Famous Trios
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50 free Famous Trios trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Good things come in threes, and so do a surprising number of famous names. Storytellers lean on the rule of three, rock bands found that a guitar, a bass and a drum kit are enough, and history keeps producing three-way alliances that redraw the map. This quiz gathers the best-known groups of 3 from every corner of a quiz night: musical trios and sibling acts, film and television threesomes, nursery-rhyme and fairy-tale triplets, mythical sisters, wartime leaders, horse racing's triple crown, and the science and geography that happen to come in threes. Most questions give you two members, a clue or a story, and ask for the missing piece. It is pitched for pub quizzes, classrooms and families. Most questions can be reasoned out by a general audience, with a handful of deeper cuts for the history and music buffs at the table, and every answer comes with a short explanation of why the third name matters.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Star Trek actor directed the 1987 comedy Three Men and a Baby, starring Tom Selleck and Ted Danson?
Leonard Nimoy
Leonard Nimoy, far better known as Spock, steered it to become the first Walt Disney Studios production to gross more than $100 million in the US.
Q 02Which of Christopher Columbus's three ships ran aground off Hispaniola on Christmas Day 1492 and never sailed home?
Santa María
Santa María was the largest of the three, and Columbus had her timbers stripped to build a fort he named La Navidad, Spanish for Christmas.
Q 03Before Goldilocks was invented, which intruder ate the porridge in Robert Southey's version of The Three Bears?
An old woman
An old woman, described as insolent, ugly and dirty, was the first intruder, and the bears were three bachelors rather than a father, mother and baby.
Q 04Which country shares the island of Great Britain with England and Scotland yet has no symbol on the Union Jack?
Wales
Wales is missing because it counted as part of the Kingdom of England when the first union flag was created in 1606. In 2007 an MP proposed adding the Welsh dragon to it.
Q 05Which Kellogg's cereal is promoted by the elf mascots Snap, Crackle and Pop, named for its noise in milk?
Rice Krispies
Rice Krispies went on sale in 1928, and illustrator Vernon Grant began drawing its elf mascots in 1933, long before they starred in television commercials.
Q 06Which Italian joined Plácido Domingo and José Carreras as the Three Tenors on the eve of the 1990 World Cup final?
Luciano Pavarotti
Luciano Pavarotti sang with them at Rome's ancient Baths of Caracalla before a television audience of around 800 million. The recording became the best-selling classical album ever.
Q 07Which sport coined the term hat-trick in 1858, when fans bought H. H. Stephenson a hat for his feat?
Cricket
Cricket bowler H. H. Stephenson took three wickets with three consecutive deliveries, so fans held a collection and gave him a hat. Ice hockey crowds later took to throwing hats onto the rink.
Q 08In Greek mythology, which trio of sisters spin, measure and cut the thread of every mortal life?
The Fates
The Fates were Clotho, who spun the thread, Lachesis, who measured it with her rod, and Atropos, who cut it. Norse myth has a matching trio, the Norns.
Q 09Which member of the Three Stooges, born Jerome Horwitz, left the act in 1946 after a stroke ended his career?
Curly Howard
Curly Howard was the youngest of the brothers in the act, and his elder brother Shemp, the original third Stooge, came back to take his place.
Q 10Which ice cream, first recorded in Prussia in 1839, sets vanilla, chocolate and strawberry side by side?
Neapolitan
Neapolitan is linked with Naples, and early versions were green pistachio, white vanilla and red cherry, the colours of the Italian flag.
Q 11In Alexandre Dumas's novel, which young Gascon befriends the three musketeers Athos, Porthos and Aramis?
D'Artagnan
The real D'Artagnan was Charles de Batz de Castelmore, a soldier who took his mother's family name and rose to captain the Musketeers of the Guard under Louis XIV.
Q 12Which singer stayed with Beyoncé in Destiny's Child from the original quartet to the final trio with Michelle Williams?
Kelly Rowland
Kelly Rowland and Beyoncé began in a Houston act called Girl's Tyme, which rehearsed in back gardens and at the hair salon owned by Beyoncé's mother, Tina Knowles.
Q 13Which trio of Gibb brothers, born on the Isle of Man, powered the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack?
Bee Gees
Q 21Which Texas blues-rock trio, famed for two chest-length beards, kept the same three members for five decades?
ZZ Top
ZZ Top won a Guinness World Record in 2018 as the longest-running group with no line-up changes. The beards belonged to Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill, while the drummer was named Frank Beard.
