E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
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50 free E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial grew out of the imaginary friend Steven Spielberg invented after his parents' divorce, was rejected by Columbia as a wimpy Walt Disney movie, and went on to out-gross Star Wars and hold the all-time record for eleven years. It was shot in story order under a fake title so the young cast would really be saying goodbye at the end. These 50 questions cover the film from Night Skies to the 40th-anniversary IMAX run: Melissa Mathison's first draft, the million-dollar sale to Universal, the candy Mars refused to license, Carlo Rambaldi's $1.5 million puppet with a face borrowed from Einstein and Hemingway, the chain-smoking voice of E.T., the Harrison Ford scene that was cut, the redwood forest finale, John Williams's flying theme, the Cannes premiere, the Oscars it won and the Best Picture it lost to Gandhi, the Atari cartridges buried in New Mexico, the Satyajit Ray dispute, the guns turned into walkie-talkies and the Xfinity reunion with a grown-up Elliott. Easy questions stay with the cast and the candy; the hardest ask about budgets, shooting days and the Buck Rogers strip that inspired the phone. Every answer is cited to a page we checked, with a short explanation so you learn something even when you miss. Play it solo or print it for a Spielberg movie night.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01E.T. builds his 'phone home' communicator around which toy?
Speak & Spell
Speak & Spell. Gertie's spelling toy becomes the keyboard of a transmitter cobbled together from a record player, a saw blade and other household junk.
Q 02Which animals does Elliott set free from his school science class in E.T.?
Frogs
Frogs. The class is about to dissect them when Elliott lets them all loose, and the classmate he then kisses is Erika Eleniak, later of Baywatch.
Q 03Which candy is used to lure E.T. into the house?
Reese's Pieces
Reese's Pieces. Mars refused to let M&M's appear, worried that E.T. would frighten children, so Hershey's new candy got the part and its sales soared.
Q 04Who played Elliott, the boy who befriends the alien, in E.T.?
Henry Thomas
Henry Thomas. After a flat reading, he improvised a scene pleading to keep E.T., crying real tears, and Spielberg hired him on the spot.
Q 05Which future star played Gertie, the little sister in E.T.?
Drew Barrymore
Drew Barrymore. She first auditioned for Poltergeist, but Spielberg steered her to E.T. after the six-year-old spun him a tale about touring with her punk rock band.
Q 06Who wrote the screenplay for E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial?
Melissa Mathison
Melissa Mathison. Spielberg pitched her the idea on the Tunisian set of Raiders of the Lost Ark, and she delivered a first draft in under two months.
Q 07What was the title of the darker abandoned alien project that E.T. grew out of?
Night Skies
Night Skies. In that script hostile aliens besieged a farm family; Buddy, the one gentle alien left behind at the end, became the seed of E.T.
Q 08Which studio rejected E.T. as 'a wimpy Walt Disney movie'?
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures. Its research said only small children would come, but the handover deal left it 5% of the net profits, more than it made on any of its own 1982 films.
Q 09Which studio bought the E.T. script for $1 million after a rival turned it down?
Universal
Universal. Spielberg took the rejected project to Sid Sheinberg, president of the studio's parent company MCA, who bought it and left the rival a 5% share of the profits.
Q 10On Halloween, E.T. toddles after a trick-or-treater dressed as which film character?
Yoda
Yoda. E.T. calls 'Home!' after him, a joke Spielberg slipped in using a costume he had not told George Lucas about.
Q 11Who designed E.T.'s animatronics?
Carlo Rambaldi
Carlo Rambaldi. The Italian artist, who had built an alien for Close Encounters, made the $1.5 million puppet to Spielberg's brief: a creature only a mother could love.
Q 12E.T.'s eyes were modelled on poet Carl Sandburg, novelist Ernest Hemingway and which scientist?
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein. Spielberg wanted eyes as wizened and sad as theirs, and had them made by a specialist in glass eyes from an eye institute.
Q 13How did Matthew DeMeritt, a boy born without legs, perform E.T.'s stumbles and falls?
