McHale's Navy
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50 free McHale's Navy trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
McHale's Navy turned a wartime PT boat into one of the best-loved workplace comedies of 1960s television. Its skipper and his crew of gamblers, tinkerers and moonshiners spent four seasons outfoxing a by-the-book captain who wanted them court-martialed, transferred, or simply gone. This quiz covers the whole voyage: the crewmen and their side hustles, the bumbling ensign, the prisoner the crew kept hidden, the famous faces who dropped in as guest stars, the serious drama that started it all, the boats used on screen, and the feature films that followed, including the 1990s remake. It is written for fans who grew up with the reruns and for classic TV buffs meeting the crew for the first time. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so even a wrong guess leaves you with a good story.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Decades after McHale's Navy, its two stars reunited to voice an elderly superhero duo on which animated series?
SpongeBob SquarePants
SpongeBob SquarePants cast them as Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy because its creators were fans of the 1960s sitcom. They approached both actors directly, and both said yes.
Q 02Which aviation tycoon once owned the boat used at sea on McHale's Navy, buying it to follow his giant seaplane?
Howard Hughes
Howard Hughes bought the surplus boat as a chase vessel for the one time his Spruce Goose took to the air. The studio later purchased it and dressed it up as an American PT boat.
Q 03Which Oscar-winning actor, a real Navy veteran of nearly ten years, played Quinton McHale on McHale's Navy?
Ernest Borgnine
Ernest Borgnine enlisted in 1935 and rejoined after Pearl Harbor, patrolling the Atlantic coast on an anti-submarine ship. A decade after his discharge he won Best Actor for Marty.
Q 04Which comedian, later a regular on The Carol Burnett Show, played bumbling Ensign Parker on McHale's Navy?
Tim Conway
Tim Conway won a national following as the naive ensign, a part that brought him an Emmy nomination. His habit of cracking up co-stars later became a Burnett trademark.
Q 05Which comedian starred as the son of Quinton McHale in the 1997 big-screen remake of McHale's Navy?
Tom Arnold
Tom Arnold led a modern-day crew against a terrorist in a film that earned roughly a tenth of its budget. He had dropped a planned Honeymooners movie to take the part.
Q 06On which Hollywood studio's back lot did the lagoon set of McHale's Navy stand, later a stop on the tram tour?
Universal
Universal kept the sets as a tour attraction for years after the sitcom ended.
Q 07On McHale's Navy, what nickname does the crew use for Captain Binghamton, mostly behind his back?
Old Leadbottom
Old Leadbottom got the name from a bullet wound to his backside. Admirals on the sitcom carried nicknames too, among them Iron Pants, Rockpile and Bull Dog.
Q 08Which future star of The Love Boat played seaman "Happy" Haines in the early seasons of McHale's Navy?
Gavin MacLeod
Gavin MacLeod found the part thin, later saying Haines got about two lines a week. He quit after two seasons and went on to play Murray on The Mary Tyler Moore Show.
Q 09For its final season, McHale's Navy moved the crew from the South Pacific to which European country?
Italy
Italy became the setting in late 1944, with the crew camped by the beach of a fictional coastal town called Voltafiore. Fuji came along too, stowed away inside the boat.
Q 10On McHale's Navy, the hidden Japanese prisoner Fuji avoids a prison camp by serving the crew in which role?
Cook and houseboy
Cook and houseboy Fuji deserted the Japanese navy and is loyal only to McHale's men. Keeping him out of the captain's sight is one of the sitcom's longest-running gags.
Q 11On McHale's Navy, Ensign Parker fools Captain Binghamton with a voice impersonation of which wartime leader?
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt is the timid ensign's party piece, a voice good enough to take in his own commanding officer. Parker repeats the act at the end of the 1965 film sequel.
Q 12On McHale's Navy, Ensign Parker comes from which Ohio town, the same place where his actor grew up?
Chagrin Falls
Chagrin Falls sits near Cleveland, and the writers gave Parker a past at its local Gazette. His fellow bumbler Lieutenant Carpenter claims Cleveland itself as home.
Q 13Which New York borough is home to torpedoman Lester Gruber, the get-rich-quick schemer of McHale's Navy?
Brooklyn
Q 21Which stage magician, famous for an act of tricks that flop, played hustler Lester Gruber on McHale's Navy?
Carl Ballantine
Carl Ballantine billed himself as The Great Ballantine, and Gruber dabbles in hack magic too. Steve Martin later called him the king of bungling magicians.
Q 22The actor who played "Happy" Haines left McHale's Navy after two seasons to appear in which Steve McQueen film?
