90s TV Shows Trivia
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This 90s TV shows trivia quiz has 223 free questions with answers and covers the whole decade of television, not just the sitcoms. It starts with the dramas that defined the era (ER, The X-Files, NYPD Blue, Twin Peaks, Law & Order, Buffy, Dawson's Creek, Party of Five), the syndication giants (Baywatch, Xena, three Star Trek series), and the shows kids raced home for: Rugrats, Doug, Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Power Rangers, Goosebumps, Legends of the Hidden Temple, Blue's Clues and Batman: The Animated Series. There is a sprinkling of sitcom history too (the Seinfeld and Cheers finales, Frasier's Emmy haul, the Fresh Prince recasting) plus MTV, late night and the game show that closed the decade. Easy questions ask what Hank Hill sells; hard ones ask which Next Generation episode introduced the Borg and what Mike Post calls the Law & Order sound. Every answer is checked against the show's own production history, so the explanations are safe to repeat at your next trivia night.
30 of 223 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which novelist created the NBC medical drama ER, which premiered in 1994?
Michael Crichton
Michael Crichton wrote the script in 1974 from his own days as a medical student, but nobody would make it; two decades later the pilot was shot from his draft almost unchanged.
Q 02What was unusual about the 1997 ER episode 'Ambush'?
It was broadcast live, twice
It was broadcast live, twice: stars George Clooney and Anthony Edwards suggested going live, so the cast performed the whole episode for the East Coast and then again for the West.
Q 03The first five seasons of The X-Files were filmed in which city before production moved to Los Angeles?
Vancouver
Vancouver, British Columbia, hosted the first five seasons; its damp Pacific Northwest weather gave the show its gloomy look, which faded after production moved to Los Angeles in 1998.
Q 04The 1998 X-Files feature film carried which subtitle?
Fight the Future
Fight the Future was shot in the break between seasons four and five, and the film so squeezed the stars' schedules that some season-five episodes feature only Mulder or only Scully.
Q 05David Lynch co-created Twin Peaks with which writer?
Mark Frost
Mark Frost, a Hill Street Blues writer, built the mystery with Lynch; when ABC pushed them to unmask the killer midway through season two, the audience drifted away and the show was cancelled.
Q 06Whose murder drives the plot of Twin Peaks?
Laura Palmer
Laura Palmer was meant to be little more than a body: Lynch hired Seattle stage actress Sheryl Lee to play the corpse, then was so impressed that he wrote her a second role as cousin Maddy.
Q 07On Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which job did Rupert Giles hold at Sunnydale High?
Librarian
Librarian: Giles's school library sat right above the Hellmouth and served as the gang's base, until they packed it with explosives and he blew it up on graduation day.
Q 08Why did at least 30 ABC affiliates initially refuse to air NYPD Blue in 1993?
Nudity and raw language
Partial nudity and raw language were the objection: Bochco and Milch pushed broadcast standards deliberately to compete with cable, and Dennis Franz went on to win four Emmys as Andy Sipowicz.
Q 09Which star quit NYPD Blue early in season two to chase a film career?
David Caruso
David Caruso left four episodes into season two after failing to get the raise he wanted; his thrillers Kiss of Death and Jade did poorly at the box office, and he ended up back on television.
Q 10Which series, dropped by NBC after one season, was revived in syndication and became the world's most-watched show?
Baywatch
Baywatch was cancelled by NBC in 1990, so star David Hasselhoff and its creators relaunched it in syndication, where Guinness World Records later credited it with over 1.1 billion weekly viewers.
Q 11On Beverly Hills, 90210, twins Brandon and Brenda Walsh moved to California from which city?
Minneapolis
Minneapolis made the Walsh twins outsiders in Beverly Hills; the show itself struggled until Fox ran new episodes in summer 1991 while rivals were in reruns, and its audience soared.
Q 12Which soap set in a Los Angeles apartment complex spun off from Beverly Hills, 90210 in 1992?
Melrose Place
Melrose Place found its villain when Heather Locklear guested in season one as ruthless boss Amanda; her arrival is credited with lifting the ratings, and she stayed to the end, always billed as a guest star.
Q 13Which crime drama cuts between scenes with a two-note sound that composer Mike Post calls 'The Clang'?
Law & Order
Q 21On Are You Afraid of the Dark?, what was the name of the storytelling club that met around a campfire?
The Midnight Society
The Midnight Society opened each tale with 'Submitted for the approval of…' and a handful of 'midnight dust' on the flames; the dust was really non-dairy creamer, which flares up and smokes.
