Rose Parade
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50 free Rose Parade trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Every January 1, more than a century of tradition rolls through Pasadena, California. The Rose Parade began in 1890 as a way for locals to boast about their winter sunshine, and it has grown into a procession of flower-covered floats, marching bands and equestrian units watched by hundreds of thousands along the route and millions more on television. This quiz covers the parade from its first carriages to its modern engineering. Expect questions on how the floats are built and judged, the strict rules decorators follow, the celebrities, athletes, astronauts and cartoon characters who have served as grand marshal, the Rose Queen and her court, the bands and riders who return year after year, and the football game that grew up alongside it. It suits anyone who watches the parade each New Year, Pasadena locals, float decorating volunteers, and trivia hosts planning a New Year's or college football round. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you will finish knowing why the tradition works the way it does.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01An early Tournament of Roses staged a novelty race in Pasadena in which an elephant beat which other animal?
A camel
A camel lost to the elephant on the town lot later named Tournament Park, where ostrich races and bronco busting also drew crowds.
Q 02The Rose Parade shifts to January 2 whenever New Year's Day falls on which day of the week?
Sunday
Sunday parades were ruled out in 1893 so the noise would not spook horses hitched outside churches during services.
Q 03Under Rose Parade rules, every exposed inch of a float must be covered in which kind of decoration?
Natural materials
Natural materials are the only covering allowed: petals, seeds, bark, leaves, even seaweed and nuts, and none of it may be dyed.
Q 04Which cartoon character was grand marshal of the 2005 Rose Parade, decades after his creator held the role in 1966?
Mickey Mouse
Mickey Mouse led the 2005 parade 39 years after Walt Disney did, and Walt's nephew Roy E. Disney took the same job in 2000.
Q 05Which child film star became the youngest grand marshal in Rose Parade history at the 1939 parade?
Shirley Temple
Shirley Temple presided over the 50th anniversary parade and returned as grand marshal twice more, in 1989 and 1999.
Q 06After a 49–0 rout in the first Tournament of Roses football game, organizers replaced football with which event?
Chariot racing
Chariot racing, inspired by the novel Ben-Hur, filled the afternoon slot until football returned for good in 1916.
Q 07Which 2007 DreamWorks animated film has its insect hero steal a Rose Parade float to save the planet's flowers?
Bee Movie
Bee Movie sends Barry and Vanessa to Pasadena to take a float from the last Tournament of Roses, whose blooms the bees then use to restart pollination.
Q 08The Tournament of Roses is headquartered in a Pasadena mansion once owned by which Chicago business magnate?
William Wrigley Jr.
William Wrigley Jr., the chewing gum magnate, bought the house in 1914, and his family gave it to Pasadena in 1958 as the tournament's permanent base.
Q 09Before the pandemic cancellation of 2021, the Rose Parade had been called off only during which war?
World War II
World War II halted the parade in 1942, 1943 and 1945, and nothing stopped it again for 76 years.
Q 10Most Rose Parade float drivers sit hidden beneath the flowers, able to see only what as they steer?
The ground below them
The ground below them is all most drivers can see, so an observer hidden elsewhere in the float gives directions over an intercom.
Q 11Which carmaker became the Rose Parade's presenting sponsor in 2011, a deal that gave it the first float?
Honda
Honda also supplies the fleet of white cars, fitted with special tournament licence plates, that appears around Pasadena each December.
Q 12Most of the Rose Parade's 5.5-mile route follows which Pasadena street, once a stretch of Route 66?
Colorado Boulevard
Colorado Boulevard is Pasadena's main thoroughfare, and the parade turns onto it from Orange Grove Boulevard, where the floats form up.
Q 13Since the mid-1990s, which US Air Force aircraft has traditionally opened the Rose Parade with a flyover?
B-2 stealth bomber
Q 21Which private Pasadena society staged the first Rose Parade in 1890 to show off California's mild winter weather?
