Burlesque Trivia
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59 free Burlesque trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Burlesque started as a literary joke, became a Victorian pun-fest in tights, crossed the Atlantic with Lydia Thompson's British Blondes and turned into the striptease circuit that made Gypsy Rose Lee a star before Mayor La Guardia shut it down. This quiz has 47 free burlesque trivia questions with answers spanning all of it, plus the neo-burlesque revival and the 2010 film with Cher and Christina Aguilera. Expect a mix: easy questions on who owns the lounge in the movie and what prop Dita Von Teese fills, harder ones on the Chicago editor Lydia Thompson horsewhipped, the burlesque circuit that folded in 1931, the young comedian who wrote Dream Follies, and where the Burlesque Hall of Fame ended up. There are questions on the word's Italian roots and the literary high and low burlesque of Pope and Butler too. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on burlesque, its performers and the film, and each question carries a citation. Good for a themed pub quiz, a cabaret night warm-up or settling a backstage argument.
30 of 59 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The word 'burlesque' ultimately derives from an Italian word meaning what?
A joke or mockery
It came into English via French from the Italian burlesco, rooted in burla, a jest or ridicule.
Q 02Whose early-16th-century Opere burlesche is the first title to use the word?
Francesco Berni
Francesco Berni's Opere burlesche, from the early 16th century, is the first title to use the word; burlesque verse was known for a time as poesia bernesca in his honour.
Q 03Alexander Pope's The Rape of the Lock is the classic example of which type of literary burlesque?
High
High burlesque applies an elevated literary manner to a trivial subject: in Pope's case, a snipped curl.
Q 04Samuel Butler's Hudibras, which mocks a Puritan knight in satiric doggerel, is an example of what?
Low
Low burlesque takes a serious subject and treats it in an irreverent, mocking style.
Q 05Which 1974 Tom Stoppard play puts Joyce, Lenin and Tristan Tzara together in Zurich?
Travesties
Travesties, Stoppard's 1974 burlesque, throws James Joyce, Lenin and Tristan Tzara together in wartime Zurich by way of The Importance of Being Earnest.
Q 06Which composer wrote an 1890 Burleske for piano and orchestra?
Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss wrote his Burleske for piano and orchestra in 1885-86, revised it, and saw it premiered in 1890 at Eisenach with Eugen d'Albert as soloist.
Q 07Victorian burlesque was popular in London theatres between which decades?
1830s to 1890s
Victorian burlesque ran from the 1830s to the 1890s, launched by Madame Vestris's company in 1831 and fading in the 1890s as musical comedy took over.
Q 08How was the dialogue of Victorian burlesque generally written?
In rhyming couplets full of puns
Victorian burlesque dialogue was written in rhyming couplets full of puns, often dreadful ones; W. S. Gilbert and F. C. Burnand were among its pun-happy authors before Gilbert teamed up with Sullivan.
Q 09Which two London theatres became the home of burlesque from the 1860s to the early 1890s?
The Gaiety and the Royal Strand
The Gaiety and the Royal Strand were the homes of London burlesque for some thirty years; the Gaiety's house stars included Nellie Farren, Edward Terry and Fred Leslie.
Q 10Which troupe led by Lydia Thompson launched the burlesque craze in New York in 1868?
The British Blondes
Lydia Thompson's British Blondes arrived in New York in 1868 and were the most popular entertainment in the city that season, spreading burlesque across America.
Q 11What was Lydia Thompson's first American show, in 1868?
Ixion
Ixion, her version of F. C. Burnand's 1863 burlesque of the Greek myth, opened at Wood's Museum in New York in September 1868.
Q 12In 1870 Lydia Thompson and colleagues did what to Wilbur Storey, owner of the Chicago Times?
Horsewhipped him at gunpoint
She said he had called her the most odious epithet that could be applied to a woman; she was arrested and fined.
Q 13Which 1866 musical extravaganza is remembered as an early American 'leg show'?
The Black Crook
The Black Crook (1866) is often called the first American musical; its chorus of dancers in flesh-coloured tights made it an early 'leg show', and it ran in New York for over a year.
