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This 80s cartoon trivia quiz has 50 free questions with answers and covers the decade when toy companies took over Saturday morning and the after-school slot: He-Man and She-Ra, Transformers and G.I. Joe, ThunderCats, Voltron, Jem, My Little Pony, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and the Disney afternoon that started with Gummi Bears and DuckTales. It also has room for the Smurfs, Inspector Gadget, Muppet Babies, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Dungeons & Dragons, The Real Ghostbusters, Danger Mouse and Count Duckula, the Pac-Man cartoon, and the December 1989 night The Simpsons became a series. The questions run from ones anyone who owned a lunchbox will get (what Prince Adam shouts, who Skeletor wants to conquer) to ones for people who read the credits: which Marvel editor invented the Autobots and Decepticons, which studio animated ThunderCats, why the Ghostbusters cartoon needed the word Real, and what Orson Welles was doing five days before he died. Every answer was checked against a reference source and each question shows its citation once you have answered, so it works for a nostalgia round at a pub quiz or an argument-settler in the group chat.
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Q 01He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983) was based on which company's toy line?
Mattel
Mattel made the Masters of the Universe toys, and Filmation's 130-episode series (1983-85) was built to sell them; its syndication success proved half-hour 'cartoon commercials' could work.
Q 02What is the name of Prince Adam's cowardly pet tiger, who transforms into Battle Cat?
Cringer
Cringer is Adam's timid green tiger; a blast from the Sword of Power turns him into the armored Battle Cat. Alan Oppenheimer voiced both forms, along with Skeletor and Man-At-Arms.
Q 03Which fortress is Skeletor's main goal, since He-Man draws his power from it?
Castle Grayskull
Prince Adam raises the Sword of Power and invokes it by name to transform. Its Sorceress, voiced by Linda Gary, guards the secrets inside.
Q 04How many episodes did She-Ra: Princess of Power run for between 1985 and 1987?
93
She-Ra: Princess of Power ran 93 episodes in syndication, 65 in 1985 and 28 in 1986-87, after spinning off from He-Man with the feature-length pilot The Secret of the Sword.
Q 05In The Transformers, how long had the robots lain entombed on Earth before waking in 1984?
4 million years
The Ark crashed on prehistoric Earth and its crew lay dormant for 4 million years until a 1984 volcanic eruption revived the ship's computer Teletraan I. Sparkplug and Spike Witwicky became the Autobots' human allies.
Q 06Which Marvel editor-in-chief wrote the story concept that created the Autobots and Decepticons?
Jim Shooter
Jim Shooter, Marvel's editor-in-chief, wrote the treatment that split the robots into heroic Autobots and evil Decepticons after Hasbro found the Diaclone and Microchange toys at the 1983 Tokyo Toy Fair; Bob Budiansky then named most characters.
Q 07Which Japanese studio was the main animator on the first two seasons of The Transformers?
Toei Animation
Toei Animation handled most of the first two seasons, designing the transformation schemes and animation models; in season three much of the work shifted to the South Korean studio AKOM.
Q 08In The Transformers: The Movie (1986), Orson Welles voiced which planet-sized villain?
Unicron
Unicron, the planet-eating robot, was Orson Welles's final role; he died on October 10, 1985, months before the film opened. Leonard Nimoy voiced Galvatron and Eric Idle the Junkion leader Wreck-Gar.
Q 09Which company produced ThunderCats in 1985?
Rankin/Bass
Rankin/Bass, best known for stop-motion Christmas specials, produced ThunderCats, with the animation done in Japan by Pacific Animation Corporation, a studio Disney later bought.
Q 10What is the name of the ThunderCats' legendary weapon, whose hilt holds the source of their power?
The Sword of Omens
The Mutants of Plun-Darr spare the flagship of the fleeing Thunderian fleet only because they hope to capture it. Its Eye lets Lion-O see 'beyond sight'.
Q 11On which planet do the ThunderCats settle after fleeing their dying homeworld?
Third Earth
The ThunderCats settle on Third Earth after the Mutants of Plun-Darr cripple their flagship in flight; Jaga steers the survivors there, where the ever-living mummy Mumm-Ra already waits.
Q 12In the 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon, Krang is a disembodied brain banished from where?
Dimension X
Krang was banished from Dimension X and stripped of his body; on Earth he supplied Shredder with the Technodrome and a Rock Soldier army led by General Traag.
Q 13In the 1987 TMNT cartoon, Splinter was originally a human ninja master by what name?
Hamato Yoshi
Q 21In Jem, what is the real name of the record-company owner whose alter ego fronts the Holograms?
Jerrica Benton
Jerrica Benton runs Starlight Music and becomes Jem through the holographic computer Synergy; Christy Marx created the series for the same Hasbro-Sunbow-Marvel team behind G.I. Joe and Transformers.
Q 22The first season of Voltron (1984) was adapted from which Japanese anime series?
