Red Dwarf Trivia
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45 free Red Dwarf trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This Red Dwarf trivia quiz covers all thirteen instalments of the sci-fi sitcom, from 'The End' in 1988 to The Promised Land in 2020. It starts with the basics — why Lister was in stasis, what the H on Rimmer's forehead means, where the Cat came from — and moves on to Kryten's Silicon Heaven, Holly's two faces, Ace Rimmer, Duane Dibbley, Talkie Toaster, hard light, the Emmy-winning 'Gunmen of the Apocalypse' and the only episode with a content warning. It also goes behind the scenes: the Radio 4 sketch it grew from, the actor originally cast as Rimmer, the electricians' strike, Howard Goodall's theme, the 'fire risks' remark, the four-year hiatus, the novels, the never-made movie and the Dave revival. About a third of the questions are easy for casual fans; the rest are for people who can quote the astronavigation exam count. If you like this, our general sci-fi and British sitcom pages are next. Every answer has been checked against Wikipedia's Red Dwarf articles and the sources they cite, and each explanation adds one more thing worth knowing.
30 of 45 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which all-purpose swear word do the Red Dwarf crew use in place of real profanity?
Smeg
Smeg, with offshoots like 'smeghead', let the crew curse constantly without using anything offensive; the show's blooper tapes were even sold as 'Smeg Ups'.
Q 02How long was Dave Lister in suspended animation before waking as the last human alive?
Three million years
Holly kept Lister in stasis for three million years, until the radiation from the leak that killed the crew had fallen to a safe level.
Q 03In Red Dwarf's first episode, why is Lister sentenced to stasis just before the crew die?
For smuggling a cat aboard
For smuggling a cat aboard, an unquarantined pregnant one he refused to hand over, Lister got 18 months in stasis, which is why he alone was shielded when the radiation leak killed the crew.
Q 04Which horror-story name did Lister give his pet in Red Dwarf?
Frankenstein
Frankenstein was sealed safely in the hold when the crew died, and her descendants evolved into a whole civilisation that worshipped Lister as its god.
Q 05What is Arnold Rimmer's middle name?
Judas
Judas was his mother's choice: in 'Lemons' Rimmer explains that her church, the Church of Judas, held that Judas was Jesus's twin brother and took his place at the Crucifixion.
Q 06What symbol does Arnold Rimmer wear on his forehead in Red Dwarf?
An H
An H marks him out as a hologram; through series I to V he is 'soft light' and cannot touch anything, until an upgrade in series VI makes him solid.
Q 07Which BBC sitcom starred Chris Barrie as a leisure-centre manager called Gordon?
The Brittas Empire
The Brittas Empire kept Barrie so busy as the calamitous Gordon Brittas that, worn out by Red Dwarf's schedule as well, he agreed to appear in only four episodes of series VII.
Q 08What had made Craig Charles a familiar face on television before he was cast as Lister?
Performance poetry
Performance poetry had made the Liverpudlian 'punk poet' a TV regular; asked whether the Cat might be seen as a racist stereotype, he read the script and asked to audition for Lister instead.
Q 09Which combat-themed game show did Craig Charles present from 1998 to 2004?
Robot Wars
Robot Wars had Jeremy Clarkson as its first host before Charles took over for the rest of its original run; he later left Coronation Street in 2015 to film new Red Dwarf episodes.
Q 10What does Red Dwarf's Lister dream of owning back on Earth?
A farm on Fiji with a doughnut diner
A farm on Fiji with a doughnut diner, selling hot dogs too, was Lister's five-year plan, stocked with a sheep, a cow and horses and shared, he hoped, with Kristine Kochanski; instead he ended up the last human alive.
Q 11What was Lister's rank aboard Red Dwarf?
Third technician
Third technician is the lowest rank on the ship: Lister is outranked by his bunkmate Rimmer, a second technician, and even by the four service robots.
Q 12Kryten's name nods to The Admirable Crichton, a play whose resourceful hero works as what?
A butler
A butler, Crichton proves the only capable castaway when his aristocratic employers are shipwrecked in J. M. Barrie's 1902 play, and ends up ruling them; Kryten likewise outgrows his servant's programming.
Q 13Who played Kryten in his one-off Red Dwarf debut in series II, before Robert Llewellyn took over?
David Ross
Q 21What delayed filming of Red Dwarf's first series in early 1987?
An electricians' strike
An electricians' strike at the BBC hit partway through rehearsals, so the cast rehearsed episodes that could not be recorded; the whole series had to be remounted that September.
Q 22Who wrote and performed the Red Dwarf theme music?
