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50 free Laika Studios trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Laika started as Will Vinton Studios, the Oregon house behind the California Raisins, until Nike co-founder Phil Knight bought it and renamed it in 2005 after the first dog in space. Since then the Hillsboro studio has made exactly one kind of film: painstaking stop-motion features, from Coraline's 3D-printed faces in 2009 to the $100 million Missing Link and the long-gestating Wildwood. These 50 questions cover the studio's history and the Knight family, then walk film by film through Coraline, ParaNorman, The Boxtrolls, Kubo and the Two Strings, Missing Link and Wildwood: directors, voice casts, source novels, technical firsts, awards and box office. Easy questions cover the films everyone has seen; the hard end asks about cancelled projects, 3D-printing partners and Travis Knight's rap career. Every answer is cited to a page we checked, with a one-line explanation attached. Play it solo or print it for an animation-fan quiz night.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Nike co-founder owns Laika?
Phil Knight
He first invested in the studio's predecessor, Will Vinton Studios, in 1998.
Q 02In which Oregon city is Laika based?
Hillsboro
It is part of the Portland metropolitan area.
Q 03What role did the owner's son Travis take at Laika in 2009?
President and CEO
He also directed Kubo and the Two Strings and Wildwood himself.
Q 04Laika is named after what?
The first dog in space
The Soviet Union launched Laika in 1957.
Q 05Which studio was rebranded as Laika in 2005?
Will Vinton Studios
Vinton was famous for the California Raisins and Claymation commercials.
Q 06Which Nightmare Before Christmas director joined Laika as supervising director in 2003?
Henry Selick
He directed Coraline before leaving in 2009 after failing to renegotiate his contract.
Q 07In which year did Laika release its first feature, Coraline?
2009
It opened on February 6 and is now the third-highest-grossing stop-motion film ever.
Q 08Which cancelled CGI project caused Laika's 2008 layoffs?
Jack & Ben's Animated Adventure
Laika then dropped computer animation entirely to focus on stop motion.
Q 09What was Laika's spun-off commercial division renamed in 2014?
HouseSpecial
It had made ads for Apple, Fox Sports, ESPN and Coca-Cola.
Q 10Which Coraline author wrote the novella Laika adapted for its debut?
Neil Gaiman
He invited Selick to adapt it after seeing The Nightmare Before Christmas.
Q 11Who voices Coraline Jones?
Dakota Fanning
Teri Hatcher voices both her mother and the Other Mother.
Q 12Who voices the Other Mother, also called the Beldam, in Coraline?
Teri Hatcher
Hatcher was then starring in Desperate Housewives.
Q 13Which Japanese illustrator shaped Coraline's muted-versus-vivid colour palette?
Tadahiro Uesugi
Selick sought him out for a look unlike most animation.
Q 14How many identical Coraline puppets were built for the film?
Q 21In which fictional hilltop city is The Boxtrolls set?
Cheesebridge
The city's ruling White Hats are obsessed with cheese.
Q 22Who voices the villainous exterminator Archibald Snatcher?
Ben Kingsley
Snatcher craves a White Hat despite severe lactose intolerance.
Q 23Which Game of Thrones actor voices Eggs in The Boxtrolls?
Isaac Hempstead Wright
He played Bran Stark; Art Parkinson (Rickon) later voiced Kubo.
Q 24Who directed The Boxtrolls?
28
Each took three to four months and about ten people to build.
Q 15What did Coraline pioneer in stop-motion puppet making?
3D-printed replacement faces
The crew used three Objet printing systems and over 200,000 face combinations were possible.
Q 16In which year did Laika's second feature, ParaNorman, open?
2012
It arrived on August 17, three and a half years after Coraline.
Q 17Who co-directed ParaNorman with Sam Fell?
Chris Butler
Butler went on to write and direct Missing Link and write Kubo and Wildwood.
Q 18Who voices Norman in ParaNorman?
Kodi Smit-McPhee
Norman is an 11-year-old who can speak to the dead.
Q 19ParaNorman was the first stop-motion film to use what for faces?
A full-colour 3-D printer
Coraline had used black-and-white printers.
Q 20Which novel is The Boxtrolls based on?
Here Be Monsters!
Alan Snow's 2005 book featured five species of creatures; the film kept just one.
Graham Annable and Anthony Stacchi
It was nominated for Best Animated Film at the Oscars, Golden Globes and BAFTAs.
Q 25In which year was Travis Knight's directing debut, Kubo and the Two Strings, released?
2016
He had been lead animator on the studio's earlier films.
Q 26Kubo and the Two Strings is set in which country?
Feudal Japan
Ink wash painting, ukiyo-e prints and origami inspired its look.
Q 27What instrument does Kubo play to bring origami to life?
Shamisen
It is a three-stringed Japanese lute.
Q 28Who voices Monkey in Kubo and the Two Strings?
Charlize Theron
Monkey is revealed to be Kubo's mother reincarnated as a macaque.
Q 29Who voices Beetle in Kubo and the Two Strings?
Matthew McConaughey
Beetle turns out to be the samurai Hanzo, Kubo's father.
Q 30Who voices the Moon King?
Ralph Fiennes
The Moon King is Kubo's grandfather, who stole his left eye.