Clue Trivia
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97 free Clue trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
51 free Clue trivia questions with answers. Clue is two things at once: the whodunit board game Anthony Pratt patented in wartime Birmingham and Waddingtons finally shipped as Cluedo in 1949, and the 1985 ensemble comedy that flopped in cinemas, then became one of the most quoted cult films of its decade. This quiz covers both. The board-game half runs from Pratt's original ten-character design and the weapons that never made the box, through the suspects, secret passages, and the UK-versus-US name changes, to Hasbro's Dr. Orchid swap and the much-mocked 2008 redesign. The film half is for anyone who can recite the flames monologue: casting near-misses, the scrapped fourth ending, the true identity of the butler, the Dynasty connection, and where the $15 million went. A final stretch covers the Off-Broadway musical, the ITV game show that Chris Tarrant loathed, the 1985 VCR game and the 2011 miniseries. Every answer was checked against the primary references for the game and the film before publication, so the dates, names and numbers here are the real ones rather than trivia-site folklore. Expect a mix of easy warm-ups and questions that will stump lifelong fans.
30 of 97 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Cluedo's inventor Anthony Pratt toured country hotels and cruise ships before the war, earning his living doing what?
Playing the piano
Playing the piano took him to hotels where murder-mystery games were part of the evening's entertainment, and he devised a game of his own to fill the long wartime blackouts.
Q 02Which company first manufactured Cluedo in the United Kingdom in 1949?
Waddingtons
Waddingtons agreed to take the game after a demonstration in Leeds in 1945, but a post-war shortage of materials kept it out of the shops until 1949.
Q 03Cluedo's name blends 'clue' with 'ludo', a Latin word meaning what?
I play
I play is the meaning; Ludo was also a familiar British board game, but it was little played in America, so the game went on sale there simply as Clue.
Q 04Which American company licensed Cluedo for the US market in 1949 and renamed it Clue?
Parker Brothers
Parker Brothers dropped the pun because Ludo, the British board game hidden in the name, meant little to Americans, who knew the similar Parcheesi instead.
Q 05Colonel Mustard went by which name in Anthony Pratt's original design for Cluedo?
Colonel Yellow
Colonel Yellow stood beside plain-coloured suspects such as Mr Brown and Miss Grey in Pratt's wartime design; he was renamed before the game went on sale, and they were dropped altogether.
Q 06Why did Cluedo's inventor sell its overseas rights for £5,000 in 1953?
Poor sales
Poor sales, or so his publisher told him. The game then became a hit abroad, selling in America as Clue, and his UK royalties ran out in 1967.
Q 07In Anthony Pratt's first Cluedo design, one of ten characters was picked each game as what?
The victim
The victim. Any of the ten characters could turn up dead, leaving nine suspects; the published game cut the cast to six and fixed the victim.
Q 08Anthony Pratt invented Cluedo during the war, but who drew its original board on the family's dining-room table?
His wife
His wife, Elva, drew the board at home in Birmingham. The couple called the game Murder! and tried it out on friends before showing it to a publisher.
Q 09Which suspect did Hasbro replace with the new character Dr. Orchid in 2016?
Mrs. White
Mrs. White made way for Dr. Orchid, a scientist, but the housekeeper was not gone for good: she came back as Chef White in the 2023 edition.
Q 10Mr. Boddy, the dead man at the heart of North American Clue, goes by what name in UK Cluedo?
Dr. Black
Dr. Black is the UK name, and Hasbro's 2023 relaunch merged the two, making the victim Boddy Black.
Q 11In classic Cluedo, where do the three solution cards sit during play?
In an envelope
In an envelope at the centre of the board, where one suspect, one weapon and one room card make 324 possible solutions. A wrong accusation puts a player out of the running.
Q 12Which of these rooms is on the classic Cluedo board?
Billiard room
Billiard room. It is one of nine rooms on the classic board; Anthony Pratt's first plan also had a gun room, which was dropped before release.
