John Candy
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
50 free John Candy trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
John Candy was one of the warmest presences in screen comedy. He broke through on the sketch series SCTV and went on to play loudmouths with soft centres, hapless dads and gentle giants in some of the most rewatched comedies of the 1980s and early 1990s. Long after his death in 1994, a new generation keeps finding them. This quiz covers the whole career: the SCTV characters, the road movie Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Cool Runnings, Spaceballs, the cameos you may have forgotten, the voice roles, and the co-stars and directors he worked with again and again. There are also questions on his life away from the set, including his time as a co-owner of the Toronto Argonauts. The opening questions suit anyone who grew up on his films; later ones are for fans who know the deep cuts. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you will pick up a story or two along the way.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What does John Candy's chatty salesman Del Griffith sell for a living in Planes, Trains and Automobiles?
Shower curtain rings
Shower curtain rings are the trade of Del Griffith, and a line he speaks in the film later gave the 2025 documentary John Candy: I Like Me its title.
Q 02For which Christmas blockbuster did John Candy shoot his entire cameo as a travelling bandleader in one 23-hour day?
Home Alone
Home Alone paid Candy just $414 for the day, a favour to its writer, and he was the one actor allowed to improvise his lines.
Q 03Which supernatural comedy offered John Candy the role of accountant Louis Tully before Rick Moranis took it?
Ghostbusters
Ghostbusters went ahead with Moranis after Candy's ideas for the character clashed with the filmmakers', though Candy still turns up in the music video for the theme song.
Q 04Which hockey superstar joined John Candy and Bruce McNall in buying the Toronto Argonauts in 1991?
Wayne Gretzky
Wayne Gretzky and Candy came in as minority partners beside majority owner Bruce McNall, and the team won the league title in their first season as owners.
Q 05Which country's first Olympic bobsled team does John Candy's disgraced coach train in Cool Runnings?
Jamaica
Jamaica really did send a debut bobsled team to the 1988 Winter Olympics, and Cool Runnings was the last Candy film released in his lifetime.
Q 06What is the name of John Candy's half-man, half-dog sidekick in the Star Wars spoof Spaceballs?
Barf
Barf belongs to a species the film calls a Mawg, and he rides shotgun in a flying Winnebago motorhome piloted by the mercenary Lone Starr.
Q 07Which comedy casts John Candy as a carefree bachelor left in charge of three children during a family emergency?
Uncle Buck
Uncle Buck did well enough in cinemas in 1989 that CBS turned the story into a television series in 1990.
Q 08Which comedian plays Neal Page, the uptight executive stuck with John Candy in Planes, Trains and Automobiles?
Steve Martin
Steve Martin and Candy improvised so freely that the first cut ran nearly four hours before it was trimmed for cinemas.
Q 09In which Bill Murray army comedy does John Candy play Dewey Oxberger, a gentle recruit nicknamed Ox?
Stripes
Stripes needed no audition from Candy: a producer who knew him from Toronto simply told director Ivan Reitman to cast him.
Q 10On which holiday was John Candy born in 1950, in the Ontario town of Newmarket?
Halloween
Halloween 1950 was Candy's birthday, and Toronto's mayor proclaimed October 31, 2020, John Candy Day to mark what would have been his 70th.
Q 11Which Western comedy was John Candy filming in Durango when he died of a heart attack in 1994?
Wagons East
Wagons East was finished with a body double, computer effects and script rewrites, then dedicated to Candy's memory.
Q 12Which Hollywood legend ended a 20-year retirement to play John Candy's controlling mother in Only the Lonely?
Maureen O'Hara
Maureen O'Hara had left films in 1971, and the part was written for her by a director unaware that she had retired to the Virgin Islands.
Q 13John Candy's two Emmy Awards for SCTV honoured which part of his work on the sketch series?
Writing
Writing won Candy and his SCTV castmates the Emmy for a variety or music programme two years running, in 1982 and 1983.
Q 21In which romantic comedy does John Candy play Freddie, the womanising brother of a man who loves a mermaid?
