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This music video trivia quiz has 50 free questions with answers and starts before MTV even existed, with Soundies, Scopitones, the Beatles' promo films and Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody clip, then runs through the MTV era of Thriller, Take On Me, Sledgehammer and Money for Nothing, the 90s auteurs like Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry and Mark Romanek, and the YouTube age of Gangnam Style, Despacito and Baby Shark. You will be asked who directed the videos, what they cost, where they were shot, which ones set view records and which ones won the most Moon Persons at the VMAs. There are easy questions for casual pop fans and genuinely hard ones about budgets, dates and behind-the-scenes details. Every answer has been checked against a reliable reference, so the facts you learn here are safe to repeat at pub quiz night.
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Q 01Which Buggles song was the first clip ever played on MTV when the channel launched in 1981?
Video Killed the Radio Star
The Buggles clip aired at 12:01 a.m. on August 1, 1981. The song was written by Trevor Horn, Geoff Downes and Bruce Woolley, and Woolley recorded his own version the same year.
Q 02Who directed Michael Jackson's 1983 'Thriller' video?
John Landis
Jackson called Landis after seeing An American Werewolf in London. Ola Ray, a former Playboy Playmate, was cast as his date because, Landis said, she was 'crazy for Michael.'
Q 03In 2009, 'Thriller' became the first music video added to which American archive?
The National Film Registry
The Library of Congress called it the most famous music video of all time. Its $900,000 budget was far larger than any video before it.
Q 04The pencil-sketch animation in a-ha's 'Take On Me' video was created using which technique?
Rotoscoping
Director Steve Barron shot live action that animators then drew over frame by frame, a process that took six months. In 2024 it became the first 1980s video to hit two billion YouTube views.
Q 05Which video holds the record for most MTV Video Music Awards won by a single clip, with nine in 1987?
Sledgehammer
Peter Gabriel's clip used claymation, pixilation and stop motion by Aardman Animations and the Brothers Quay. Time magazine has called it the most-played video in MTV history.
Q 06Which animation studio, later famous for Wallace and Gromit, worked on Peter Gabriel's most famous video?
Aardman Animations
Aardman and the Brothers Quay animated the fruit, fish and dancing chickens around Gabriel's face, frame by frame.
Q 07Queen's 1975 'Bohemian Rhapsody' promo video let the band appear on which TV show without playing live?
Top of the Pops
Bruce Gowers directed it, and it is widely credited with pushing forward the music video as a medium. Freddie Mercury played a Bechstein concert grand in the clip.
Q 08Which video was the first on YouTube to reach one billion views, in December 2012?
Gangnam Style
Psy's clip had drawn about 500,000 views on its first day. YouTube marked the milestone with a cartoon dancing Psy next to the view counter.
Q 09Which video overtook 'Despacito' in November 2020 to become the most-viewed on YouTube?
Baby Shark Dance
Pinkfong, a South Korean company, released its version in June 2016. The clip is also the third most-liked video on the platform.
Q 10The 'Despacito' video was filmed in the La Perla neighborhood of which city?
Old San Juan
Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee also shot at the bar La Factoría, and tour operators credit the video with a surge of interest in both locations.
Q 11Which Guns N' Roses video was the first pre-YouTube video to pass a billion views?
November Rain
Axl Rose's then-girlfriend Stephanie Seymour played the bride. It hit two billion views in 2023, the oldest song to do so.
Q 12Guinness World Records listed which 1995 video, costing $7 million, as the most expensive ever made?
Scream by Michael and Janet Jackson
Director Mark Romanek disputes the title and says two other videos of the era cost millions more. It won the Grammy for Best Music Video, Short Form.
Q 13Which director made Lady Gaga's 'Bad Romance' video, winner of a record seven VMAs in 2010?
Francis Lawrence
Q 21At the first VMAs in 1984, Madonna performed 'Like a Virgin' wearing what?
A wedding gown and 'Boy Toy' belt
Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera recreated the look on the same wedding-cake set at the 2003 ceremony, 19 years later.
Q 22Weezer's 'Buddy Holly' video splices the band into footage from which sitcom?