Beast King GoLion
Beast King GoLion (1981) supplied the five robot lions of Voltron's first season, re-dubbed and re-edited by World Events Productions; season two's Vehicle Team came from the unrelated Armored Fleet Dairugger XV.
Q 23In Adventures of the Gummi Bears, what does gummiberry juice let the bears do?
Hamato Yoshi, framed by rival Oroku Saki and exiled to the New York sewers, was mutated into the rat Splinter because he had been touching sewer rats; in the Mirage comics Splinter was instead Yoshi's pet rat.
Q 14The Fred Wolf TMNT series was first shown in syndication as a five-part miniseries at what time of year?
Christmas 1987
The five-part 'Heroes in a Half Shell' miniseries aired in syndication in the Christmas 1987 season, across five December days; the regular run began in October 1988 and lasted until 1996, one of the decade's longest-lived cartoons.
Q 15DuckTales (1987) was based on Uncle Scrooge comics created by which cartoonist?
Carl Barks
Carl Barks created Uncle Scrooge in 1947 and wrote the comics DuckTales drew on, including the Number One Dime; the show ran 100 episodes after Donald leaves the nephews with Scrooge to join the Navy.
Q 16Which DuckTales pilot went on to become a main character in Darkwing Duck?
Launchpad McQuack
Launchpad McQuack, Scrooge's crash-prone pilot, joined Darkwing Duck in 1991 as the hero's sidekick; DuckTales itself ran in syndication from September 1987 to November 1990.
Q 17Which Get Smart star voiced Inspector Gadget from 1983?
Don Adams
Don Adams, Get Smart's Maxwell Smart, voiced the bumbling cyborg detective from 1983 in what was DIC's first syndicated cartoon; Gadget survives thanks to luck, his niece Penny and the family dog.
Q 18What is the name of Inspector Gadget's dog, who secretly saves him in disguise?
Brain
Brain is the dog who shadows Gadget in disguise; Gadget usually mistakes him for a M.A.D. agent and gives chase, while niece Penny does the real detective work with her computer book.
Q 19On which US network did Hanna-Barbera's blue-skinned Peyo adaptation run from 1981 to 1989?
NBC
NBC president Fred Silverman commissioned the Hanna-Barbera series after buying his daughter a doll of the little blue characters; it ran on NBC Saturday mornings from September 1981 to December 1989.
Q 20How many episodes of Hanna-Barbera's Peyo adaptation aired between 1981 and 1989?
256
Hanna-Barbera produced 256 episodes over nine seasons, most holding two or three short stories; the characters had debuted as 'les Schtroumpfs' in Peyo's Johan and Peewit strip in 1958.
Bounce like rubber balls
Gummiberry juice lets the bears 'Bounce like rubber balls', while on humans it gives a brief burst of super-strength that works only once a day; Grammi brews it from a secret recipe. The show ran six seasons from 1985.
Q 24In which kingdom's forest do the Gummi Bears live in their secret home of Gummi Glen?
Dunwyn
Gummi Glen lies in the forest of Dunwyn, the kingdom ruled by King Gregor, whose daughter Princess Calla and the squire Cavin are the bears' human friends.
Q 25Why did the 1986 Ghostbusters cartoon have to add 'The Real' to its title?
A dispute with Filmation over its own Ghost Busters
The answer is 'A dispute with Filmation over its own Ghost Busters': Filmation owned the name via its 1975 live-action series and a 1986 animated revival, so DIC's rival show added 'The Real' to its title.
Q 26Muppet Babies grew out of a dream sequence in which 1984 film?
The Muppets Take Manhattan
In The Muppets Take Manhattan (July 1984), Miss Piggy imagines the gang as babies in the 'I'm Gonna Always Love You' number; the CBS series premiered that September, mixing live-action film clips into the babies' daydreams.
Q 27Which trio of female characters did the 1983 Alvin and the Chipmunks series introduce?
The Chipettes
The Chipettes, Brittany, Jeanette and Eleanor, debuted in the 1983 series as female counterparts to Alvin, Simon and Theodore, later gaining their own guardian, Miss Beatrice Miller; the show ran until 1990.
Q 28In the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon (1983), how do the six kids get transported into the realm?
On an amusement-park roller coaster
The six friends board a Dungeons & Dragons ride, 'On an amusement-park roller coaster', and are thrown into the realm, where Dungeon Master gives each a magic item matching a character class; the show ran 27 episodes on CBS.
Q 29Where is the secret London headquarters of Penfold's eyepatched boss hidden?
Inside a pillar box on Baker Street
The eyepatched agent's headquarters is 'Inside a pillar box on Baker Street', a red post box near Sherlock Holmes's fictional address; he and Penfold take orders from Colonel K and fight Baron Silas Greenback.
Q 30Count Duckula (1988) was a spin-off from which other Cosgrove Hall cartoon?
Danger Mouse
Danger Mouse was the parent show: a villainous Count Duckula had been a recurring baddie there, and the 1988 spin-off recast him as a vegetarian vampire, co-produced with Nickelodeon after the original's US success.