The Green Hornet
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50 free The Green Hornet trivia questions with answers — pop culture quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The Green Hornet has been stinging criminals since the 1930s, when a masked newspaper publisher and his partner Kato first raced across the airwaves. The twist has never changed: the police think the hero is a crook, and he lets them, because a villain's reputation opens doors that a badge cannot. This quiz follows the character through every era: the radio adventures, the cliffhanger film serials, the single TV season that introduced Bruce Lee to American audiences, the comics and the 2011 action comedy. Expect questions on Britt Reid and Kato, their gadgets and famous car, the casts, the music, and the tributes paid by later films and cartoons. It is written for fans of classic TV and vintage heroes, for Bruce Lee admirers who want the Kato story, and for anyone who only knows the movie. The opening questions are the friendliest; the later ones dig into the people who made each version.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Bruce Lee insisted Kato use which martial art on The Green Hornet instead of American-style punches?
Kung fu
Kung fu had never been seen by so many Americans before Kato's fight scenes. The directors had expected ordinary fisticuffs until Lee refused to throw them.
Q 02On radio, the Green Hornet is the great-nephew of which masked Western hero from the same creators?
The Lone Ranger
The Lone Ranger is Britt Reid's great-uncle, since Britt's father Dan Reid was the Ranger's nephew. That is why both heroes share a surname.
Q 03How does Kato's fight with Robin end in a Batman crossover after Bruce Lee objected to the script?
In a draw
In a draw, because Lee refused to film a fight that showed Asian martial arts being beaten. The first script had Batman and Robin winning.
Q 04What is the Green Hornet's car called, a name shared with Anna Sewell's novel about a horse?
Black Beauty
Black Beauty hides rockets below its headlights. The TV version could also launch a small flying camera from its trunk to spy on crooks.
Q 05Which comedy star played Britt Reid in the 2011 film The Green Hornet and co-wrote its script?
Seth Rogen
Seth Rogen wrote the screenplay with his Superbad partner Evan Goldberg. He wanted a buddy action movie with jokes, in the spirit of Lethal Weapon.
Q 06Which frantic Rimsky-Korsakov piece buzzed in as the theme music of the Green Hornet radio show?
Flight of the Bumblebee
Flight of the Bumblebee became so tied to the hero that the 1966 TV series ordered a jazz theme modelled on it. The piece comes from an opera, The Tale of Tsar Saltan.
Q 07The Green Hornet TV series was marketed as The Kato Show in which city, where Bruce Lee was raised?
Hong Kong
Hong Kong audiences adored Lee so much that his sidekick got the title there. That fame led to the films that made him a worldwide star.
Q 08Which Tarantino film reused the Green Hornet TV theme and gave its Crazy 88 gang Kato-style masks?
Kill Bill: Volume 1
Kill Bill: Volume 1 plays the trumpet theme as the Bride heads to Tokyo. Tarantino masked the sword-fighting gang as a tribute to Lee's Kato.
Q 09Which lawman objected to a Green Hornet radio opening implying some criminals were beyond his G-Men?
J. Edgar Hoover
J. Edgar Hoover disliked the hint that any crook was too big for the FBI. The announcer's line was rewritten to say the hero hunted enemies of America instead.
Q 10Which bumbling film detective has a martial-arts assistant named Cato, a nod to the Green Hornet's Kato?
Inspector Clouseau
Inspector Clouseau orders Cato to attack him without warning to keep his fighting skills sharp. One film in the series even gave him a car called the Silver Hornet.
Q 11Britt Reid owns which newspaper, whose reporter Mike Axford longs to unmask the Green Hornet?
Daily Sentinel
Daily Sentinel headlines brand the Green Hornet a criminal, a reputation its owner uses to get close to real gangsters. Radio episodes closed with a newsboy shouting about its extra edition.
Q 12Which Inglourious Basterds star played the mobster Chudnofsky in the 2011 film The Green Hornet?
Christoph Waltz
Christoph Waltz plays a crime boss so worried about losing his edge that he renames himself Bloodnofsky. His plan is to merge the city's gangs into one super-mafia.
Q 13Which actor's stuntman character spars with Bruce Lee on the Green Hornet set in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood?
Brad Pitt
Q 21The Green Hornet first buzzed onto the air in 1936 from radio station WXYZ in which American city?
