Spaceballs Trivia
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This Spaceballs trivia quiz has 98 free questions with answers and covers Mel Brooks's 1987 Star Wars parody from the opening crawl to 'the Schwartz is in you'. There are questions on the cast (who plays Lone Starr, Vespa, Dark Helmet and Sandurz, and who voices Dot Matrix), the characters (Barf, Skroob, Prince Valium, Pizza the Hutt, the Dink-Dinks) and the plot (Druidia's air, the desert moon, the instant VHS, Mega-Maid and the mirror). The making-of stories are the good part: the two Toms Brooks could not sign, the one condition George Lucas set and the joke Brooks built out of it, Lucas's fan letter, John Hurt's Alien cameo, the budget, the film that beat it at the box office, Ebert's verdict, the Stinkers award, and how Tesla ended up with a Plaid mode. The animated series and the 2027 sequel with Josh Gad and Lewis Pullman round it out. Easy questions suit anyone who has seen it once; the hard ones are for people who can quote the shield combination. Every answer has been checked against an encyclopaedic source and each question shows its citation once you have answered.
30 of 98 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the combination to Druidia's air shield?
1-2-3-4-5
King Roland's air-shield combination is 1-2-3-4-5; President Skroob then admits it is the same combination on his luggage.
Q 02In Spaceballs, Princess Vespa's Leia-style hair buns turn out to be what?
Headphones
Headphones. With the music on she doesn't hear her droid Dot Matrix scolding her for fleeing her wedding, until Dot tells her to turn it off and starts again.
Q 03Which two roles does Mel Brooks play in Spaceballs?
President Skroob and Yogurt
President Skroob and Yogurt. Brooks named the villain by trying to spell his own surname backward, and by his own account missed by a letter.
Q 04Who plays the hero, Lone Starr?
Bill Pullman
Bill Pullman plays Lone Starr, his first starring film role, after Mel Brooks spotted him in a stage play.
Q 05Which big-name actors did Mel Brooks unsuccessfully try to sign for Spaceballs?
Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks
Brooks sought Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks for Lone Starr before casting a then little-known stage actor in the part.
Q 06John Candy plays Barf, who describes himself as what?
Half-man, half-dog
Half-man, half-dog: Barf calls himself a 'mawg' and adds 'I'm my own best friend'. John Candy played him in dog ears and a tail that wagged.
Q 07Who plays Dark Helmet?
Rick Moranis
Rick Moranis plays Dark Helmet. He said the first script made the whole costume one gigantic helmet, before it was scaled back to an oversized copy of Darth Vader's.
Q 08Who plays Princess Vespa?
Daphne Zuniga
Daphne Zuniga plays Princess Vespa. Mel Brooks recalled that she hesitated, saying she had not done much comedy, and that he told her this could be a plus.
Q 09Who provides the voice of Princess Vespa's droid, Dot Matrix?
Joan Rivers
Joan Rivers voices Dot Matrix, Vespa's droid; mime Lorene Yarnell performed inside the costume.
Q 10Vespa flees an arranged marriage to a narcoleptic royal named what?
Prince Valium
Prince Valium. Mel Brooks borrowed the runaway-bride plot from Frank Capra's 1934 comedy It Happened One Night, in which an heiress dumps her groom at the altar.
Q 11Princess Vespa's spaceship bears the badge of which carmaker?
Mercedes-Benz
Mercedes-Benz. When Barf climbs aboard and gives his name, Vespa's droid snaps back: 'Not in here, mister! This is a Mercedes!'
Q 12Why do the Spaceballs set out to steal Druidia's air?
They have used up their own
They have used up their own. Planet Spaceball has squandered its atmosphere, and its people are left getting by on cans of Perri-Air.
Q 13What kind of vehicle is Lone Starr's spaceship, Eagle 5?
A Winnebago RV
A Winnebago RV. Mel Brooks wanted his heroes in something seen on any American highway instead of a sleek starship, so Eagle 5 is a motor home fitted with jet engines.
Q 21Spaceball One transforms into what to suck the atmosphere off Druidia?
