Black Sitcom Trivia
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97 free Black Sitcom trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
44 free Black sitcom trivia questions with answers. Black sitcoms have produced some of the most-watched and most-quoted television ever made, from Norman Lear's 1970s trio of Sanford and Son, Good Times and The Jeffersons through The Cosby Show's five years at number one, the 1990s boom of Fresh Prince, Family Matters, Martin and Living Single, and on to Black-ish and Abbott Elementary. This quiz spans all of it. You will be asked where the Evanses, Huxtables, Winslows and Bankses lived, which shows were spin-offs of which, who played the breakout characters, which British show inspired Sanford and Son, why Diahann Carroll's Julia was a first, how many episodes The Jeffersons ran, and which show holds the record for most episodes with a predominantly Black cast. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the individual series. It works as a stand-alone quiz night round or a warm-up for a Black History Month event, with easy questions up front and deeper cuts on Amos 'n' Andy, 227 and A Different World further in.
30 of 97 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which 1972 sitcom starring Redd Foxx as a Los Angeles junk dealer was adapted from a British comedy?
Sanford and Son
Sanford and Son remade the BBC's Steptoe and Son, and its name was personal: Redd Foxx was born John Elroy Sanford, and Fred was his brother's name.
Q 02Redd Foxx's junk dealer Fred ran his yard in which Los Angeles neighbourhood?
Watts
Watts was where Fred ran the yard with his grown son Lamont, clutching his chest in fake heart attacks and calling to his late wife Elizabeth when he wanted his way.
Q 03Which sitcom about the Evanses in a Chicago housing project was TV's first with a Black two-parent family?
Good Times
Good Times lost its father after three seasons: John Amos had objected to the scripts turning J.J. into a clown, and James was killed off just as the family prepared to join him in Mississippi.
Q 04The Evans family's housing project was never named on screen, but was based on which real Chicago development?
Cabrini-Green
Cabrini-Green was never named in the show, though the series was based on it; the last of its high-rise towers was emptied in 2010 and marked for demolition.
Q 05Which future pop superstar joined the Evans family sitcom in season five as Penny, adopted by Willona?
Janet Jackson
Janet Jackson joined as a child and stayed until the show ended in 1979, then acted in Diff'rent Strokes and Fame before her 1986 album Control made her a pop star.
Q 06On The Jeffersons, George and Louise moved on up to a Manhattan high-rise thanks to George's chain of what?
Dry cleaners
Dry cleaners made George a millionaire: his chain of Jefferson Cleaners stores paid for the move from Queens and for the couple's own wisecracking maid, Florence.
Q 07The Jeffersons' theme song says the family is movin' on up to which part of Manhattan?
The East Side
The East Side: Ja'Net DuBois co-wrote the theme with Jeff Barry and sang the lead vocal herself, while also playing neighbour Willona on another Norman Lear sitcom.
Q 08On The Jeffersons, what was the job of Harry Bentley, the British neighbour who kept having the door slammed on him?
UN interpreter
UN interpreter Harry Bentley sounded every inch the Englishman, but actor Paul Benedict was American: born in New Mexico and raised in Massachusetts.
Q 09Which 1968 NBC sitcom starred Diahann Carroll as a widowed mother raising her young son Corey?
Julia
Julia Baker was a Vietnam War widow: her husband, a captain, had been killed there, leaving her to bring up Corey on her own while working as a nurse.
Q 10Before moving on up to Manhattan, George and Louise Jefferson were the next-door neighbours of which sitcom character?
Archie Bunker
Archie Bunker first sparred with George's brother Henry, a stand-in written because Norman Lear wanted Sherman Hemsley for George and had to wait until he finished the Broadway musical Purlie.
Q 11What was Cliff Huxtable's medical specialty?
Obstetrician
Obstetrician Cliff and his lawyer wife Clair headed a family so popular that the show lifted NBC from also-ran to first place in prime time.
Q 12Which Southern belle did Dwayne Wayne finally marry on A Different World?
Whitley Gilbert
Whitley Gilbert began as the spoiled snob Dwayne could not stand, and their slow turn from sparring classmates to newlyweds became the heart of the show once its original lead had gone.
Q 13Why was Denise Huxtable written out of A Different World after one season?
Lisa Bonet became pregnant
Q 21Which R&B singer played the title teenager in Moesha, set in the Leimert Park area of Los Angeles?