Q 21Which film director was the father of Gypsy Rose Lee's son Erik?
Otto Preminger
Otto Preminger fathered Erik, born in 1944 while Lee was married to actor Alexander Kirkland; the boy went by Kirkland, Lee and finally Preminger over his life.
Q 22Which Rodgers and Hart number satirised Gypsy Rose Lee's highbrow musings while stripping?
Zip!
'Zip!' comes from Pal Joey (1940), sung by reporter Melba Snyder recalling her interview with Gypsy Rose Lee, who ponders Walter Lippmann and Schopenhauer while stripping.
Q 23Sally Rand's most famous fan dance appearances were at which event?
The 1933 Chicago World's Fair
Q 14Which family ran the famously racy burlesque theatre at New York's National Winter Garden?
The Minskys
Their name lives on in the 1968 film The Night They Raided Minsky's.
Q 15By roughly when had striptease become the dominant ingredient of American burlesque?
The mid-1920s
Striptease had become burlesque's dominant ingredient by the mid-1920s as the circuits competed with vaudeville and film; by 1932 at least 150 strip principals were working in the US.
Q 16Which New York mayor's crackdown from 1937 effectively killed burlesque in the city?
Fiorello La Guardia
Fiorello La Guardia's administration refused to renew burlesque licences from 1937, and by 1942 even the word was banned from New York marquees.
Q 17Which of the two national burlesque circuits collapsed in 1931 during the Depression?
Mutual
Mutual's shows were racier than Columbia's, but tamer than the local stock houses.
Q 18What was Gypsy Rose Lee's surname at birth?
Hovick
Her younger sister became the actress June Havoc.
Q 19Which burlesque star made an onstage bubble bath her signature act?
Lili St. Cyr
Lili St. Cyr, born Willis Marie Van Schaack, made an onstage bubble bath her signature at Ciro's in Hollywood and was tried for indecency over it in 1951, winning acquittal.
Q 20What was the title of Gypsy Rose Lee's 1941 mystery novel?
The G-String Murders
The G-String Murders (1941) is a backstage whodunit set in a burlesque theatre, narrated by a stripper named Gypsy Rose Lee herself; it was filmed in 1943 as Lady of Burlesque.
Sally Rand's fan dance made her the sensation of the 1933 Chicago World's Fair, the Century of Progress, where she was arrested four times in a single day.
Q 24The fan dancer born Helen Gould Beck took her stage name from what?
A Rand McNally atlas
Cecil B. DeMille named her Sally Rand after a Rand McNally atlas; her later 'bubble dance' was invented partly to cope with wind at outdoor shows.
Q 25Which of these comedy duos got their start in burlesque before teaming up?
Abbott and Costello
Abbott and Costello met on the burlesque circuit and teamed up at New York's Eltinge Theatre in 1936; their films recycle bits such as 'Slowly I Turned' and the lemon table routine.
Q 26Which 1929 backstage musical is cited as the first dramatic film to depict burlesque?
Applause
Applause (1929), an early talkie shot at Paramount's Astoria studio, starred Helen Morgan as Kitty Darling, a fading burlesque queen.
Q 27Who starred as the burlesque comic in the 1951 Broadway musical Top Banana?
Phil Silvers
Phil Silvers won a Tony as Jerry Biffle in Top Banana, with songs by Johnny Mercer; the title is burlesque slang for the lead comedian.
Q 28Which 1979 Broadway musical recreated a 1920s-circuit burlesque show?
Sugar Babies
Sugar Babies, which opened on Broadway in 1979 and ran 1,208 performances, starred Mickey Rooney and Ann Miller in a tribute to the old burlesque circuits.
Q 29Which stripteaser assembled the nostalgic 1962 off-Broadway show This Was Burlesque?
Ann Corio
Corio had been a headliner on the Mutual circuit in its heyday.
Q 30Which pin-up star headlined Irving Klaw's burlesque films Striporama, Varietease and Teaserama?
Bettie Page
Bettie Page headlined Irving Klaw's cheap but hugely profitable 1950s burlesque features Striporama, Varietease and Teaserama, sharing the Teaserama bill with Tempest Storm.