The Music Man
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50 free The Music Man trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The Music Man has been charming audiences since it opened on Broadway in 1957. Meredith Willson poured his Iowa boyhood into the tale of Harold Hill, a fast-talking travelling salesman who arrives in River City planning to fleece the town, and of Marian, the wary librarian who sees straight through him. This quiz covers the whole show: the plot and its twists, the townspeople, the famous songs, the original Broadway production and its awards, the 1962 film and its cast, the television remake and the big revivals. There are also questions on the man who wrote it and on the places the show has turned up in pop culture since. It is written for fans of the film and the stage musical alike, for theatre groups putting the show on, and for anyone planning a movie-night or musical-theatre quiz round. Most questions suit anyone who has seen the film once; a few are saved for the people who know every number by heart.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which British band recorded Till There Was You, the ballad from The Music Man, on their second album?
The Beatles
The Beatles learned it from Peggy Lee's cover, and Paul McCartney did not find out until much later that it came from a stage show. Willson's widow said his estate earned more from their recording than from the original production.
Q 02Which child star of a hit 1960s sitcom played Marian's shy brother Winthrop in the 1962 film The Music Man?
Ron Howard
Ron Howard, billed as Ronny, was already playing Opie on The Andy Griffith Show when he was cast as Winthrop. He grew up to direct Apollo 13 and A Beautiful Mind.
Q 03Which future late-night host wrote The Simpsons episode Marge vs. the Monorail as a parody of The Music Man?
Conan O'Brien
Conan O'Brien based the monorail huckster Lyle Lanley on Harold Hill and has called The Music Man his favourite musical. The episode's big song was modelled on Hill's sales-pitch number.
Q 04Which now-classic musical, opened nearly three months earlier, lost the 1958 Best Musical Tony to The Music Man?
West Side Story
West Side Story went home without the top prize as The Music Man took five Tonys, including Best Musical, and ran for 1,375 performances on Broadway.
Q 05What newly delivered item does Harold Hill claim will corrupt River City's boys in The Music Man?
A pool table
A pool table had just arrived at the town billiard parlour, which the mayor himself owned. Hill's cure for the supposed moral danger was, conveniently, a boys' band.
Q 06Which song from The Music Man shares its melody with Marian's gentle waltz Goodnight, My Someone?
Seventy-Six Trombones
Seventy-Six Trombones is the same tune as the lullaby, played faster and in march time. Near the end of the musical, lines from the two songs are sung in alternation.
Q 07Which actress was pregnant while filming her role as Marian the librarian in the 1962 film The Music Man?
Shirley Jones
Shirley Jones was expecting during the shoot, so the costume designers had to adjust her dresses several times to hide it. She had recently won an Oscar for Elmer Gantry.
Q 08Which Australian film star played Harold Hill opposite Sutton Foster in the 2022 Broadway revival of The Music Man?
Hugh Jackman
Hugh Jackman opened the revival in February 2022, weeks after his own positive COVID-19 test had forced it to suspend performances. It earned six Tony nominations and won none.
Q 09Harold Hill of The Music Man claims a 1905 degree from a conservatory in which Indiana city, founded only in 1906?
Gary
Gary did not exist until 1906, which is how Marian catches Hill in the lie. Instead of exposing him, she hands him the incriminating page from the Indiana State Educational Journal.
Q 10Which animated sitcom staged a lavish stadium version of Shipoopi from The Music Man as a touchdown celebration?
Family Guy
Family Guy had Peter Griffin conduct the New England Patriots and the whole stadium through the number in the episode Patriot Games. The scene became one of the most popular videos on YouTube.
Q 11Which actor won a Tony as Harold Hill in The Music Man on Broadway and kept the part for the 1962 film?
Robert Preston
Robert Preston won the first of his two Tonys as Hill, and twenty years after the film he earned an Oscar nomination for Victor/Victoria.
Q 12Which Hollywood star turned down the 1962 film The Music Man, insisting no one could match its Broadway lead?
Cary Grant
Cary Grant told studio boss Jack Warner he would not even bother to see the film unless the stage star kept the part.
Q 13Which company's wagon delivers the band instruments to an excited River City in a rousing number from The Music Man?
Wells Fargo
Q 21Which actor played Harold Hill opposite Kristin Chenoweth in the 2003 television film of The Music Man?