Happy Days
Al Molinaro appears as Al Delvecchio to introduce 'Kenosha, Wisconsin's own Weezer.' The Spike Jonze clip shipped as a bonus file on the Windows 95 CD-ROM.
Q 23Who directed Childish Gambino's 'This Is America' video?
Hiro Murai
Lawrence, later director of The Hunger Games sequels, set it in a surreal white bathhouse. It received ten VMA nominations, also a record at the time.
Q 14Beyoncé's 'Single Ladies' choreography was inspired by a 1969 routine by which choreographer?
Bob Fosse
The routine, 'Mexican Breakfast,' featured Fosse's wife Gwen Verdon on The Ed Sullivan Show. Jake Nava shot the video in black and white in New York.
Q 15Whose 2009 VMAs acceptance speech did Kanye West interrupt to praise 'Single Ladies'?
Taylor Swift
He grabbed the microphone, shrugged and walked off. Swift has since won more VMAs than any other artist.
Q 16Which actor dances through an empty hotel lobby in Fatboy Slim's 'Weapon of Choice' video?
Christopher Walken
Walken trained as a dancer in musical theatre before he became an actor. Spike Jonze directed the clip.
Q 17OK Go's 'Here It Goes Again' video, which won a Grammy in 2007, features the band dancing on what?
Treadmills
The single-take clip also won the 2006 YouTube award for Most Creative Video and became one of the site's first viral hits.
Q 18Johnny Cash's acclaimed 2002 video 'Hurt' was a cover of a song originally by which band?
Nine Inch Nails
Mark Romanek's video, mixing footage from Cash's life with shots of the aging singer, was named best video of the year by the Grammys and CMA Awards and best of all time by NME in 2011.
Q 19Which poet helped write the cue cards Dylan flips in the 1965 'Subterranean Homesick Blues' clip?
Allen Ginsberg
Donovan and Bob Neuwirth also lettered cards. The clip opens D. A. Pennebaker's documentary Dont Look Back and was later parodied by 'Weird Al' Yankovic in 'Bob.'
Q 20The MTV Video Music Award statuette depicts what?
An astronaut on the Moon
Long nicknamed the 'moonman,' MTV has officially called it a 'moon person' since 2017. The first ceremony was held at Radio City Music Hall in 1984.
Murai, Donald Glover's frequent collaborator on Atlanta, won the Grammy for Best Music Video, one of the song's four wins that night.
Q 24Which Dire Straits video, an early use of computer-animated humans, was MTV Europe's first in 1987?
Money for Nothing
Sting sings the falsetto 'I want my MTV' hook to the tune of the Police's 'Don't Stand So Close to Me.' Steve Barron, who also made 'Take On Me,' directed it.
Q 25Which future Hollywood director shot Madonna's black-and-white 'Vogue' video in just 16 hours?
David Fincher
Fincher had already directed 'Express Yourself' and 'Oh Father' for her. She was rehearsing the Blond Ambition tour at the time.
Q 26Nirvana's 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' video is set at what kind of event?
A high school pep rally
It was the first video by director Samuel Bayer. Kurt Cobain had most of the teacher and principal footage cut, keeping the janitor dancing with a broom.
Q 27Vevo, launched in December 2009, began as a joint venture among Universal, Sony and which other label?
EMI Group
Warner was expected to join but instead allied with MTV Networks. Vevo premieres became the standard launch for big-budget videos in the 2010s.
Q 28Which photographer directed Miley Cyrus's record-setting 'Wrecking Ball' video in 2013?
Terry Richardson
It drew more than 19 million views in its first day. The song was Cyrus's first number one on the Billboard Hot 100.
Q 29Which comedian appears in the 'Old Town Road' video alongside Diplo, Vince Staples and Rico Nasty?
Chris Rock
Calmatic directed the clip, which follows Lil Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus from 1889 into the present day. The remix won the Grammy for Best Music Video.
Q 30Beyoncé's 'Formation' video, directed by Melina Matsoukas, is set in which city?
New Orleans
She performed the song the day after its release during the Super Bowl 50 halftime show headlined by Coldplay.