The Man Who Laughs
The Man Who Laughs adapts a Victor Hugo novel about a man whose face was carved into a permanent grin; a picture of Veidt in the role was handed to the artist as the model for the Joker.
Q 04Who saved the Joker from being killed off for good in his second story in 1940?
A DC editor
A DC editor, Whitney Ellsworth, thought the villain too good to lose, so a last-minute panel was added in which an ambulance doctor marvels that the stabbed Joker is going to live.
Q 05In the Joker's earliest stories, his victims died with what on their faces?
A grotesque smile
A grotesque smile was the signature of his poison, Joker venom; the Joker of 1940 was a cold-blooded serial killer and jewel thief, not yet the prankster of later decades.
Q 06A 1951 origin story revealed that the Joker had once been which masked villain?
The Red Hood
The Red Hood plunged into a vat of chemical waste to escape Batman and surfaced with bleached skin, green hair and a fixed grin, an origin that later writers kept returning to.
Q 07What kept the once-murderous Joker a goofy prankster for much of the 1950s and 1960s?
The Comics Code Authority
The Comics Code Authority, set up by publishers in 1954 amid a panic over comics and delinquency, banned excessive violence, so the killer clown stayed a thieving trickster until writers restored his murders in 1973.
Q 08In The Dark Knight, the Joker's 'magic trick' for Gotham's mob bosses makes what disappear?
A pencil
A pencil vanishes into a henchman's head; it was filmed for real, the stuntman snatching the pencil away a split second before his face hit the table, some 22 takes in all.
Q 09In the 1988 story 'A Death in the Family', the Joker killed which Robin?
Jason Todd
Jason Todd died by popular vote: DC opened phone lines so readers could decide his fate, and death won by just 72 calls out of more than 10,000.
Q 10In Alan Moore's The Killing Joke, the Joker shoots and paralyses whom?
Barbara Gordon
Barbara Gordon, who had been Batgirl, returned to comics the next year as Oracle, a hacker in a wheelchair who feeds intelligence to DC's heroes.
Q 11Which artist drew The Killing Joke, a story he proposed after watching the 1928 film behind the Joker's grin?
Brian Bolland
Brian Bolland was told he could do any project he liked at DC and asked for a Joker story written by Alan Moore; unhappy with the rushed colouring, he recoloured the whole book himself in 2008.
Q 12The Joker's best-known nickname in the comics is the Clown Prince of what?
Crime
Crime completes the title, and he manages it with no superpowers at all: for all his reputation, the Joker relies on custom weapons and sheer unpredictability.
Q 13The Joker's lapel flower and joy buzzer were introduced in 1952 as what?
Harmless joke items
Q 21How does Nicholson's Joker line 'Have you ever danced with the devil...' end?
'...in the pale moonlight?'
The line ends '...in the pale moonlight?', the question the mugger put to young Bruce after shooting his parents, so hearing the Joker say it tells Batman who the killer was.
Q 22Jack Nicholson agreed to play the Joker in 1989 only on strict conditions that included what?
A share of the film's earnings
A share of the film's earnings, merchandise included, came with top billing and a shooting schedule of his choosing; estimates of what the deal paid him start at $60 million.
Q 23Who wrote the songs for the 1989 Batman film?
Prince
Harmless joke items suited the prankster Joker of the 1950s; once he turned killer again, the flower squirted acid and the buzzer carried a lethal charge.
Q 14In the 2000 crossover 'Emperor Joker', the Joker steals reality-warping power from which character?
Mister Mxyzptlk
Mister Mxyzptlk, an imp from the fifth dimension, is tricked out of almost all his power, and the Joker remakes the world so that he can kill Batman every day and bring him back.
Q 15In Flashpoint (2011), which character becomes the Joker in an alternate timeline?
Martha Wayne
Martha Wayne loses her mind in a world where young Bruce, not his parents, is shot in the alley; her husband Thomas becomes its Batman instead.
Q 16Which 2017 DC comics event introduced a villain who is a fusion of Batman and the Joker?
Dark Nights: Metal
Dark Nights: Metal brought in a Batman from a doomed parallel world who finally killed the Joker, only to be infected by a toxin released at his death and remade in his image.
Q 17Who played the Joker in the 1966 Batman TV series and film?
Cesar Romero
Cesar Romero had spent decades playing suave Latin lovers on film; as the Joker he laughed more than he spoke, cackling through the series in a bright purple suit.
Q 18What did the 1966 TV Joker actor refuse to do for the role?
Shave his moustache
He would not shave his moustache, so the white greasepaint was simply smeared over it for the whole series and the 1966 film; look closely and the bristles show through.
Q 19In Tim Burton's 1989 Batman, the Joker's real name is what?
Jack Napier
Jack Napier was invented for the film, as the comics had never revealed the Joker's real name; here he is a gangster whom Batman accidentally sends into a vat of chemicals.
Q 20In the 1989 film, the Joker poisons Gotham by lacing hygiene products with a chemical called what?
Smylex
Smylex leaves its victims dead with a fixed grin; Batman works out how it spreads and hands his research to reporter Vicki Vale so that Gotham can avoid it.
Prince's soundtrack album topped the US chart for six weeks and 'Batdance' went to number one; he later said it had been planned as a duet album with Michael Jackson. Danny Elfman wrote the score.
Q 24Which Star Wars actor first voiced the Joker in Batman: The Animated Series in 1992?
Mark Hamill
Mark Hamill voiced him for three decades of cartoons and games; after Kevin Conroy, his Batman, died in 2022, he said that without Kevin 'there doesn't seem to be a Batman for me'.
Q 25Harley Quinn was created for which medium before she appeared in comics?
A television cartoon
A television cartoon gave her a walk-on part in a single 1992 episode; writer Paul Dini modelled her on his friend Arleen Sorkin, who had played a jester in a soap opera and went on to voice her.
Q 26Before becoming Harley Quinn, Harleen Quinzel had what job?
Psychiatrist at Arkham
Psychiatrist at Arkham: the 1994 comic Mad Love shows Dr Harleen Quinzel falling for the Joker while treating him. A later retelling added his pushing her into the chemical vat that made him.
Q 27Who played the Joker in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight (2008)?
Heath Ledger
Heath Ledger never saw the finished film: he died in January 2008, six months before it opened, and his family collected the Oscar he won for the role.
Q 28The Dark Knight's Joker earned an Academy Award that was notable as the first what?
Acting win for a superhero film
An acting win for a superhero film had never happened before. It was not the first posthumous acting Oscar, though: Peter Finch won for Network in 1977, two months after his death.
Q 29How did the Dark Knight's Joker actor prepare for the role?
He shut himself in a hotel for weeks
He shut himself in a hotel for weeks, alone in London, trying out voices and filling a diary with clown faces, photos of hyenas and a list of things the Joker would find funny.
Q 30In The Dark Knight, the Joker threatens to blow up what unless a man about to unmask Batman is killed?
A hospital
A hospital is the threat, and he blows up Gotham General anyway; the blast was real, shot in a single take at a disused Chicago candy factory that was already due for demolition.