Have you ever wished you were a Muppet expert, but you don’t have time to memorize Jim Henson: The Works, pore over DVD extras, or read every page of Muppet Wiki, because you’re too busy doing things like working, cooking, and using the restroom? Of course you have! It feels great to be an expert at something!
Tough Pigs is here to help, with yet another valuable public service! It’s the Easiest Muppet Trivia Quiz Ever, and by the time you’re finished, you will feel like a true Muppet geek, guaranteed, or we’ll give you your money back. Heck, we’ll give you twice your money back! Now break out your No. 2 pencils and your thinking caps, and away we go!
1. As the story goes, Jim Henson made the first Kermit the Frog puppet out of…
a) His mother’s green spring coat
b) a bowling ball
c) the skins of 11 1/2 real frogs
d) a Sababa Kermit doll
2. The first TV show starring the Muppets was a local Washington, D.C. program that debuted in 1955. What was it called?
a) Sam & Friends
b) Sam & Casual Acquaintances
c) Sam & People Who Hate His Guts
d) Shasta McNasty
3. The Muppet characters Jim Henson created for a series of Wilkins Coffee commercials were called…
a) Wilkins and Wontkins
b) A Drunk Old Man and Another Drunk Old Man
c) Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin
d) Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard Milhous Nixon
4. Where did Jim Henson meet Frank Oz?
a) At a puppetry festival
b) At a cocktail party — they both showed up wearing the same dress, had a good laugh about it and became fast friends
c) At karate lessons
d) In prison
5. Rowlf the Dog first rose to national television fame on what 1960s variety show?
a) The Jimmy Dean Show, in regular appearances alongside Jimmy Dean
b) The Fugitive, as the one-armed man who killed Richard Kimble’s wife
c) Laugh-In, as a background go-go dancer
d) CBS Evening News, as the anchor
6. Who has been Big Bird’s primary performer since Sesame Street premiered in 1969?
a) Caroll Spinney
b) Carol Channing
c) Cookie Monster
d) Nobody; he’s a real, live 8′ bird
7. What was unusual about the “Land of Gorch” Muppets featured on the first season of Saturday Night Live in 1975?
a) They had lifelike taxidermist’s eyes
b) They had outie belly buttons
c) They were all gay
d) They were performed not by Muppeteers, but by dentists
8. Who financed the production of The Muppet Show?
a) Lord Lew Grade, a British television entrepreneur
b) Lord Lew Zealand, Boomerang Fish Thrower of the British Empire
c) Michael Flatley, the Lord of the Dance
d) Your mom!
9. The Great Muppet Caper‘s “Couldn’t We Ride” musical number, a tour de force of puppet wizardry, features the Muppets doing what?
a) Riding bicycles while singing
b) Sleeping
c) Silently staring at the camera
d) Wearing socks with sandals
10. The 1984 film The Muppets Take Manhattan includes the debut of what group of characters, who would later star in their own Saturday morning cartoon?
a) the Muppet Babies
b) the Golden Girls
c) the Opera-Singing Zookeepers
d) the Horrible, Foul-Smelling, Foul-Mouthed Cannibals
11. What was Jim Henson’s pitch to his creative team for Fraggle Rock?
a) “I want to create a show that will bring about world peace”
b) “I want to create a romantic comedy for arsonists”
c) “I want a do a hard-boiled crime drama set in a castle made of pink cotton candy”
d) “MTV cops”
12. What happened to Mr. Snuffleupagus on Sesame Street in 1985?
a) The grown-ups on the street saw him for the first time
b) He married Maria
c) He made the Statue of Liberty disappear
d) He shot Larry Hagman
13. Jim Henson’s hour-long 1989 variety/anthology show was called…
a) The Jim Henson Hour
b) The Vicki and Leon Show
c) Lots and Lots of Really Scary Buckets of Blood
d) Howie Hayseed & Yancy Yokel’s Country & Western Jamboree
14. Who took over performing Kermit the Frog after Jim Henson’s passing in 1990?
a) Muppet performer Steve Whitmire
b) Lawyer Alan Dershowitz
c) Cosby Show star Lisa Bonet
d) Vice president Dan Quayle
15. The 1992 Muppet film The Muppet Christmas Carol, set in Dickensian England, was based on what book?
a) A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
b) Babysitters Club Mysteries #7: The Case of the Vanishing Training Bra
c) Latawnya, the Naughty Horse, Learns to Say “No” to Drugs
d) A Muppet Christmas Carol: The Storybook of the Movie Based on the Book A Christmas Carol Which Was Written by Charles Dickens
16. Complete this lyric from the theme song of the 1996 Muppet series Muppets Tonight: “Here come the Muppets, here come the Muppets, here come…”
a) “…the Muppets tonight!”
b) “…the cops! Everyone hide!”
c) “…the Chickens of Death! Run for your life!”
d) Avril Lavigne
17. Where did MuppetFest, 2001’s official Muppet fan convention, take place?
a) Santa Monica, California
b) Ganymede, the seventh moon of Jupiter
c) A castle made of pink cotton candy
d) In the forest, but no one was around, so it didn’t make a noise
18. What was the biggest Muppet news story of 2004?
a) Disney bought the Muppets
b) Zoot was elected president, narrowly beating the incumbent Hush Puppy
c) The Swedish Chef was named Super Bowl MVP after taking the Green Bay Packers to a 343-7 victory over the Harlem Globetrotters
d) Elvis Presley came back from the dead to perform one of the Muppet Elvises for a charity concert, then died again
Well? You got every single question right, didn’t you? See, I told you you’d feel like an expert. Just to make sure, here’s…
How to calculate your score: Give yourself 10,000 points for each time you chose answer “a” on a question. For each time you chose any other letter, smack yourself in the face as forcefully as possible.
Click here to discuss this article and compare scores on the Tough Pigs forum!
by Ryan Roe – Ryan@ToughPigs.com
