This Spaceballs trivia quiz has 50 free questions with answers and covers Mel Brooks's 1987 Star Wars parody from the opening crawl to 'the Schwartz is in you'. There are questions on the cast (who plays Lone Starr, Vespa, Dark Helmet and Sandurz, and who voices Dot Matrix), the characters (Barf, Skroob, Prince Valium, Pizza the Hutt, the Dink-Dinks) and the plot (Druidia's air, the desert moon, the instant VHS, Mega-Maid and the mirror). The making-of stories are the good part: the two Toms Brooks could not sign, the one condition George Lucas set and the joke Brooks built out of it, Lucas's fan letter, John Hurt's Alien cameo, the budget, the film that beat it at the box office, Ebert's verdict, the Stinkers award, and how Tesla ended up with a Plaid mode. The animated series and the 2027 sequel with Josh Gad and Lewis Pullman round it out. Easy questions suit anyone who has seen it once; the hard ones are for people who can quote the shield combination. Every answer has been checked against an encyclopaedic source and each question shows its citation once you have answered.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Spaceballs was released in which year?
1987
MGM/UA put it out on 24 June, a decade after the first Star Wars.
Q 02Which studio released Spaceballs in June 1987?
MGM/UA
Its 2027 sequel comes from Amazon MGM Studios.
Q 03Which two roles does Mel Brooks play in Spaceballs?
President Skroob and Yogurt
Yogurt breaks the fourth wall to flog Spaceballs merchandise: the flamethrower, the lunchbox, the toilet paper.
Q 04Who plays the hero, Lone Starr?
Bill Pullman
Brooks had tried and failed to sign Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks; he spotted Pullman in a play.
Q 05Which big-name actors did Mel Brooks unsuccessfully try to sign for Spaceballs?
Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks
Bill Pullman got the part instead after Brooks and Anne Bancroft saw him on stage.
Q 06John Candy plays Barf, who describes himself as what?
Half-man, half-dog
He is Lone Starr's own best friend, tail and ears included.
Q 07Who plays Dark Helmet?
Rick Moranis
In the original script the whole costume was meant to be one gigantic helmet.
Q 08What do the Spaceballs need in order to steal Druidia's atmosphere?
The code to its air shield
Skroob's plan would destroy the planet in the process.
Q 09Who plays Princess Vespa?
Daphne Zuniga
She initially thought Brooks's parodies were 'too crass and not too funny', then changed her mind on set.
Q 10Who provides the voice of Princess Vespa's droid, Dot Matrix?
Joan Rivers
Mime Lorene Yarnell was inside the costume.
Q 11Vespa flees an arranged marriage to a narcoleptic royal named what?
Prince Valium
He is her father King Roland's choice; she has already rejected every other suitor.
Q 12What is the name of the Spaceball president?
Skroob
'Skroob' is an anagram of Brooks.
Q 13Why do the Spaceballs want to steal Druidia's air?
They have squandered their own atmosphere
The film opens in a galaxy 'very, very, very, very far away'.
Q 14What kind of vehicle is Lone Starr's spaceship, Eagle 5?
Q 21How does Dark Helmet force King Roland to hand over the air-shield code?
Threatens to reverse Vespa's nose job
Roland caves instantly.
Q 22Spaceball One transforms into what to suck the atmosphere off Druidia?
Mega-Maid
Lone Starr uses the Schwartz to flip the vacuum from suck to blow.
Q 23How does Lone Starr finally win the ring-beam duel inside the giant robot?
He reflects the blast with a mirror
Helmet flies straight into the self-destruct button.
A Winnebago RV
A scale model of it was auctioned in December 2018.
Q 15Which crime boss is owed one million space bucks by Lone Starr and Barf?
Pizza the Hutt
He later eats himself to death, wiping out the debt.
Q 16How does the crime boss owed a million space bucks die?
He locks himself in his car and eats himself
Lone Starr and Barf learn the news on TV, absolving them of their debt.
Q 17On which desert moon does Eagle 5 crash-land after running out of fuel?
Vega
There the heroes meet the tiny robed Dink-Dinks and are taken to Yogurt's temple.
Q 18What is the name of the mystical power that Yogurt teaches Lone Starr to use?
The Schwartz
He channels it at first through a ring, but learns in the end that 'the Schwartz is in you'.
Q 19Who rescues the stranded heroes in the desert and takes them to Yogurt?
The Dink-Dinks
The diminutive robed aliens are Brooks's take on the Jawas.
Q 20How does Dark Helmet track down Princess Vespa's location?
By watching an instant VHS of Spaceballs itself
He then uses the Schwartz to disguise himself as her father and lure her out of Yogurt's temple.
Q 24Why are the three Spaceball leaders left behind on the exploding robot ship?
All the escape pods have already launched
The three end up marooned on the Planet of the Apes.
Q 25How does Lone Starr learn he is a prince, allowing him to marry Vespa?
A final message from Yogurt about his medallion
He arrives just in time to stop the wedding to Prince Valium.
Q 26Who plays Colonel Sandurz, Dark Helmet's second-in-command?
George Wyner
He is one of the cast reprising their roles in the 2027 sequel.
Q 27Which actor cameos in Spaceballs as a parody of his own chest-bursting character from Alien?
John Hurt
The creature that pops out then performs 'Hello! Ma Baby' like the frog in One Froggy Evening.
Q 28What condition did George Lucas place on Mel Brooks in exchange for letting him parody Star Wars?
No Spaceballs action figures
Brooks turned the ban into the joke, writing Yogurt's 'Merchandising' scene in response.
Q 29How did George Lucas react to the finished film?
He sent Brooks a note saying he loved it
Lucas's own company handled some post-production, and he said he was afraid he 'would bust something from laughing'.
Q 30Which Spaceballs-branded products appear in the film as Brooks's merchandising gag?
Placemats and toilet paper
Yogurt's merchandising speech name-checks the flamethrower too.