49 Fun Facts About Mardi Gras Trivia for Kids

What does 'Mardi Gras' mean in French?

Fat Tuesday is the last chance to feast on rich, fatty foods such as eggs, milk and cheese before the Lenten fast begins the next day.

Mardi Gras can land in February or March because its date is counted back from which holiday?

Easter moves with the spring full moon, and Mardi Gras always falls 47 days before it, so the party can land anywhere from February 3 to March 9.

New Orleans opens Carnival season on January 6 with a walking parade honoring which famous Frenchwoman?

Joan of Arc is called the Maid of Orléans for freeing that French city from a siege, and New Orleans honors her as its unofficial patron saint.

What are the three traditional colors of Mardi Gras in New Orleans?

Purple, green and gold were first announced in 1872, when citizens were asked to drape their balconies in the three colors; nobody wrote down why they were picked.

On Lundi Gras, the day before Mardi Gras, the King of Carnival traditionally arrives in New Orleans how?

By boat: the king first landed from the Mississippi River in 1874, and the riverfront arrival was revived in 1987 as the centerpiece of Lundi Gras.

Mardi Gras parades in New Orleans are free to watch, so who pays for a krewe's floats and throws?

The members themselves fund each krewe and buy their own throws, so nobody needs a ticket: locals call Mardi Gras the 'Greatest Free Show on Earth'.

Which is the oldest krewe in New Orleans, first parading in 1857?

Comus, in full the Mistick Krewe of Comus, rolled out torch-lit floats on a story theme, setting the pattern that later New Orleans krewes followed.

In 1871, the first recorded gifts to a New Orleans Carnival parade crowd came from a masker dressed as whom?

Santa Claus, a masker with the Twelfth Night Revelers, handed out presents to the crowd, and the custom of tossing trinkets from parades dates from that procession.

Which hand-decorated prize is the most sought-after catch from New Orleans's Zulu parade?

A coconut, hand-painted and glittered, set the fashion for signature krewe gifts, and others followed with decorated purses, shrimp boots and genie lamps.

Which krewe chose the official Mardi Gras colors for its first parade in 1872?

Rex, whose monarch is the King of Carnival, asked citizens to hang banners in the three colors, and twenty years later a Rex parade gave each one a meaning.

Most Mardi Gras beads now come from China, but early glass ones were imported from which other Asian country?

Japan supplied hand-strung glass beads, as did Czechoslovakia, until cheaper and tougher plastic necklaces pushed them out in the 1960s.

A king cake traditionally has a tiny figurine or bean hidden inside representing whom?

The Christ Child, the baby the three kings came to honor, is what the figurine stands for; most are plastic now, but some are porcelain.

A king cake is linked to which Christian holiday celebrating the visit of the Three Kings?

It is eaten right through Carnival, from Epiphany until Ash Wednesday.

A traditional New Orleans king cake is baked in which shape?

A ring of braided dough is the classic form, and before tiny plastic babies took over, bakers hid a bean, a pecan or a coin somewhere inside it.

Which Mardi Gras parade has dogs in costumes as its participants?

The Krewe of Barkus grew out of a TV weather anchor's fan-club meeting, and its costume themes have included 'Welcome to the Flea Market' and 'Jurassic Bark'.

The all-female Krewe of Muses has a signature float shaped like what?

A giant red high heel lit by fiber optics carries the year's Honorary Muse, while the riders hand out glittered shoes that parade-goers beg for.

Which super krewe's parade, among the largest in New Orleans, ends inside the Superdome?

Endymion lives by the motto 'Throw 'til it hurts', and its riders toss millions of beads, cups and trinkets before rolling into the stadium for a party.

Which krewe, founded in 1968, is known for crowning a celebrity as its king, starting with Danny Kaye?

Bacchus put entertainer Danny Kaye on its throne in 1969 and rolled out enormous floats, launching the age of the 'super krewe'.

Which singer and pianist helped found the Krewe of Orpheus in 1993?

Harry Connick Jr. started Orpheus with his father, then New Orleans's district attorney, and it became the first super krewe to let men and women ride together.

Night-parade crowds traditionally reward the flambeaux, who dance with flaming torches, by tossing them what?

Coins, once small change and now often dollar bills, are tips for the twirling; the torches were needed to light parades before electric street lights.

Mardi Gras Indians are famous for what?

Elaborate beaded suits, sewn by hand, can take a full year to finish, and they honor the Native Americans who sheltered people escaping slavery.

On January 6, the costumed Phunny Phorty Phellows announce Carnival's start by riding through New Orleans on what?

A streetcar carries the masked Phellows under a banner reading 'It's Carnival Time!', and whoever finds the baby in the king cake on board is crowned for the year.

Which Alabama city claims the oldest official Carnival celebration in the United States, from 1703?

Mobile was then the capital of French Louisiana, and its settlers held their first Mardi Gras fifteen years before New Orleans was even founded.

Which wrapped snack is a favorite parade throw in Alabama's oldest Carnival city?

MoonPies are such a local favorite that the city rings in each New Year by lowering a giant lighted one at midnight.

Each year New Orleans's mayor hands the King of Carnival which symbolic gift for Mardi Gras Day?

