The Odd Couple Trivia
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47 free The Odd Couple trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Can two divorced men share an apartment without driving each other crazy? Six decades of plays, films and sitcoms say no, hilariously. These The Odd Couple trivia questions cover Neil Simon's 1965 Broadway hit, the Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau film, the Tony Randall and Jack Klugman series, the Pigeon sisters, the poker buddies and the reboots through 2017. Every answer is sourced, with a short explanation so you learn something even when you miss.
30 of 47 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who wrote the 1965 play The Odd Couple?
Neil Simon
Neil Simon won the 1965 Tony Award for Best Author for The Odd Couple, even though the comedy itself lost the Best Play prize.
Q 02In The Odd Couple, what is the surname of Oscar's neat, uptight roommate Felix?
Ungar
Ungar is the spelling on stage and film. Felix signs his nagging pillow notes with his initials, and Oscar says it took him three hours to work out that F.U. meant Felix Ungar.
Q 03In The Odd Couple, what is Oscar Madison's profession?
Sportswriter
Sportswriter Oscar misses a rare triple play in the film because Felix phones the press box at that very moment to talk about dinner.
Q 04In the original play The Odd Couple, what does Felix do for a living?
News writer
News writer Felix works for CBS in the play. One friend recalls the night he got locked in the office bathroom and wrote out his entire will on half a roll of toilet paper.
Q 05In The Odd Couple, why does Oscar invite Felix to move in?
He fears his friend may kill himself
Oscar offers the spare room because he fears his friend may kill himself: the film adds an opening in which Felix, newly thrown out, checks into a Times Square hotel planning to do exactly that.
Q 06In The Odd Couple, which pasta does Felix insist his dinner is after Oscar calls it spaghetti?
Linguini
Linguini, Felix corrects him with a laugh, so Oscar hurls the plate against the kitchen wall and announces, "Now it's garbage."
Q 07In The Odd Couple, which of Oscar's poker buddies is a New York City policeman?
Murray
Murray the cop is the first to fret when Felix is late for the game, and it is his wife who phones to say that Felix has gone missing.
Q 08In The Odd Couple, what surname do Cecily and Gwendolyn, the giggly English sisters upstairs, share?
Pigeon
Pigeon. Monica Evans and Carole Shelley played the sisters on Broadway, in the film and on television, until the sitcom dropped them after a few first-season episodes.
Q 09The Odd Couple's third act was rewritten after critic Elliot Norton's advice during a tryout in which city?
Boston
Boston critic Elliot Norton said on his TV show that he missed the upstairs sisters in the last act; the playwright said a light bulb went off, and he wrote them back in.
Q 10The Odd Couple is usually traced to which of the playwright's relatives sharing a flat after a divorce?
His brother
His brother Danny, a TV comedy writer, moved in with a newly single agent named Roy Gerber, and the two opposites soon drove each other crazy, which planted the seed for the play.
Q 11In the 1985 female version of The Odd Couple, which game do the friends gather to play each week?
Trivial Pursuit
Trivial Pursuit, the craze of the mid-1980s, is the women's weekly game, and the giggly English sisters upstairs turn into two Spanish brothers, Manolo and Jesus.
Q 12Who directed the original Broadway production of The Odd Couple?
Mike Nichols
Mike Nichols, famous only a few years earlier as half of the comedy duo Nichols and May, won the Tony Award for directing it.
Q 13Who originated Oscar in The Odd Couple on Broadway and won a Tony for it?
Walter Matthau
Walter Matthau left the hit to shoot The Fortune Cookie and suffered a serious heart attack during filming, yet he was back as Oscar for the screen version.
Q 21Who played Felix in the 1968 film of The Odd Couple?
Jack Lemmon
Jack Lemmon got the part, though Frank Sinatra and Jackie Gleason were at one point reported for the film's two leads.
Q 22In The Odd Couple film, what is the name of Felix's estranged wife?