The Sand Pebbles
The Sand Pebbles cast him as Signalman Crosley, another Navy man. Mako, who had played Japanese soldiers and sailors on the sitcom, starred in the same film.
Q 23Which later voice of Batman's Commissioner Gordon played Lieutenant Carpenter on McHale's Navy?
Bob Hastings
Brooklyn shapes Gruber's patter: he sold used cars there and keeps bringing up the Dodgers and Ebbets Field. His sidelines run to gambling, moonshine and war souvenirs.
Q 14Besides Captain Binghamton, which McHale's Navy regular is the only married man, and the only one with children?
Christy
Christy, the quartermaster, weds a Navy lieutenant early in the run. Their daughter is given a mouthful of a name honoring every man aboard, from Quintina to Fujiana.
Q 15On McHale's Navy, which Tennessee-born crewman runs the radio and tends the crew's moonshine still?
Willy
Willy Moss is the good-natured Southerner of the crew and doubles as its sonar operator. One episode reveals that he has nine brothers and sisters back home.
Q 16Before the war, Quinton McHale of McHale's Navy learned the South Pacific islands as captain of what vessel?
A tramp steamer
A tramp steamer took McHale all over the region, so he knows the islands and their people. That knowledge helps him in combat and makes him a favorite with the admirals.
Q 17On McHale's Navy, what civilian post on Long Island did reservist Captain Binghamton hold before the war?
Yacht club commodore
Yacht club commodore Binghamton also edited a yachting magazine in peacetime. One episode has him angling to win the old job back from the club owner's self-centered son.
Q 18On McHale's Navy, Urulu flips his portrait of the US president to reveal whom when Japanese troops arrive?
Emperor Hirohito
Emperor Hirohito waits on the back of the picture, ready for whichever side walks in. Urulu, the island's scheming witch doctor, pulls the same trick with the two nations' flags.
Q 19On McHale's Navy, Captain Binghamton's one turn commanding the boat in battle ends with a torpedo destroying what?
A truck
A truck parked on land is all he manages to sink. The gag had appeared in the Cary Grant film Operation Petticoat and came from a real attack by the submarine USS Bowfin.
Q 20Which actor, later Dean Higgins in Disney's Medfield College comedies, played Captain Binghamton on McHale's Navy?
Joe Flynn
Joe Flynn landed the part after Edward Andrews turned it down, a choice Andrews later said he kept kicking himself over. Flynn went on to appear in all but one episode.
Bob Hastings played the captain's yes-man, a clumsy aide who keeps getting his boss knocked over. After the sitcom ended he was paid to roam the studio lot and chat with tourists.
Q 24Which Tokyo-born actor, discovered while a student at USC, played prisoner of war Fuji on McHale's Navy?
Yoshio Yoda
Yoshio Yoda had moved to California hoping to become a film producer. He later left acting behind and became a Toyota executive in Hawaii.
Q 25Which burly future Oscar winner played the thieving French smuggler Big Frenchy on McHale's Navy?
George Kennedy
George Kennedy played McHale's light-fingered old friend in two episodes, then a New Caledonia businessman in the 1964 film. He had started in television as a technical adviser.
Q 26Which Andy Griffith Show star guested on McHale's Navy as an Army psychiatrist sent to judge the crew's sanity?
Don Knotts
Don Knotts played Lieutenant Pratt, whom the captain hopes will declare the crew unfit for duty. Pratt finds nothing wrong until he sees them dressed for a Red Riding Hood play.
Q 27Which 1960s film star appeared on McHale's Navy as Navy nurse Lieutenant Wilson before her big-screen breakthrough?
Raquel Welch
Raquel Welch, then a newcomer, is sent in a bathing suit to lure McHale away while he stands in as base commander. A visiting admiral catches the captain with her instead.
Q 28Which 1960s sitcom star played Captain Binghamton's anthropology-student niece on McHale's Navy?
Marlo Thomas
Marlo Thomas played Cynthia Prentice, who takes a keen interest in Ensign Parker. Her reasons are strictly scientific: his build reminds her of an early human fossil.
Q 29Which future Mary Tyler Moore Show newsman played youth-minded Admiral "Go-Go" Granger on McHale's Navy?
Ted Knight
Ted Knight played the admiral in two episodes, and the captain renames himself Bing-Bing to look just as spry. Knight later found fame as vain anchorman Ted Baxter.
Q 30What is the hull number of the PT boat that Quinton McHale commands on McHale's Navy?
PT-73
PT-73 was played by three vessels: one larger seagoing boat and two converted rescue boats kept at the studio. Lieutenant Carpenter briefly commands the rival PT-116.