Famous Franks
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50 free Famous Franks trivia questions with answers — pop culture quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Frank is a name that turns up everywhere fame does. There are Franks who sang to packed concert halls, Franks who directed Christmas classics, Franks who drew skylines and Franks who robbed trains. One flew around the Moon, one tidied up the ice at hockey games, and one blew the whistle on a crooked police force. This quiz asks you to tell them apart. Most questions give you a clue and four Franks to choose from, so you have to separate the singer from the footballer and the architect from the outlaw. The rest are about famous fictional Franks, such as Frank Costanza, Frank Underwood, Frank Drebin, Frank Castle and Frank the Pug: who played them, where they appear and what they got up to. It works as a themed pub quiz round, as a party game for the Frank in your life, or for anyone who likes general knowledge with a twist. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you learn something even when you guess wrong.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which star, born in Hoboken, New Jersey, won an Oscar for his role in From Here to Eternity?
Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra won Best Supporting Actor after several years of critical and commercial decline. The award helped him regain his place as the top recording artist in the world.
Q 02Which inventor ran a Southern California ice rink before building the machine that resurfaces hockey rinks?
Frank Zamboni
Frank Zamboni did not expect to build more than one, until figure skater Sonja Henie ordered two and the Chicago Blackhawks followed. Charles Schulz later drew the machine into Peanuts.
Q 03Which frozen treat did Frank Epperson patent after leaving a drink and its stirring stick on a porch overnight as a boy?
Popsicle
The Popsicle was first called the Epsicle, after its inventor. He was 11 when the drink froze to its stick on a cold night, and nearly 20 years passed before he patented the idea.
Q 04Which New York landmark, with galleries along a spiral ramp, occupied architect Frank Lloyd Wright from 1943 until 1959?
Guggenheim Museum
The Guggenheim Museum drew controversy for the unusual shape of its display spaces. It was Wright's last major work: he died in April 1959, six months before it opened.
Q 05Which puppeteer performed Miss Piggy and Fozzie Bear before becoming the hands and voice of Yoda?
Frank Oz
Frank Oz was born in Hereford, England, to parents who were both puppeteers. He later turned director, making Little Shop of Horrors and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.
Q 06Which made-up December holiday does Frank Costanza celebrate with a bare aluminum pole on Seinfeld?
Festivus
Festivus was a real family tradition first: the father of Seinfeld writer Dan O'Keefe invented it, though he marked it with a clock in a bag nailed to a wall, not a pole.
Q 07Frank Beard, long the only member without a beard, drummed for which Houston rock band?
ZZ Top
ZZ Top kept the same three members for five decades, with Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill wearing their trademark 20-inch beards on either side of the drum kit.
Q 08Whose tales of posing as a Pan Am pilot and a doctor inspired the film Catch Me If You Can?
Frank Abagnale
Frank Abagnale told the story in a 1980 autobiography, but a later investigation of public records concluded that most of his claimed criminal history was fabricated.
Q 09Frank's RedHot, a cayenne pepper sauce sold since 1920, is the classic base of the sauce for which bar snack?
Buffalo wings
Buffalo wings are tossed in a mix of the hot sauce, melted butter and vinegar. The dish is usually traced to the Anchor Bar in Buffalo, New York, where it is said to date from 1964.
Q 10Frank Underwood lies and murders his way from congressional whip to the presidency in which political drama?
House of Cards
House of Cards borrowed its schemer from a British novel and television series of the same name, in which the character is called Francis Urquhart.
Q 11Which musician led the Mothers of Invention and testified against the Parents Music Resource Center in the US Senate?
Frank Zappa
Frank Zappa took on a group co-founded by Tipper Gore at the 1985 hearing. He produced nearly all of the 60-plus albums he released, and named his four children Moon, Dweezil, Ahmet and Diva.
Q 12Which director, born in a village near Palermo, Sicily, made the Christmas classic It's a Wonderful Life?
Frank Capra
Frank Capra saw the film perform poorly when it was first released in 1946, as his career declined after the war. In the 1930s he had won three Academy Awards for Best Director.
Q 13Which author wrote Dune, a desert-planet novel that was turned down by about twenty publishers?
Frank Herbert
Q 21Which writer and artist made the Batman story The Dark Knight Returns and created the comics Sin City and 300?
Frank Miller
Frank Miller made his name on Marvel's Daredevil, joining as its artist in 1979 and taking over the writing in 1981. His comic art is noted for combining film noir and manga influences.
