Coming to America Trivia
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50 free Coming to America trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
42 free Coming to America trivia questions with answers. Coming to America opened in June 1988 to sniffy reviews and became one of the biggest comedies of the decade, then spent thirty years being quoted in barbershops before Coming 2 America finally arrived on Prime Video. This quiz covers both films: Prince Akeem's forty days in Queens, McDowell's and its legally distinct golden arches, Soul Glo, Sexual Chocolate, the Duke brothers turning up homeless, and the many faces of Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall under Rick Baker's makeup. The questions run from easy plot points to the production stories: what Paramount insisted on in the casting, why Murphy and John Landis fell out, the humourist who sued and won, the Oscar nominations, the Nile Rodgers jingle, and the failed CBS sitcom pilot. The sequel round covers General Izzi, Lavelle, the Atlanta shoot in a rapper's mansion, and James Earl Jones's final film role. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the two films and carries its source. Play it before a rewatch or use it as a round at movie night; the difficulty scores tell you which ones are the gimmes.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who directed Coming to America, reuniting with Eddie Murphy five years after their first film together?
John Landis
John Landis directed it, five years after their first film together; the two fell out badly on set, yet reunited for Beverly Hills Cop III in 1994.
Q 02To test his arranged bride Imani, Prince Akeem first orders her to imitate which animal?
A dog
A dog: Imani, trained since childhood to please him, barks on command and then hops on one leg, which convinces Akeem to go looking for a bride with opinions of her own.
Q 03How does King Jaffe expect Akeem to spend his 40 days abroad?
Sowing royal oats
Sowing royal oats is all King Jaffe thinks the trip is for, and when he later tells Lisa exactly that, adding that Akeem cannot be serious about her, she runs out on the prince.
Q 04In which New York borough do Akeem and Semmi settle, posing as ordinary students?
Queens
Queens: Akeem reasons that a place with that name must be where a future queen lives, so he and Semmi ask a landlord there for the shabbiest room he has.
Q 05Lisa's boyfriend Darryl Jenks is heir to which hair-care fortune?
Soul Glo
Soul Glo is the Jheri-curl product Darryl's father invented, and Darryl, who lives off it, lets Lisa believe that the wad of cash Akeem slipped into the rally's collection came from him.
Q 06Eddie Murphy's soul singer Randy Watson fronts which band at the neighbourhood rally?
Sexual Chocolate
Sexual Chocolate get their shout-out when Randy Watson finishes his ballad, bellows the band's name and drops the microphone, a move Murphy had already pulled in his 1983 stand-up special Delirious.
Q 07Besides Semmi, which of these characters is played by Arsenio Hall?
Reverend Brown
Reverend Brown is Arsenio Hall, preaching that the God who saved Daniel from the lions' den also 'helped Gilligan get off the island'; Hall plays Morris the barber too, while Clarence and Saul are Eddie Murphy.
Q 08Who plays King Jaffe Joffer?
James Earl Jones
James Earl Jones gives King Jaffe one of cinema's deepest voices, yet as a boy he stuttered so badly that he barely spoke for years, until he reached high school.
Q 09Which actress plays Queen Aoleon, and would later voice Sarabi in The Lion King?
Madge Sinclair
Madge Sinclair plays Queen Aoleon; she had been a schoolteacher in Jamaica before leaving for New York to try acting, and voiced Sarabi the year before she died.
Q 10Who plays Cleo McDowell, Lisa's father and Akeem's boss?
John Amos
John Amos is Cleo McDowell, who swears his burger bar is nothing like McDonald's: they have the Golden Arches and the Big Mac, while he has the Golden Arcs and the Big Mick.
Q 11Which sport do Akeem, Lisa, Darryl and Patrice go to watch on their double date?
Basketball
Basketball: Darryl has four tickets to a St. John's game, where a vendor who comes from Zamunda recognises his prince and almost gives Akeem's secret away.
Q 12Who plays Darryl Jenks, Lisa's obnoxious boyfriend, in Coming to America?
Eriq La Salle
Eriq La Salle plays Darryl, who loses Lisa for good by letting her father announce an engagement she never agreed to; six years later La Salle became Dr. Peter Benton in ER.
Q 13According to Arsenio Hall, why did Louie Anderson end up playing McDowell's employee Maurice?
Paramount insisted on a white actor
Q 21Which humourist successfully sued Paramount, claiming Coming to America was based on a story treatment he had sold the studio?
Art Buchwald
Art Buchwald's treatment was dropped by Paramount and picked up by Warner Bros., which abandoned it in turn once Paramount announced Coming to America, with its strikingly similar story.
