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50 free Matt Groening trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Matt Groening drew a one-eared rabbit for an alternative weekly, sold photocopies for two dollars at a record store, and ended up creating the longest-running American sitcom. The route ran through Life in Hell, a producer's birthday present and a hurried sketch in James L. Brooks's lobby of a family he named after his own parents and sisters. These 50 questions follow that route. Portland streets and a mother's maiden name behind the Springfield cast, the initials hidden in Homer's head, the nine spikes on Bart, the contentious partnership with Sam Simon and the Critic crossover he disowned. Then Futurama, developed with David X. Cohen, cancelled by Fox, revived by Comedy Central and again by Hulu, and Disenchantment for Netflix. There are questions on Bongo and Zongo Comics, Trout Mask Replica, the Rock Bottom Remainders and the Reuben Award too. Easy questions stick to the Tracey Ullman Show and the anagram in Bart's name; the expert tier asks about the Evergreen campus paper and the philosopher behind Life in Hell. Every answer is cited to a page we checked.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which city was he born?
Portland, Oregon
Several Springfield characters are named after Portland streets.
Q 02Which college in Olympia, Washington did he attend from 1972?
Evergreen State
He called it a hippie college with no grades that drew every weirdo in the Northwest, and left without a degree.
Q 03Which campus newspaper did he edit as a student?
The Cooper Point Journal
He wrote articles and drew cartoons for it as well.
Q 04Which fellow cartoonist, met at college, has he called 'probably his biggest inspiration'?
Lynda Barry
They bonded after he learned she had received a reply to a fan letter to Joseph Heller.
Q 05Life in Hell was loosely inspired by a chapter in a book by which philosopher?
Walter Kaufmann
The chapter was 'How to Go to Hell' in Critique of Religion and Philosophy.
Q 06To which avant-garde magazine did he make his first professional cartoon sale in 1978?
Wet
The strip was titled 'Forbidden Words'.
Q 07At which Los Angeles record store did he work and sell copies of his comic book?
Licorice Pizza
Copies went for two dollars each at the punk corner of the Sunset Boulevard shop.
Q 08In which alternative newspaper did Life in Hell begin running weekly in 1980?
Los Angeles Reader
He also delivered papers, typeset and answered phones there.
Q 09Which future Simpsons voice actor was a fan of his made-up music column?
Harry Shearer
Shearer was already known for This Is Spinal Tap.
Q 10Who published the first Life in Hell book, Love Is Hell, in 1984?
Deborah Caplan
Then his girlfriend and later his wife, she built the strip from 11 weeklies to 250 papers.
Q 11Which stressed, therapy-going rabbit is the star of Life in Hell?
Binky
Groening once pitched him to an editor as 'the rabbit with one ear' — though that was actually his son.
Q 12What physical feature distinguishes the rabbit Bongo from his father?
One ear
Groening admits it exists only so casual readers can tell the two apart.
Q 13Which identically drawn, fez-wearing duo ran businesses like the Tofu Hut in the strip?
Akbar and Jeff
Groening has described them as brothers or lovers or both — whatever offends you most.
The fez-wearing duo's designs began as failed attempts to draw which character?
Q 21Bart's name is an anagram of which word?
Brat
Groening thought naming the boy after himself would be too obvious.
Q 22After whom did he name Homer and Marge?
His parents
Lisa and Maggie are his younger sisters; his mother's maiden name was Wiggum.
Q 23Whom did he name in 1995 as the actual inspiration for Bart?
His older brother Mark
He insists his family is otherwise nothing like the Simpsons.
Q 24What did he hide in Homer's hairline and ear in the original design?
Charlie Brown
They kept the striped shirts.
Q 15In which year did the final new Life in Hell strip run?
2012
It ended with one of Akbar and Jeff dancing and the other giving in: 'Well, I tried.'
Q 16After the 2006 US elections he briefly retitled his strip as what?
Life Is Swell
The change lasted from 2007.
Q 17Which producer contacted him in 1985 about animated shorts for a Fox variety show?
James L. Brooks
Brooks had received a Life in Hell original, 'The Los Angeles Way of Death', as a gift.
Q 18The first Simpsons shorts aired as bumpers on which Fox variety programme?
The Tracey Ullman Show
The shorts debuted on April 19, 1987.
Q 19Why did he refuse to adapt his comic-strip characters for television?
He feared losing ownership rights
He also worried a failed show would take the strip down with it.
Q 20Where did he hurriedly sketch the Simpson family for the first time?
In the lobby of Brooks's office
The family was designed to be recognisable in silhouette.
His own initials
The M and G were too distracting, but he still draws the ear as a G for fans.
Q 25Marge's beehive hairstyle was inspired by which film?
Bride of Frankenstein
His mother wore a similar style in the 1960s, though never in blue.
Q 26To how many spikes was Bart's hair eventually standardised?
Nine
The first shorts gave him spikier hair of uneven lengths.
Q 27Where does Chief Wiggum's surname come from?
His mother's maiden name
Margaret Wiggum was a former teacher of Norwegian descent.
Q 28Flanders, Lovejoy, Quimby and Kearney are all names of what?
Streets in Portland
Sideshow Bob Terwilliger, despite fan belief, was not named after Terwilliger Boulevard.
Q 29Sideshow Bob Terwilliger was named after a character in which film?
The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T
The Dr. Seuss-scripted musical features the piano tyrant Dr. Terwilliker.
Q 30The writers' choice of 'Abraham' for Grampa coincidentally matched whose name?
Groening's own grandfather
Groening had refused to name Grampa himself for exactly that reason.