Detroit
Detroit station WXYZ fed the show to the national Mutual network two years after its local debut. It then ran until 1950, with a brief revival in 1952.
Q 22Which star played Kato in the 2011 film The Green Hornet after Stephen Chow dropped out?
Jay Chou
Jay Chou, one of Taiwan's best-selling singers, was cast a month after Chow left over scheduling clashes. Chow had earlier given up the director's chair too.
Q 23Which French director of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind made the 2011 film The Green Hornet?
Michel Gondry
Michel Gondry had first been hired for a Green Hornet film in 1997, as his feature debut, before that version was scrapped. He got the job back twelve years later.
Brad Pitt plays Cliff Booth, who takes on Lee, dressed in full Kato costume, in a best-of-three bout. Each man wins a round before the fight is broken up.
Q 14Which actress played Lenore Case, who makes Britt Reid jealous of Kato, in the 2011 Green Hornet film?
Cameron Diaz
Cameron Diaz's Lenore unknowingly coaches the vigilantes, explaining how mobsters lure rivals to peace talks to ambush them. Britt later ignores exactly that warning.
Q 15Kato was introduced as Japanese, but by 1941 the Green Hornet radio show gave him which nationality?
Filipino
Filipino was the new description, though a popular legend wrongly ties the switch to the Pearl Harbor attack. The announcer had stopped calling him Japanese well before the United States entered the war.
Q 16Carried over from radio to TV, the Green Hornet's trademark pistol fires what at criminals?
Knockout gas
Knockout gas puts crooks to sleep so they can be left for the police. In several versions Kato is credited with inventing both the gas and the gun.
Q 17In the 2011 Green Hornet film, Kato built a special machine to make which drink for Britt Reid's father?
Coffee
Coffee brewing is one of the skills that gets Kato rehired after Britt fires most of his late father's staff. The two then become friends and crime-fighters.
Q 18Kato drives the Green Hornet's car by night, but which job does he hold for Britt Reid by day?
Valet
Valet is how radio announcers introduced Kato at the top of each episode. The humble title hid his work as driver, inventor and fighter.
Q 19Which actor signed on for a 1990s Green Hornet film but dropped out to play Batman instead?
George Clooney
George Clooney left in December 1995 for Batman and Robin, and the studio then eyed Greg Kinnear for the lead. Jason Scott Lee was signed to co-star as Kato.
Q 20Which Surfside 6 actor starred as Britt Reid opposite Bruce Lee in the 1966 Green Hornet TV series?
Van Williams
Van Williams played the hero straight, unlike Batman's comedy, and took martial arts lessons from his co-star. He later appeared as a director in a Bruce Lee biopic.
Q 24The hornet buzz on the Green Hornet radio show was made with which eerie electronic instrument?
Theremin
Theremin players never touch the instrument, shaping its wail by moving their hands near two antennas. The buzz was blended into the show's classical theme tune.
Q 25Which job does Lenore Case, one of the few who know the Green Hornet's secret, hold at his newspaper?
Secretary
Secretary to Britt Reid, Miss Case had served his father in the same post. On radio one actress, Leonore Allman, played her for the entire run.
Q 26On the 1966 Green Hornet TV series, which official besides Lenore Case knows Britt Reid's secret?
The district attorney
The district attorney, Frank Scanlon, replaced radio's police commissioner as the Hornet's contact. Batman already had Commissioner Gordon, and the producer wanted fewer comparisons.
Q 27The Green Hornet's car in the 1966 TV series was a customised model of which American luxury sedan?
Chrysler Imperial
Chrysler Imperial sedans also starred in the 2011 film, which modified 29 of them and wrecked 26. Only two cars were built for the TV series, and both survive.
Q 28Which future 60 Minutes correspondent was once an announcer on the Green Hornet radio show?
Mike Wallace
Mike Wallace narrated the masked hero's adventures decades before his tough TV interviews. He also announced for Sky King and The Spike Jones Show.
Q 29The 2011 film The Green Hornet sets its gang war in which real city, where it was also shot?
Los Angeles
Los Angeles was chosen over cheaper Michigan, New York and Louisiana for creative reasons. The producer later blamed that choice for a budget too big to justify a sequel.
Q 30In the Green Hornet backstory, what did Britt Reid do for Kato while travelling in the Far East?
Saved his life
Saved his life is the usual account, and gratitude turns Kato into Reid's loyal partner. A later prose story has the two meet while Kato searches for his mother.