ParaNorman Trivia
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50 free ParaNorman trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
ParaNorman arrived in 2012 as Laika's follow-up to Coraline: a stop-motion zombie comedy about an 11-year-old in Blithe Hollow, Massachusetts, who can talk to the dead and has to end a 300-year-old witch's curse. Chris Butler wrote it after noticing how much social commentary hides inside zombie films, and co-directed with Sam Fell in Hillsboro, Oregon, where sixty Canon DSLRs and the first full-colour 3-D printed puppet faces in stop-motion history did the work. These 50 questions cover the story, the town, the voice cast from Kodi Smit-McPhee to Elaine Stritch, the soundtrack choices, the box office, the Oscar and BAFTA nominations, Mitch's landmark reveal, and the 2025 CGI short The Thrifting. Easy questions stick to Norman, Courtney and the curse; the hard end asks about ad agencies, Annie winners and the iOS game. Every answer is cited to a page we checked, with a one-line explanation so you learn something even when you miss. Play it alone, or print it for a Halloween game night.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which animation studio produced ParaNorman?
Laika
Laika. The studio grew out of Will Vinton Studios, the claymation house behind the California Raisins ads, which was rescued from financial trouble and renamed in 2005.
Q 02Which 2012 sporting event did ParaNorman's zombies spoof in TV ads before its August release?
The London Olympics
The London Olympics. One spot showed an undead gymnast nailing his pommel-horse landing despite leaving a decaying arm behind.
Q 03Who voices Norman Babcock?
Kodi Smit-McPhee
Kodi Smit-McPhee. The directors chose the Australian teenager after seeing him as Viggo Mortensen's son in The Road, a performance they felt showed he could carry a whole film.
Q 04In which US state is Norman's hometown set?
Massachusetts
Massachusetts. The film's writer said the story 'had to be New England' and called the town 'Salem on a budget', a nod to the state's real witch trials.
Q 05What is the name of the town where ParaNorman takes place?
Blithe Hollow
Blithe Hollow. The town lives off the witch trial it once held, selling its dark history to tourists through statues, souvenirs and even a casino called the Lucky Witch.
Q 06Where does his great-uncle's ghost corner eleven-year-old Norman to hand over the ritual?
In a toilet stall
In a toilet stall. At school the ghost squeezes up out of the bowl, makes Norman swear to carry out the ritual, then vanishes with a delighted cry that he is finally free.
Q 07Which company released ParaNorman in US cinemas?
Focus Features
Focus Features. A label better known for adult dramas such as Brokeback Mountain took on the zombie cartoon after its first film with the studio paid off; parent Universal handled it abroad.
Q 08Who composed ParaNorman's score?
Jon Brion
Jon Brion. The directors had cut early story reels to his music from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, liked how well it fitted, and so asked him to write the real thing.
Q 09Who co-directed ParaNorman with Sam Fell and also wrote the screenplay?
Chris Butler
Chris Butler. A storyboard artist by trade, he wrote the script in his spare time over ten years before the studio let him direct it as his first feature.
Q 10Who voices Norman's cheerleader sister Courtney?
Anna Kendrick
Anna Kendrick. Her Courtney starts out mortified by her little brother and ends up facing down an armed mob for him, yelling at the adults to stop trying to kill him.
Q 11Who voices the jock Mitch Downe?
Casey Affleck
Casey Affleck. His musclebound Mitch is no leader: told to take charge of the zombie chase because he is the oldest, he protests, 'Not mentally!'
Q 12Who voices Alvin, the school bully, in ParaNorman?
Christopher Mintz-Plasse
Christopher Mintz-Plasse. Superbad's McLovin was cast against his nerdy image; he had been picked on at school himself and said he thought of the kids he knew when playing the bully.
Q 13Who voices Perry Babcock, Norman's exasperated father?
Jeff Garlin
Jeff Garlin. His Perry grounds Norman for talking to ghosts, yet ends the film on the sofa beside him, asking whether his own dead mother is sitting next to him and saying hello.
Q 21ParaNorman was animated not in Portland itself but in which nearby Oregon city?
