The Rocky Horror Picture Show
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50 free The Rocky Horror Picture Show trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show did poor business when it first reached cinemas in 1975, then found its audience at midnight. Fans came back week after week, dressed as the characters, shouted replies at the screen and danced the Time Warp in the aisles, and the film has never really gone away. This quiz covers the whole phenomenon: Brad and Janet's stormy night at the castle, Dr. Frank-N-Furter and his strange household, the songs, the actors who played each part, how the film was made in England, and the rituals that grew up around it. It is written for first-timers and for regulars who know every callback. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you can play it straight through, run it as a trivia game at a screening party, or print it for a group.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which company bought 20th Century Fox in 2019 but let Rocky Horror keep its midnight screenings?
Disney
Disney began locking archival Fox titles away in its vault after the takeover, but made an exception for this one. That allowed the traditional midnight showings to carry on.
Q 02A red-lips poster for Rocky Horror carried a tagline spoofing which other hit film of 1975?
Jaws
Jaws came out the same year, so the lipstick poster promised 'A Different Set of Jaws'. The lips on it belonged to a model whose name was Lorelei Shark.
Q 03In Rocky Horror, the Time Warp dance instructions begin with a jump in which direction?
To the left
To the left comes first, then a step to the right, hands on hips and knees in tight. The song is both a dance-craze number and a parody of one, with lyrics that double as the steps.
Q 04At screenings of Rocky Horror, what do fans throw when Frank-N-Furter raises his glass at dinner?
Toast
Toast flies because Frank proposes one, a pun that fans act out with slices that should be unbuttered. Many cinemas now forbid throwing anything that is hard to clean up.
Q 05Rocky Horror designer Sue Blane says her ripped fishnets helped inspire which fashion movement?
Punk
Punk owed its torn stockings and brightly dyed hair partly to the film, Blane has claimed. She did no research for the designs and had never seen a science fiction movie.
Q 06Which British actor made his film debut as the corset-wearing Dr. Frank-N-Furter in Rocky Horror?
Tim Curry
Tim Curry had created the role on the London stage in 1973 and repeated it in Los Angeles before the cameras rolled. The film made him a household name.
Q 07Rocky Horror, first released in 1975, is said to hold which record in cinema history?
Longest theatrical run
Longest theatrical run is the record, because the studio has never pulled the film since its 1975 debut. It has now been playing somewhere for more than half a century.
Q 08Which rock singer plays the Rocky Horror biker who bursts from a deep freeze singing 'Hot Patootie'?
Meat Loaf
Meat Loaf had already played the part on stage at the Roxy in Los Angeles, where he doubled as Dr. Scott. For the film the two roles were split and Jonathan Adams took the doctor.
Q 09At the end of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, what does Dr. Frank-N-Furter's castle turn out to be?
A spaceship
A spaceship built to resemble a castle is where the aliens have been docked all along. In the final scene it lifts off into space, leaving Brad, Janet and Dr. Scott crawling in the dirt.
Q 10Which US actress caught pneumonia on the unheated set while playing Janet Weiss in Rocky Horror?
Susan Sarandon
Susan Sarandon fell ill because neither the studio nor the country house used as the castle had heating. The studio had insisted that Brad and Janet be played by Americans.
Q 11In The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Dr. Frank-N-Furter's planet Transsexual lies in which galaxy?
Transylvania
Transylvania is a galaxy in the film, not the region of Europe, though it borrows the name of Count Dracula's homeland on purpose. Frank's servants come from the same planet.
Q 12Around which holiday is Rocky Horror most often screened, with fans dressed as the characters?
Halloween
Halloween is when the film is usually shown, a neat revenge for 1975. That year its planned New York opening on that very night was cancelled after poor business in other cities.
Q 13What do Rocky Horror audiences throw during the opening wedding scene, copying the guests on screen?
Rice
Q 21With which song does Dr. Frank-N-Furter introduce himself to Brad and Janet in Rocky Horror?
Sweet Transvestite
Sweet Transvestite is Frank's entrance number, in which he boasts about where he comes from and what he has been up to. Its lyrics make a passing reference to an old Steve Reeves movie.
Q 22Dr. Scott arrives at the castle in The Rocky Horror Picture Show searching for which missing nephew?
