If you were to ask 100 people in the USA to name a trivia board game, then Trivial Pursuit – with a nod to both Cranium and Wits & Wagers – would likely be the most popular answer.
Created in Montreal, Canada in 1979 by a couple of newspaper editors who had lost enough Scrabble tiles to make the game unplayable, Trivial Pursuit has gone on to sell over 100 million copies in more than 25 countries and in over 15 languages. It is without argument the most important trivia-based board game ever created.
The genius (get it?) of Trivial Pursuit is its simplicity and easy rule set. Anyone can understand how to play the game within a couple of minutes of sitting down at the table and having the concepts of Trivial Pursuit themes and Trivial Pursuit topics explained to them. Collecting the six different colored wedges in your playing piece – or pieces of cheese/cake/pizza depending on the group you play with – makes for a visually fulfilling task, especially when you are down to just one – let’s say the Trivial Pursuit yellow wedge – to complete your player piece and move to the end game.
There have been over 100 versions and editions of the game printed when all the different languages and themes are taken into account. Providing Trivial Pursuit sample questions for all those versions would be an almost impossible task given just how niche and localized some of the editions are, so we have picked some of the most popular versions of the game here to look at the types of questions you will be busting out on your next game night if Trivial Pursuit is on the agenda.
If you’re looking to find out the categories that are in the latest edition of the game, please see our corresponding article.
Trivial Pursuit Colors
One of the basic tenets for a game of Trivial Pursuit is that there are six colors of wedges and those colors each align to a different category of trivia. These categories change through the various editions – pink, for example, aligns with Albums & Singles in Trivial Pursuit: The Beatles Collector’s Edition, while it is player characters in Trivial Pursuit World of Warcraft Edition – but keeping the colors generally standardized has been a theme of the game from the original printing of the first Genus edition back in 1981.
To that end, there have only ever been seven colors of wedges used in the entire history of a franchise that will reach the 40 year mark in 2021. Even then, five of those seven colors have found their way into every single version of the game, with the other two colors trading spots over time. The five main colors – we can call them the “colors of domination” – are blue, pink, yellow, orange, and green. You pick up any copy of Trivial Pursuit – in the US editions at least – and those five colors will represent a category of some sort.
The two outlying colors are brown and purple. The 1981 version of the game had Art & Literature represented with brown as the piece of cheese awarded for a correct answer. Brown stayed in the game all the way through until the Junior – Fourth Edition released in 1996, which saw it drop out to be replaced by the more modern feeling purple. The two colors have traded on and off since then – sometimes being replaced and put back in within the same year in various editions – but purple has been the constant choice since the Trivial Pursuit 25th Silver Anniversary Edition that was released in 2008.
The bottom line is that whatever your personal (nerd) topic of interest – and no matter the colors that represent the categories – Trivial Pursuit is an ideal game to play with family and friends. To give you an idea of what you will be looking at in the various popular editions, here are some sample questions and answers from the most recent version of each game:
Trivial Pursuit Classic Edition (Genus Edition) Categories
These are the categories found in the standard version of Trivial Pursuit (2016 release):
BLUE – GEOGRAPHY
Which district in central Tokyo is particularly famous for its electronics?
PINK – ENTERTAINMENT
Which two actors, who play Sherlock Homes on TV starred on the London stage together in 2013 in a production of Frankenstein?
YELLOW – HISTORY
Historically, parts from which animal were used to stiffen corsets?
PURPLE – ART & LITERATURE
Which M.D. lived in the idyllic village of Puddleby-on-the-Marsh, far from the World War I trenches where the author first imagined him?
GREEN – SCIENCE & NATURE
An NSA surveillance program unnervingly shares a name with which nefarious computer network in the sci-fi classic Terminator?
ORANGE – SPORTS & LEISURE
Which professional wrestler was known as the 8th Wonder of the World?
Trivial Pursuit Junior Categories
This is the same style game as the regular adult edition but it is aimed at children. The box says it is for ages 8 to adult and the sweet spot feels in that 7-12 range in terms of question difficulty.
BLUE – EVERY DAY
What newspaper features “All the news that’s fit to print”?
PURPLE – FUN
What food gives Popeye strength?
ORANGE- SCIENCE
What metric unit weights just over two pounds?
YELLOW – STORIES & SONGS
What famous poem was written by Clement Clark Moore?
PINK – NATURE
What huge African animal is born underwater and swims before it walks?
GREEN – GAMES
What brand of toy cars are manufactured by Lesney in England?