Splash
Splash is generally considered Candy's breakout, and critic Roger Ebert argued that he, not the leading man, should have played the lover.
Q 22Which host of the 1988 Winter Olympics is the setting for the bobsled races in John Candy's Cool Runnings?
Calgary
Calgary played itself: the cast and crew shot the snow scenes there first, then moved to the Caribbean for the rest of the film.
Q 23In which musical comedy does John Candy play Burton Mercer, the parole officer helping police hunt Jake and Elwood?
The Blues Brothers
The Blues Brothers follows the paroled Jake and his brother as they reunite their band to save the Catholic orphanage where they grew up.
Q 14Which holiday are the stranded travellers desperate to be back for in John Candy's Planes, Trains and Automobiles?
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving gives the film its deadline, and the studio opened it in American cinemas on the day before the holiday in 1987.
Q 15Where is Neal Page's family waiting for him in Planes, Trains and Automobiles, the John Candy road comedy?
Chicago
Chicago is where Neal Page lives, but a blizzard there diverts his flight to Wichita, Kansas, and the misadventures begin.
Q 16Which filmmaker wrote and directed Planes, Trains and Automobiles and scripted Candy's comedy The Great Outdoors?
John Hughes
John Hughes first worked with Candy as the writer of National Lampoon's Vacation in 1983, and kept writing him parts and cameos into the early 1990s.
Q 17Which style of music does John Candy's SCTV character Yosh Shmenge play with his band the Happy Wanderers?
Polka
Polka made the Shmenges breakout characters, and they earned an HBO special, The Last Polka, spoofing the concert film The Last Waltz.
Q 18Which SCTV castmate played John Candy's brother Stan Shmenge and his partner in Armed and Dangerous?
Eugene Levy
Eugene Levy landed the security-guard comedy on Candy's own recommendation, after the actor first cast opposite him dropped out.
Q 19Which Michael Moore satire, released after John Candy's death, cast him as a gung-ho American sheriff?
Canadian Bacon
Canadian Bacon was already finished when Candy died; it screened at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival and was dedicated to his memory.
Q 20Which Oliver Stone film gave John Candy a small dramatic role as the shady Southern lawyer Dean Andrews?
JFK
JFK earned eight Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, and won for its cinematography and its editing.
Q 24Which musical about a man-eating plant features John Candy as the radio DJ Wink Wilkinson?
Little Shop of Horrors
Little Shop of Horrors gave Candy one of its special guest spots, alongside Bill Murray, Jim Belushi and Christopher Guest.
Q 25In National Lampoon's Vacation, John Candy plays a security guard at which closed California theme park?
Walley World
Walley World only got its guard because test audiences disliked the first ending; Candy's scenes were shot months after the rest of the film.
Q 26Which comedy casts John Candy as Spike Nolan, a baseball catcher whose best friend is set a bizarre 30-day challenge?
Brewster's Millions
Brewster's Millions pairs Candy with Richard Pryor, in a story filmed again and again since the silent era, from a 1902 novel about a man forced to waste money.
Q 27Which director gave John Candy an early Hollywood part as a soldier in the big-budget war comedy 1941?
Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg filled the ensemble around Candy with names such as John Belushi, Christopher Lee and Toshiro Mifune.
Q 28In Volunteers, which Washington hometown does John Candy's Peace Corps recruit Tom Tuttle keep announcing?
Tacoma
Tacoma's proudest son is a Washington State graduate sent to Thailand, where the volunteers are assigned to build a bridge for a village.
Q 29Which actor directed the 2025 documentary John Candy: I Like Me, produced by Ryan Reynolds?
Colin Hanks
Colin Hanks's film opened the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival, where Candy's two children joined him for a question-and-answer session.
Q 30Which vain SCTV star, played by John Candy, saw his career nosedive after an over-budget crane shot?
Johnny LaRue
Johnny LaRue blew the money on Polynesiantown, a spoof of Chinatown, and the show's writers turned the fallout into a running storyline.