60s TV Trivia
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130 free 60s TV trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
67 free 60s TV trivia questions with answers. 60s TV trivia from the decade television grew up: the years when Mayberry, the Ponderosa, Gotham City and the starship Enterprise all shared the dial. These 130 questions cover the sitcoms (The Andy Griffith Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, Gilligan's Island, The Beverly Hillbillies, Get Smart, Hogan's Heroes), the dramas and westerns (Bonanza, Gunsmoke, The Fugitive, Hawaii Five-O, The Wild Wild West), the sci-fi and fantasy (The Twilight Zone, Star Trek, Lost in Space, Doctor Who, The Prisoner), the cartoons (The Flintstones, The Jetsons, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Scooby-Doo) and the variety shows that shaped the era, from the Beatles on Ed Sullivan to Laugh-In and the Smothers Brothers. The easy ones ask who played Barney Fife or what Maxwell Smart hid in his shoe. The hard ones want the episode count of Gunsmoke, the year Star Trek was cancelled, or which show ended its run at number one. Every answer has been checked against a documented source, so you can settle the argument about whether Ginger or Mary Ann was on the Minnow with confidence. Play it as a nostalgia round for parents and grandparents, or as the tie-breaker at trivia night.
30 of 130 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The Andy Griffith Show is set in Mayberry, a fictional small town in which state?
North Carolina
North Carolina was Andy Griffith's home state too, and his home town, Mount Airy, celebrates the show with an annual Mayberry Days festival.
Q 02Which actor played Deputy Barney Fife, winning multiple Emmys for the role?
Don Knotts
Don Knotts won five Emmys as Barney and Frances Bavier one as Aunt Bee, yet Andy Griffith and the show itself never won any.
Q 03Which two series, besides The Andy Griffith Show, ended their runs ranked number one before 2000?
I Love Lucy and Seinfeld
I Love Lucy and Seinfeld bowed out on top in 1957 and 1998; Andy Griffith chose to leave his show at number one in 1968, and CBS carried on without him as Mayberry R.F.D.
Q 04Bonanza's Cartwright family lived on the Ponderosa ranch near which Nevada mining town?
Virginia City
Virginia City, the Comstock Lode silver boomtown, lay near the Ponderosa; Ben Cartwright was written as a three-time widower, which is why his three sons each had a different mother.
Q 05What was the given first name of Hoss Cartwright, the Bonanza son played by Dan Blocker?
Eric
Eric was the name he got from his mother Inger, Ben's Swedish second wife, who was killed on the trail west soon after he was born; everyone called the gentle giant Hoss.
Q 06Which Western's 635 episodes over 20 years stood as a scripted primetime record until The Simpsons passed it?
Gunsmoke
Gunsmoke ran on CBS from 1955 to 1975; John Wayne, who had suggested his friend James Arness for Marshal Matt Dillon, introduced the very first episode on camera.
Q 07Who created The Twilight Zone and wrote more than half its episodes himself?
Rod Serling
Rod Serling turned to fantasy after sponsors and network censors kept gutting his realistic dramas; he hoped a science-fiction setting would let him air controversial ideas with less interference.
Q 08NBC cancelled the original Star Trek in 1969 after how many episodes?
79
NBC ended the series after 79 episodes; a fan letter-writing campaign, quietly backed by creator Gene Roddenberry, had won it a final season.
Q 09Which 1968 Star Trek episode featured Kirk and Uhura's kiss, one of the first interracial kisses on US TV?
Plato's Stepchildren
Plato's Stepchildren has telekinetic aliens force the kiss. NBC feared Southern stations would object and wanted a version without it, but by Nichelle Nichols's account she and William Shatner spoiled every such take.
Q 10The Beverly Hillbillies' Clampett family struck oil and moved to California from which mountain range?
The Ozarks
The Ozarks were home to Jed Clampett, who struck oil on his land while out hunting; the show topped the ratings in its first two seasons, yet CBS axed it in 1971 with its other rural comedies.
Q 11The Beverly Hillbillies theme, 'The Ballad of Jed Clampett', was performed by which bluegrass duo?
Flatt and Scruggs
Flatt and Scruggs' single of 'The Ballad of Jed Clampett' reached number one on Billboard's country chart in early 1963; Jerry Scoggins sang the version heard on the show while the duo played.
Q 12The castaways of Gilligan's Island were shipwrecked after setting out from Honolulu on what kind of trip?
A three-hour tour
A three-hour tour is how the theme song describes the S.S. Minnow's trip from Honolulu; the boat is said to be named in mockery of FCC chairman Newton Minow, who had called television a 'vast wasteland'.
Q 13Which producer created both Gilligan's Island and, at the end of the decade, The Brady Bunch?
Q 21The Addams Family TV series was based on single-panel cartoons from which magazine?