Q 22Are You Afraid of the Dark? was made with the Quebec studio Cinar and filmed mainly in which city?
Montreal
Montreal came with the deal: Nickelodeon teamed up with the local studio Cinar to make the series, so nearly all of it was shot in and around the city, with a little filmed in British Columbia.
Q 23Which actor played teacher and neighbour Mr. Feeny on Boy Meets World?
William Daniels
Law & Order's scene-change tone is no single sound: Mike Post blended six or seven, reportedly including hundreds of men walking on a wooden floor, to land like a judge's gavel.
Q 14Which game does Captain Picard finally join his officers in during the last scene of Star Trek: The Next Generation?
Poker
Poker: after seven years of staying away from the senior staff's regular game, Picard sits down, says he should have done this long ago, and deals with 'the sky's the limit'.
Q 15Which Star Trek enemy, first met in the 1989 episode 'Q Who', later turned Captain Picard into Locutus?
The Borg
The Borg arrive when Q, irritated by Picard's confidence, hurls the Enterprise thousands of light-years into their path; a year later they capture the captain in 'The Best of Both Worlds'.
Q 16Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's station sits next to a wormhole leading to which quadrant?
Gamma
The Bajoran wormhole leads to the Gamma Quadrant, home of the Dominion, whose war with the Federation dominated the show's final seasons.
Q 17Which Star Trek: Voyager character, played by Jeri Ryan, joined the crew at the start of season four?
Seven of Nine
Seven of Nine replaced Kes in the cast when season four opened; the producers wanted a foil for the captain, as Spock had been for Kirk, and Jeri Ryan stayed to the final episode.
Q 18Stranded 70,000 light-years from home, which captain led the USS Voyager on its long journey back to Earth?
Kathryn Janeway
Kathryn Janeway was first given to film star Geneviève Bujold, who quit after barely two days of shooting the pilot; Kate Mulgrew took over and commanded Voyager for seven seasons.
Q 19Which studio, which also animated the first Simpsons shorts, produced Rugrats and The Wild Thornberrys for Nickelodeon?
Klasky Csupo
Klasky Csupo, founded by Arlene Klasky and Gábor Csupó, animated The Simpsons from the Tracey Ullman shorts through season three, until the producers moved the work to a rival studio in 1992.
Q 20Which Rugrats character first appeared in The Rugrats Movie in 1998?
Dil
Dil Pickles, Tommy's newborn brother, causes so much trouble that the babies set off in the Reptar Wagon to take him back to the hospital and get lost; Kimi only arrived in the sequel two years later.
William Daniels got to act opposite his real wife: Bonnie Bartlett, married to him since 1951, played the college dean who hires Mr. Feeny and later marries him.
Q 24Mighty Morphin Power Rangers built its fight scenes from stock footage of which Japanese franchise?
Super Sentai
Super Sentai footage, specifically 1992's Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger, supplied the first season's fights, which is why the original Rangers' Zords are prehistoric beasts.
Q 25In which fictional California town did the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers fight Rita Repulsa?
Angel Grove
Angel Grove's troubles start on the Moon, where two astronauts open a 'space dumpster' and free Rita after 10,000 years, so Zordon recruits five local teenagers to fight her.
Q 26The 1995 Goosebumps TV series, based on R. L. Stine's books, was filmed largely in which country?
Canada
Canada stood in for small-town America: the show used real Ontario houses instead of sets because they could pass for anywhere in the US, and a teenage Ryan Gosling guest-starred in one episode.
Q 27After a 1993 incident in Ohio, MTV removed all references to what from Beavis and Butt-Head?
Fire
Fire was scrubbed from the show after an Ohio mother blamed it when her five-year-old set a blaze that killed his sister in October 1993; the family was later reported not to have had cable at all.
Q 28Which MTV series was spun off from Beavis and Butt-Head in 1997?
Daria
Daria got her own show because MTV wanted more female viewers; Mike Judge, busy with King of the Hill, took no part, and the spin-off moved her from Highland to Lawndale.
Q 29What does Hank Hill sell, along with its accessories, at Strickland in Arlen, Texas on King of the Hill?
Propane
Propane and propane accessories are Hank's calling; when Fox said Mike Judge's 49-year-old salesman should be younger, Judge sent back the very same drawing and said he was now 34.
Q 30The Real World's opening promised to show what happens when people stop being what and start getting real?
Polite
Polite: the titles promised 'the true story of seven strangers' and what happens 'when people stop being polite'; its creators took the fly-on-the-wall idea from PBS's 1973 series An American Family.