Lollipops
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40 free Lollipops trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
A lollipop is about the simplest candy there is: boiled sugar, a little flavor and a stick. Yet the story behind it is full of rival inventors, a long trademark fight, clever machines and marketing stunts that reached well beyond the candy aisle. This quiz covers the facts people most often look for: who claimed to have invented the lollipop and where the word may come from, what happens to sugar when it is cooked into hard candy, and the tales behind well-loved brands such as Chupa Chups, Tootsie Pops and Dum Dums. It also follows the lollipop into movies, hit songs, television, sport and even medicine. It suits party hosts, teachers, candy-shop regulars and anyone who likes a sweet fact. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so the questions work on a screen or read aloud.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which famous artist designed the logo of Spanish lollipop brand Chupa Chups in 1969?
Salvador Dalí
Salvador Dalí set the name inside a bright daisy shape for founder Enric Bernat, whose lollipop business had started out as an apple jam factory.
Q 02According to the popular story, candy maker George Smith named his 1908 lollipops after what?
A racehorse
A racehorse called Lolly Pop is the usual tale, and Smith's company then spent more than two decades fighting to trademark the name, winning it in 1931.
Q 03Which bald New York TV detective of the 1970s sucked lollipops to cut down on his smoking?
Kojak
Kojak, played by Telly Savalas, first swapped a cigarette for a lollipop while questioning a witness in a 1973 episode, and the sweet became his trademark.
Q 04In the classic animated Tootsie Pop commercial, which animal bites the candy after three licks?
An owl
An owl takes the boy's question only after a cow, a fox and a turtle have each passed it along, in a cartoon ad that has aired on US television since 1970.
Q 05Which candy did Topps engineer Frank Richards invent to help his daughter stop sucking her thumb?
Ring Pop
Ring Pop works much like a pacifier: the hard candy jewel sits on a plastic band worn on the finger, giving a child something sweeter than a thumb.
Q 06Sam Born, inventor of a lollipop stick machine, founded the company behind which marshmallow treat?
Peeps
Peeps come from Just Born, the firm Sam Born started in 1923, seven years after San Francisco handed him the key to the city for his lollipop machine.
Q 07In the film Bright Eyes, the 'Good Ship Lollipop' of the famous song is really which vehicle?
An airplane
An airplane is the ship of the title: the number is sung in the cabin of a taxiing American Airlines Douglas DC-2, with not a wave in sight.
Q 08On the Dum Dums production line, what actually creates the brand's Mystery Flavor lollipops?
Two batches blending together
Two batches blending together is the whole secret: rather than stop the line to clean the machines between runs, Spangler wraps the in-between pops as a mystery.
Q 09In Britain, which job is done by the person known as a 'lollipop lady'?
School crossing guard
School crossing guard is the job behind the nickname, which comes from the circular stop sign on a stick; using one to halt traffic is even called lollipopping.
Q 10In which 1939 musical film does a newly arrived heroine receive a gift from the Lollipop Guild?
The Wizard of Oz
The Wizard of Oz gave the Guild only a brief welcome song, yet its green-clad member, Jerry Maren, went on to be the last surviving adult Munchkin actor.
Q 11Which child actress made 'On the Good Ship Lollipop' her signature song in the film Bright Eyes?
Shirley Temple
Shirley Temple turned the tune into a sensation: 400,000 copies of the sheet music were sold, and it ranks 69th on the American Film Institute's list of top movie songs.
Q 12Which rapper topped the Billboard Hot 100 for five weeks in 2008 with the single 'Lollipop'?
Lil Wayne
Lil Wayne scored the biggest hit of his career with it, though featured singer Static Major died about two weeks before the single was released.
Q 13Which smartphone operating system gave the name Lollipop to its version 5.0, released in 2014?
Android
Android named its releases after sweets from 2009's Cupcake onward, and Lollipop was the one that brought in the redesigned Material Design look.
Q 21Which pop group fronted a 1997 range of Chupa Chups lollipops sold with collectible stickers?
