50 free The 'Burbs trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This The 'Burbs trivia quiz covers Joe Dante's 1989 dark comedy from Ray Peterson's first night of strange noises to the ambulance crashing into Art's house. There are questions on the plot (the femur, Walter's toupee, the crematorium in the basement, the gas line and the pickaxe), the neighbours of Mayfield Place (Tom Hanks, Bruce Dern, Carrie Fisher, Rick Ducommun, Corey Feldman) and the Klopeks themselves, played by Henry Gibson, Brother Theodore and Courtney Gains. The harder questions dig into how the film was made: Dana Olsen's original script title, the ending in which the hero died, the Universal back-lot street borrowed from Leave It to Beaver, Jerry Goldsmith's score, the three endings shot during the writers' strike, the reviews it got in 1989, and the Peacock series that revived it in 2026 with Keke Palmer. Easy questions suit anyone who has seen it once on cable; the expert ones are for people who own the Arrow Blu-ray. Every answer was checked against the film's Wikipedia article and its cited sources before publishing.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who directed The 'Burbs?
Joe Dante
Dante brought his usual mix of comedy and horror to a single suburban street.
Q 02What is the name of Tom Hanks's character?
Ray Peterson
Ray is a suburban homeowner who decides to spend his week's vacation at home, and instantly regrets it.
Q 03In what year was The 'Burbs released?
1989
It opened at number one on the Presidents' Day weekend and went on to become a cult favourite.
Q 04What does the reclusive family next door do late at night that first alarms Ray?
Makes strange noises in the basement
The whole plot begins with Ray hearing something odd from the basement of his new neighbours' house.
Q 05Who plays Ray's wife, Carol?
Carrie Fisher
Carol is the voice of reason who finally drags the men over for a proper welcome visit to the Klopeks.
Q 06Which actor plays the teenage neighbour Ricky Butler?
Corey Feldman
Ricky treats the whole cul-de-sac like a TV show and gets asked to watch over the neighbourhood at the end.
Q 07Who plays Mark Rumsfield, the neighbour with a military past?
Bruce Dern
Rumsfield is a gung-ho veteran who acts as lookout while Ray and Art search the Klopeks' backyard.
Q 08Which war did Mark Rumsfield serve in?
Vietnam
His military bearing is played for laughs throughout, right down to the way he handles a garbage-truck search.
Q 09Who plays Art Weingartner, Ray's nosy neighbour?
Rick Ducommun
Art is the one who keeps pushing the ritual-murder theory, and it is his house the ambulance eventually crashes into.
Q 10What is the name of Ray and Carol's son?
Dave
Ray sends Carol and the boy off to her sister's so he can search the Klopeks' yard in peace.
Q 11What is the name of Walter's dog?
Queenie
The dog was played by Darla, a canine performer who gets her own credit in the cast list.
Q 12What is the name of Ray's dog, which digs up a bone along the Klopeks' fence?
Vince
The bone is a human femur, which convinces Ray and Art that the Klopeks used Walter as a human sacrifice.
Q 13What bone does the dog dig up?
A femur
The femur turns the neighbours' idle suspicion into what they consider hard evidence.
Q 14What item of Walter's do the men find in his empty house, convincing them something is wrong?
Q 21What does Ray hit with his pickaxe in the Klopeks' basement?
A gas line
The house explodes moments later, just as Carol and their son pull back into the driveway.
Q 22Why had Walter actually been away from home?
He was in hospital with heart palpitations
He had asked the Klopeks to collect his mail, and they scooped up rather more than that.
Q 23What were the Klopeks' real victims, as Werner finally reveals?
The Knapps, the previous homeowners
His toupee
The Klopeks had gathered it up by mistake along with his mail, which is why Ray later finds it in their house.
Q 15Who plays Dr. Werner Klopek?
Henry Gibson
Gibson, a Laugh-In veteran, plays the family's soft-spoken doctor who ends up trying to kill Ray in the ambulance.
Q 16Which member of the Klopek family drives an oversized garbage bag to the curb and mashes it down?
Hans, the youngest
Hans is played by Courtney Gains, best remembered as Malachai in Children of the Corn.
Q 17Which cult performer plays Uncle Reuben Klopek?
Brother Theodore
Theodore was a monologist and frequent David Letterman guest whose whole persona was menacing eccentricity.
Q 18Which veteran of I Love Lucy and Here's Lucy plays Walter Seznick?
Gale Gordon
Walter's disappearance drives the second act, though he was only ever in hospital.
Q 19What is the name of the film's cul-de-sac?
Mayfield Place
It was built on the Universal back lot's Colonial Street, which had been Beaver Cleaver's neighbourhood.
Q 20What do Ray and Art discover when they break into the Klopeks' basement?
What appears to be a crematorium
They start digging into the floor for remains, which is how Ray ends up hitting the gas line.
They murdered the family so they could take over the house, which is why there is a skull in the basement furnace.
Q 24How does Werner try to kill Ray at the end of the film?
With a lethal injection
Hans drives the ambulance while Werner attacks; the struggle sends the vehicle into Art's house.
Q 25Whose house does the ambulance crash into?
Art's
Both Werner and Ray are thrown clear, and Ray makes a citizen's arrest.
Q 26Where does Ricky find the human skeletal remains that finally incriminate the Klopeks?
In the trunk of their car
After that, the Klopeks are arrested and all charges against Ray are dropped.
Q 27Who wrote the screenplay for The 'Burbs?
Dana Olsen
Olsen based it on his own suburban childhood and pitched it as Ozzie and Harriet meet Charles Manson.
Q 28What was the script's title before it became The 'Burbs?
Bay Window
Dante had been developing Little Man Tate when he was offered the script; that project was later made by Jodie Foster.
Q 29How did the original script end, before Tom Hanks was cast?
The hero was killed and driven off in an ambulance
Dante recalled the studio's reaction: you can't kill Tom Hanks, so the ending had to change.
Q 30Which Dante regular plays Vic, one of the garbagemen?
Dick Miller
Miller appeared in nearly every Joe Dante film; his fellow garbageman Joe is played by Robert Picardo, another Dante staple.