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50 free Catchphrases trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
A good catchphrase outlives the show that coined it. People who never watched a 1970s sitcom still know its put-down, a 1966 commentary line is quoted at every big match, and a two-word refusal from a sketch show gets repeated in offices every day. The best ones have a story behind them: an ad-lib that stuck, a pun the speaker never noticed, a line written to pad out a scene. These 50 questions ask who said it and where. They range across US and UK sitcoms and cartoons, game-show hosts, radio comedy, advertising campaigns, sports commentators, ring announcers, wrestlers and politicians from the 1940s to the 2020s. Every stem carries a clue for the player who half-remembers, and every answer explains where the phrase really came from. It suits pub quiz rounds, family evenings and anyone who can still do the voices. Play on your phone with instant answers, or print it for the table.
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Q 01Which Big Bang Theory physicist, played by Jim Parsons, follows his pranks with a triumphant 'Bazinga!'?
Sheldon Cooper
Sheldon Cooper's 'Bazinga!' is now an officially registered Warner Bros. trademark. In 2012 a newly discovered bee species was even named Euglossa bazinga after the catchphrase.
Q 02Which rumpled LAPD lieutenant, played by Peter Falk, turned back at the door with 'Just one more thing'?
Columbo
Columbo's 'Just one more thing' was born of laziness: creators Levinson and Link had a stage scene that ran short and could not face retyping it, so they sent him back in. It was never planned as a catchphrase.
Q 03Which prime minister told the 1980 Conservative conference 'The lady's not for turning'?
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher never got the joke: speechwriter Ronald Millar was punning on Christopher Fry's 1948 play The Lady's Not for Burning, and she missed the reference herself.
Q 04Which Bedrock quarry worker yells 'Yabba dabba doo!', a cry that began as his club's cheer?
Fred Flintstone
Fred Flintstone's voice actor Alan Reed said the phrase came from his mother's saying 'A little dab'll do ya', probably borrowed from a Brylcreem commercial. It later inspired a short-lived fruit drink, Yabba Dabba Dew.
Q 05Which BBC2 children's show, first aired on 31 March 1997, has four toddler-like characters who greet with 'Eh-oh!'?
Teletubbies
Teletubbies say 'Eh-oh!', a single based on the theme song, reached number 1 in December 1997 and sold over a million copies. It remains the characters' only release, which makes them an official one-hit wonder.
Q 06'I pity the fool!' was first growled by which mohawked actor as the boxer Clubber Lang in Rocky III?
Mr. T
Mr. T's line was written by Sylvester Stallone: asked if he hates Rocky, Clubber Lang replies 'No, I don't hate Balboa, but I pity the fool.' It later titled his 2006 reality show.
Q 07'Exterminate!' is the war cry of which Doctor Who enemies, created by Terry Nation for a 1963 serial?
The Daleks
The Daleks' 'Exterminate!' is known even to people who have never seen the series, which is why they count as a national pop-culture icon. In a Fourteenth Doctor special, the Doctor himself accidentally suggests the word to them.
Q 08Which host dismissed a contestant with 'You're fired!' at the end of every episode of the American Apprentice?
Donald Trump
Donald Trump's 'You're fired!' grew so famous that the show also spawned 'Trumponomics', a word first spelled Trump-Onomics in 2004 as a bland managerial concept on cable TV.
Q 09'Yes we can' was the crowd chant of which 2008 US presidential campaign, later set to music by will.i.am?
Barack Obama
Barack Obama's official slogan was actually 'Change we can believe in'; 'Yes We Can' was the chant, which will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas turned into a song of the same name.
Q 10'Winter is Coming' are the ancestral words of which Game of Thrones house, whose sigil is a grey direwolf?
Stark
House Stark ruled as Kings in the North for thousands of years until the Targaryen conquest, after which its lords were styled Lords of Winterfell and Wardens of the North. Its direwolf runs on a white field.
Q 11Which nominee promised 'Read my lips: no new taxes' at the 1988 Republican convention in New Orleans?
George H. W. Bush
George H. W. Bush broke the pledge in a 1990 budget compromise that raised several existing taxes, and rival Pat Buchanan replayed the 1988 clip constantly in his New Hampshire ads in 1992.
Q 12Which Little Britain bank clerk and travel agent, played by David Walliams, refused everyone with 'Computer says no'?
Carol Beer
Carol Beer followed each deadpan refusal with a bizarre, useless substitute the customer would never accept, then coughed in their face to make them go away.
Q 13Which host greeted Generation Game audiences with 'Nice to see you, to see you...', inviting the reply 'Nice!'?
Q 21Which host snuffs out a losing contestant's torch at Tribal Council with the words 'The tribe has spoken'?
Jeff Probst
Jeff Probst has hosted the American Survivor since its 2000 debut and is also an executive producer; in 2025 he turned the line into a card game with Exploding Kittens.
