The Blues Brothers
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49 free The Blues Brothers trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
42 free The Blues Brothers trivia questions with answers. The Blues Brothers began as two Saturday Night Live cast members in bee costumes, became a chart-topping band before they had a movie, and then made one of the most expensive comedies ever shot, with a 324-page script bound in a phone-book cover and a record for cars destroyed. Forty-five years on it plays every week somewhere. This quiz covers the band and the film: the SNL sketch that started it, Briefcase Full of Blues, the real musicians who backed Jake and Elwood, the orphanage, the Penguin, the Triple Rock church, the Dixie Square Mall chase, Bob's Country Bunker, the Illinois Nazis, the Mystery Woman, the Palace Hotel Ballroom concert, the Cook County Assessor's office, every cameo from Spielberg to Pee-wee Herman, the Bluesmobile's specs and the ill-fated 1998 sequel. Easy questions for anyone who has seen it, hard ones for people who quote it. Every answer was checked against a documented source and the citation sits under each explanation, so nothing rests on half-remembered late-night viewings.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who directed the 1980 film The Blues Brothers?
John Landis
John Landis directed it; he had directed Belushi in Animal House (1978) and co-wrote The Blues Brothers screenplay with Dan Aykroyd.
Q 02Jake and Elwood set out on 'a mission from God' to save what?
The orphanage where they were raised
The orphanage where they were raised, St. Helen of the Blessed Shroud, faces closure over an unpaid property-tax bill; Sister Mary Stigmata, 'the Penguin', breaks the news.
Q 03In The Blues Brothers, how much must Jake and Elwood raise to pay the property tax bill on their old orphanage?
$5,000
$5,000 is the bill; a record executive's $10,000 advance at the Palace Hotel Ballroom concert finally covers it, plus their bar tab IOU.
Q 04Jake is paroled at the start of the film from which Illinois prison, whose name is also his nickname?
Joliet
He has served three years of a five-year sentence for armed robbery; the scenes were shot at the real Joliet Correctional Center.
Q 05The Bluesmobile is what make and model of car?
1974 Dodge Monaco
The Bluesmobile is a 1974 Dodge Monaco, a decommissioned Mount Prospect police car with a 440-cubic-inch engine; Elwood traded the old Cadillac for a microphone.
Q 06In The Blues Brothers, Elwood shows off the Bluesmobile's capabilities right after picking Jake up from prison by doing what?
Jumping an open drawbridge
Jumping an open drawbridge settles Jake's complaint about the ex-police car; the Bluesmobile finally falls to pieces outside the Daley Center after months of rigging.
Q 07Which soul legend plays the Reverend Cleophus, whose sermon gives Jake his epiphany?
James Brown
The scene is set at the Triple Rock Baptist Church and Chaka Khan is the choir soloist; Brown re-recorded 'The Old Landmark' live on a soundstage.
Q 08What is the name of Cab Calloway's character, the orphanage janitor in The Blues Brothers?
Curtis
The name honours Curtis Salgado, an Oregon blues singer who inspired Belushi while he was filming Animal House.
Q 09In The Blues Brothers, Cab Calloway stalls the Palace Hotel Ballroom crowd with which of his signature songs?
Minnie the Moocher
Minnie the Moocher was the number; Calloway wanted a disco arrangement, but Landis insisted on the original big-band version.
Q 10In The Blues Brothers, Aretha Franklin, as the wife of guitarist Matt Murphy, sings which song to stop him rejoining the band?
Think
Think is belted out in the couple's Maxwell Street soul food restaurant; Franklin needed several takes because she was unused to lip-syncing.
Q 11In The Blues Brothers, Ray Charles plays the blind owner of what kind of shop, performing 'Shake a Tail Feather' there?
A music store
A music store is Ray's; he performs to prove the effectiveness of the instruments he sells, and of his aim.
Q 12Who plays the 'Mystery Woman' trying to kill Jake with rocket launchers, bombs and an M16?
Carrie Fisher
She is Jake's ex-fiancee, jilted at the altar; Fisher was Aykroyd's girlfriend at the time.
Q 13The famous car chase through a shopping centre was filmed at which real, shuttered location?
Dixie Square in Harvey, Illinois
Q 21Which model appears as the 'chic lady' in a Jaguar whom Elwood propositions at a gas station?
