Clangers
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40 free Clangers trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The Clangers first whistled their way onto British television in 1969, and the little family from a small, cratered planet has been loved ever since. Few programmes for the very young are so strange and so gentle at once: the creatures never speak a word, yet viewers always seem to know what they mean. This quiz covers the whole story: the family and the odd neighbours who drop in, what they eat and where they live, the two men who made the films in a farm outbuilding, the music, and the revival that brought the planet back to a new generation in 2015. It is written for anyone who grew up with the original films, for parents watching the new episodes with small viewers of their own, and for quiz players who enjoy classic British television. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so expect a few surprising stories along the way.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01According to their creator, what were the Clangers really doing in their scripted, whistled lines?
Swearing
Swearing, he said: the BBC rang to object to a rude line Major Clanger whistles at a stuck door. Each whistle followed the rhythm of a script written in English.
Q 02Which Clangers character gave its name to the Scottish band behind the 1990 hit I'm Free?
The Soup Dragon
The Soup Dragon lent her name to The Soup Dragons, formed in Bellshill in 1985. On screen she fills the Clangers' jug from wells deep inside their planet.
Q 03Which Monty Python member took over as narrator when Clangers returned to British TV in 2015?
Michael Palin
Michael Palin stepped in because the original narrator had died in 2008. He has named the grumpy Major Clanger as one of his favourite characters.
Q 04What household metal objects cover the Clangers' crater burrows as shields against meteorites?
Dustbin lids
Dustbin lids are said to have given the Clangers their name, from the clang one makes when a creature opens its burrow.
Q 05Which handicraft did Joan Firmin use to make the bodies of the original Clangers puppets?
Knitting
Knitting in pink wool was the job of Joan Firmin, whose husband Peter designed the characters. The show's writer said they are pink simply because that was the colour of her wool.
Q 06Which instrument, also played for laughs on radio's I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, voiced the Clangers?
Swanee whistle
Swanee whistle notes became as recognisable as the characters themselves. Two players blew every line: the show's narrator and Stephen Sylvester.
Q 07Which Doctor Who villain watches Clangers on a prison television in the serial The Sea Devils?
The Master
The Master jokes, deadpan, that the Clangers are real extraterrestrials, and his jailer patiently explains that they are only a children's show.
Q 08Which Clangers puppet, the family's keen gardener, was stolen in the 1970s and returned in 2026?
Mother Clanger
Mother Clanger lay in an attic in Ireland for five decades after two 15-year-old boys took her from a London exhibition. One confessed before his death, and she went back on museum display.
Q 09Which body part did the Moonmouse lose when it was redesigned to become the Clangers?
Tail
Tail removal was the one big change made to the Moonmouse of a 1967 children's book. The reason given was that it kept getting into the soup.
Q 10Which Star Trek actor narrates the American version of the revived Clangers series?
William Shatner
William Shatner was chosen in 2015 to narrate for US viewers, after an American pre-school channel co-funded the revival with the BBC.
Q 11Who wrote, animated and narrated the original Clangers in a soft, melodic voice from 1969?
Oliver Postgate
Oliver Postgate also shot every frame himself, moving the puppets by hand and working his 16 mm camera with a home-made clicker.
Q 12Which other series by the makers of Clangers topped a 1999 BBC poll of favourite children's shows?
Bagpuss
Bagpuss ran for only thirteen episodes in 1974, yet topped the poll 25 years later. The girl in its opening sequence is a daughter of the Clangers' designer.
Q 13Which oddly named dish do the Clangers eat alongside the soup drawn from inside their planet?
Blue string pudding
Q 21Which series about a Welsh steam locomotive shares its composer, Vernon Elliott, with Clangers?
Ivor the Engine
Ivor the Engine came first, in 1959, as the Smallfilms company's debut production. Its hero dreams of singing in a choir.
Q 22Which woodwind instrument, played by composer Vernon Elliott, carries much of the Clangers score?
Bassoon
Bassoon was the instrument Elliott taught in London for over 40 years. For Clangers he turned hand-drawn musical sketches and graphs from the show's writer into a full score.
Q 23Which construction toy was used to model the Clangers' bird-like friend who nests in orbit?
Meccano
Meccano pieces found lying around the Smallfilms studio were put together to make the Iron Chicken.
Blue string pudding supplements the soup that is the main part of the Clangers' diet. Their creator described them simply as a family in space, at peace on a small, hollow planet.
Q 14Which animation technique from the 1969 original was kept for the 2015 Clangers revival?
Stop-motion
Stop-motion puppets stayed, even though the revival of Fireman Sam had swapped the same technique for computer-generated imagery.
Q 15Which space mission flew four months before Clangers reached BBC1 with its Moon-like planet?
Apollo 11
Apollo 11 put the first people on the Moon in July 1969, and Clangers reached BBC1 that November. Its writer set the new series in space because space travel was the talk of the year.
Q 16What colour is the soup that the Clangers collect from volcanic wells inside their planet?
Green
Green soup is no place for visitors: a startled astronaut once fell head-first into one of the wells and had to be scrubbed clean.
Q 17Which BBC channel brought Clangers back with a new series in 2015?
CBeebies
CBeebies ordered 52 new episodes for 2015, twice as many as the two original series together, then renewed the revival for 26 more.
Q 18Near which English cathedral city was Clangers filmed, in an outbuilding at Peter Firmin's home?
Canterbury
Canterbury lies close to the village of Blean, where the studio was a disused cowshed. The city's Beaney museum now displays the original puppets.
Q 19The BBC asked Smallfilms in 1969 to make Clangers as a new series for which television advance?
Colour pictures
Colour pictures were a first for Smallfilms, whose every earlier series had been shot in black and white. The BBC left the storyline entirely to the film-makers.
Q 20Which Smallfilms saga about a Viking-age king first featured the Moonmouse behind the Clangers?
Noggin the Nog
Noggin the Nog's town received the visitor in a 1967 reading book, when a little spherical spacecraft splash-landed in its new horse-trough.
Q 24What do the Froglets, the Clangers' three small orange aliens, travel around in?
A top hat
A top hat carries the trio, who have black stalk-like legs and large eyes. In their first episode they hop out of it and scatter across the planet.
Q 25Which toy figure did the Clangers grow larger to appear beside in the episode The Rock Collector?
Action Man
Action Man was brought in as a model figure for the story, so the designer enlarged the Clangers between the first and last episodes to match.
Q 26Which plants on the Clangers' planet bear note-shaped fruit that the family politely asks to pick?
Music Trees
Music Trees drop some of their notes on the ground once asked, a hint that they can think for themselves. The Clangers have even set the notes on a five-line staff.
Q 27Which award for Pre-School Animation did the revived Clangers win in its first year back, 2015?
A Children's BAFTA
A Children's BAFTA came one year after the designer of the original puppets received a Special Award from the same academy for his contribution to children's media.
Q 28Which American pre-school channel co-funded the revived Clangers and aired it with its own narrator?
Sprout
Sprout, a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, commissioned the series in tandem with the BBC and showed it across North America.
Q 29Which Tony-winning musical was co-written by John Du Prez, composer for the revived Clangers?
Spamalot
Spamalot, written with Eric Idle, won the 2005 Tony Award for Best Musical. Du Prez's long work with Monty Python links him to the revival's British narrator, a member of the troupe.
Q 30Which organisation released the long-missing Clangers special Vote for Froglet free online in 2017?
The BFI
The BFI, the British Film Institute, put the seven-minute film out to coincide with that year's general election. Its maker had said in 2005 that he was not sure it still existed.