Matthew Broderick
Matthew Broderick led the remake, first shown on ABC as an episode of The Wonderful World of Disney, with Victor Garber as River City's mayor.
Q 22Which television comedy star toured America as Harold Hill and brought The Music Man back to New York in 1980?
Dick Van Dyke
Dick Van Dyke's tour, staged by the choreographer Michael Kidd, finished with a run of just 21 regular performances at New York City Center.
Q 23Which film, winner of seven Oscars that night, beat the 1962 film The Music Man to Best Picture?
Lawrence of Arabia
Wells Fargo arrives just as Marian is about to hand the mayor evidence against Harold Hill. Seeing her silent brother burst into song over his new horn changes her mind.
Q 14In The Music Man, what makes Marian's young brother Winthrop so reluctant to speak when Harold Hill arrives?
His lisp
His lisp keeps Winthrop almost silent until his new band instrument arrives and he bursts into song. Willson built the character from a lisping child who sang one verse in an early draft.
Q 15Which instrument does shy Winthrop receive when the boys' band order finally reaches River City in The Music Man?
Cornet
Cornet in hand, the boy who barely spoke suddenly cannot stop talking about his new instrument. Seeing the change in her brother, Marian decides not to expose Harold Hill.
Q 16What does Harold Hill call his method of teaching River City's boys to play without practising in The Music Man?
The Think System
The Think System asks the boys simply to imagine a tune over and over until they can play it. It lets Hill, who is faking his musical expertise, avoid ever giving a real lesson.
Q 17Which bickering River City body does Harold Hill turn into a barbershop quartet in The Music Man?
The school board
The school board keeps demanding Hill's credentials, and each time he starts the four of them singing in harmony and slips away.
Q 18Which title does con man Harold Hill of The Music Man give himself, printed on his suitcase?
Professor
Professor is pure invention, like the conservatory diploma Hill boasts about. His rivals on the road know him only as a swindler who takes the money and vanishes.
Q 19Where are Charlie Cowell and his fellow travelling salesmen gossiping about Harold Hill as The Music Man opens?
On a train
On a train leaving Rock Island, Illinois, the salesmen debate whether modern conveniences are making their job harder. Hill is a fellow passenger and steps off at River City.
Q 20Harold Hill's swindle in The Music Man is to take payment for band instruments and what else, then skip town?
Uniforms
Uniforms and instruments are sold on the promise of lessons that never come, since Hill is no musician. In River City he lingers too long and falls for the librarian.
Lawrence of Arabia took Best Picture and Best Director for David Lean. The Music Man went home with a single Oscar from its six nominations.
Q 24Which comedian played Harold Hill's old sidekick and led the Shipoopi number in the 1962 film The Music Man?
Buddy Hackett
Buddy Hackett was not known as a dancer, so the film's choreographer had to turn him into one for the big number. He later voiced Scuttle the seagull for Disney.
Q 25Which Iowa town, the birthplace of Meredith Willson, was the model for the setting of The Music Man?
Mason City
Mason City hosted the 1962 film's premiere during its annual band festival, with the stars taking part. Willson based many of the characters on people he had observed there.
Q 26Whose famous touring band did Meredith Willson join in 1921, decades before he wrote The Music Man?
John Philip Sousa
John Philip Sousa's band kept Willson on the road for three years, after which he moved to the New York Philharmonic.
Q 27What does Charlie Cowell, the rival salesman out to expose Harold Hill in The Music Man, sell for a living?
Anvils
Anvils are the trade of Cowell, who was run out of an Illinois town after Hill conned its people. In the film's finale he drops his sample case on his own toe.
Q 28Marian's widowed mother, an early admirer of Harold Hill in The Music Man, is an immigrant from which country?
Ireland
Ireland is her homeland, and Hill talks up a great Irish trumpeter he calls O'Mendez. The real Rafael Méndez was six years old when the story is set.
Q 29What surname do Marian the librarian, her mother and her young brother Winthrop share in The Music Man?
Paroo
Paroo belongs to the only trained musician in River City, which makes Marian the one person able to expose Harold Hill. Willson modelled her on a librarian he met during World War II.
Q 30Which soprano won a Tony as the original Marian when The Music Man opened on Broadway in 1957?
Barbara Cook
Barbara Cook took the Tony for Best Featured Actress in a Musical, one of five the show won, and sang on the cast album that topped the Billboard chart for twelve weeks.