Q 22On which reality competition does the loser of each episode's lip-sync showdown hear the verdict 'Sashay away'?
RuPaul's Drag Race
RuPaul's Drag Race tells the queen who stays 'Shantay, you stay', after weekly acting, fashion and improvisation challenges and a themed strut down the runway.
Q 23Which price-comparison website's meerkat Aleksandr Orlov made 'Simples!' a national catchphrase from January 2009?
Bruce Forsyth
Bruce Forsyth hosted The Generation Game from 1971 to 1977 and again from 1990 to 1994, and kept the call-and-response greeting on many of the shows he fronted for the rest of his career.
Q 14Which Dad's Army butcher, played by Clive Dunn, ran around shouting 'Don't panic!' whenever danger loomed?
Corporal Jones
Corporal Jones also had 'They don't like it up 'em!' and 'Permission to speak, sir?', and his panics tended to strike while he was holding an armed landmine or a hand grenade.
Q 15Which BBC commentator said 'They think it's all over... it is now!' as Geoff Hurst scored in the 1966 World Cup final?
Kenneth Wolstenholme
Kenneth Wolstenholme was actually describing pitch invaders: 'Some people are on the pitch, they think it's all over' came out as Hurst ran through, before the shot went in.
Q 16Which tennis player's 'You cannot be serious!', bellowed at umpires, later became the title of his autobiography?
John McEnroe
John McEnroe's 2002 memoir You Cannot Be Serious was retitled simply Serious in the UK, and he reprised the line on 30 Rock as host of a fictional game show called Gold Case.
Q 17'Booyakasha!' and 'Respek' belong to which Sacha Baron Cohen character, a wannabe gangster from Staines?
Ali G
Ali G speaks a comical patois built on his delusion of Jamaican ancestry, peppered with 'aiii', 'big up yaself', 'wagwaan' and 'keep it real', and claims membership of the West Staines Massiv.
Q 18Which Blackadder dogsbody, played by Tony Robinson, announces 'I have a cunning plan' before every doomed scheme?
Baldrick
Baldrick's 'I have a cunning plan' first appeared in the pilot but was not used regularly until the third series; in series one Blackadder himself said it twice and Baldrick only once.
Q 19'Here's one I made earlier' is the craft-segment line of which BBC children's show, broadcast since October 1958?
Blue Peter
Blue Peter's phrase is credited to presenter Christopher Trace, though cookery writer Marguerite Patten is another candidate; it covers the moment a perfect, finished version of the model is produced.
Q 20Which host's 'Is that your final answer?' became a 1999 craze on the American Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
Regis Philbin
Regis Philbin asked 'Is that your final answer?' whenever he had to confirm a contestant's choice, on what became the most-watched prime-time series of the 1999–2000 US season. It returned in 2002 in syndication under Meredith Vieira.
Compare the Market
Compare the Market's meerkat, created by agency VCCP, even published a 2010 book titled A Simples Life as the campaign spun off merchandise.
Q 24Who brushed off Jimmy Carter's attack over Medicare with 'There you go again' in their 1980 presidential debate?
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan's line came in the second presidential debate of 1980, held by the League of Women Voters on October 28, a week before Election Day; the audience laughed and viewers found him more appealing.
Q 25Whose 1996 Labour conference speech named three top priorities for government: 'education, education, and education'?
Tony Blair
Tony Blair made the pledge a year before Labour's 1997 landslide of 418 seats, which ended 18 years in opposition and made him the youngest prime minister of the 20th century.
Q 26Which prime minister repeated 'strong and stable leadership' so robotically in 2017 that it became an internet meme?
Theresa May
Theresa May's slogan may not even have been hers: the Financial Times traced it to David Cameron's resignation speech after the Brexit vote, which promised 'strong, determined and committed leadership'.
Q 27'Danger, Will Robinson!' was the Robot's warning on which Irwin Allen series about the castaway Robinson family?
Lost in Space
Lost in Space ran on CBS from September 1965 to March 1968, and the Robot's line outlived the show so thoroughly that it became a general-purpose joke warning.
Q 28'Resistance is futile' is the collective warning of which Star Trek cyborg race before it assimilates a target?
The Borg
The Borg rarely speak as individuals; their audio message adds that the target's 'biological and technological distinctiveness' will be added to their own, and the name became shorthand for any juggernaut.
Q 29'The Truth Is Out There' is the opening-credits tagline of which 1993 Chris Carter series about two FBI agents?
The X-Files
The X-Files' tagline was named in 2009 among Britain's 60 best-known slogans and quotes, and Carter later listed 'Trust No One' and 'Deny Everything' alongside it as the show's provocations.
Q 30Which animated series killed off Kenny in nearly every early episode, prompting Stan's 'Oh my God, they killed Kenny!'?
South Park
South Park all but dropped the weekly death from its sixth season in 2002; until then Kyle would add his own outraged reply and rats would arrive to pick at the corpse.