Tom Baker
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40 free Tom Baker trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Tom Baker was in his thirties before he earned a living as an actor, and he was between jobs when the BBC handed him the most famous role in British science fiction. For seven seasons his wild-eyed, scarf-trailing Fourth Doctor defined Doctor Who for viewers in Britain and far beyond, and for many fans he still does. This quiz follows the whole career. It starts with his childhood and the unlikely path he took before drama school, moves through his breakthrough on film and his years in the TARDIS, with their companions, villains and writers, and ends with the stage roles, guest parts, books and voice work that kept him busy for decades afterwards. It is written for Doctor Who fans, for anyone who knows the voice better than the face, and for quiz hosts who want reliable questions about one of British television's great eccentrics. Every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Tom Baker's Doctor Who scarf ended up absurdly long because knitter Begonia Pope did what?
Used all the wool
Used all the wool sums it up: costume designer James Acheson, who knew little about knitting, had handed her huge quantities in many colours.
Q 02Where was Tom Baker working between acting jobs when he was cast as the Doctor in 1974?
A building site
A building site was paying his wages after three planned films collapsed, so he wrote to a BBC executive asking for acting work.
Q 03Tom Baker left school at 15 and spent six years training to become what before he took up acting?
A religious brother
A religious brother was his way out of becoming a labourer: he joined an order in Jersey as a novice, then resigned on the advice of a visiting priest.
Q 04Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor, known for his long scarf, had a famous fondness for which sweets?
Jelly babies
Jelly babies and the scarf made him instantly recognisable, and viewing figures returned to levels not seen since the Dalekmania of a decade earlier.
Q 05Tom Baker earned two Golden Globe nominations for playing which Russian figure in a 1971 film epic?
Rasputin
Rasputin was his first major film role, in Nicholas and Alexandra, and the nominations were for supporting actor and most promising newcomer.
Q 06Tom Baker's booming voice narrated which sketch show created by Matt Lucas and David Walliams?
Little Britain
Little Britain was made by two comedians who grew up admiring his Doctor, and he credited the series with re-inventing his image.
Q 07In 2006, Tom Baker recorded 11,593 phrases so BT landlines could read out what in his voice?
Text messages
Text messages sent to BT landlines were spoken in his voice, and when the service returned that December two pence from each went to the charity Shelter.
Q 08Which Lord of the Rings film role did Tom Baker reportedly turn down to avoid months in New Zealand?
Gandalf
Gandalf went instead to Ian McKellen, who was cast in 1999 while he was filming the first X-Men film.
Q 09Tom Baker was raised a devout Catholic, and served as an altar boy, in which English port city?
Liverpool
Liverpool was where his mother, a barmaid and cleaner, raised him while his father was often away at sea as a Merchant Navy steward.
Q 10Tom Baker took over as the Doctor in 1974 from which actor, who had played the Third Doctor?
Jon Pertwee
Jon Pertwee handed over at the end of Planet of the Spiders, where his successor appeared only in the closing moments.
Q 11Which All Creatures Great and Small star replaced Tom Baker as the Doctor in 1981?
Peter Davison
Peter Davison, aged 29, was the youngest actor cast as the Doctor, a record he held until Matt Smith's casting in 2009.
Q 12Tom Baker married which Doctor Who co-star, who played the Time Lady Romana, in December 1980?
Lalla Ward
Lalla Ward was the second actress to play Romana, taking over in 1979, and the marriage ended in divorce after 16 months.
Q 13Sarah Jane Smith, played by Elisabeth Sladen beside Tom Baker's Doctor, worked in which profession?
Journalist
Journalist Sarah Jane was a dogged investigator who had already travelled with the Third Doctor before she stayed on with the Fourth.
Q 21Which stage legend auditioned Tom Baker for the National Theatre and recommended him to Sam Spiegel?
Laurence Olivier
Laurence Olivier first gave him small parts and understudy duties, then cast him as the Prince of Morocco in The Merchant of Venice.
