Lassie Trivia
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44 free Lassie trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Lassie has been coming home since 1938, when Eric Knight's short story ran in The Saturday Evening Post. This quiz follows the collie from the Yorkshire novel to the 1943 MGM film with Roddy McDowall and Elizabeth Taylor, through the 591-episode television series with Jeff, Timmy, June Lockhart and Ranger Corey Stuart, and on to the cartoons, the anime, the 1994 and 2005 films and the streaming-era revival. Along the way you will meet Pal, the male collie who won the part with a single swim across a river, and the dynasty of his descendants who have played the role ever since. There are questions on theme tunes, Emmys, the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and the well that Timmy never actually fell into. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the character, the TV series, the films and the people behind them, so it holds up for classic-TV fans and dog lovers alike.
30 of 44 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Lassie is a fictional dog of which breed?
Rough Collie
Lassie is a Rough Collie, the long-coated variety that differs from the Smooth Collie only in coat; screen Lassies have been sable-and-white dogs with the breed's full ruff and white blaze.
Q 02Lassie first appeared in a 1938 short story published in which magazine?
The Saturday Evening Post
The Saturday Evening Post ran Eric Knight's short story 'Lassie Come-Home' in its 17 December 1938 issue, before he expanded it into a full novel.
Q 03In what year was Eric Knight's full-length novel Lassie Come-Home published?
1940
Lassie Come-Home was published as a novel in 1940 by the John C. Winston Company of Philadelphia, with illustrations by Marguerite Kirmse.
Q 04In which English county is the novel Lassie Come-Home set?
Yorkshire
The novel is set in Yorkshire: Joe Carraclough's family lives in the fictional mill village of Greenall Bridge, and Lassie treks hundreds of miles back there after being sold to a duke.
Q 05How did Lassie's creator Eric Knight die in January 1943?
In a military plane crash
He was a US Army major in Special Services when his C-54 went down in Dutch Guiana, months before the first film opened.
Q 06Which studio made the 1943 film Lassie Come Home?
MGM
It was the first of seven MGM Lassie films, all in Technicolor.
Q 07Which two young stars appeared in the 1943 film Lassie Come Home?
Roddy McDowall and Elizabeth Taylor
Roddy McDowall played Joe Carraclough and a young Elizabeth Taylor played Priscilla, the Duke's granddaughter, in MGM's 1943 Lassie Come Home.
Q 08In Lassie Come Home, the Carracloughs sell their collie to which aristocrat?
The Duke of Rudling
The Duke of Rudling buys Lassie from the cash-strapped Carracloughs and takes her to his estate far to the north, from which she escapes and walks hundreds of miles back to Joe.
Q 09For which Academy Award was the 1943 film Lassie Come Home nominated?
Best Cinematography, Color
Lassie Come Home earned cinematographer Leonard Smith a nomination for Best Cinematography, Color at the 1944 Academy Awards, where it lost to The Phantom of the Opera.
Q 10How did Pal win the role of Lassie after producers had hired a female collie?
A one-take river-swimming stunt scene
The director reportedly had tears in his eyes; the first six weeks were reshot with Pal.
Q 11Who was Pal's owner and trainer, who later acquired the Lassie name and trademark from MGM?
Rudd Weatherwax
Rudd Weatherwax owned and trained Pal, and in the early 1950s took the Lassie name and trademark from MGM in settlement of money the studio owed him.
Q 12In which year did the Lassie television series debut?
1954
It ran until March 1973, first on CBS and then in syndication.
Q 13On which network did Lassie air for its first 17 seasons?
CBS
It won its Sunday 7 p.m. time slot every year of that run.
Q 14How many episodes of the Lassie TV series were produced in total?
Q 21The famous whistled Lassie theme that debuted in season five was composed by whom?
Les Baxter
Les Baxter composed the whistled Lassie theme; the whistling was performed by Muzzy Marcellino, who also supplied the whistling in the 1954 film The High and the Mighty.
Q 22In what year did the Lassie TV series switch from black and white to colour?
1965
By then Lassie had moved from the farm to the forest service.
Q 23How many Emmy Awards did the Lassie TV series win?
Two
Lassie won two Emmy Awards, for Best Children's Program in 1955 and 1956, and also received a Peabody Award for its early seasons.
591
That is 19 seasons, from September 1954 to March 1973.
Q 15Who played Lassie's first TV master, farm boy Jeff Miller?
Tommy Rettig
Tommy Rettig played Jeff Miller from 1954 to 1957; Jeff lived on the Miller farm with his widowed mother Ellen and his grandfather, Gramps.
Q 16Which actor played the orphan Timmy, Lassie's master from 1957 to 1964?
Jon Provost
Jon Provost played Timmy Martin from 1957 to 1964, joining as a runaway orphan taken in first by the Millers and then adopted by Ruth and Paul Martin.
Q 17Who played Ruth Martin, Timmy's adoptive mother, from 1958 to 1964?
June Lockhart
June Lockhart played Ruth Martin from 1958 to 1964, having already appeared in the Lassie world as the grown-up Priscilla in MGM's 1945 Son of Lassie.
Q 18Which future Oscar winner played Ruth Martin for a single season, 1957 to 1958?
Cloris Leachman
Cloris Leachman played Ruth Martin for just the 1957-58 season; she later won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for 1971's The Last Picture Show.
Q 19After the Martin family left, Lassie was taken in by Corey Stuart, who worked as what?
A US Forest Ranger
Robert Bray played him from 1964 to 1968, the start of the show's 'Ranger years'.
Q 20Under what title were the first 116 episodes of Lassie later syndicated?
Jeff's Collie
The Jeff Miller episodes were repackaged for syndication as Jeff's Collie, while the later Timmy Martin years were sold under the title Timmy & Lassie.
Q 24Which pseudonym did producer Robert Maxwell use when writing many early Lassie episodes?
Claire Kennedy
Claire Kennedy was the pen name producer Robert Maxwell used on many Jeff Miller-era scripts; the team of Robert Schaefer and Eric Freiwald later wrote scores of episodes.
Q 25Timmy Martin's shirt, jeans and Keds from the show are on display where?
The Smithsonian Institution
Jon Provost's Timmy costume of shirt, jeans and Keds sneakers was donated to the Smithsonian Institution and is held by its National Museum of American History in Washington.
Q 26Which of these was NOT one of the collies who played Lassie on the TV series?
Buddy
Buddy was never a Lassie; on television the role passed from Pal to his son Lassie Junior and then to Spook, Baby, Mire and Hey Hey, all from Pal's line.
Q 27Which two animals share Lassie's distinction of a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame?
Rin Tin Tin and Strongheart
Rin Tin Tin and Strongheart, both German Shepherd stars of the silent era, are the other two animals with Hollywood Walk of Fame stars; all three honourees are dogs.
Q 28In 2005, Variety named Lassie to which list, as its only animal?
100 Icons of the Century
Variety's 2005 list of 100 Icons of the Century, published for the trade paper's centenary, included Lassie as the only animal among the entertainment figures honoured.
Q 29Which studio made Lassie's Rescue Rangers, the animated ABC series of 1973–75?
Filmation
Filmation, the studio behind Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, produced Lassie's Rescue Rangers, which premiered on ABC in September 1973, months after the live-action series ended.
Q 30A Japanese anime series about Lassie aired in which year?
1996
Famous Dog Lassie (Meiken Lassie) aired in Japan in 1996 as an entry in Nippon Animation's World Masterpiece Theater series of literary adaptations.