Q 22Which trio of Sting, Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland split at the height of its fame after the album Synchronicity?
The Police
The Police got their trademark bleached-blond hair by accident: short of money in 1978, they dyed it to play a punk band in a chewing gum commercial that never aired.
Q 23Which Motown trio of Diana Ross, Mary Wilson and Florence Ballard began as a sister act called the Primettes?
The Supremes
Bee Gees Barry, Robin and Maurice grew up in Manchester and then Queensland, Australia, where they scored their first chart hits before returning to Britain in 1967.
Q 14Which embalming oil, seen as a symbol of death, did the wise men bring Jesus alongside gold and frankincense?
Myrrh
Myrrh and the other two gifts are the only reason the wise men are counted as three: the Gospel of Matthew never gives their number, and Syriac Christians often count twelve.
Q 15Which cartoon character is uncle to the triplets Huey, Dewey and Louie, who wear red, blue and green caps?
Donald Duck
Donald Duck's nephews made their debut in a 1937 comic strip. Their cap colours were left to each colourist's whim until the 1980s fixed Huey in red, Dewey in blue and Louie in green.
Q 16Which New York race is the third and final leg of the US Triple Crown, after the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness?
Belmont Stakes
Belmont Stakes is nicknamed the Test of the Champion because it is traditionally the longest of the three. Between 1979 and 2014, thirteen horses won the first two legs but not this one.
Q 17Which mysterious substance did Professor Utonium accidentally spill into the mixture that made the Powerpuff Girls?
Chemical X
Chemical X also splashed the Professor's chimpanzee lab assistant in the same accident, which turned him into the girls' big-brained nemesis Mojo Jojo.
Q 18Which Hogwarts student becomes best friends with Harry Potter and Ron Weasley after they rescue her from a troll?
Hermione Granger
Hermione Granger is so thankful that she lies to protect the boys from punishment, which wins their friendship. J. K. Rowling said she resisted her editor's requests to cut the troll scene.
Q 19Which Apollo 11 astronaut stayed in lunar orbit alone while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the Moon?
Michael Collins
Michael Collins lost radio contact with Earth for 48 minutes of every orbit as he passed behind the Moon, yet he said he never felt lonely.
Q 20Which Soviet leader hosted Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt at the Yalta Conference of the Big Three in 1945?
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin insisted that his doctors opposed any long trips, and he was afraid of flying, so the other two leaders travelled to him at a Black Sea resort in Crimea.
The Supremes started out as the sister act to the Primes, two of whom went on to form the Temptations, and they scored twelve number one singles in the United States.
Q 24Which Atlanta trio of T-Boz, Left Eye and Chilli earned a diamond certification for the 1994 album CrazySexyCool?
TLC
TLC took its name from the members' initials. After Left Eye died in a car crash in Honduras in 2002, the other two chose to continue as a duo instead of replacing her.
Q 25Which Nirvana drummer started Foo Fighters as a one-man project after the trio came to an end in 1994?
Dave Grohl
Dave Grohl had joined Nirvana only in 1990, after his punk band Scream broke up. He is the one constant member of the group he founded next.
Q 26Which guitarist formed Cream, often called rock's first supergroup, with bassist Jack Bruce and drummer Ginger Baker?
Eric Clapton
Eric Clapton agreed to join only if Ginger Baker hired Jack Bruce as the bassist, a suggestion that surprised Baker so much he almost crashed the car.
Q 27Which original Charlie's Angels star left after a single season, with Cheryl Ladd stepping in for the second?
Farrah Fawcett
Farrah Fawcett was cast as Jill Munroe without even auditioning. The trio took its orders over a speakerphone from Charlie, a boss whose face is never shown.
Q 28Which actor played Jack Tripper, the culinary student sharing a flat with Janet and Chrissy in Three's Company?
John Ritter
John Ritter's producers considered recasting him at the last minute before the pilot taped. The show was an American version of the British sitcom Man About the House.
Q 29Which Roman joined Julius Caesar and Pompey in the First Triumvirate, then died on a failed invasion of Parthia?
Crassus
Crassus was killed with much of his army at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BC. Four years later his two surviving partners were fighting each other in a civil war.
Q 30Which singer and actress played Winifred, leader of the three Sanderson sisters, in the 1993 film Hocus Pocus?
Bette Midler
Bette Midler got the stalled film moving when she showed interest in the script in 1992, taking a part first written for Cloris Leachman.