80s TV Trivia
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129 free 80s TV trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
80 free 80s TV trivia questions with answers. Eighties television is the decade of the must-see sitcom and the cliffhanger everybody talked about, and this 80's TV trivia covers both. The sitcom half runs through Cheers, Family Ties, The Cosby Show, The Golden Girls, Night Court, ALF, Growing Pains, Who's the Boss?, Full House, Married... with Children, Newhart, Perfect Strangers and Roseanne. The drama half takes in Dallas and Dynasty, Miami Vice, Knight Rider, The A-Team, Magnum P.I., Hill Street Blues, MacGyver, Moonlighting, St. Elsewhere and Murder, She Wrote, with Saturday-morning cartoons, Letterman and a game-show scandal for good measure. Expect the famous moments - who shot J.R., the Moldavian Massacre, the Newhart dream, the St. Elsewhere snow globe - alongside details only a real couch veteran remembers, like why Uncle Jesse's surname changed or where Cheers ranked in its first season. Difficulty starts easy and climbs. Every answer has been checked against a reference page and carries its source, so the ratings figures, character names and air dates are real rather than recycled from a listicle. Play solo, or lift the whole set for an 80s-themed quiz night.
30 of 129 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Sam Malone, the Cheers bar owner played by Ted Danson, was a former relief pitcher for which team?
Boston Red Sox
The Boston Red Sox; Sam 'Mayday' Malone's drinking ended his relief-pitching career before he bought the bar, and his sobriety was a recurring thread across the show's eleven seasons.
Q 02Which city do Dorothy, Rose, Blanche and Sophia share a house in on The Golden Girls?
Miami
Miami; the show grew out of a 1984 NBC promo skit in which two actresses joked about 'Miami Nice', a Miami Vice for retirees.
Q 03KITT, the talking car on Knight Rider, was a heavily modified version of which production car?
Pontiac Firebird Trans Am
A Pontiac Firebird Trans Am; William Daniels voiced the car for four seasons without a screen credit, at his own request, and later played Mr. Feeny on Boy Meets World.
Q 04Who was revealed in November 1980 to have shot J.R. Ewing on Dallas?
Kristin Shepard
Kristin Shepard, J.R.'s sister-in-law and mistress, was unmasked in 'Who Done It'; a Hollywood strike had delayed the new season, stretching the cliffhanger to eight months.
Q 05On Miami Vice, what kind of animal is Sonny Crockett's pet, Elvis?
An alligator
An alligator; Elvis guarded the St. Vitus Dance, the sailboat Crockett lived aboard while posing as drug runner Sonny Burnett.
Q 06Which actor played Hannibal Smith, the cigar-chomping leader of The A-Team?
George Peppard
George Peppard, the Breakfast at Tiffany's star, had slipped from 1960s film leads to jobbing roles before Colonel John 'Hannibal' Smith made him a household name again.
Q 07Michael J. Fox's Alex P. Keaton on Family Ties embarrassed his ex-hippie parents by being what?
A Young Republican
A Young Republican; the sitcom was sold as a show about the parents, but audiences took to Alex so strongly that it was rebuilt around Michael J. Fox, who won three straight Emmys.
Q 08Cliff Huxtable, the father on The Cosby Show, worked in which profession?
Obstetrician
Obstetrician; Bill Cosby first imagined Cliff as a limousine driver, before the Huxtables became a doctor and a lawyer in a Brooklyn brownstone.
Q 09Thomas Magnum lived in the guesthouse of an estate called Robin's Nest on which Hawaiian island?
Oahu
Oahu; CBS developed the show partly to keep using the Hawaiian studios built for Hawaii Five-O, and Robin's Nest belonged to the never-seen novelist Robin Masters.
Q 10ALF, the furry alien who moved in with the Tanner family, came from which planet?
Melmac
Melmac; ALF's real name was Gordon Shumway, and his home planet blew up while he was away, stranding him on Earth with the Tanners.
Q 11"Whatchu talkin' 'bout, Willis?" was the catchphrase of which character on Diff'rent Strokes?
Arnold Jackson
Arnold Jackson, played by Gary Coleman, aimed the line at big brother Willis; the Harlem boys were taken in by millionaire Phillip Drummond, who had promised their dying mother, his housekeeper, to raise them.
Q 12Jessica Fletcher, the mystery novelist of Murder, She Wrote, lived in which fictional Maine town?
Cabot Cove
Cabot Cove; Angela Lansbury got the part only after Jean Stapleton turned it down, and the Maine village was really Mendocino, California.
Q 13Eastland, the girls' boarding school of The Facts of Life, stood in Peekskill in which state?
New York
Q 21The Simpsons made their first appearance in April 1987 as short segments on which program?
