Viz
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
6correct to beat the crowd
40 free Viz trivia questions with answers — pop culture quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Viz began as a photocopied fanzine sold to friends and grew into one of the best-selling magazines in Britain. Its formula has barely changed: strips drawn in the style of children's comics, filled with characters no children's comic would print, alongside spoof news, readers' letters and Top Tips. This quiz covers the characters first, from Roger Mellie, Sid the Sexist and Billy the Fish to the Fat Slags, Finbarr Saunders, Student Grant and Major Misunderstanding. It also takes in the people behind the comic, the television cartoons and the film, the celebrity cameos, and the rows with rival publishers, advertisers and brands along the way. The questions are written for anyone who has ever read a copy, with easy openers for casual readers and a run of harder ones for fans who remember the strips in detail. The comic is for adults, but the questions here keep the language clean.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which fast-food chain was accused of copying Viz's Top Tips in a 1996 advertising campaign?
McDonald's
McDonald's ran adverts whose money-saving tips matched Viz's almost word for word, including one about getting shirts laundered by donating them and buying them back.
Q 02In which English city did Chris Donald start Viz from a bedroom in his parents' Jesmond home?
Newcastle
Newcastle gave Viz its Geordie voice, and the comic is still full of in-jokes about people and places around the city. The first issue was a 12-page fanzine sold at a punk gig venue.
Q 03Which Spice Girl appeared in the critically panned 2004 film based on Viz's Fat Slags strip?
Geri Halliwell
Geri Halliwell played Paige, assistant to the media billionaire at the centre of the plot. Naomi Campbell and Dolph Lundgren also turned up, and Viz's own staff said they were appalled by the film.
Q 04Which position does Billy the Fish, a human head on a fish's body, play in Viz's football strip?
Goalkeeper
Goalkeeper is an odd job for a player with fins instead of hands, but Billy floats about five feet off the ground and steers with his tail. He also sports a mullet.
Q 05RAF Jaguar bombers carried nose art of Viz characters such as Johnny Fartpants during which conflict?
The Gulf War
The Gulf War of 1991 saw RAF crews paint Johnny Fartpants and Buster Gonad on the noses of their jets. Viz was then near its sales peak as one of Britain's biggest magazines.
Q 06Which fictional town, its name borrowed from the TV drama Crown Court, is home to most Viz characters?
Fulchester
Fulchester was invented for the courtroom drama, and the Viz team simply adopted it. Billy the Fish's football club and Roger Mellie's television employer both carry the name.
Q 07Which pop star does Viz regularly portray as a small-time crook running scams such as tobacco smuggling?
Elton John
Elton John, for all his real wealth, is shown fiddling benefits and cheating fruit machines for petty cash. Each strip ends with fellow stars of his era beating him at his own game.
Q 08Viz's MP Baxter Basics takes his name from the Back to Basics campaign of which prime minister?
John Major
John Major launched Back to Basics at the 1993 Conservative conference as a call for old values. Viz answered with a Tory MP who preached decency and practised the opposite.
Q 09Which British broadcaster aired the early-1990s cartoon series of Viz's Roger Mellie and Billy the Fish?
Channel 4
Channel 4 screened Billy the Fish in 1990 and Roger Mellie in 1991, with video releases alongside. A planned Student Grant series never happened, which pleased Chris Donald.
Q 10Which Viz bully is forever being battered by his own parents, Mutha and Fatha?
Biffa Bacon
Biffa Bacon is said to be based on a real family Chris Donald saw in the street, whose parents cheered their son on in a fight instead of stopping it.
Q 11Which Viz character, inspired by Chris Donald's brother Steve, takes everything people say to him literally?
Mr Logic
Mr Logic speaks in over-elaborate technical language and usually ends up the victim of his own misunderstandings. Steve Donald was much later diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome.
Q 12Which drink did Viz's Fat Slags advertise on British television, in ads mixing cartoon and live actors?
Lucozade
Lucozade's twist was that the pair hate the drink with a passion, while the live actors play the men who do drink it.
Q 13Sid the Sexist, Viz's boastful would-be ladies' man, still lives at home with which relative?
His mother
Q 21Which football strip, whose club once signed members of Spandau Ballet, does Viz's Billy the Fish lampoon?
Roy of the Rovers
Roy of the Rovers gave Melchester two pop-star signings in 1985, so Viz had Shakin' Stevens sign for Billy's team. Mick Hucknall of Simply Red later joined him.
