50 free M&M's trivia questions with answers — food & drink quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
44 free M&M's trivia questions with answers. M&M's have been around since 1941, and eighty-odd years of candy history leave a lot to ask about. This quiz covers the origin story (Forrest Mars, Bruce Murrie and a wartime Army contract), every colour change from the disappearance of red to the blue vote and the arrival of purple, the spokescandies and the actors behind them, and the pop-culture moments: the E.T. snub, Van Halen's brown-M&M rider, the Super Bowl stunts and NASCAR. It is a good round for a party, a candy-themed quiz night or a family game, and there is a stretch of harder Mars-family history questions for people who think they know it all. Difficulty runs from easy to hard. Every answer has been checked against a reference page and each question carries its source, so if a fact surprises you, you can go and read where it came from.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In what year did M&M's first go into production in the United States?
1941
Forrest Mars received his patent for the coating process on 3 March 1941. The first factory was on Badger Avenue in Newark, New Jersey.
Q 02The two Ms stand for Forrest Mars and which partner, whose father ran rival Hershey?
Bruce Murrie
Bruce Murrie held a 20 percent share and the deal guaranteed Hershey chocolate during wartime rationing. He sold out to Mars in 1949.
Q 03Forrest Mars got the idea for M&M's after seeing Spanish Civil War soldiers eating what?
Smarties
The British sweet was made by Rowntree's, which had sold 'Chocolate Beans' since at least 1882. Rowntree chose not to sue and the two firms agreed to divide up markets.
Q 04Who was M&M's first big customer?
The US Army
During the Second World War the candies were sold only to the military, because the shell let soldiers carry chocolate in tropical heat. Demand forced a move to a bigger Newark plant.
Q 05Which of these was NOT one of the original 1941 M&M's colours?
Orange
The launch line-up was red, yellow, violet, green and brown. Violet gave way to tan in the late 1940s.
Q 06M&M's longest-running slogan, introduced in 1949, promised the candy melts in your mouth, but not where?
In the hand
The line sold the whole point of the hard sugar shell. A year later a black 'M' was printed on each candy; it turned white in 1954.
Q 07The printed 'm' on each candy was originally which colour when it was introduced in 1950?
Black
It switched to the familiar white in 1954. The letter is the brand's trademark and is printed on only one side.
Q 08Peanut M&M's, the first alternative variety, launched in 1954 in which single colour?
Tan
Yellow, red and green peanut candies followed in 1960. Yellow the spokescandy was originally simply called 'Peanut'.
Q 09Why did Mars drop red M&M's in 1976?
A public scare over red food dyes
The suspect dyes were Red #2 and #4; M&M's used the uncontroversial Red #40 but were pulled anyway. Orange took red's place in the bag.
Q 10Red M&M's returned in 1987 partly thanks to a joke campaign started by a student at which university?
Tennessee
Paul Hethmon's Society for the Restoration and Preservation of Red M&Ms became a worldwide phenomenon. Orange stayed on, so red came back as a sixth colour.
Q 11In 1995 the public voted to replace tan with a new colour. Which won, with 54 percent of the vote?
Blue
Voters called 1-800-FUN-COLOR, and Mars lit the Empire State Building in the winning colour. B.B. King sang the blues in the launch ad.
Q 12Mars's first 'Global Color Vote' in 2002 added which colour for a limited run?
Purple
NASCAR driver Ken Schrader ran cars painted for each candidate colour. A bag of all-purple candies won one lucky American 100 million yen.
Q 13Since 1958 about half of all M&M's have been made in which New Jersey town?
Hackettstown
The other half come from a plant opened in Cleveland, Tennessee, in 1978. The original 1941 factory was in Newark.
Q 21Which comedian replaced Mars's 'retired' spokescandies in January 2023, launching 'Ma&Ya's' clams?
Maya Rudolph
The stunt followed a conservative-media fuss over the characters' redesigned shoes and outfits. The candies were 'reinstated' at a mock press conference after the Super Bowl.
Q 22Which colour spokescandy first appeared in September 2022 singing 'I'm Just Gonna Be Me'?
Purple
She is voiced by Amber Ruffin. A purple candy also entered the bag for the first time since the original violet was dropped in the 1940s.
Q 23Which NASCAR driver's No. 18 car carried M&M's sponsorship from 2008 to 2022, winning two Cup titles?
Kyle Busch
Q 14In 1982 Mars declined to feature M&M's in which Spielberg film, handing a windfall to Reese's Pieces?
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
Mars reportedly feared the alien would scare children. Reese's Pieces sales are said to have jumped by as much as 300 percent.
Q 15Which rock band's tour rider famously demanded a bowl of M&M's with all the brown ones removed?
Van Halen
It was a test: brown candies in the bowl meant the venue had not read the technical rider carefully, so the crew would re-check the stage rigging.
Q 16Which colour M&M was the subject of a 1970s urban legend that it was an aphrodisiac?
Green
The rumour shaped the flirtatious Green spokescandy and inspired all-green Valentine's bags in 2008. No colour has ever tasted different from another.
Q 17Who created the modern CGI M&M's spokescandies in 1995, having earlier made the California Raisins?
Will Vinton
He deliberately made the characters more sardonic and grown-up than typical food mascots. Red was first voiced by Jon Lovitz and Yellow by John Goodman.
Q 18Which actor originally voiced the sardonic Red spokescandy?
Jon Lovitz
Billy West took over later. J.K. Simmons voices Yellow, and Phil Hartman voiced Chocolate Bar, a rival mascot who always melted.
Q 19Ms. Brown, the 'Chief Chocolate Officer' unveiled in 2012, is voiced by which actress and singer?
Vanessa Williams
She was the first new female spokescandy since Green in 1995. Purple, voiced by Amber Ruffin, joined in 2022.
Q 20In a Super Bowl LII ad, Red wished to become human and was played by which actor?
Danny DeVito
He found a lucky penny and wished he was inedible. The joke was that everyone still wanted to eat him.
He won the championship in 2015 and 2019 with Joe Gibbs Racing. Mars ended the deal after 2022, then returned in 2026 with a throwback car for Ty Gibbs.
Q 24The first M&M's World store opened in 1997 in which city?
Las Vegas
It stands four storeys tall next to the MGM Grand and drew eight million visitors in 2007. Shanghai's, opened 2014, is the only one in Asia.
Q 25Because MM is a Roman numeral, M&M's styled themselves as the official candy of what in 1998?
The New Millennium
MM equals 2000. The same year saw the launch of the multi-filling 'rainbow' variety.
Q 26In 1990 Mars covered a life-size fibreglass cow with about how many M&M's for a stunt at the Erie County Fair?
66,000
Every candy was glued on by hand with the 'm' facing out. Designer Michael Adams claimed it earned a million dollars of free publicity.
Q 27Special red, white and blue 'Presidential M&M's' have been given to White House guests since which year?
1988
The box carries the presidential seal and the sitting president's signature. Contrary to legend the candies themselves are not stamped with the seal, though some embassies do hand out seal-printed ones.
Q 28The 'Plain' M&M's variety was renamed what in 2000?
Milk Chocolate
'Plain' had only been coined in 1954 to distinguish it from Peanut. Pictures of the colourful candies were added to the brown packaging at the same time.
Q 29Which 1967 Petula Clark song did M&M's adopt for its TV ads in 2004?
Colour My World
The ads used newly recorded cover versions rather than her original. It matched the brand's colour-driven marketing.
Q 30M&M's Minis, sold in plastic tubes, arrived in which year?
1996
Their mascots, the Swarmees, were troublemakers Red and Yellow could never contain. Crispy M&M's followed in 1999.