Home Alone
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7correct to beat the crowd
This Home Alone movie trivia quiz has 131 free questions with answers and covers the 1990 Christmas classic from every angle, then keeps going into the sequel. The first fifty questions are all the original: the McCallister house and the Paris trip that left Kevin behind, the booby traps, the Wet Bandits, Old Man Marley, Angels with Filthy Souls, John Candy's cameo, the casting stories and the numbers behind one of the biggest comedies ever made. The final eighteen are Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, from the Plaza Hotel and the Talkboy to Duncan's Toy Chest, the pigeon lady and the record-breaking 1992 opening weekend. The set runs from easy fan favourites to genuinely hard production trivia, so it works for a family game on Christmas Eve or a movie round at trivia night. Every answer was checked against the films' credits and the Wikipedia articles on the movies, the cast and the Talkboy, and each question carries its source. No recycled listicle errors.
30 of 131 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Why does the McCallister family oversleep on the morning of the flight in Home Alone?
A power cut
A power cut: high winds knock out the electricity overnight and reset the alarm clocks, leaving the family 45 minutes to reach the plane and no time to notice who is missing.
Q 02What did Joe Pesci do in a Home Alone rehearsal that left Macaulay Culkin with a lasting scar?
Bit his finger
Bit his finger: rehearsing the scene in which Harry threatens to bite off Kevin's fingers one at a time, Pesci bit down for real and broke the skin.
Q 03What disguise does Harry wear to case the McCallister house at the start of Home Alone?
A police officer
A police officer: in uniform, Harry stands in the hall asking about holiday security, and Kevin's father obligingly describes the family's light timers and door locks.
Q 04By what nickname are the two burglars known in the first Home Alone?
The Wet Bandits
The Wet Bandits earned the name from Marv's habit of stopping up the kitchen sink to flood each house, which lets police identify every home they hit.
Q 05In Home Alone, Linnie tells Kevin he is what the French call what?
Les incompétents
Les incompétents: Linnie's put-down comes as she tells Kevin not to worry about packing, because their mother will do it for him anyway.
Q 06Who directed the original Home Alone?
Chris Columbus
Chris Columbus had just quit National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation because he could not work with Chevy Chase; two weeks later John Hughes sent him two scripts, and he picked Home Alone.
Q 07From which fictional gangster movie does Kevin play a clip to scare the burglars?
Angels with Filthy Souls
Angels with Filthy Souls was made specially for Home Alone in the style of an old James Cagney gangster picture, and shot in a single day, the last test day before the main shoot began.
Q 08About how many consecutive weeks was Home Alone number one at the US box office?
12 weeks
12 weeks: Home Alone opened in mid-November 1990 and held the top spot until February 1991, when Sleeping with the Enemy finally knocked it off.
Q 09In Home Alone, what does Kevin ride down the staircase while revelling in his new freedom?
A sled
A sled: Kevin rides it down the staircase and straight out of the front door, part of a spree that also takes in a giant ice-cream sundae and his father's aftershave.
Q 10Which actor plays the elderly neighbour Kevin is afraid of?
Roberts Blossom
Roberts Blossom played Old Man Marley, the neighbour Buzz terrifies Kevin with stories about; Kevin later befriends him in church on Christmas Eve.
Q 11What was the name of the polka band leader who helps Kate McCallister get back to Chicago?
Gus Polinski
Gus Polinski, self-styled 'Polka King of the Midwest', tries to comfort Kate by admitting he once left one of his own children at a funeral parlour all day.
Q 12Roughly how much did the first Home Alone gross worldwide?
$477 million
$477 million: Home Alone cost about $18 million to make, and its takings lifted its young star's fee to a reported $4.5 million for the sequel.
Q 13Who is counted by mistake in Kevin's place during the family headcount in Home Alone?
A neighbour's boy
A neighbour's boy: Mitch Murphy from across the street is nosing around the airport vans when cousin Heather counts him in.
Q 21Which actor plays Marv, the taller of the two burglars, in Home Alone?