The Tracey Ullman Show
The Tracey Ullman Show; Matt Groening dreamed up the family in the lobby of producer James L. Brooks's office, rather than sign away the rights to his Life in Hell comic strip.
Q 22Which 80s action hero refused to carry a gun, relying on a Swiss Army knife and duct tape?
MacGyver
MacGyver; Richard Dean Anderson's agent solved problems with whatever everyday objects lay to hand, and 'MacGyver' later entered Oxford's online dictionary as a verb for improvised fixes.
Q 23What make and model was the General Lee, the orange car of The Dukes of Hazzard?
New York; housekeeper Edna Garrett left the Drummonds of Diff'rent Strokes to become Eastland's housemother, and George Clooney later joined as handyman George Burnett.
Q 14Sergeant Phil Esterhaus ended every roll call on Hill Street Blues with which line?
Let's be careful out there
'Let's be careful out there' was Esterhaus's sign-off; after actor Michael Conrad died during season four, his successor, Sergeant Jablonski, sent officers out to 'do it to them before they do it to us'.
Q 15St. Elsewhere ended in 1988 by implying that all six seasons had taken place inside what object?
A snow globe
A snow globe; the hospital turned out to be a toy in the hands of autistic Tommy Westphall, spawning the fan theory that hundreds of crossover-linked shows share his dream.
Q 16Which sitcom's 1990 finale revealed that its whole run had been another sitcom character's dream?
Newhart
Newhart; innkeeper Dick Loudon woke up as Dr. Bob Hartley beside Suzanne Pleshette's Emily from The Bob Newhart Show, which had ended in 1978.
Q 17Which show, later narrated by Daniel Stern, debuted on ABC straight after Super Bowl XXII in 1988?
The Wonder Years
The Wonder Years; it won the comedy Emmy after only six episodes, but its wall-to-wall 1960s hits made music licensing so costly that a full DVD set took until 2014.
Q 18Maddie Hayes and David Addison worked cases at which detective agency on Moonlighting?
Blue Moon
Blue Moon; former model Maddie had been the face of Blue Moon Shampoo and renamed the failing agency after it, while Al Jarreau sang the hit theme.
Q 19Which show's 'Moldavian massacre' finale left nearly the entire cast lying in a bullet-riddled chapel?
Dynasty
Dynasty; terrorists sprayed the Moldavian royal wedding with gunfire, yet when the next season opened only two minor characters turned out to have died.
Q 20Which sitcom was the first primetime series broadcast on the newly launched Fox channel in 1987?
Married... with Children
Married... with Children; when a Michigan viewer's 1989 advertiser boycott over its raunchy jokes made headlines, curious viewers tuned in and it became Fox's highest-rated show to date.
1969 Dodge Charger
A 1969 Dodge Charger, painted orange with '01' on the doors, which were welded shut so the Dukes climbed in through the windows; Waylon Jennings narrated as 'the Balladeer'.
Q 24Which Cheers regular was a mail carrier forever sharing 'little-known facts'?
Cliff Clavin
Cliff Clavin, played by John Ratzenberger, was the know-it-all postman; Ratzenberger pitched the character himself after auditioning unsuccessfully for another part.
Q 25Balki Bartokomous of Perfect Strangers came from which fictional Mediterranean island?
Mypos
Mypos; comedian Louie Anderson was first cast as Balki's American cousin, before Mark Linn-Baker took over as Larry Appleton, his Chicago flatmate and partner in the 'Dance of Joy'.
Q 26Which 80s sitcom starred Vicki, a robot girl built by engineer Ted Lawson and passed off as his daughter?
Small Wonder
Small Wonder; Vicki stood for Voice Input Child Identicant, and creator Howard Leeds had already made a sitcom about a robot woman, My Living Doll, back in 1964.
Q 27Mork & Mindy and which other sitcom were both spun off from Happy Days?
Laverne & Shirley
Laverne & Shirley; the brewery workers were introduced on Happy Days as friends of Fonzie, and by its third season their spin-off had overtaken it as America's most-watched show.
Q 28Which 1982 Happy Days spin-off sent Scott Baio and Erin Moran's characters to Chicago?
Joanie Loves Chachi
Joanie Loves Chachi followed the young couple to Chicago to chase a music career, but it was cancelled in its second season and both characters went back to Happy Days.
Q 29Which 80s drama recast its lead detective from Loretta Swit to Meg Foster to Sharon Gless?
Cagney & Lacey
Cagney & Lacey; between them Tyne Daly and Sharon Gless won the lead-actress drama Emmy six years running from 1983 to 1988, and a letter campaign revived the show after its 1983 cancellation.
Q 30Which Night Court actor won four straight Emmys as Dan Fielding?
John Larroquette
John Larroquette won the supporting-actor Emmy every year from 1985 to 1988, then withdrew his name from the 1989 ballot, ending the streak unbeaten.