Q 22Which Auf Wiedersehen, Pet star once explored turning Viz's Sid the Sexist into a live-action sitcom?
Jimmy Nail
Jimmy Nail got as far as a lunch meeting at his home before it became clear that no broadcaster was likely to air a sitcom written in the comic's style.
Q 23Which word does Viz's smug undergraduate Student Grant constantly drop into his speech?
Actually
His mother is one reason Sid's boasts never ring true: he is a 30-year-old with no success with women at all, and living with her keeps getting in the way of any romance.
Q 14Viz schoolboy Finbarr Saunders sniggers at which kind of wordplay in everything his neighbour Mr Gimlet says?
Double entendres
Double entendres complete the strip's full title, and Finbarr hears them in talk about the most everyday things. Creator Simon Thorp called him a cross between a small boy and a Carry On character.
Q 15Which Beyond the Fringe star voiced Roger Mellie in the 1991 Viz cartoon?
Peter Cook
Peter Cook lent his voice to the foul-mouthed presenter for four animated episodes. Roger was partly inspired by regional TV hosts Chris Donald had watched in the North East.
Q 16Which comedian sold Viz the exclusive rights to his 2002 wedding photographs for just one pound?
Johnny Vegas
Johnny Vegas made the one-pound deal as a dig at celebrity couples who sold their wedding pictures to glossy magazines for anything up to a million.
Q 17Which newspaper does Major Misunderstanding, Viz's ranting retired officer in a regimental blazer, read?
Daily Mail
Daily Mail in hand, the Major sees everything through his own prejudices: he once mistook a blood donor van for a chip van and scolded the nurse inside.
Q 18Which comics publisher took legal action against Viz over a parody of its Winker Watson strip?
D. C. Thomson
D. C. Thomson sued after Viz ignored several warnings about its parody strips. The Dandy's own editor, unaware of the case, cooled things down by printing a good-humoured spoof of Viz.
Q 19Which bearded football pundit's caricature is hidden in Viz strips for eagle-eyed readers to spot?
Jimmy Hill
Jimmy Hill, complete with beard and glasses, turns up in all shapes and sizes in the background of strips, and readers write in to claim a reward for finding him.
Q 20Which comedian voiced Viz's Billy the Fish cartoon when it ran as a four-part television series?
Harry Enfield
Harry Enfield provided the voices when the football spoof ran as four episodes in 1991. It was the only Viz cartoon tame enough for a U certificate; the others were rated 15 or 18.
Actually is Grant's verbal tic as he poses as a world-wise intellectual while doing little or no work for his degree. Every female student in the strip is called Hilary.
Q 24Which Viz pensioner constantly exaggerates her age and complains about the young people of today?
Mrs Brady
Mrs Brady, billed in full as an Old Lady, fondly recalls doing in her youth exactly what she condemns in others. She is also forever discussing her ailments.
Q 25Which household item stars in Viz's parody of Black Bob, the faithful sheepdog from The Dandy?
A bin liner
A bin liner called Black Bag lives the exciting life of a working sheepdog in the strip, and once rescued the pop group Brotherhood of Man from a well.
Q 26In which Viz strip do Natasha and Crispin mistake everyday objects such as fire extinguishers for modern art?
The Critics
The Critics write pretentious reviews for a Sunday paper and admire invented artists modelled on Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin. They once won a booby prize for a review that made sense.
Q 27Viz renamed a shellsuit-wearing teenage character Tasha after complaints from which sportswear brand?
Kappa
Kappa objected that the comic had no permission to use its name and that the character insulted its customers. After several strips, Viz gave her the new first name.
Q 28Which international body reprimanded Viz over a one-off strip that stereotyped Gypsies as thieves?
The United Nations
The United Nations rebuke followed an uproar from race relations groups. Viz had printed a tiny companion strip alongside, about a scrupulously honest Gypsy who hands back a customer's change.
Q 29Viz's spoof news photos are typically captioned with the subject's name, a comma and which single word?
Yesterday
Yesterday turns any stock picture into mock news, so a photo of a train is solemnly labelled as a train on the previous day. The pictures themselves are often crudely doctored.
Q 30Viz's out-of-court settlement from an advertiser accused of copying its Top Tips was donated to which charity?
Comic Relief
Comic Relief received the undisclosed sum. Many readers assumed Viz had simply sold the idea, and sent in mock tips teasing the editors about it, which the comic happily printed.