Q 13In Cluedo, the secret passage from the study leads to which room?
Kitchen
Kitchen. A player in a corner room can take its secret passage instead of rolling the die, crossing the board to the opposite corner in one move.
Q 21British intelligence asked Cluedo's first publisher to hide wartime escape maps for prisoners inside which game?
Monopoly
Monopoly. The firm already printed silk maps for airmen, and fake charities were set up to post games to prisoners of war.
Q 22Which of these mysteries has Clue Junior asked children to solve?
Who ate the cake
Who ate the cake. Players work out which character ate the last piece, at what time, and what they had to drink with it.
Q 23Anthony Pratt dreamed up Cluedo during the Second World War while working where?
In a tank-parts factory
In a tank-parts factory in Birmingham. He found the work tedious, and it left him time to think up the game.
Q 14In Cluedo, the secret passage from the conservatory leads to which room?
Lounge
Lounge. Only the four corner rooms have secret passages, each running to the corner diagonally opposite, so the middle rooms can only be reached on foot.
Q 15Clue's six classic weapons include a candlestick, a rope, a revolver and which of these?
Lead pipe
Lead pipe. It was not among Anthony Pratt's nine patent weapons: it arrived with the candlestick and spanner, while ideas such as a bomb were dropped.
Q 16Which weapon was in Anthony Pratt's original Cluedo design but left out of the 1949 release?
Syringe
Syringe. It was one of nine weapons in Anthony Pratt's design; two others cut at the same time, the axe and the poison, turned up in later editions.
Q 17Which suspect was added to the cast in 1988's expanded Clue Master Detective?
Miss Peach
Miss Peach was one of four new suspects in Clue Master Detective, which let as many as ten people play at once.
Q 18Hasbro's 2008 Clue relaunch reinvented which suspect as a billionaire video game designer?
Professor Plum
Professor Plum became Victor Plum, a billionaire game designer, in a makeover that also turned Colonel Mustard from a military man into a football star.
Q 19In Clue, what is the guess a player makes on entering a room called, as distinct from a final accusation?
A suggestion
A suggestion. It names a suspect, a weapon and the room the player is standing in, and the named suspect's token is moved into that room, wherever it was.
Q 20The film Clue sets its murder mansion in which American region?
New England
New England. The mansion never stood there, though: it was almost all a set, built on Paramount sound stages in Hollywood.
Q 24Cluedo's publisher launched a hunt for its inventor in the 1990s and discovered what?
He had already died
He had already died, in 1994, aged 90. The publisher had appealed for news of Anthony Pratt as the game's 150 millionth sale neared.
Q 25The director of the film Clue went on to make which 1992 courtroom comedy?
My Cousin Vinny
My Cousin Vinny. Clue flopped and its director waited years for another Hollywood job; the hit that followed won Marisa Tomei an Oscar.
Q 26Who directed the film Clue after being hired to finish its screenplay?
Jonathan Lynn
Jonathan Lynn, a British television writer, was brought in to finish a script that had defeated several writers, then was invited to direct it as his first film.
Q 27Which actor plays the butler who greets the guests in the film Clue?
Tim Curry
Tim Curry got the butler's part only after the director's first choice died and the studio turned down his second as too little known in America.
Q 28Which British comedian was second choice to play the butler in Clue but was judged too little known?
Rowan Atkinson
Rowan Atkinson had just broken through in Blackadder but was unknown in America; the first choice, Leonard Rossiter, had died during a West End run.
Q 29Which Clue role was Carrie Fisher due to play before she withdrew to enter treatment?
Miss Scarlet
Miss Scarlet. Fisher hoped to film while in treatment, but the insurers refused, and the part went to Lesley Ann Warren.
Q 30Which Clue cast member improvised the celebrated 'flames' monologue?
Madeline Kahn
Madeline Kahn. The director was no fan of improvisation, but her riff about flames on the side of her face was too good to cut.