Mega-Maid
Spaceball One unfolds into Mega-Maid, a colossal robot housekeeper whose vacuum cleaner sucks Druidia's air until the switch is flipped from suck to blow.
Q 22How does Lone Starr finally beat Dark Helmet in their duel?
He bounces a blast off a mirror
He bounces a blast off a mirror. Tricked out of his ring, Lone Starr turns Dark Helmet's own shot back at him and sends him crashing into the ship's self-destruct button.
Q 23Why are the three Spaceball leaders left behind on the exploding robot ship?
The escape pods are all gone
Q 14Which crime boss is owed one million space bucks by Lone Starr and Barf?
Pizza the Hutt
Pizza the Hutt. The half-pizza gangster has his robot henchman, Vinnie, warn the pair to pay up, 'or else Pizza is gonna send out for you'.
Q 15How does the crime boss owed a million space bucks die in Spaceballs?
He eats himself to death
He eats himself to death. A TV newscast reports that the gangster got locked in his limo and ate himself, which wipes out the heroes' debt at a stroke.
Q 16On which desert moon does Eagle 5 crash-land after running out of fuel?
Vega
Vega. Stranded on the desert moon, Vespa refuses to leave behind her industrial-strength hair dryer, insisting she can't live without it.
Q 17What is the name of the mystical power that Yogurt teaches Lone Starr to use?
The Schwartz
He channels it at first through a ring, but learns in the end that 'the Schwartz is in you'.
Q 18Who rescues the stranded heroes in the desert and takes them to Yogurt?
The Dink-Dinks
The Dink-Dinks. The small robed aliens, a spoof of the Jawas, march along singing nothing but 'dink' to the whistled tune from The Bridge on the River Kwai.
Q 19How does Dark Helmet find out where the runaway Princess Vespa is hiding?
He watches the film on video
He watches the film on video. Colonel Sandurz explains that 'instant cassettes' reach stores before a movie is finished, so they fast-forward Spaceballs itself to see where she went.
Q 20How does Dark Helmet force King Roland to hand over the air-shield code?
Threatens to reverse Vespa's nose job
Threatens to reverse Vespa's nose job. When King Roland gives in, Dark Helmet sneers that his code is the kind of combination an idiot would have on his luggage.
The escape pods are all gone. Dark Helmet is about to climb into his when a bearded lady cuts in front, kicks him aside and blasts off in it herself.
Q 24How does Lone Starr learn he is a prince, freeing him to marry Vespa?
A message in a fortune cookie
A message in a fortune cookie. It plays a farewell hologram of Yogurt, who reveals that the medallion Lone Starr has always worn is a royal birth certificate.
Q 25In Spaceballs, the guards chasing the escaping heroes find they have captured whom instead?
Their stunt doubles
Their stunt doubles. A furious captain yells 'You idiots! These are not them!' at the lookalikes his men have caught, one of the film's many jokes about being a film.
Q 26Which actor cameos in Spaceballs as a parody of his own chest-bursting character from Alien?
John Hurt
John Hurt. He replays his Alien death scene in a space diner, groans 'Oh no, not again!', and the creature dances off in a straw hat singing 'Hello! Ma Baby'.
Q 27What condition did George Lucas place on Mel Brooks in exchange for letting him parody Star Wars?
No Spaceballs action figures
Lucas's one condition was that no Spaceballs action figures be made, because they would look too much like his own Star Wars toys.
Q 28How did George Lucas react to the finished Spaceballs?
He sent Brooks a note saying he loved it
He sent Brooks a note saying he loved it and was afraid he 'would bust something from laughing'. Brooks had hired Lucas's own company to handle post-production work.
Q 29Which Spaceballs product does Yogurt say 'the kids love' in his merchandising speech?
Spaceballs the Flamethrower
Spaceballs the Flamethrower. Yogurt fires off a jet of flame to show it, having just explained that merchandising is 'where the real money from the movie is made'.
Q 30Which Dan Aykroyd comedy beat Spaceballs to number one on its opening weekend in June 1987?
Dragnet
Dragnet. The cop comedy opened at number one with Spaceballs second on $6.6 million, yet Mel Brooks later said of his spoof that 'it never stopped selling'.