Walking on his hands
Walking on his hands. He took the suit for scenes such as E.T.'s drunken tumble, sharing the role with two little people while a mime in prosthetic gloves supplied the hands.
Q 21What game do Michael and his friends play at the kitchen table in E.T.?
Dungeons & Dragons
Dungeons & Dragons. The young actors kept playing it between takes, and a closing scene with Elliott now running the game himself was shot but cut.
Q 22Which comic strip inspires E.T. to build his communication device?
Buck Rogers
Buck Rogers. E.T. spots the spaceman calling for help in a newspaper strip, then holds the page up to Elliott and says 'Phone'.
Q 23Which 1952 film is E.T. watching on television when Elliott kisses a girl at school?
The Quiet Man
The Quiet Man. As John Wayne pulls Maureen O'Hara into a kiss on screen, Elliott, who feels what E.T. feels, grabs a classmate and does the same.
Q 14Which actress friend of Spielberg read all of E.T.'s lines for a temporary soundtrack?
Debra Winger
Debra Winger. Spielberg loved her low, husky voice, but most of the final lines came from Pat Welsh, a two-packs-a-day smoker the sound designer overheard in a camera shop.
Q 15Which star's scene as the school principal was cut from E.T.?
Harrison Ford
Harrison Ford. He played the principal who lectures Elliott, yet the camera never showed the star's face, and the whole scene was lifted out in the edit.
Q 16Under what cover name was E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial shot to keep the plot secret?
A Boy's Life
A Boy's Life. The working title hid the alien from anyone who might copy the plot, and it fitted: Spielberg based the lonely boy on his own childhood after his parents' divorce.
Q 17What was unusual about the sequence in which E.T. was filmed?
It was shot roughly chronologically
It was shot roughly chronologically. Spielberg reasoned that the farewell would hit harder if his young cast had lived the whole story first and were really saying goodbye.
Q 18E.T.'s forest scenes were shot among which towering trees near Crescent City, California?
Coast redwoods
Coast redwoods. The crew spent the last six days of the shoot in the forest in far northern California, after weeks on soundstages and suburban streets.
Q 19Which children's TV show helps E.T. pick up his first words of English?
Sesame Street
Sesame Street. Gertie has it on while minding him, and as the show drills the letter B she coaches him into his first phrase: 'Be good.'
Q 20Which children's classic is Mary reading to Gertie while E.T. listens from the closet?
Peter Pan
Peter Pan. She reads the scene where Tinker Bell drinks poison to save Peter, and critics have long compared E.T. himself to the boy who cannot stay.
Q 24Home alone, E.T. gets Elliott drunk at school by raiding the fridge for what?
Beer
Beer. Elliott feels whatever E.T. feels, so as the alien works through a six-pack at home, the boy turns tipsy in the middle of science class.
Q 25What does E.T. revive as an early sign of his powers?
A pot of wilted flowers
A pot of wilted flowers. The plant, a geranium in the script, droops as E.T. sickens and blooms again when he revives, and Gertie hands it to him as a farewell gift.
Q 26What is the name of the lead government agent played by Peter Coyote in E.T.?
Keys
Keys. For most of the film he is shown only from the waist down, known by the ring of keys clanking on his belt, and the credits name him after them.
Q 27Who plays Mary, the children's single mother, in E.T.?
Dee Wallace
Dee Wallace. Spielberg shot the other adults from the waist down for much of the film to keep a child's-eye view, and hers is the one grown-up face shown throughout.
Q 28Which actor played Tyler, one of Michael's bike-riding friends, in E.T.?
C. Thomas Howell
C. Thomas Howell. Ralph Macchio was also in the running for the part, and a year later the two ended up side by side as greasers in The Outsiders.
Q 29Who composed E.T.'s score, including the famous Flying Theme?
John Williams
John Williams. When the finale would not sync with the orchestra, Spielberg told him to conduct it as pure music and then recut the film to fit the recording.
Q 30Which pop superstar narrated the E.T. storybook album in 1982?
Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson. Quincy Jones produced the storybook while the two were making Thriller, and it won Jackson a Grammy for best recording for children.