The Beano
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50 free The Beano trivia questions with answers — pop culture quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The Beano has been landing on British doormats since 1938, which makes it the longest-running weekly comic in the world. Generations of children have grown up with its pea-shooters, pranks and cheerful contempt for homework, and plenty of them never quite grew out of it. This quiz covers the whole story: Dennis the Menace and his dog Gnasher, the unruly pupils of Bash Street School, the cover stars who came before them, and the artists and editors behind the pages. There are questions on the comic's wartime years, its spin-offs on television, its guest editors and the celebrities who have turned up in its strips or been caught reading it. It is pitched for anyone who ever had a copy delivered with the newspaper, from casual readers who remember the main characters to collectors who know which strip came first. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you will pick up a few stories along the way.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which grunge frontman wore the striped jumper of The Beano's Dennis the Menace on stage in the early 1990s?
Kurt Cobain
Kurt Cobain got the pullover through Courtney Love, who bought it from a Nirvana fan in Northern Ireland in 1992.
Q 02A second, unrelated Dennis the Menace strip debuted on the Beano character's launch day in 1951 in which country?
United States
The United States got Hank Ketcham's newspaper strip of the same name by pure coincidence, which is why the British one is usually sold abroad as Dennis and Gnasher.
Q 03Which guitarist is pictured reading The Beano on the cover of a 1966 album by John Mayall's Bluesbreakers?
Eric Clapton
Eric Clapton said he read the comic during the photo shoot because he felt like being uncooperative, and fans have called the record The Beano Album ever since.
Q 04Which Star Wars actor was a card-carrying member of The Beano's Dennis the Menace Fan Club?
Mark Hamill
Mark Hamill joined a club that was signing up more than 2,000 new members a week; Thin Lizzy's Phil Lynott and sprinter Linford Christie carried its badges too.
Q 05The Beano, with over two billion copies sold, is called the best-selling comic magazine outside which country?
Japan
Japan, home of the manga weeklies, is the one exception; The Beano has appeared since 1938 and reached its 4,000th issue in August 2019.
Q 06In The Beano, Dennis the Menace's dog Gnasher is described as an Abyssinian wire-haired what?
Tripe hound
Tripe hound is the comic's invented breed for Gnasher; Dennis found him as a stray in 1968, after being told that owners end up looking like their dogs.
Q 07Which Scottish city, known for jute, jam and journalism, has been home to The Beano since 1938?
Dundee
Dundee gave a previously nameless lane the name Bash Street in 2014, to celebrate 60 years of the comic's unruly school strip.
Q 08Which change did wartime paper rationing force on The Beano, one that lasted until July 1949?
Going fortnightly
Going fortnightly meant the comic took turns with its sister title, each appearing every other week, for years after the fighting had ended.
Q 09Which sister comic of The Beano, launched in December 1937, printed its final weekly issue on its 75th birthday?
The Dandy
The Dandy bowed out in December 2012 with sales down to about 8,000 a week, having sold two million copies a week in the 1950s.
Q 10Which bow-tied boy, long nicknamed 'the Softy', is the favourite target of The Beano's Dennis the Menace?
Walter
Walter was eventually rewritten as a snobbish rival with a girlfriend, and the nickname was dropped after complaints that the strip encouraged playground bullying.
Q 11Which Beano tomboy, launched in 1953 as a female counterpart to Dennis the Menace, has her own statue in Scotland?
Minnie the Minx
Minnie the Minx is really called Hermione Makepeace, and her statue went up in 2001 alongside one of the cowboy Desperate Dan.
Q 12Which black-and-white character took over The Beano's front cover in 1948 and kept it for 26 years?
Biffo the Bear
Biffo the Bear was brought in amid rumours that readers no longer related to the bird on the cover, and he held the front page until Dennis the Menace took it in 1974.
Q 13Big Eggo, the cover star of The Beano's first issue in 1938, was what kind of bird?
An ostrich
Q 21Which spoof superhero, created for the comic Nutty in 1980, made his Beano debut in January 2012?
