American Graffiti Trivia
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48 free American Graffiti trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
This American Graffiti trivia quiz covers George Lucas's 1973 film from the first pitch to the last title card. It asks about the one night in September 1962, the characters Lucas based on his own Modesto youth, the town that threw the production out after two days, and the cast of unknowns who went on to Jaws, Happy Days and Star Wars. There are questions on the blonde in the white Thunderbird, Wolfman Jack, the Pharaohs, the drag race on Paradise Road and the epilogue Pauline Kael hated. It also covers the business side: the studios that passed, why Coppola's name was on the poster, the $777,000 budget that returned more than $200 million, the missing Elvis on the soundtrack and the five Oscar nominations. About a third of the questions are easy for anyone who has seen the film, a third are medium, and the rest are for people who know which airline's DC-7 appears in the final scene. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia and the production histories it cites, and each question carries the sentence that establishes it. If you think one is wrong, use the report button and we will look again.
30 of 48 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which real-life disc jockey plays himself in American Graffiti, his show on every car radio?
Wolfman Jack
Wolfman Jack. Lucas gave the DJ a share of the film's profits, and its runaway success provided him with an income for the rest of his life.
Q 02American Graffiti is set over one night in which California city?
Modesto
Modesto, Lucas's home town, whose cruising scene of his teens the film recreates; yet it was shot in towns around San Francisco Bay instead.
Q 03American Graffiti takes place during which president's term?
Kennedy
Kennedy. Lucas set the film on a late-summer night in 1962, the year he himself left high school, and its posters asked "Where were you in '62?"
Q 04Which burger joint is the friends' meeting place at the start of American Graffiti?
Mel's Drive-In
Mel's Drive-In. The real San Francisco restaurant was already out of business and was demolished before the film even opened, vanishing just as it became famous.
Q 05Who plays Curt Henderson, the American Graffiti graduate having second thoughts about leaving for college?
Richard Dreyfuss
Richard Dreyfuss: Lucas liked his audition so much he let him choose between Curt and Terry, and Dreyfuss picked Curt.
Q 06Which American Graffiti friend does Ron Howard play?
Class president
Class president Steve Bolander. He is due to fly east to college in the morning, then decides at dawn to stay home with his girlfriend.
Q 07What is the nickname of Terry Fields, Charles Martin Smith's character in American Graffiti?
The Toad
The Toad is the nickname Terry is stuck with; trying to impress Debbie, he tells her that people call him "Terry the Tiger" instead.
Q 08In American Graffiti, the blonde who mouths "I love you" to Curt is driving what car?
A white Ford Thunderbird
A white Ford Thunderbird, a 1956 model; Curt spends the whole night chasing the mystery blonde at its wheel and never catches up with her.
Q 09In American Graffiti, which greaser gang makes Curt hook a cable to a police car?
The Pharaohs
The Pharaohs grab Curt after he sits on their car and make him prove himself with the police-car prank before letting him go.
Q 10In American Graffiti, which vehicle does Terry actually own, as he finally admits to Debbie?
A Vespa scooter
A Vespa scooter: Terry's opening arrival, bumping it into a wall as he pulls up, was a real mishap by Charles Martin Smith that Lucas kept in the film.
Q 11Which actress, just 12 during filming, plays Carol, the girl who attaches herself to John Milner in American Graffiti?
Mackenzie Phillips
Mackenzie Phillips. She was so young that California law required one of the producers to become her legal guardian for the length of the shoot.
Q 12What did Harrison Ford insist on before playing Bob Falfa in American Graffiti?
Not cutting his hair
Not cutting his hair: Falfa was meant to be close-cropped, but Ford, then earning his living as a carpenter, held out, and the compromise was the cowboy hat Falfa wears on screen.
Q 13Where does the climactic drag race between Milner and Falfa take place in American Graffiti?
Paradise Road
Q 21In American Graffiti, Steve and Laurie lead the spotlight dance at the hop to which Platters ballad?