The New Yorker
The New Yorker printed Charles Addams's cartoons of the family, who went unnamed in print; they got names only in the 1960s, for a doll line and then the television series.
Q 22On The Munsters, the family pet Spot was what kind of creature?
A fire-breathing dragon
A fire-breathing dragon, Spot had his lair under the stairs at 1313 Mockingbird Lane; the show was cancelled in 1966 after Batman drew its audience away.
Q 23Get Smart was created by Mel Brooks and which other writer?
Buck Henry
Buck Henry and Mel Brooks wrote it to a producer's order for James Bond crossed with Inspector Clouseau; ABC rejected their script as 'un-American', and NBC picked the show up.
Sherwood Schwartz
Sherwood Schwartz created Gilligan's Island in 1964 and The Brady Bunch five years later; the latter was never a ratings hit in its original five-season run but thrived in syndication.
Q 14On Bewitched, which actor replaced the ailing original Darrin Stephens for the final three seasons?
Dick Sargent
Dick Sargent took over as Darrin from the sixth season; Dick York left because of chronic back pain from an old film-set injury, and the show had been the Nielsen runner-up in its 1964-65 debut season.
Q 15I Dream of Jeannie was created by which novelist, later famous for The Other Side of Midnight?
Sidney Sheldon
Sidney Sheldon created the series in 1965 and wrote most of its episodes; his first novel, The Naked Face, came in 1970, followed by The Other Side of Midnight in 1973.
Q 16Rob Petrie, played by Dick Van Dyke, was head writer for which fictional variety programme?
The Alan Brady Show
Rob Petrie wrote for The Alan Brady Show alongside Buddy Sorrell and Sally Rogers; the set-up drew on the creator's own years writing for Sid Caesar's Your Show of Shows.
Q 17Batman's twice-weekly cliffhangers ended with the narrator urging viewers to tune in 'same Bat-time, same' what?
Bat-channel
Bat-channel closed the sign-off voiced by executive producer William Dozier; each story ran over two nights, the first ending with the heroes caught in a death trap.
Q 18The Flintstones was inspired in part by which earlier live-action sitcom, whose star considered suing?
The Honeymooners
The Honeymooners' Ralph and Ed were the models for Fred and Barney; Jackie Gleason said he thought about suing but did not want to be known as the man who took Fred Flintstone off the air.
Q 19The Flintstones was the first animated series to do what on American television?
Air in prime time
The Flintstones was the first cartoon series to air in prime time, in 1960; its first two seasons were co-sponsored by Winston cigarettes, and the characters appeared in the brand's commercials.
Q 20What is the name of the Jetson family's talking dog in The Jetsons?
Astro
Astro growls an R onto the front of his words, a voice Don Messick later reused for Scooby-Doo; only 24 Jetsons episodes were made in 1962-63, with no more until 1985.
Q 24Hogan's Heroes followed Allied prisoners running sabotage missions from inside which German camp?
Stalag 13
Stalag 13 sat close enough to the play and film Stalag 17 that its authors sued for plagiarism; a jury sided with them, but the judge overruled it, finding the two works very different in mood.
Q 25In The Fugitive, Dr. Richard Kimble spent four seasons hunting his wife's real killer, described as what?
A one-armed man
The one-armed man, played by Bill Raisch, was finally cornered in the August 1967 finale, which drew a 72 percent audience share, a record until Dallas revealed who shot J.R. in 1980.
Q 26Which actor spent four seasons on the run as Dr. Richard Kimble in The Fugitive?
David Janssen
David Janssen played the doctor wrongly convicted of killing his wife, who escapes when the train taking him to death row derails; William Conrad's narration retold the story every week.
Q 27Who composed the theme music for Mission: Impossible, first heard on CBS in 1966?
Lalo Schifrin
Lalo Schifrin, an Argentine-born jazz pianist, set the theme in an unusual 5/4 time; by his own estimate he wrote the main tune in about a minute and a half.
Q 28Which series won the 1967 Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series in its first season on air?
The Monkees
The Monkees, built around a band cast for television, beat Bewitched, Get Smart and Hogan's Heroes to the award, yet the show was cancelled after its second season.
Q 29Which Laugh-In cast member was regularly tricked into saying 'Sock it to me' and then doused?
Judy Carne
Judy Carne, the show's 'Sock It to Me' girl, was drenched, dropped through trapdoors or otherwise ambushed after saying the line; Richard Nixon said it as a 1968 cameo guest without getting wet.
Q 30Laugh-In began as a 1967 special and then took over the Monday 8 pm slot of which cancelled spy series?
The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
The Man from U.N.C.L.E. was cancelled midway through its fourth season in January 1968, and its replacement in the Monday 8 pm slot went on to top the Nielsens for two seasons and run until 1973.