Spice Girls
Spice Girls lollipops came in packs that each carried a sticker of one member, part of a range that stretched to toy microphones and temporary tattoos.
Q 22In the game Lollipop Chainsaw, cheerleader Juliet Starling battles hordes of what at her school?
Zombies
Zombies overrun her California school in a game that paired Japanese designer Suda51 with filmmaker James Gunn and went on to sell more than a million copies.
Q 23Because lollipop sugar hardens without forming crystals, the candy counts as which type of solid?
A glass
A glass is what the cooled syrup becomes: boiling drives its water content below 2%, and the sugar then sets in a jumble instead of an orderly lattice.
Q 14Chupa Chups lollipops were sent into orbit in the 1990s for the crew of which space station?
Mir
Mir took delivery in 1995 and its cosmonauts were filmed enjoying them, a long way from the wooden-stick sweets the firm first sold in the 1950s.
Q 15Which female vocal quartet took the song 'Lollipop' to number two on the US pop chart in 1958?
The Chordettes
The Chordettes were covering a record by the duo Ronald & Ruby, and one of the four made the famous popping noise by flicking a finger out of her mouth.
Q 16The word lollipop may come from 'lolly', a northern English dialect word for which part of the body?
Tongue
Tongue is one leading guess, though dictionaries call the word's origin obscure; it first named a soft treacle sweet and only meant candy on a stick from the 1920s.
Q 17In 2024, which US state made the lollipop its official state candy in honor of a local candy maker?
Connecticut
Connecticut claims the treat because New Haven's Bradley Smith Company began selling hard candy on a stick under the name Lolly Pop in the early 1900s.
Q 18Which caramel pop on a stick was first sold in 1925 under the name Papa Sucker?
Sugar Daddy
Sugar Daddy replaced the Papa Sucker name in 1932, and the pop later inspired a bite-sized caramel sibling sold as Sugar Babies.
Q 19Which powerful opioid is delivered on a stick in Actiq, a medicated lollipop for severe cancer pain?
Fentanyl
Fentanyl lollipops have also gone to war: US Air Force pararescue medics in Afghanistan gave them to blast casualties, taping the stick to a finger.
Q 20Which Barcelona manager sucked Chupa Chups lollipops on the touchline after he had to quit smoking?
Johan Cruyff
Johan Cruyff was kept supplied by the company itself during the 1990s, and when he died in 2016 fans left lollipops at his memorial.
Q 24Besides sugar, which main ingredient of a standard lollipop keeps the candy from crystallizing?
Corn syrup
Corn syrup gets in the way of sugar crystals as the boiled mixture cools; cream of tartar, honey and butter can do the same job.
Q 25The cone-shaped Astro Pop lollipop, first made in 1963, was modeled on which space hardware?
A three-stage rocket
A three-stage rocket was a natural model for its inventors, two rocket scientists who quit their jobs on the space program in California to make candy.
Q 26Julius Dixson was late to write the 1958 song 'Lollipop' because his daughter got one stuck where?
In her hair
In her hair, he explained to co-writer Beverly Ross, who was so taken with the word lollipop that she sat down and worked out the song on the spot.
Q 27Which singer's 1964 international hit 'My Boy Lollipop' helped introduce ska music to the world?
Millie Small
Millie Small was a Jamaican teenager when she recorded it in London with arranger Ernest Ranglin, giving Island Records its first major hit.
Q 28Which California candy maker set a 2012 Guinness record with a 7,003-pound chocolate lollipop?
See's Candies
See's Candies made a giant equal to 145,000 ordinary lollipops; it stood nearly six feet high and beat the previous record of 6,514 pounds.
Q 29In Formula One, the crew member called the 'lollipop man' signalled to the driver during what?
A pit stop
A pit stop once ended only when he raised his round sign on a pole, which also reminded the driver to hold the brakes while the tyres were changed.
Q 30Why did sales manager I. C. Bahr pick the name Dum Dums in 1924?
Any child could say it
Any child could say it, Bahr reasoned, and the easy name outlived his employer: the brand's first maker sold it to the Spangler Candy Company in 1953.