Trivial Pursuit World of Harry Potter Ultimate Edition
This is the catch all for the licensed brands under the Trivial Pursuit banner. IPs from Disney to The Rolling Stones to Power Rangers have had their own full games, with many others – such as Doctor Who, Rick and Morty, and The World of Dinosaurs – getting bite sized question packs. The ability to stay relevant with these types of genre specific games is part of why Trivial Pursuit thrives 40 years after its launch.
For this example, let’s use Harry Potter.
GREEN – SLYTHERIN HOUSE, DEATH EATERS & THE DARK ARTS
What does Draco Malfoy use to get the Death Eaters into Hogwarts?
YELLOW – OBJECTS AND ARTIFACTS
What items does Albus Dumbledore bequeath to Harry?
ORANGE – ANIMALS, MAGICAL CREATURES and MAGICAL BEINGS
Professor Moody turns Draco Malfoy into what type of animal?
PINK – WIZARDS, WITCHES, GHOSTS, and MUGGLES
According to Griphook, who put the fake sword of Gryffindor inside Bellatrix Lestrange’s vault?
BLUE – HOGWARTS, OTHER LOCATIONS, and TRANSPORTATION
Where is the Triwizard Tournament hosted during Harry’s fourth year?
PURPLE – SPELLS, POTIONS and OTHER MAGIC
Which spell does Hermione use to unchain the Gringotts dragon: a) Relashio b) Alohomora; c) Bombarda?
Trivial Pursuit Greatest Hits Categories
This is an appealing style of game if you’re obsessed with (or stopped paying attention to pop culture after…) a certain decade. It has three decks of 600 themed cards, with each deck representing pop culture in the 80s/90s/2000s respectively. The result is a game that can be enjoyed by any pop culture nut of the past 40 years or so. Categories are in the 80/90/2000 format.
BLUE – TELEVISION/VIEWING/TELEVISION
What sitcom aired episodes titled Green-Eyed Dick, Post Nasal Dick and Dick is from Mars, Sally is from Venus?
PINK – WILD CARD/OOPS/FADS
Which nation’s residents were the first to dance the conga?
YELLOW – HEADLINES/IMPORTANT/BUZZ
What Fortune 500 company was named for a Herman Melville character?
PURPLE – MUSIC/TRENDS/MUSIC
What nickname did Clash guitarist John Mellor earn, for the way he played the ukulele as a London street Busker?
GREEN – MOVIES/HANGIN’/MOVIES
What S-word did Kevin Kline’s character hate being called in A Fish Called Wanda?
ORANGE – SPORTS & LEISURE/WIRED/SPORTS & GAMES
What three members of the Caray family have broadcast major league baseball games?
Trivial Pursuit Family Edition Categories
This is the version of the game for people that want to play with kids and adults at the same time. The hook is that there are two sets of question cards – something unique to this edition of the game – with blue cards that are designed for adults, and yellow cards created with kids in mind.
BLUE – GEOGRAPHY
Adult – The name of what South American city translates into English as “January River”?
Children – What is a bratwurst – German sausage, German mountain or German cathedral?
PINK – ENTERTAINMENT
Adult – Which actress won a Teen Choice Award for her role in Date Night?
Children – What kind of animal are Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash?
YELLOW – HISTORY
Adult – Sukamo was the first president of which Asian country? – Malaysia, Indonesia or Cambodia?
Children – Which of these features describes an Ankylosaurus – two spikes on its head, a club tail, or chicken sized?
PURPLE – ART & LITERATURE
Adult – Which French artist is known for his paintings and sculptures of ballet dancers? – Paul Gauguin, Henri Matisse or Edgar Degas?
Children – What popular children’s book character lives at the Plaza Hotel in New York City?
GREEN – SCIENCE & NATURE
Adult – Earthquakes occur on the moon. True or false?
Children – Emus have feathers but can’t fly. True or false?
ORANGE – SPORTS & LEISURE
Adult – Who is the only major league to hit a walk-off, inside-the-park grand slam – Hank Aaron, Roberto Clemente or Joe DiMaggio?
Children – What fruit is dried to make raisins?
As you can see from the sample questions above, Trivial Pursuit is an ideal game for both general trivia buffs and for those who have their knowledge in a more niche area. There is no group of people that wouldn’t enjoy one of the many versions of Trivial Pursuit, so find a copy and bring it out at your next game night – or maybe even just take the questions to a bar or restaurant some time to test your friends and see what they know. Trivial Pursuit is a game for all audiences and all settings and it deserves to be in the collection of any board game fan or lover of trivia.
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