Q 22Which engineer, a Royal Air Force officer from Coventry, patented his design for the turbojet engine in 1930?
Frank Whittle
Frank Whittle held the earlier patent, yet a German rival flew first: Hans von Ohain's engine powered the first flyable jet aircraft in 1939, two years before a British jet took off.
Q 23Which astronaut commanded Apollo 8, the first mission to fly around the Moon, with crewmates Jim Lovell and Bill Anders?
Frank Herbert finally sold the book to Chilton, a company known mainly for its auto-repair manuals. It became one of the best-selling science fiction novels of all time.
Q 14Which footballer became Chelsea's all-time leading goalscorer with 211 goals despite playing in midfield?
Frank Lampard
Frank Lampard spent thirteen years at the London club. He had begun his career at West Ham United, where his father, also named Frank, played before him.
Q 15Who plays Frank Reynolds, legal father of Dennis and Dee, in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia?
Danny DeVito
Danny DeVito's character buys 51% of Paddy's Pub in season 2, then makes most of the business decisions at the bar and bankrolls the gang's schemes.
Q 16Which actor played the bumbling police lieutenant Frank Drebin in the Naked Gun films of the 1980s and 1990s?
Leslie Nielsen
Leslie Nielsen first played the detective on television, in a 1982 ABC comedy series called Police Squad, before the character moved to the cinema.
Q 17Which singer, once a ghostwriter and member of Odd Future, released the albums Channel Orange and Blonde?
Frank Ocean
Frank Ocean was born Christopher Breaux in Long Beach, California. Channel Orange, his debut studio album, won the Grammy for Best Urban Contemporary Album.
Q 18Which Toronto-born architect designed the curvaceous Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles?
Frank Gehry
Frank Gehry was born Ephraim Owen Goldberg. His taste for chain-link fencing, corrugated steel and unpainted plywood was partly inspired by Saturday mornings at his grandfather's hardware store.
Q 19Which actor's breakthrough role was Dr. Frank-N-Furter, the mad scientist of The Rocky Horror Picture Show?
Tim Curry
Tim Curry's character is an alien as well as a scientist. The name is a pun on both Victor Frankenstein and the frankfurter sausage.
Q 20Frank Castle, a Marine veteran whose family is murdered by gangsters, becomes which Marvel vigilante?
The Punisher
The Punisher first appeared in 1974 as an adversary of Spider-Man. Writer Gerry Conway drew on The Executioner, a book series about a Vietnam veteran at war with the Mafia.
Frank Borman
Frank Borman had already set a fourteen-day spaceflight endurance record as commander of Gemini 7. His lunar crew read from Genesis on a broadcast from orbit on Christmas Eve.
Q 24Which boxer became WBC heavyweight champion in 1995 by outpointing Oliver McCall over twelve rounds?
Frank Bruno
Frank Bruno had a brief reign: the contract he signed to get the fight obliged him to face Mike Tyson in his first defence, and he was stopped in round three.
Q 25Which baseball star was the first player named MVP of both the National League and the American League?
Frank Robinson
Frank Robinson won with the Cincinnati Reds in 1961 and the Baltimore Orioles in 1966. In 1975 he became the first African American manager in big-league history, with the Cleveland Indians.
Q 26Which whistleblower exposed widespread corruption in the New York police and was played by Al Pacino in a 1973 film?
Frank Serpico
Frank Serpico first reported the evidence in 1967, to no effect. Four years later he was shot in the face during an arrest attempt in Brooklyn, and survived.
Q 27Which filmmaker directed The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile, both adapted from Stephen King stories?
Frank Darabont
Frank Darabont was born in a refugee camp in France to Hungarian parents who had fled the 1956 revolution. He later developed The Walking Dead for television.
Q 28Which actor played Frank Gallagher, father of Fiona, Lip and Ian, in the American version of Shameless?
William H. Macy
William H. Macy led the ensemble cast of the series, which was adapted from Paul Abbott's long-running British comedy drama of the same name.
Q 29Frank the Pug, a smart-talking alien informant who looks like a small dog, helps Agents K and J in which film?
Men in Black
Men in Black sends its two agents to the pug to learn that an alien prince posing as a jeweler had been protecting a miniature galaxy. Tim Blaney played the part.
Q 30Which construction toy did Liverpool clerk Frank Hornby invent in 1901 under the name Mechanics Made Easy?
Meccano
Meccano came from a man with no formal engineering training. He went on to produce two more of the century's most popular toy lines, Hornby model railways and Dinky Toys.