Bananaman
Bananaman began as a send-up of Superman and Batman on Nutty's back page, and his first Beano appearances were reprints of John Geering's older strips.
Q 22Which Beano strip, inherited from The Beezer, follows tiny technicians who run a boy called Edd from inside his head?
The Numskulls
The Numskulls first worked inside a nameless man's head; he was swapped for a boy in 1990, who gained the name Edd when the strip moved comics in 1993.
Q 23Which Beano boy wears a jumper numbered 13 and keeps a pet named Alexander Lemming?
Calamity James
An ostrich forever hunting for his missing egg, Big Eggo was meant to be called Oswald until editor George Moonie suggested the change.
Q 14Which two colours stripe the jumper worn by Dennis the Menace in The Beano since 1951?
Red and black
Red and black stripes arrived two months into the strip, and a 2001 anniversary story had Dennis swiping the jersey from a boy called Tufty.
Q 15Which household item did Dad traditionally use to punish Dennis the Menace at the end of early Beano strips?
A slipper
A slipper was the standard punishment until the comic gave up corporal punishment, and the strip's policeman kept the name Sergeant Slipper.
Q 16Which Beano boy, created by Malcolm Judge in 1964, moves so quickly that he leaves a trail of chaos?
Billy Whizz
Billy Whizz first lived in a town of his own, Whizztown, and Judge drew his speed with dust trails, motion blur and several Billys in one panel.
Q 17Which Beano boy in a chequered jumper, first drawn by Ken Reid, keeps a library of books on avoiding chores?
Roger the Dodger
Roger the Dodger was trailed a week early with a teaser panel in which he trips his dad's wire while sneaking out of the house.
Q 18Which stop-motion animator guest-edited The Beano's 70th birthday issue in 2008?
Nick Park
Nick Park, creator of Wallace and Gromit, said his dream job had always been to work on the comic, and called guest-editing it an honour.
Q 19Which comedian turned children's author guest-edited The Beano's 80th anniversary issue in 2018?
David Walliams
David Walliams oversaw a crossover in which a 1938 time capsule is opened at Bash Street School, unleashing a giant tentacle monster named Simon.
Q 20Which England footballer guest-edited The Beano in 2022 after publishing his book You Can Do It?
Marcus Rashford
Marcus Rashford had already appeared in the comic in 2020, in an eight-page pullout for grown-ups called BeanOLD.
Calamity James is a pun on Calamity Jane, and his strips are littered with gold bars and winning lottery tickets that he never notices.
Q 24Lord Snooty, a Beano star from the first issue in 1938, was a pupil at which English public school?
Eton
Eton was school for Marmaduke, Earl of Bunkerton, who slipped out of his castle in disguise to play with the working-class children across town.
Q 25Which lanky, jug-eared Bash Street Kid was given his own spin-off comic by The Beano's publisher in 1977?
Plug
Plug starred with his pet monkey Chunkee, but at 9p the comic cost about twice as much as its stablemates and lasted only 75 issues.
Q 26Which scatterbrained Bash Street Kid in The Beano acquired a pet pebble called Kevin in 2008?
Smiffy
Smiffy is so vague that he often cannot remember what colour the sky is, yet the pebble earned a feature of its own, Where's Kevin?
Q 27On which night of the year can The Beano's Dennis the Menace understand what his dog Gnasher is saying?
Halloween
Halloween is the one exception; the rest of the year only readers can follow Gnasher, whose thought bubbles put a silent G before words starting with N.
Q 28Which Scottish publisher, also behind Oor Wullie and The Broons, has produced The Beano since its first issue?
DC Thomson
DC Thomson planned five new comics in the late 1930s, but paper rationing killed the scheme after three, and one of those folded in 1941.
Q 29Which free gift, the first of many, came with issue 1 of The Beano in July 1938?
A whoopee mask
A whoopee mask helped the twopenny first issue sell about 443,000 copies; the gifts stopped with issue 90, when rationing bit.
Q 30'Beano', the slang word that gave The Beano its title, traditionally means what kind of occasion?
A noisy party
A noisy party is a beano, short for beanfeast, and the comic took the word from a staff social club that liked golf and dining out.