The Land Before Time
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50 free The Land Before Time trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The Land Before Time arrived in 1988 and gave a generation its first big cry at the cinema. Littlefoot's long walk to the Great Valley, with Cera, Ducky, Petrie and the rest in tow, is still one of the best-loved animated adventures ever made, and Sharptooth is still one of the most memorable villains a family film has dared to show. This quiz covers the original film from the opening chase to the final reunion, then moves on to the people who made it, the voices behind the dinosaurs, the direct-to-video sequels and the TV series. Expect questions on the plot, the characters and their species, the production story and a few behind-the-scenes surprises. It is pitched for anyone who grew up with the film, for parents rewatching it with their own kids, and for quiz hosts who need a dinosaur round. The early questions are gentle; the later ones are for fans who know their longnecks from their three-horns.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The makers of The Land Before Time set out to create a dinosaur version of which Disney classic?
Bambi
Bambi was the model, and reviewers duly called the finished film a sort of prehistoric Bambi. Like the fawn, Littlefoot loses his mother early and has to grow up fast.
Q 02Which real dinosaur is Sharptooth, the villain who hunts Littlefoot across The Land Before Time?
Tyrannosaurus
Tyrannosaurus is the species behind Sharptooth, the killer of Littlefoot's mother. The sequels went on to give the same nickname to many other meat-eaters.
Q 03Which singer performed If We Hold On Together, the end-credits theme of The Land Before Time?
Diana Ross
Diana Ross recorded the ballad, which went to number one in Japan and became her biggest hit there. Britain only got it as a single four years after the film.
Q 04What name does Littlefoot give the baby sharptooth he hatches and raises in The Land Before Time II?
Chomper
Chomper hatches from an egg the friends carry home by mistake. When two adult sharpteeth later corner the youngsters, they turn out to be his parents.
Q 05Why did Steven Spielberg have over ten minutes cut from The Land Before Time shortly before release?
Too scary for children
Too scary for children was the verdict, with Spielberg picturing kids in tears in the lobby and angry parents. The trims left the film just 69 minutes long.
Q 06Which speech habit is the cheerful Ducky best known for throughout The Land Before Time films?
Saying things three times
Saying things three times is Ducky's trademark, usually a triple yes or a triple no. She also tends to avoid contractions, which adds to her childlike sound.
Q 07What disaster splits the land and tears Cera away from her family early in The Land Before Time?
An earthquake
An earthquake, which the dinosaurs call an earthshake, cracks the ground open in the middle of Sharptooth's attack. It drops him into a ravine and scatters the herds.
Q 08How do Littlefoot and friends finally defeat Sharptooth at the end of The Land Before Time?
Drown him in a pond
They drown him in a pond, toppling a boulder so that it drags Sharptooth into the deep end. Cera's last-second headbutt is what finally tips it over.
Q 09Which former Disney animator directed The Land Before Time as his follow-up to An American Tail?
Don Bluth
Don Bluth quit Disney on his 42nd birthday to start his own studio. Its films became Disney's main competition through the 1980s.
Q 10Which restaurant chain gave away rubber hand puppets to promote The Land Before Time on home video?
Pizza Hut
Pizza Hut handed out the rubber dinosaur puppets when the film came to VHS. One of its adverts also preserves a line from a scene that was deleted from the film.
Q 11Which of Littlefoot's friends in The Land Before Time hatches mid-journey and hardly ever speaks?
Spike
Spike is the youngest of the five friends despite being the largest. Ducky watches him hatch, names him, and her family goes on to adopt him.
Q 12The Land Before Time's animators studied footage of elephants and which other living animal?
Giraffes
Giraffes joined elephants as living models for how big four-legged animals move. The crew also toured natural history museums in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington.
Q 13Which relatives does Littlefoot rejoin on reaching the Great Valley in The Land Before Time?
His grandparents
His grandparents are waiting in the valley and raise him from then on. Across the whole series their names are never given.
