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50 free Black Sitcom trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 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 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which 1972 sitcom starring Redd Foxx as a Watts junk dealer was adapted from Steptoe and Son?
Sanford and Son
Norman Lear adapted it as NBC's answer to All in the Family, which he had also adapted from a British show, Till Death Us Do Part.
Q 02Redd Foxx's junk dealer Fred G. ran his yard in which Los Angeles neighbourhood?
Watts
The address was 9114 South Central Avenue. Fred had moved there from his hometown of St. Louis as a young man.
Q 03Which sitcom about the Evanses in a Chicago housing project was TV's first with a Black two-parent family?
Good Times
It was a spin-off of Maude, itself a spin-off of All in the Family. Florida Evans had been Maude's housekeeper.
Q 04The Evans family's housing project on Good Times was implicitly which Chicago development?
Cabrini-Green
They lived at 963 North Gilbert Avenue, apartment 17C. James Evans usually worked at least two manual-labour jobs.
Q 05Which future pop superstar joined the Evans family sitcom in season five as Penny, adopted by Willona?
Janet Jackson
Ratings were already declining by then, and stars Esther Rolle and John Amos had grown frustrated at J.J.'s clowning taking over the show.
Q 06George and Louise moved on up to a Manhattan high-rise thanks to George's chain of what?
Dry cleaners
Jefferson Cleaners took them from Queens, where they had been Archie Bunker's neighbours, to a deluxe apartment in the sky.
Q 07How many episodes of The Jeffersons aired over its eleven seasons on CBS?
253
CBS cancelled it so abruptly in 1985 that Sherman Hemsley said he found out from the newspaper. There was never a proper finale.
Q 08How was Florence's return to The Jeffersons explained after her spin-off Checking In flopped?
The hotel she worked at burned down
Marla Gibbs's Florence lasted four episodes at the hotel. Gibbs later starred in 227 as gossip Mary Jenkins.
Q 09What was the job of Harry Bentley, the eccentric British neighbour George cut off by slamming the door?
UN interpreter
He also had a bad back that George was regularly asked to walk on.
Q 10Which 1968 sitcom starring Diahann Carroll was the first American series to star a Black woman in a lead role that was not a servant or slave?
Julia
She played a widowed nurse whose pilot husband had been shot down in Vietnam. It ran 86 episodes on NBC.
Q 11Besides The Cosby Show, the only sitcom to top the ratings for five seasons starred which bigot?
Archie Bunker
All in the Family is the other. The Cosby Show remains the only scripted show with a predominantly African-American cast to top the Nielsen ratings, and it never left the top 20.
Q 12What was Cliff Huxtable's medical specialty?
Obstetrician
His wife Clair was a lawyer, and the family's brownstone was at 10 Stigwood Avenue in Brooklyn Heights.
Q 13A Different World was set at Hillman College, a fictional historically Black college in which state?
Virginia
After a wobbly first season, Howard alumna Debbie Allen was hired to make it feel like a real HBCU, and Whitley and Dwayne became the focus.
Q 21In Living Single, what was the name of the magazine that Queen Latifah's Khadijah James published?
Flavor
The six friends lived in a Prospect Heights, Brooklyn brownstone. Overton the handyman pined for Khadijah's cousin Synclaire.
Q 22Which network aired Moesha, starring Brandy, after CBS passed on the pilot?
UPN
It became the young network's biggest hit. Moesha's father Frank was a Saturn car salesman in Leimert Park.
Q 23Which spin-off followed Kim Parker and her mother Nikki, played by Mo'Nique, to Santa Monica College?
The Parkers
Countess Vaughn's Kim had been Moesha's best friend. The show ran 110 episodes on UPN.
Q 14Why was the original lead of A Different World written out after one season?
The actress was pregnant and NBC would not show the character as an unwed mother
Denise instead dropped out, went home and travelled to Africa on The Cosby Show so viewers never saw the pregnancy.
Q 15Which music manager's real teenage move into a rich white family's home inspired The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air?
Benny Medina
He pitched it to Quincy Jones, who took it to NBC. Will Smith needed the job because he was in debt to the taxman.
Q 16Besides Will Smith, who was the only actor to appear in every episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air?
James Avery
He played Uncle Phil across all 148 episodes. Cousin Carlton was named after writer Andy Borowitz's friend Carlton Cuse.
Q 17Family Matters was a spin-off of which other ABC sitcom, on which Harriette Winslow ran the elevator?
Perfect Strangers
Reginald VelJohnson, fresh from Die Hard, appeared there as Carl before the Winslows got their own show in 1989.
Q 18How was Steve Urkel originally supposed to feature on Family Matters?
As a one-time guest
Jaleel White's nerdy neighbour became the breakout character and eventually one of the show's protagonists.
Q 19Which show holds the record for most episodes of a live-action sitcom with a mainly African-American cast, at 400?
Tyler Perry's House of Payne
Family Matters is third with 215, behind The Jeffersons' 253.
Q 20In which city was Martin set, with Martin Payne working as a DJ at station WZUP?
Detroit
He later hosted a talk show called Word on the Street. Martin Lawrence also played Sheneneh, Jerome and other characters.
Q 24What did Bernie Mac call the TV audience when he broke the fourth wall on The Bernie Mac Show?
America
He was raising his drug-addicted sister's three kids, Jordan, Vanessa and Bryana. The show was created by Larry Wilmore.
Q 25Everybody Hates Chris was set in which Brooklyn neighbourhood, where Chris Rock grew up?
Bedford-Stuyvesant
The title parodies Everybody Loves Raymond. Tyler James Williams played young Chris, with Terry Crews and Tichina Arnold as his parents.
Q 26Who created Black-ish?
Kenya Barris
Anthony Anderson's Dre is an advertising executive and Tracee Ellis Ross's Bow an anaesthesiologist. Ross won a Golden Globe for the role.
Q 27What was the name of the Black-ish spin-off that followed Zoey Johnson to college?
Grown-ish
Mixed-ish was a short-lived prequel about young Bow's biracial family in the 1980s.
Q 28Which 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 29Which FX comedy about degenerate bar owners crossed over with Quinta Brunson's school sitcom in 2024?
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
The show has been nominated for 37 Emmys and won four.
Q 30Which 1976 ABC sitcom about three teens in Watts was TV's first Black show about teenagers?
What's Happening!!
Raj, Dwayne and Rerun were created by Eric Monte, who had co-created Good Times. A sequel, What's Happening Now!!, ran in syndication in the 1980s.