Getting your questions ready
Getting your questions ready
Beat the crowd
10 questions No timer
50 free Monk trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
41 free Monk trivia questions with answers. Monk ran for eight seasons and 125 episodes on USA Network, and its finale was for years the most-watched scripted drama episode in basic cable history. This quiz covers the whole run: how the show was nearly a Michael Richards vehicle, why the theme song changed after season one, Sharona's exit and Natalie's arrival, Ambrose and Jack Monk, Harold Krenshaw, Dale the Whale, and how Trudy's murder was finally solved. It starts with questions any casual viewer can answer (Monk's job, his city, his wipes) and works up to details for people who have rewatched every episode: his birthday, his bottled-water brand, Randy's high-school band, and what happened in the 2023 Peacock movie. It is free to use for a TV-themed quiz night. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the series, its characters, its episodes and its cast, and each question carries its source. No fan-forum guesses, no recycled listicle errors.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Adrian Monk works as a private consultant to the police department of which city?
San Francisco
After the pilot was shot in Vancouver and season one in Toronto, the rest of the series was mostly filmed in Los Angeles.
Q 02Which actor plays Adrian Monk, a role that earned him a Golden Globe in 2003?
Tony Shalhoub
He was born the ninth of ten children in a Lebanese Christian household in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
Q 03On which cable channel did Monk originally air from 2002 to 2009?
USA
It was the first Touchstone Television show to air on USA rather than ABC, which had originally developed it.
Q 04How many episodes of Monk were made?
125
They were spread over eight seasons, usually with half of each season's 16 episodes airing in midsummer and the rest early the next year.
Q 05Who is credited as the creator of Monk and wrote the pilot?
Andy Breckman
He also wrote the 2023 reunion film; the OCD-detective premise itself came from producer David Hoberman in 1998.
Q 06Which Seinfeld actor was considered for the role of Monk before turning it down?
Michael Richards
ABC first pictured the show as an Inspector Clouseau-style comedy, and it spent two years in development hell searching for a lead.
Q 07How did Monk's wife Trudy die?
A car bomb
It happened on December 14, 1997, and Monk believed for years that the bomb was meant for him.
Q 08Who was Monk's nurse and assistant for the first three seasons?
Sharona Fleming
Bitty Schram left in a contract dispute mid-season three; on screen, the character moved back to New Jersey to remarry her ex-husband Trevor.
Q 09Why did Bitty Schram leave the show during season three?
A contract dispute
She returned once, in the season eight episode 'Mr. Monk and Sharona', which reunited her character with Randy Disher.
Q 10In her debut episode, Monk meets Natalie Teeger after intruders break in trying to steal what?
Her daughter's pet fish
She kills one intruder in self-defence; the episode is 'Mr. Monk and the Red Herring' and she was working as a bartender.
Q 11What was the maiden name of Natalie Teeger, whose family owns a toothpaste fortune?
Davenport
Her husband Mitch, a Navy pilot, was killed in the Kosovo War in 1998, leaving her a single mother to Julie.
Q 12Which actor plays Captain Leland Stottlemeyer?
Ted Levine
He is best known outside Monk as Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs; the captain later marries a journalist known as T.K.
Q 13What was the name of the lieutenant's high-school rock band?
The Randy Disher Project
Randy Disher briefly resurrects it after quitting the force in 'Mr. Monk Goes to the Dentist'.
Q 21How many Primetime Emmys did the actor playing Monk win for the role?
Three
He was nominated every year from 2003 to 2010, winning in 2003, 2005 and 2006, and picked up a Golden Globe in 2003.
Q 22Which actor plays Monk's agoraphobic brother Ambrose?
John Turturro
Ambrose writes owner's manuals in seven and a half languages and had not left his house in 32 years when first seen.
Q 23What does Ambrose Monk do for a living?
Writes owner's manuals
He taught himself the languages; the half-language is his ongoing study of Mandarin.
Q 14In the finale, Randy Disher takes a job as chief of police in Summit, in which state?
New Jersey
It is Sharona's home state, and he announces the two of them are moving in together.
Q 15Who was Monk's psychiatrist for the first six seasons?
Dr. Charles Kroger
After Stanley Kamel died of a heart attack in April 2008, the writers had the character die the same way and brought in Héctor Elizondo as Dr. Bell.
Q 16How many phobias does Monk claim to have in the season six episode 'Mr. Monk and the Daredevil'?
312
The list runs from germs and needles to milk, mushrooms and nudity.
Q 17Which brand of bottled water is the only kind Monk will drink in the first five seasons?
Sierra Springs
In 'Mr. Monk Goes to Mexico' he goes days without drinking because he cannot find any; a fictional brand replaced it from season six.
Q 18Monk is so fixated on symmetry that he always cuts what into squares?
His pancakes
Entering a chaotic crime scene in 'Mr. Monk Meets Dale the Whale', his first impulse is to straighten the lamps.
Q 19Who wrote and performed 'It's a Jungle Out There', the theme song used from season two onward?
Randy Newman
USA Network got a flood of complaints from viewers who preferred Jeff Beal's original 'Monk Theme'.
Q 20What distinction did Monk earn when 'It's a Jungle Out There' won the 2004 Emmy for main title theme?
First series with two different themes winning in consecutive years
Jeff Beal's season-one theme had taken the same award the year before.
Q 24How did Monk's father Jack abandon the family when Adrian was eight?
He went out for Chinese food and never came back
He eventually resurfaces as a long-haul trucker decades later.
Q 25Who is Harold Krenshaw?
A fellow OCD patient and Monk's rival
Tim Bagley plays him; the two make a breakthrough when locked in a car trunk together in 'Mr. Monk Goes to Group Therapy'.
Q 26Which of these actors played recurring villain Dale 'the Whale' Biederbeck in a fat suit?
Tim Curry
Adam Arkin played him in season one and Ray Porter in season six.
Q 27Roughly how much does Monk's bedridden suspect Dale the Whale weigh in his first appearance?
800 lb
Monk's line is that you do not have to commit a murder to be guilty of it.
Q 28In the pilot, 'Mr. Monk and the Candidate', whose murder brings Monk out of forced retirement?
A politician's bodyguard
The season ran 13 episodes from July to October 2002.
Q 29In 'Mr. Monk Takes a Vacation', who witnesses a hotel-room murder through a telescope?
Benjy
Benjy is Sharona's son, who eventually returns to New Jersey with her.
Q 30In the two-part finale, who is revealed to be 'The Judge' who ordered Trudy's death?
Ethan Rickover
Craig T. Nelson played him; he steals Monk's gun and kills himself after telling Monk to 'take care of her'.