Novelty Songs
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40 free Novelty Songs trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Novelty songs are pop's licensed troublemakers: comic records, parodies and dance crazes that barge into the charts, outsell the serious competition for a few weeks and then refuse to leave anyone's head. Musical novelty acts have been at it since the days of vaudeville, and the internet has only made the joke travel faster. This quiz covers the whole tradition: the monster voices and tape tricks of the 1950s and 60s, the fad-chasing hits of the 70s, the parody kings, the oddities of the British Christmas chart and the viral hits of the streaming age. The questions are about the people behind the records, the crazes they sent up and the strange stories of how the songs were made. It is pitched at pub quizzers, music fans and anyone who has been caught singing along to a song they claim to hate. Every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which rock and roll pioneer's only US number one single was the 1972 novelty song My Ding-a-Ling?
Chuck Berry
Chuck Berry topped the Hot 100 for the only time with a live singalong version in 1972. Some radio stations refused to air it even when it reached number one.
Q 02Which pop superstar sang uncredited backing vocals on the 1990 Simpsons single Do the Bartman?
Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson sang on and produced the track for Bart's voice actor Nancy Cartwright. Matt Groening later said an Epic Records contract kept the star's name off it.
Q 03The animated Crazy Frog's 2005 ringtone hit Axel F remade the theme from which Eddie Murphy film?
Beverly Hills Cop
Beverly Hills Cop introduced Harold Faltermeyer's synth theme in 1984. The Crazy Frog began as an animation made to go with a man's imitation of a two-stroke engine.
Q 04Boots Randolph's 1963 saxophone romp Yakety Sax became famous as the chase music on which British comedy series?
The Benny Hill Show
The Benny Hill Show made the tune shorthand for a silly chase, though the single only reached number 35 in the US. Randolph was inspired by the sax solo on Yakety Yak.
Q 05Bobby Pickett narrated the 1962 Halloween hit Monster Mash in an impression of which horror film actor?
Boris Karloff
Boris Karloff was the voice Pickett borrowed, after an impression in his band's stage act went down well. The BBC kept the record off air in 1962 as too morbid.
Q 06Which toy company sued over Aqua's 1997 hit Barbie Girl and lost in court?
Mattel
Mattel accused Aqua's label of tarnishing its doll's image, but the courts ruled the song a protected parody. The appeal judge ended by advising both sides to chill.
Q 07Which 2012 viral hit became the first YouTube video to reach a billion views?
Gangnam Style
Gangnam Style passed a billion views in December 2012. Psy settled on its horse-trot dance only after trying out panda and kangaroo moves with his choreographer.
Q 08Which children's author and cartoonist wrote Johnny Cash's 1969 hit A Boy Named Sue?
Shel Silverstein
Shel Silverstein wrote the comic tale, and Johnny Cash recorded it live at San Quentin prison. It became the country star's only top ten single on the Hot 100.
Q 09Ray Stevens topped the US and UK charts in 1974 with The Streak, a comic song about a craze for doing what?
Running naked
Running naked through public places, known as streaking, was the fad of 1974. Ray Stevens said 15 other songs about it were already out when his was released.
Q 10Which 2000 hit by Bahamian band Baha Men won the Grammy for Best Dance Recording?
Who Let the Dogs Out
Who Let the Dogs Out began as a 1998 Trinidadian song called Doggie. The Baha Men cover took off after it appeared in Rugrats in Paris: The Movie.
Q 11Which instrument is the trademark of parody star "Weird Al" Yankovic?
Accordion
Accordion lessons began the day before his seventh birthday, after a door-to-door salesman offered his parents a choice between that and the guitar.
Q 12Which cartoon chipmunk ignores David Seville until he yells the name in the 1958 Christmas hit The Chipmunk Song?
Alvin
Alvin and his bandmates were all voiced by creator Ross Bagdasarian, who varied the tape speed to get the squeaky sound. The record won three awards at the first Grammys.
Q 13Which dance-craze hit by Spanish duo Los del Río spent 14 weeks at number one in the US in 1996?
Macarena
Macarena was a 1993 Spanish album track until Miami producers the Bayside Boys added English lyrics. That remix stalled at number 45 before returning to top the Hot 100.
Q 21Tom Lehrer, who set the chemical elements to a Gilbert and Sullivan tune, taught which subject at MIT and Harvard?
Mathematics
Mathematics was his day job at MIT, Harvard and UC Santa Cruz, where he taught a last class, on infinity, in 2001. He called his course for arts students Math for Tenors.