Howard Goodall
Howard Goodall wrote the theme and the incidental music, with Jenna Russell singing the closing song; he also sang 'The Rimmer Song' himself for the series VII episode 'Blue', leaving Chris Barrie to mime.
Q 23Which Red Dwarf song, released by Danny John-Jules as 'The Cat', hit UK number 17 in 1993?
Tongue Tied
David Ross played Kryten only as a one-off guest in series II; when the mechanoid became a regular the part went to Robert Llewellyn, and Ross later returned as the voice of Talkie Toaster.
Q 14Kryten was rescued from which crashed spaceship?
Nova 5
Kryten was found aboard the crashed Nova 5, faithfully serving its long-dead crew; he is a Series 4000 sanitation mechanoid whom Lister slowly teaches to break his programming.
Q 15Kryten believes devoutly in what afterlife?
Silicon Heaven
Silicon Heaven is the afterlife Kryten expects for electrical appliances; Lister fails to talk him out of it, yet Kryten later shuts down his murderous replacement by telling it no such place exists.
Q 16Which engineering game show did Robert Llewellyn present?
Scrapheap Challenge
Scrapheap Challenge had Llewellyn as host for its first ten series from 1998, cheering on teams as they built working machines from junk; he later launched the electric-car show Fully Charged.
Q 17Which two actors have played Holly, Red Dwarf's ship's computer?
Norman Lovett and Hattie Hayridge
Norman Lovett and Hattie Hayridge both played Holly: Hayridge had already appeared as Hilly, the computer's female counterpart from a parallel universe, before taking over for series III to V.
Q 18Red Dwarf grew out of which recurring sketch on the Radio 4 show Son of Cliché?
Dave Hollins: Space Cadet
Dave Hollins: Space Cadet starred a lone space traveller and his computer Hab; for television they became Dave Lister and Holly, and Chris Barrie, the voice of Hab, was cast as Rimmer.
Q 19What did Holly's first actor successfully push for in Red Dwarf's early days?
Appearing on screen
Appearing on screen was the actor's own suggestion: Holly had been written purely as a voice-over, but he talked the makers into showing the computer as a face on the ship's monitors.
Q 20Which BBC regional centre finally commissioned Red Dwarf in 1986, using a spare budget?
BBC North West
BBC North West in Manchester took it on in 1986 with money set aside for a second series of Happy Families that never happened, after producer Paul Jackson pushed for Red Dwarf instead.
Tongue Tied began as a song-and-dance dream sequence that opens the series II finale 'Parallel Universe'; five years later it was released as a single credited to 'The Cat'.
Q 24Which Red Dwarf episode won an International Emmy in 1994?
Gunmen of the Apocalypse
Gunmen of the Apocalypse sends Kryten into a Wild West dream to fight a computer virus he has caught on purpose, with the rest of the crew riding in as gunslingers to help him.
Q 25Which Red Dwarf episode is the only one to open with a pre-credits warning about its content?
Polymorph
Polymorph opens with an on-screen warning, then lets its shape-shifting mutant feed on the crew's emotions, taking Lister's fear, the Cat's vanity, Kryten's guilt and Rimmer's anger.
Q 26Which character upgraded Rimmer to a 'hard light' hologram in series VI?
Legion
Legion, the gestalt entity formed from the crew's minds, gave Rimmer a hard-light drive in the series VI episode of that name, making him tangible and nearly indestructible, though not immune to pain.
Q 27In which Red Dwarf episode does Rimmer leave to become Ace Rimmer?
Stoke Me a Clipper
Stoke Me a Clipper has the dying Ace pass his role to Rimmer, who flies off to become the next Ace; it wrote out Chris Barrie, who had agreed to only four episodes of the series.
Q 28Ace Rimmer, the dashing test-pilot version of Red Dwarf's Arnold, first appeared in which episode?
Dimension Jump
Dimension Jump reveals where the two Rimmers split: as a boy, Ace was the one kept back a year at school, and the humiliation spurred him to work harder and become a hero.
Q 29In Red Dwarf, what is the name of the Cat's dorky alter ego with the bowl haircut and overbite?
Duane Dibbley
Duane Dibbley is who the vain Cat turns out to be in the shared hallucination of 'Back to Reality': a no-style nerd in an anorak, a discovery that helps drive the crew to despair.
Q 30What is Dave Lister's favourite food in Red Dwarf?
Chicken vindaloo
Chicken vindaloo is such an obsession that in 'DNA' a curry turned into a rampaging mutant shrugs off every weapon until Lister kills it with lager.