Q 21Which composer, later an Oscar winner for Titanic, wrote the score of The Land Before Time?
James Horner
James Horner had already scored An American Tail for the same director. The Land Before Time turned out to be the last of that director's films he worked on.
Q 22What kind of animal is Petrie, the one non-dinosaur among The Land Before Time's five friends?
A pterosaur
A pterosaur, specifically a Pteranodon, so the famous five are really four dinosaurs plus one outsider. His anxious voice was modelled on Digit from An American Tail.
Q 23What do Great Valley dinosaurs in The Land Before Time call the dangerous land outside their home?
The Mysterious Beyond
Q 14What forces the dinosaur herds to set out for the Great Valley at the start of The Land Before Time?
A famine
A famine has left the plant-eaters with almost nothing to graze. The herds trek toward an oasis that they have only heard has been spared.
Q 15What skill does Petrie finally master while battling Sharptooth in The Land Before Time?
Flying
Flying finally clicks for Petrie when a blast of air from Sharptooth's nostrils lifts him off. He later shows the new trick to his family.
Q 16Why does Cera's father stop her playing with Littlefoot near the start of The Land Before Time?
Their kinds keep apart
Their kinds keep apart, he insists, with every species expected to stick to its own. That prejudice is exactly what the film's long walk sets out to undo.
Q 17What do the sequels to The Land Before Time all add that the original film does without?
Sing-along songs
Sing-along songs arrive with the first sequel and never leave. That makes the original the only film in the series that is not a musical.
Q 18In The Land Before Time VIII, what falls on the Great Valley for the first time anyone can remember?
Snow
Snow buries the valley's food and embarrasses the children's teacher, who claims to have seen everything yet cannot explain it.
Q 19In The Land Before Time, what does his mother's voice tell Littlefoot to follow to the Great Valley?
The sun
The sun is his compass on the way west. Along the route he must also pass a rock shaped like a longneck and a range of volcanoes.
Q 20In what form does Littlefoot's mother appear at the end of The Land Before Time to guide him home?
A cloud
A cloud shaped like her leads Littlefoot over the last stretch, just as he is alone and ready to give up the search.
The Mysterious Beyond is where the sharpteeth roam. In the first sequel the children sneak out there to prove how brave and grown-up they are.
Q 24How does Cera accidentally wake the unconscious Sharptooth in a ravine in The Land Before Time?
By ramming him
By ramming him again and again, convinced that he is already dead. She then bolts and runs straight into Littlefoot's little group.
Q 25How does Littlefoot's group in The Land Before Time reach the leaves of the last green tree?
Standing on each other
Standing on each other, they form a wobbly tower and pull the leaves down. Cera keeps her distance, but by nightfall she huddles up with the rest for warmth.
Q 26What do Littlefoot's friends pose as to scare the domeheads away from Cera in The Land Before Time?
A tar monster
A tar monster does the trick, sending the domeheads running. It frightens Cera just as badly, and she storms off in a huff once she learns who it really was.
Q 27To which country did the studio making The Land Before Time move from California mid-production?
Ireland
Ireland drew the studio to Dublin with government investment and incentives. The upheaval of the move held production up by several months.
Q 28Which Disney animated film opened in American cinemas on the same day as The Land Before Time?
Oliver & Company
Oliver & Company went head to head with the dinosaurs in November 1988. The Land Before Time won the opening weekend, but the Disney film ended up about $5 million ahead in North America.
Q 29The Land Before Time's story came from two prominent writers for which children's TV show?
Sesame Street
Sesame Street veterans Judy Freudberg and Tony Geiss had also written An American Tail. When their first draft seemed too juvenile, Stu Krieger was brought in to revise it.
Q 30What was Littlefoot called until a children's book forced a late change on The Land Before Time?
Thunderfoot
Thunderfoot had to go when the crew found a children's book whose Triceratops already carried the name. The switch came only just before the film's release.