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes. Steve and Laurie are in the middle of a quarrel about his leaving when the spotlight finds them, and they have to dance on as the perfect couple.
Q 22Which future television star plays the mystery blonde Curt chases all night in American Graffiti?
Suzanne Somers
Suzanne Somers. Her whole part is three words mouthed silently from behind a car window, a few years before the sitcom Three's Company made her a star.
Q 23Most of American Graffiti was shot in which small town north of San Rafael?
Petaluma
Paradise Road, the open strip outside town where Milner and Falfa race at dawn; Falfa's car leaves the road and burns while Milner's coupe survives.
Q 14In American Graffiti, where does Curt drive late at night, hoping to reach the mystery blonde?
The radio station
The radio station: the man at the desk tells Curt the disc jockey's shows are all on tape, then turns out to be the disc jockey himself.
Q 15According to American Graffiti's epilogue, what became of Curt Henderson?
A writer living in Canada
A writer living in Canada: of the four friends, only Curt, the one who spent the night doubting whether to go, actually gets on the plane the next morning.
Q 16In American Graffiti, John Milner says rock and roll has been going downhill ever since which singer died?
Buddy Holly
Buddy Holly. Milner says it as he snaps off a Beach Boys surf song on the car radio, the older hot-rodder already nostalgic for the music of a few years before.
Q 17Which producer challenged George Lucas to make something "warm and funny", the spark for American Graffiti?
Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola. He then lent the project his name as producer, which let Universal sell a little-known director's film as coming from the man who made The Godfather.
Q 18Which Italian director's I Vitelloni helped inspire American Graffiti?
Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini. His 1953 film follows a group of friends drifting through small-town life until one of them finally leaves, the same shape Lucas gave his own story.
Q 19Which Indiana Jones film did American Graffiti's co-writers, Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, later script?
Temple of Doom
Temple of Doom. Lucas went back to the married couple who had helped him write American Graffiti and told them he wanted a much darker tale this time.
Q 20United Artists paid for American Graffiti's script, then turned it down along with which other George Lucas idea?
Star Wars
Star Wars. United Artists funded a first script after meeting Lucas at Cannes in 1971, then passed on both films, which Universal and 20th Century Fox went on to make.
Petaluma. It took the crew in when San Rafael withdrew its permit after two nights, and the switch cost the production not a single day of shooting.
Q 24Which future Laverne & Shirley star plays Laurie, Steve's girlfriend, in American Graffiti?
Cindy Williams
Cindy Williams. After a fight with Steve, Laurie rides along in a rival racer's car and barely escapes when it crashes and burns, the scare that makes him stay.
Q 25Which company did George Lucas set up with his earnings from American Graffiti?
Industrial Light & Magic
Industrial Light & Magic. The film cost under a million dollars and made Lucas a millionaire, money he poured into his own company and its new effects division.
Q 26George Lucas said he wanted American Graffiti to look like what?
A jukebox
A jukebox. Haskell Wexler, a leading cinematographer and a friend, travelled up from Los Angeles each day to help light the night streets in those glowing colours.
Q 27Verna Fields, the editor Universal added to American Graffiti, later won an Oscar for cutting which Steven Spielberg film?
Jaws
Jaws. On American Graffiti she helped George and Marcia Lucas assemble the first long cut before moving on, and both women were Oscar-nominated for the edit.
Q 28Which Beach Boys song plays over the closing credits of American Graffiti?
All Summer Long
All Summer Long. The song dates from 1964, two years after the night the film is set, so the credits roll to music its characters could not yet have heard.
Q 29Which sound designer built American Graffiti's radio soundtrack by re-recording its songs through speakers in real spaces?
Walter Murch
Walter Murch. He called the trick worldizing: it made every song seem to drift from passing car radios, and he used it again on Apocalypse Now.
Q 30Which major star is absent from American Graffiti's soundtrack because his label refused Universal's flat-fee deal?
Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley: his label, RCA, refused the flat per-song fee that most other rights holders accepted, so none of his hits appear; the cleared oldies serve as the film's entire score.