Daniel Stern
Daniel Stern nearly lost the part in a dispute over pay for a longer shoot, but his stand-in had no chemistry with Joe Pesci, so the director begged the studio to bring him back.
Q 22What did John Candy do with nearly all of his dialogue in his one-day Home Alone cameo?
Improvised it
Improvised it: the director says none of Candy's material was in the script, and the funeral-parlour story was made up on set at 4:30 in the morning.
Q 23What does Kevin's father find in the house at the end of Home Alone, a trace of the break-in?
A gold tooth
Q 14Which actor plays Kevin's older brother Buzz?
Devin Ratray
Devin Ratray came back as Buzz in Home Alone 2 and, three decades later, in Home Sweet Home Alone, where the old bully now wears a badge.
Q 15What kind of pet does Buzz own that Kevin finds in his room?
A tarantula
Buzz keeps a pet tarantula, which Kevin lets loose while rummaging through his brother's room and later turns on the burglars.
Q 16Which actress plays Kevin's mother, Kate, in Home Alone?
Catherine O'Hara
Catherine O'Hara won the part of Kate from a shortlist that included Susan Sarandon and Kirstie Alley, then spends the film bartering her way home through three airports.
Q 17Which real airline flies the McCallisters to Paris in Home Alone?
American Airlines
American Airlines: the family flies out on one of its jets, and Kate's scramble home starts at the Paris terminal, where the only seat she can get is on its flight to Dallas.
Q 18Which comedian turned down the role of the shorter burglar before Joe Pesci was cast?
Jon Lovitz
Jon Lovitz turned the part down and Robert De Niro was discussed too, so the director says he was 'stunned' when Joe Pesci agreed to play Harry.
Q 19What does Kevin ask the local Santa Claus impersonator to bring him for Christmas?
His family back
His family back: having wished them all away, Kevin tells the Santa he wants no toys this year, only his parents, brothers, sisters and cousins.
Q 20Which Chicago airport doubled as the family's Paris arrival airport in Home Alone?
O'Hare International
O'Hare International played both itself and Orly: over several days there, the crew filmed the family's sprint to the gate and their arrival in France.
A gold tooth: it was knocked out of Harry's mouth during the siege, and because Kevin never mentions the burglars, his father is left puzzling over it.
Q 24In Home Alone, what does Buzz claim Old Man Marley's salt does to bodies?
Mummifies them
Mummifies them: Buzz claims the old man hides his victims in a garbage can of salt, when all anyone sees him do with it is salt the pavements at night.
Q 25What of Kevin's does his father accidentally throw away while clearing up after the dinner fight?
His plane ticket
His plane ticket is swept into the bin with the napkins used to mop up the milk that splashes over the tickets and passports during the pizza fight.
Q 26In Home Alone's gangster clip, what does Johnny tell Snakes to do after gunning him down?
Keep the change
Keep the change: Kevin replays Johnny's sign-off to scare the pizza boy off the doorstep, and the sequel's fake film swaps it for a Christmas greeting.
Q 27Which sitcom actor was approached to play Kevin's grumpy uncle, a part that went to Gerry Bamman?
Kelsey Grammer
Kelsey Grammer was approached for the tight-fisted uncle, but the part went to Gerry Bamman, whose character leaves his brother to pay for the whole family's pizza.
Q 28Why did Joe Pesci keep his distance from Macaulay Culkin on the Home Alone set?
So the boy would fear him
So the boy would fear him: Pesci says he limited their contact on purpose, so that nothing friendly between them would soften the burglar's menace on screen.
Q 29Where is Home Alone, 'Kevin sam w domu', a Christmas ritual?
Poland
Poland: the film is a fixture of Polish Christmas television, and when the channel Polsat left it off its 2010 schedule, an outcry from viewers made it put the film back.
Q 30After Harry walks into glue-smeared cling film in Home Alone, what does a fan blow all over him?
Feathers
Feathers: a tripwire starts the fan that blasts them at his sticky face, leaving the burglar looking like a giant chicken for the rest of the night.