Q 22In The Travails of Sancho Panza, Tom Baker's early stage role, Rocinante, was what kind of creature?
A horse
A horse: Rocinante is Don Quixote's steed, and it was one of his bigger early roles, in a production directed by Joan Plowright.
Q 23Tom Baker played the sorcerer Koura in a 1973 Sinbad film with effects by which stop-motion pioneer?
Ray Harryhausen
Ray Harryhausen's The Golden Voyage of Sinbad changed his career: the Doctor Who producer and script editor were so impressed by his villain that they cast him.
Q 14Which scientist, the creator of the Daleks, made his debut opposite Tom Baker's Doctor in 1975?
Davros
Davros arrived in Genesis of the Daleks, one of several early Tom Baker stories now considered classics.
Q 15Which comic novelist wrote The Pirate Planet for Tom Baker's Doctor, then script-edited Doctor Who?
Douglas Adams
Douglas Adams, creator of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, had two earlier story ideas turned down by the series before this one was accepted.
Q 16City of Death, a 1979 Tom Baker story, was the first Doctor Who serial filmed abroad, in which city?
Paris
Paris gave the series its biggest night: the fourth episode drew over sixteen million viewers, the highest UK audience any Doctor Who episode has reached.
Q 17Tom Baker made a surprise cameo in the 2013 special The Day of the Doctor as which character?
The Curator
The Curator looks after the National Gallery and is implied to be a future incarnation of the Doctor who has taken on the Fourth Doctor's form again.
Q 18Tom Baker guest-starred as the legless sea captain Redbeard Rum in which Rowan Atkinson comedy?
Blackadder II
Blackadder II put him at sea in the episode Potato, where Rum confesses he has no idea how to reach the Cape of Good Hope.
Q 19Soon after leaving Doctor Who, Tom Baker played which famous detective in a four-part BBC serial?
Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes reunited him with Barry Letts, the producer who had cast him as the Doctor, for The Hound of the Baskervilles.
Q 20Tom Baker returned as the Doctor in 1993 for Dimensions in Time, a special for which charity appeal?
Children in Need
Children in Need got a two-part crossover with EastEnders, filmed in 3D on the soap's Albert Square set.
Q 24Tom Baker's Doctor Who costume was based on posters of singer Aristide Bruant by which artist?
Toulouse-Lautrec
Toulouse-Lautrec painted his friend Bruant, a nightclub owner, in the black cloak and long red scarf that were the singer's trademark.
Q 25Tom Baker's Doctor fell from a radio telescope and regenerated at the end of which 1981 serial?
Logopolis
Logopolis ends with the Doctor tearing out a power cable to stop the Master, which drops him hundreds of feet to the ground.
Q 26Which campaigner's complaint about violence in Tom Baker's Doctor Who won an apology from the BBC?
Mary Whitehouse
Mary Whitehouse won that apology from the Director-General after The Deadly Assassin in 1976, and the series' tone was lightened under its next producer.
Q 27Tom Baker declined to appear in which 1983 anniversary special, so old Shada footage stood in?
The Five Doctors
The Five Doctors also used a Madame Tussauds waxwork of him in its publicity photos, because the producer suspected he would not turn up.
Q 28Why was Shada, a Tom Baker serial partly filmed in Cambridge in 1979, never completed?
A technicians' strike
A technicians' strike at the BBC stopped studio recording, and the gaps were finally filled in 2017 with animation voiced by the reunited cast.
Q 29Tom Baker's Doctor spent the whole 1978 season of Doctor Who hunting six segments of which artefact?
The Key to Time
The Key to Time was a cube-shaped cosmic artefact scattered across space, an idea producer Graham Williams had pitched in his application for the job.
Q 30Louise Jameson played which warrior of the Sevateem tribe as a companion to Tom Baker's Doctor?
Leela
Leela was conceived as an Eliza Doolittle figure: a bright but unsophisticated outsider who would learn from the Doctor.