Frances
Frances is her name on stage and in the film. The 1970s sitcom renamed her Gloria, but the 1982 remake changed her back to Frances.
Q 23At which ballpark did The Odd Couple film its staged triple play in 1967?
Shea Stadium
Shea Stadium lent its field shortly before a real Mets-Pirates game in June 1967, and big-league players from both clubs acted out the triple play for the cameras.
Q 14Which Honeymooners star originated Felix in The Odd Couple on Broadway?
Art Carney
Art Carney played the fussy Felix for seven months, then handed the part on to Eddie Bracken and to Paul Dooley, the understudy who had been playing Oscar's pal Speed.
Q 15Which three future comedy stars appeared in a 1970 McMaster University student production of The Odd Couple?
Short, Levy and Thomas
Short, Levy and Thomas all took part. Martin Short, then studying social work, played Felix, and classmates Eugene Levy and Dave Thomas later talked him into the comedy career that reunited them on SCTV.
Q 16Which All in the Family star played fussy Florence in the 1985 female version of The Odd Couple?
Sally Struthers
Sally Struthers played Florence opposite Rita Moreno's slovenly Olive after the playwright rewrote his own hit for women, twenty years after the original opened.
Q 17Which duo starred in the 2005 Broadway revival of The Odd Couple?
Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick
Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick, reunited after The Producers, played Oscar and Felix; when Lane fell ill, Brad Garrett, who had been the production's policeman, stepped in as Oscar.
Q 18Which game show host played Felix in a 2001 Hawaii benefit production of The Odd Couple?
Pat Sajak
Pat Sajak played Felix opposite Honolulu news anchor Joe Moore, a close friend since they served together on the Army's radio network in Vietnam, to raise money for a local theater.
Q 19Where did The Odd Couple film open?
Radio City Music Hall
Radio City Music Hall held the comedy for a record fourteen weeks. Paramount had bought the screen rights before a word of the play was even written.
Q 20Who directed the 1968 film of The Odd Couple?
Gene Saks
Gene Saks had just filmed the same playwright's Barefoot in the Park, and in 1985 he came back to stage the female version of the comedy on Broadway.
Q 24Which Pirates star was first asked to bat in The Odd Couple's staged triple play?
Roberto Clemente
Roberto Clemente was the first choice, but accounts differ on why he dropped out: a report at the time cites the $100 fee, others his pride as a hitter. Bill Mazeroski grounded into it instead.
Q 25Who composed the jazzy theme of The Odd Couple, heard in the 1968 film and the TV series?
Neal Hefti
Neal Hefti, who also wrote the Batman TV theme, composed it for the film. Sammy Cahn supplied lyrics for the tune, but they were almost never heard.
Q 26In The Odd Couple, where has Felix gone when Oscar's poker pals fail to find him?
To the sisters' apartment
Felix has gone upstairs to the sisters' apartment. His weeping over his family wrecked the double date for Oscar, but it won both women over, and they took him in.
Q 27On which network did The Odd Couple sitcom air from 1970 to 1975?
ABC
ABC never saw the show finish in the Nielsen top 30 in any of its five seasons, yet it became an even bigger success in reruns.
Q 28Who played Felix in the 1970s sitcom The Odd Couple?
Tony Randall
Tony Randall won his Emmy for the role only after the series had been cancelled, and told the audience he was grateful but wished he had a job.
Q 29Who played Oscar in the 1970s sitcom The Odd Couple?
Jack Klugman
Jack Klugman had already taken over as Oscar on Broadway in 1965, yet his co-star, hired first, pushed for Mickey Rooney until the producers got their way.
Q 30Which producer developed The Odd Couple for television, the first of his sitcoms for Paramount?
Garry Marshall
Garry Marshall and writing partner Jerry Belson stayed close to the film at first, even giving Oscar an apartment set modelled on the movie's; Happy Days followed four years later.