Brandy
Brandy's sitcom was made as a pilot for one of the big networks, which turned it down; the fledgling UPN picked it up months later and it became a hit there.
Q 22Which Moesha spin-off followed Kim and her mother Nikki, played by Mo'Nique, to Santa Monica College?
The Parkers
The Parkers began when Nikki, who had given up on college to raise Kim, enrolled alongside her mortified daughter, once Moesha's best friend.
Q 23What did Bernie Mac call the TV audience when he broke the fourth wall on The Bernie Mac Show?
America
America was Bernie's name for the viewers he confided in from his armchair, in a sitcom spun from his own stand-up routine about taking in his sister's kids.
Lisa Bonet became pregnant during the first season, so Denise dropped out of Hillman and went back to The Cosby Show while new producer-director Debbie Allen reshaped the spin-off.
Q 14Which future Jennifer Lopez manager's teenage move into a rich Beverly Hills home inspired The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air?
Benny Medina
Benny Medina and Quincy Jones took the idea to NBC along with a broke young rapper, Will Smith, who had never acted but struck the executives as a star.
Q 15Which actress took over as Aunt Vivian on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air after Janet Hubert left?
Daphne Maxwell Reid
Daphne Maxwell Reid played Vivian for the last three seasons after Janet Hubert's bitter exit; Hubert blamed Will Smith for it, and the two did not make peace until 2020.
Q 16Family Matters was a spin-off of which other ABC sitcom, on which Harriette Winslow ran the elevator?
Perfect Strangers
Perfect Strangers ended up outlasted by its own spin-off: it bowed out after eight seasons in 1993, while the Winslows carried on for nine.
Q 17How was Steve Urkel originally supposed to feature on Family Matters?
As a one-time guest
As a one-time guest: Jaleel White's nerd was written for a single episode as a date for Laura, but proved so popular that he became the show's star.
Q 18Which Tyler Perry sitcom passed The Jeffersons for the most episodes of any Black-cast sitcom?
Tyler Perry's House of Payne
Tyler Perry's House of Payne looked finished when TBS ended it in 2012, but BET brought the Payne family back eight years later.
Q 19In which city was Martin set, with Martin Payne working as a DJ at station WZUP?
Detroit
Detroit was home to Martin Payne, who went from radio host to fronting the TV talk show Word on the Street; Martin Lawrence also played Sheneneh, Mama Payne and Jerome himself.
Q 20In Living Single, what was the name of the magazine that Queen Latifah's Khadijah James published?
Flavor
Flavor was the magazine Khadijah fought to make a success while looking for Mr. Right; in the final episode she walks out of the brownstone with him: Scooter, whom she has known since childhood.
Q 24Everybody Hates Chris was set in which Brooklyn neighbourhood, where Chris Rock grew up?
Bedford-Stuyvesant
Bedford-Stuyvesant is where Chris Rock spent the teenage years he narrates; the title is a jab at the hit sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond.
Q 25Who created Black-ish?
Kenya Barris
Kenya Barris built the show on Dre's fear that success in the suburbs had cost his four children their cultural identity; it ran for eight seasons on ABC.
Q 26What was the name of the Black-ish spin-off that followed Zoey Johnson to college?
Grown-ish
Grown-ish was developed under the title College-ish and aired on Freeform rather than ABC; Mixed-ish, a prequel about young Bow, came later.
Q 27Which Quinta Brunson mockumentary sitcom is set at an underfunded West Philly public school?
Abbott Elementary
She plays second-grade teacher Janine Teagues. The show won the 2023 Golden Globe for Best Comedy Series and Emmys for Brunson and Sheryl Lee Ralph.
Q 28Which 1976 ABC sitcom followed Los Angeles teens Raj, Dwayne and Rerun?
What's Happening!!
What's Happening!! was inspired by the 1975 film Cooley High, and its cast reunited in the 1980s for a sequel series, What's Happening Now!!
Q 29Which NBC sitcom starred Marla Gibbs as Mary Jenkins, with Jackée Harry and a young Regina King?
227
227 began as a stage play set in 1950s Chicago; Marla Gibbs had starred in it on stage and helped bring it to television, where the building moved to Washington, D.C.
Q 30In Amen, Sherman Hemsley played a church deacon in which city, his real-life hometown?
Philadelphia
Philadelphia was home turf for Hemsley, who spent his early years as a stage actor holding down a day job at the post office.