Eddie
Eddie had sent his uncle a letter hinting that part of his brain had been removed. By the time the doctor turns up, his nephew is already dead and about to be served for dinner.
Q 23Which tap-dancing Rocky Horror groupie wears a gold sequinned tailcoat and top hat?
Columbia
Rice goes up as the newlyweds Ralph and Betty come out of the church. Janet catches the bride's bouquet, and Brad proposes to her moments later.
Q 14In Rocky Horror, the 'Dammit Janet' church staff are dressed as figures from which famous painting?
American Gothic
American Gothic's stern pair work as the church caretakers, and during the song they spin the white wedding flowers round to show black funeral ones. A coffin is then carried in.
Q 15The name of Rocky Horror's Dr. Frank-N-Furter is partly a pun on which kind of food?
A sausage
A sausage, the frankfurter, supplies half of the pun, and fiction's most famous monster-making scientist supplies the rest. One of the film's songs is even called 'Planet Hotdog'.
Q 16What does Janet hold over her head in Rocky Horror's storm, inspiring the first audience heckle?
A newspaper
A newspaper is Janet's only cover, which moved a quiet schoolteacher named Louis Farese Jr. to shout that she should buy an umbrella. Fans now shield themselves the same way from water pistols.
Q 17Which musical TV series built a 2010 tribute episode around a school production of Rocky Horror?
Glee
Glee recreated the film's opening credits and gave cameo roles to two actors from the 1975 original. The episode sent the old soundtrack album back into the US chart.
Q 18Richard O'Brien wrote Rocky Horror and sings its opening song, but which character does he play?
Riff Raff
Riff Raff is the castle's butler, who finally turns on his master. O'Brien wrote most of the original stage show in a single winter while he was an out-of-work actor in London.
Q 19Which US actor, later the mayor in the sitcom Spin City, plays Janet's fiancé Brad in Rocky Horror?
Barry Bostwick
Barry Bostwick told an interviewer thirty years on that people would be asking him to say 'Dammit, Janet. I love you' for as long as he lived.
Q 20In Rocky Horror, which two words finish Frank-N-Furter's floor-show motto 'Don't dream it'?
Be it
Be it completes the line, which Frank sings during a cabaret finale staged around a swimming pool. The phrase was also used as one of the film's taglines.
Columbia is played by Nell Campbell, whose tap dancing while she worked as a soda jerk is said to have won her the part on stage. The gold coat was newly made for the film.
Q 24Which word does Dr. Frank-N-Furter split with a long, teasing pause while singing in Rocky Horror?
Anticipation
Anticipation gets a long gap in the middle as Frank sings 'I see you shiver with antici... pation'. The fan club's own guide jokes that this is an audience 'partici-(SAY IT!)-pation' movie.
Q 25Rocky Horror make-up designer Pierre La Roche had worked for Mick Jagger and which glam rock star?
David Bowie
David Bowie and Jagger had both been clients of La Roche, who was hired to redesign every character's make-up for the screen. On stage the actors had generally done their own.
Q 26Which singer's 2025 video borrows from Rocky Horror, with Colman Domingo as a Frank-N-Furter figure?
Sabrina Carpenter
Sabrina Carpenter took inspiration from the film for her 'Tears' video, playing a character much like Janet while Domingo appears in drag.
Q 27In 2005 the Library of Congress chose Rocky Horror for which list of films worth preserving?
National Film Registry
National Film Registry status is reserved for works judged 'culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant'. Critics had largely ignored the film when it first came out thirty years earlier.
Q 28What are the costumed fans called who mime Rocky Horror in front of the screen as it plays?
Shadow cast
Shadow cast members lip-sync every line while copying the action above them. The first group to perform almost the whole film this way played the Strand in San Francisco.
Q 29At live screenings of Rocky Horror, what are people seeing it in a cinema for the first time called?
Virgins
Virgins are often singled out for a harmless initiation ritual. Having watched on television or video does not count: only a cinema showing with an audience ends the status.
Q 30Which actress played Dr. Frank-N-Furter in Fox's 2016 television remake of Rocky Horror?
Laverne Cox
Laverne Cox led the remake, which was directed by Kenny Ortega of High School Musical. The Frank of 1975 came back too, this time as the narrator.