Q 22Sheb Wooley, a novelty singer and Western actor, is believed to have voiced which famous stock sound effect?
The Wilhelm scream
The Wilhelm scream, a stock cry reused by sound teams in hundreds of films, is thought to be his voice. On screen he played an outlaw in High Noon and a drover in Rawhide.
Q 23Novelty singer Tiny Tim married Miss Vicki in 1969 in front of a huge television audience on which programme?
Q 14Allan Sherman's 1963 hit Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh is sung as a child's letter home from what kind of place?
Summer camp
Summer camp complaints in letters from Sherman's own son inspired the lyrics. He set them to Dance of the Hours, ballet music from a Ponchielli opera.
Q 15C. W. McCall's 1975 trucker anthem Convoy cashed in on a nationwide fad for which gadget?
CB radio
CB radio slang runs through the whole record. C. W. McCall was a character invented for bread commercials by Bill Fries, an art director at an Omaha advertising agency.
Q 16Sheb Wooley's 1958 US number one was about which alien creature that comes to Earth to join a rock band?
The Purple People Eater
The Purple People Eater grew out of a riddle told by a friend's child, and Wooley wrote it within an hour. MGM first turned it down as not their kind of music.
Q 17Which rapper objected to "Weird Al" Yankovic's parody Amish Paradise, then years later called his own refusal stupid?
Coolio
Coolio had turned down the request to spoof Gangsta's Paradise, but his record label granted the rights anyway. Yankovic later sent him a letter of apology.
Q 18Buckner & Garcia's 1981 novelty single, a US top ten hit, celebrated a nationwide craze for which arcade game?
Pac-Man
Pac-Man gave the jingle-writing duo a number nine hit in 1982. Their follow-up, a dance record about Donkey Kong, stalled just outside the Hot 100.
Q 19The Royal Guardsmen's 1966 hit pitted which Peanuts character against a German flying ace, the Red Baron?
Snoopy
Snoopy was written into an older, shelved song about the Red Baron after its producer saw the beagle's flying-ace daydreams in the comic strip. The single peaked at number two.
Q 20Which Sesame Street Muppet, performed by Jim Henson, reached the US top 20 in 1970 singing Rubber Duckie?
Ernie
Ernie took the ode to a favourite toy to number 16 on the Hot 100. It then lost a Grammy to a Sesame Street album that contained the very same song.
The Tonight Show
The Tonight Show staged the wedding in December 1969. Tiny Tim had first reached a national audience in 1968 on Laugh-In, arriving with his ukulele in a shopping bag.
Q 24What did Napoleon XIV put on the B-side of the 1966 hit They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!?
The same song backwards
The same song backwards filled the flip side, and most of its label was printed as a mirror image. Jerry Samuels made his voice climb in pitch by changing the tape speed.
Q 25Memphis DJ Rick Dees was forbidden by his station to play which 1976 US number one of his own?
Disco Duck
Disco Duck got almost no airplay in Memphis, since rival stations would not promote a competitor's DJ either. Dees said it took a day to write and three months to get anyone to perform it.
Q 26Elmo Shropshire, who sang the 1979 hit Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer, trained for which profession?
Veterinarian
Veterinarian was his first career: he treated racehorses at New York tracks, then opened a pet hospital in San Francisco, the city where the record was first self-released.
Q 27Which Star Trek actor recorded the 1967 novelty single The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins, about Tolkien's hobbit?
Leonard Nimoy
Leonard Nimoy mimed to the single on a 1967 TV variety show, dancing on a beach with a group of young women in plastic pointed ears.
Q 28Ten-year-old Gayla Peevey's 1953 Christmas novelty hit led her home city's zoo to raise funds for which animal?
A hippopotamus
A hippopotamus was bought by an Oklahoma City fund set up after the song took off. Peevey was presented with the animal and, as planned all along, gave it to the zoo.
Q 29Musical comedy duo Flight of the Conchords, Grammy winners for Best Comedy Album, formed in which country?
New Zealand
New Zealand's capital Wellington is where university flatmates Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement formed the duo in 1998. An earlier five-man group of theirs included Taika Waititi.
Q 30Which 1963 Trashmen hit stitched together two songs by R&B group the Rivingtons and later obsessed Peter Griffin?
Surfin' Bird
Surfin' Bird was thrown together for a gig after the Trashmen saw another band play a Rivingtons tune. A 2008 Family Guy episode made it Peter's favourite childhood song.