Hillsboro
Hillsboro. The studio's website signs off 'Made in Portland', but its puppets are actually animated just outside the city, in a warehouse that doubles as its headquarters.
Q 22ParaNorman was shot frame by frame on about sixty stills cameras from which brand?
Canon
Canon. Each EOS 5D Mark II slid from side to side on a rail to take every frame twice, once for each eye, which is how a stills camera delivered a 3-D film.
Q 23How old is the witch's curse in ParaNorman?
300 years
300 years. The zombies' gravestone is dated 1712, twenty years after the Salem trials and exactly three centuries before the film reached cinemas.
Q 14Which Broadway legend voices the ghost of Grandma Babcock?
Elaine Stritch
Elaine Stritch. Her Grandma explains why she never moved on: she had promised always to look out for Norman and, besides, she doubts there is any cable in paradise.
Q 15Who voices Judge Hopkins, leader of the cursed zombies?
Bernard Hill
Bernard Hill. Titanic's captain and Rohan's King Théoden plays a zombie who ends up squeezed into the family station wagon, giving Norman's father directions from the back seat.
Q 16Who voices Agatha "Aggie" Prenderghast?
Jodelle Ferland
Jodelle Ferland. Her furious Aggie only calms down when Norman, refusing to be scared off, gets her to remember that somebody once loved her: her mother.
Q 17Who voices Norman's eccentric great-uncle, Mr. Prenderghast?
John Goodman
John Goodman. His character dies still clutching the ritual book, so Norman has to sneak into the old man's house and wrestle it out of the corpse's stiff grip.
Q 18Who voices Sandra Babcock, Norman's mother?
Leslie Mann
Leslie Mann. Her Sandra is the family peacemaker, telling Norman that his angry father is not afraid of him but afraid for him.
Q 19Which Cosby Show alumna voices Sheriff Hooper?
Tempestt Bledsoe
Tempestt Bledsoe. Vanessa Huxtable grew up to play a small-town sheriff who boasts that 'Parking violation' is her middle name, then has to face an armed mob out hunting zombies.
Q 20ParaNorman was the first stop-motion film to make character faces how?
With a full-colour 3-D printer
With a full-colour 3-D printer. Colour was now built into every face instead of painted on by hand, so details such as Neil's thousands of freckles stayed put from frame to frame.
Q 24With mix-and-match brows and mouths, roughly how many facial expressions could the Norman puppet pull?
1.5 million
1.5 million. His face came in separate upper and lower pieces, so any brow could go with any mouth, and animators borrowed them from a face library with its own librarian; the studio's previous lead puppet managed roughly 200,000.
Q 25ParaNorman's writer pitched it as a horror movie crossed with the films of which 1980s teen-comedy director?
John Hughes
John Hughes. The gang that forms around Norman is drawn from his Breakfast Club types, the jock, the cheerleader, the bully and the misfit, then dropped into a zombie siege.
Q 26Which film beat ParaNorman to the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature?
Brave
Brave. Three of the five nominees that year, ParaNorman included, were stop-motion films, yet the Oscar went to Pixar's computer-animated Scottish adventure.
Q 27ParaNorman's ad agency, Wieden+Kennedy, made its name working for which Oregon sportswear giant?
Nike
Nike. Its co-founder owns the studio behind ParaNorman, so he rang the agency that coined 'Just Do It' and asked it to take on a rare film campaign.
Q 28Which White Stripes song plays over ParaNorman's closing character cards?
Little Ghost
Little Ghost. On the bluegrass-tinged tune a lonely narrator falls in love with an apparition, which makes it a neat send-off for a film about a boy who sees ghosts.
Q 29ParaNorman's school play cast sings 'Season of the Witch', a 1966 song by which singer?
Donovan
Donovan. The pageant it belongs to is not meant to be accurate, as the drama teacher admits when a pupil complains: it is 'supposed to sell postcards and key chains'.
Q 30Which British rapper's 'Fix Up, Look Sharp' is heard in ParaNorman?
Dizzee Rascal
Dizzee Rascal. His 2003 hit is built on a booming drum break lifted from The Big Beat, a rock track by Billy Squier, so the American shares the writing credit.