The key to the city goes to the king on the eve of the big day, giving him playful 'rule' over New Orleans until Mardi Gras ends.

In Cajun country's Courir de Mardi Gras, costumed riders chase what animal for the gumbo pot?

A chicken is often thrown into the air by the farmer, and the riders scramble to catch it after singing and begging for ingredients for that night's shared gumbo.

In Britain, Pancake Day is the everyday name for which day on the church calendar?

Shrove Tuesday was the last chance to use up eggs and butter before the Lenten fast, and turning them into pancakes was the simplest way to do it.

The day after Mardi Gras, many churchgoers receive a cross of ashes where?

On their foreheads: the ashes are made by burning palms from the previous year's Palm Sunday.

Lent, the season that starts right after Mardi Gras, is described as lasting how many days?

40 days recalls the time Jesus spent fasting in the desert; Sundays are left out of the count, so the season really covers 46 days on the calendar.

The word 'Carnival' is thought to come from a Latin phrase meaning what?

Remove meat, from 'carne levare', points to the meatless weeks of Lent that follow; the popular story that the word means 'farewell, meat' is a folk tale.

Which city hosts the biggest Carnival in the world, with about two million people a day in the streets?

Rio de Janeiro's parades filled ordinary city streets until 1984, when architect Oscar Niemeyer's purpose-built parade stadium gave them a permanent home.

Groups of neighbors who dance together in Brazil's Carnival parades are called what?

Samba schools are really neighborhood clubs, not classrooms, and they compete in leagues: the winner of the second tier moves up to the top parade the next year.

The Carnival of Venice in Italy is most famous for what?

Masks and costumes once let Venetians of every rank mix as equals, hiding who was a noble and who was not.

At the Carnival of Binche in Belgium, performers called Gilles throw what at the crowd?

Oranges are offered and thrown to the crowd by the Gilles, who come out on Mardi Gras itself and dance through the town to the beat of drums.

Carnival revelers shout 'Alaaf' during a Rose Monday parade that draws over a million people to which German city?

Cologne's revelers cry 'Kölle Alaaf' as floats shower the crowd with tonnes of sweets, while rival Carnival cities Düsseldorf and Mainz shout 'Helau' instead.

Bonhomme, a jolly snowman in a red cap, hosts the giant winter Carnival held where in Canada?

Quebec City builds Bonhomme a palace out of ice each winter, and he has presided over the festival, held in the weeks before Lent, since 1955.

Maslenitsa, a week of pancakes, sleigh rides and bonfires before Lent, is a festival in which country?

Russia's Maslenitsa ends when a straw figure of winter is burned on a bonfire, after a week of feasting on thin pancakes called blini.

The all-female Krewe of Muses takes its name from the daughters of which Greek god?

Zeus fathered the Muses, goddesses who inspired poets, artists and musicians, a fitting name for a krewe known for its witty, satirical floats.

Which is the oldest neighborhood in New Orleans, where many Carnival visitors gather?

The French Quarter is where the city began in 1718, yet two great fires later that century destroyed most of the French-built town, and it was rebuilt under Spanish rule.

Which two krewes' royal courts traditionally meet to close out Mardi Gras Day?

Rex and Comus: in the last act of Carnival, the King of Carnival leaves his own ball and crosses the street to be received by Comus at his.

Which jazz great reigned as King of the Zulu parade in 1949?

Louis Armstrong came home to New Orleans to ride as King Zulu, and Time magazine put him on its cover that same year.

On Mardi Gras Day in New Orleans, which parade rolls first, starting at 8 in the morning?

Zulu, whose first king in 1909 wore a lard-can crown and carried a banana-stalk scepter, grew into the grand parade that now opens Mardi Gras Day.

What are the colorful aluminum tokens that float riders toss to Mardi Gras crowds called?

Doubloons were the idea of artist H. Alvin Sharpe, who won over a doubtful krewe captain by flinging a handful at him to show they were harmless.

When the pandemic kept Carnival krewes off the streets in 2021, New Orleans families decorated their homes to look like what?

Parade floats made of houses, or 'house floats', began with one resident's offhand tweet and grew within weeks into a krewe with thousands of decorated homes on a map.

In New Orleans, the three Mardi Gras colors are said to stand for justice, power and what else?

Faith joined justice and power only in 1892, twenty years after the colors were chosen, when a parade themed 'Symbolism of Colors' first gave them meanings.

What is the person who finds the baby in a Louisiana king cake expected to do?

Buy the next one, or host the next party: the custom keeps king cakes coming to offices and classrooms all the way to Mardi Gras.

In legend, the Olney pancake race began in 1445 when a cook heard the church bell and ran off still holding what?

A frying pan, pancake and all, went with her as she dashed to church in her apron, and today's racers must still toss a pancake as they run.

On the day before Lent, the English town of Ashbourne starts a two-day, town-wide game of what?

Football in Ashbourne is played with goals three miles apart, a survivor of the rowdy street games that an 1835 law drove off most English roads.

On Pancake Day in Scarborough, England, crowds fill the seafront road to do what with long ropes?

Skip together is the custom: long ropes are stretched right across the road, ten or more people jump each one, and the seafront is closed to traffic.