Q 22Hiding that he is royalty, Akeem tells Lisa that he and his family back home are what?
Poor goat herders
Poor goat herders is his cover story, and when Lisa says he seems too educated for it, he explains that goats look after themselves, which leaves a herder a great deal of time to read.
Q 23Where does Akeem finally catch up with Lisa to explain himself and propose?
Paramount insisted on a white actor, Hall told Jimmy Kimmel in 2021: the studio handed over a list of three white performers, and he and Murphy picked Louie Anderson because they knew and liked him.
Q 14Which future star plays the armed robber whom Akeem and Semmi overpower at McDowell's?
Samuel L. Jackson
Samuel L. Jackson is the robber, who has hit McDowell's five times; Cleo's reward for stopping him is an invitation to his party, where Akeem and Semmi find they are there to tend bar and park cars.
Q 15Which future Oscar winner made his film debut in Coming to America as a boy getting a haircut?
Cuba Gooding Jr.
Cuba Gooding Jr. is credited only as 'Boy Getting Haircut' in his first film; four years earlier he had break-danced behind Lionel Richie at the closing ceremony of the Los Angeles Olympics.
Q 16The homeless men Akeem hands cash to are Mortimer and Randolph Duke, from which film?
Trading Places
Trading Places (1983) introduced the Duke brothers; Don Ameche and Ralph Bellamy reprise them as the bankrupt pair who, handed Akeem's cash, exclaim 'Mortimer, we're back!'
Q 17Which South African choir sings 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight' over the opening sequence?
Ladysmith Black Mambazo
Ladysmith Black Mambazo sing it as 'Mbube', the 1939 Zulu original by Solomon Linda, who sold the copyright that same year; his family won a share of the song's royalties only in 2006, decades after he died.
Q 18Taking a break from cleaning McDowell's, Akeem impresses Lisa by quoting which philosopher?
Nietzsche
Nietzsche: Akeem tells her that 'he who would learn to fly must first learn to stand and walk', and Lisa replies that the other men who work there don't quote philosophers.
Q 19After Akeem's over-keen small talk about American football, Cleo McDowell warns him to stay off what?
Drugs
Drugs: told to charm Lisa's father, Akeem raves about the Giants kicking 'an oblong pigskin ball through a big H', and Cleo decides only a man who is high could be that excited.
Q 20Coming to America received two Academy Award nominations, one for costume design and one for what?
Makeup
Makeup: Rick Baker's work turned Murphy and Hall into an old Jewish man, a soul singer, two barbers and a woman in a bar, but the Oscar went to Beetlejuice.
On a subway car
On a subway car, Akeem renounces his throne in front of the other passengers and asks Lisa to marry him; a stranger urges her to take a chance, but she gets off at the next stop.
Q 24Which summer 1988 hit out-grossed Coming to America domestically?
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
Who Framed Roger Rabbit opened a week earlier and, despite playing in far fewer cinemas than Coming to America, finished the year well ahead of it.
Q 25Which future pop star choreographed the dance numbers in Coming to America?
Paula Abdul
Paula Abdul, a former Laker Girl who had been choreographing Janet Jackson's videos, staged the palace dances; her own debut album came out the same year and turned her into a chart-topping singer.
Q 26In the barbershop, which boxer does Clarence insist was the greatest who ever lived?
Joe Louis
Joe Louis could have beaten them all, says Clarence; when Saul points out that Rocky Marciano knocked him out, Clarence snaps that Louis was 75 years old when they fought.
Q 27Randy Watson's big number at the rally is a cover of which Whitney Houston hit?
Greatest Love of All
Greatest Love of All is Randy Watson's showpiece, and once he has left the stage Lisa steps up to say the song makes a good point and asks the crowd for donations to rebuild a local park.
Q 28In 2022, Paramount took legal action against a company over which unlicensed Coming to America venture?
Opening pop-up McDowell's restaurants
Opening pop-up McDowell's restaurants brought a copyright claim from Paramount, although the film's own McDowell's was a borrowed identity too: a real New York Wendy's, redressed for the shoot.
Q 29What happens to the royal luggage minutes after Akeem and Semmi arrive in their New York neighbourhood?
Stolen off the street
Stolen off the street: bystanders carry the trunks away while Akeem and Semmi are indoors asking about a room, which leaves the prince with exactly the bare life he came looking for.
Q 30What do palace attendants scatter in Prince Akeem's path wherever he walks in Zamunda?
Rose petals
Rose petals: Akeem tells his father he could do without them, and later a trail of them on the steps of his New York building is what tells him the king has come to fetch him.