Valley Hunt Club
Valley Hunt Club members were mostly transplants from the East and Midwest, and by 1895 the event had outgrown them and passed to a new association.
Q 22Charles F. Holder pitched the first Rose Parade by saying people in which place were buried in snow?
New York
New York was his example of a snowbound winter, set against Pasadena's blooming flowers and ripening oranges.
Q 23Which Midwestern university won the first Tournament of Roses football game in 1902 by a score of 49–0?
Michigan
Michigan, a team nicknamed Point-a-Minute, was so far ahead of Stanford that the losing captain asked to stop with eight minutes left.
A B-2 stealth bomber, the Northrop B-2 Spirit, has signalled the start nearly every year, though rain cancelled the flyover in 2006.
Q 14At what Pacific time does the Rose Parade traditionally step off from Orange Grove Boulevard on New Year's morning?
8 a.m.
8 a.m. is the traditional start, and at a walking pace of about 2.5 miles an hour the procession takes more than two hours to pass.
Q 15The 1954 Rose Parade made television history as the first program aired coast to coast in what format?
Full color
Full color pictures of the floats went out nationwide on NBC, the first national use of the new NTSC system.
Q 16Tournament of Roses volunteers who run the Rose Parade take their nickname from which outfit worn on parade day?
White suits
White suits with red ties make the volunteer members easy to spot, which is why they are known as White Suiters.
Q 17At the 2015 Rose Parade, a riderless horse stood in for which late Olympian, the subject of the film Unbroken?
Louis Zamperini
Louis Zamperini had been named grand marshal but died six months before the parade, so the USC mascot Traveler walked the route without a rider.
Q 18Which baseball slugger led the 1975 Rose Parade as grand marshal months after breaking Babe Ruth's home run record?
Hank Aaron
Hank Aaron had hit his 715th home run the previous April, and he followed golfer Arnold Palmer, who led the 1965 parade, among sporting grand marshals.
Q 19The Tournament of Roses added a college football game on New Year's Day 1902 chiefly for which reason?
To help pay for the parade
To help pay for the parade was the whole idea, and the game grew into the Rose Bowl, the first postseason game college football ever had.
Q 20Which host of The Newlywed Game co-anchored Rose Parade telecasts for a Los Angeles station until 2016?
Bob Eubanks
Bob Eubanks spent decades in KTLA's booth beside Stephanie Edwards, and the pair signed off together after the 2016 parade.
Q 24Tournament Park, the Pasadena lot that hosted early Tournament of Roses games, is now maintained by which university?
Caltech
Caltech now uses the old stadium site for track and field, and the first eight Rose Bowl games were played there before the Rose Bowl stadium took over in 1923.
Q 25Tall Rose Parade floats must fold down partway along the route to clear which obstacle on Sierra Madre Boulevard?
A freeway overpass
A freeway overpass carrying Interstate 210 crosses the route, so floats are built to collapse to about 16.5 feet.
Q 26Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade floats are towed by trucks, but how do Rose Parade floats usually travel the route?
On their own engines
On their own engines, since each float is self-propelled and built on a used truck chassis instead of a trailer.
Q 27The Rose Parade's top float award, given to the most beautiful entry, carries which name?
Sweepstakes
Sweepstakes is the top prize among two dozen float awards, all decided by a panel of three judges.
Q 28Universities in Pomona and San Luis Obispo have jointly built a Rose Parade float since 1949 under which shared name?
Cal Poly
Cal Poly students brought hydraulic animation to the parade in 1968, and their 2026 entry was the first self-built float to win the top prize.
Q 29Which silent film star, a co-founder of United Artists, became the Rose Parade's first female grand marshal in 1933?
Mary Pickford
Mary Pickford led the 1933 parade, and it took until 2009 for the tenth woman, Cloris Leachman, to hold the post.
Q 30The seven grand marshals who shared the 1952 Rose Parade had all received which American military decoration?
Medal of Honor
Medal of Honor recipients filled the role that year, the most grand marshals any single parade has had.