Twiggy
Twiggy plays the 'chic lady' in the Jaguar; Elwood promises to meet her at a motel and stands her up, a cutaway late in the film showing her waiting there alone.
Q 22Who plays Jake's parole officer, Burton Mercer, who rides along with the police?
John Candy
Candy's parole officer tags along with the state troopers for the entire chase and ends up in the mob outside the Assessor's office.
Q 23What home address on Elwood's driver's licence sends the Nazis to a famous ballpark?
1060 West Addison
It is the address of Wrigley Field, whose entrance sign 'Save lives, Drive safely, Prevent fires' gets a brief cameo.
Dixie Square Mall in Harvey, Illinois, had closed in 1978; the production re-dressed its empty stores for the chase, and the mall stood derelict until its demolition in 2012.
Q 14Where does Elwood run the neo-Nazi demonstrators off a bridge?
Jackson Park
Jackson Park, on Chicago's South Side: the Illinois Nazis are rallying on its lagoon bridge when Elwood drives through them, and Henry Gibson's leader swears revenge.
Q 15The band plays Bob's Country Bunker, a honky-tonk in Kokomo, Indiana, by impersonating which booked act?
The Good Ole Boys
The Good Ole Boys are the booked act; the real band, fronted by Charles Napier's Tucker McElroy, turns up late in a Winnebago and joins the pursuit for the rest of the film.
Q 16At Bob's Country Bunker in The Blues Brothers, Elwood sings lead on which TV Western theme to win over the crowd?
Rawhide
Rawhide is Aykroyd's only lead vocal on the soundtrack; the band also plays 'Stand By Your Man' from behind chicken wire.
Q 17The Palace Hotel Ballroom in The Blues Brothers was filmed inside what kind of Chicago building?
A country club
A country club: the former South Shore Country Club clubhouse, which the Chicago Park District had taken over and later reopened as the South Shore Cultural Center.
Q 18Which famous director cameos as the Cook County clerk who takes the brothers' tax payment?
Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg, a friend of Landis, plays the Cook County clerk who stamps the receipt; the brothers are arrested by a small army the moment he does.
Q 19Muppet performer Frank Oz plays which small role at the very start of the film?
The officer returning Jake's belongings
The possessions include one unused prophylactic and one soiled; Oz turns up again in Blues Brothers 2000.
Q 20Before he was Pee-wee Herman, which future star appears as a snooty waiter at the fancy French restaurant?
Paul Reubens
Paul Reubens plays the waiter at Chez Paul, offering a Dom Pérignon '71 at $120, five years before Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985).
Q 24For the big chase scenes the production bought roughly how many police cars, at $400 apiece?
60
About 60 retired police cars were bought at $400 apiece and most were wrecked; 13 different cars stood in for the Bluesmobile alone.
Q 25The Illinois Nazis' Ford Pinto was really dropped from a helicopter from about what height?
1,200 feet
About 1,200 feet: the FAA required a special permit for the helicopter drop, and the unfinished freeway ramp the Pinto sails off was filmed in Milwaukee, not Chicago.
Q 26How long was Dan Aykroyd's first-draft screenplay, and how did he deliver it?
324 pages, in a Yellow Pages cover
Aykroyd's 324-page first draft arrived bound in a Yellow Pages cover; he had never written a screenplay, and Landis cut it to shootable length before filming began.
Q 27The Blues Brothers first appeared on Saturday Night Live in January 1976 wearing what unlikely outfits?
Bee costumes
Bee costumes from the 'Killer Bees' sketches: billed as the All-Bee Band, they played Slim Harpo's 'I'm a King Bee', Belushi singing and Aykroyd on harmonica.
Q 28The Blues Brothers made their proper debut as SNL musical guest on April 22, 1978, on an episode hosted by which comedian?
Steve Martin
Steve Martin then had them open for him at the Universal Amphitheatre that September, where their first album was recorded live.
Q 29The band's 1978 live debut album, which went to number one on the Billboard chart, was titled what?
Briefcase Full of Blues
Briefcase Full of Blues, recorded live at the Universal Amphitheatre, topped the Billboard 200 in early 1979, went double platinum and spun off 'Soul Man', a number 14 hit.
Q 30Elwood carried his harmonica on stage in a briefcase attached to him how?
Handcuffed to his wrist
Handcuffed to his wrist: Elwood's briefcase holding his harmonicas was cuffed to his arm on stage, the image that gave the debut album Briefcase Full of Blues its title.