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This Days of Our Lives trivia quiz has 70 free questions with answers and spans the whole run of daytime's longest hourglass, from the November 1965 premiere on NBC to the 2022 move to Peacock and the 15,000th episode. It starts with the essentials - Salem, the Hortons and Bradys, Macdonald Carey's opening line, Alice's donuts, Stefano DiMera's many resurrections - then digs into the storylines fans still argue about: Marlena's possession, the Salem Stalker and the island of Melaswen, Princess Gina, and the deaths of Bo and Stefano. There is plenty on the people too: Bill and Susan Seaforth Hayes on the cover of Time, Deidre Hall's Saturday-morning superhero past, Drake Hogestyn's baseball career, Kristian Alfonso's figure-skating gold, Alison Sweeney's disguise as Stan, and the alumni who went on to Supernatural and three straight Emmys. And yes, Joey Tribbiani's Dr. Drake Ramoray gets his due. Roughly a third of the questions are warm-ups a casual viewer can answer; the rest climb toward the trivia only a decades-long fan would know. Every answer has been checked against Wikipedia and the sources it cites, and each explanation adds one more thing worth knowing.
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Q 01In what year did Days of Our Lives premiere on NBC?
1965
It debuted on November 8, 1965, and spent its first three seasons near the bottom of the daytime ratings before climbing to number one by 1973.
Q 02The fictional city of Salem, where the show is set, sits in which US state?
Illinois
The Cordays deliberately made Salem a middle-America town of doctors and their families, blending the hospital soap with a family saga.
Q 03The show's famous opening line compares the days of our lives to sands running through what object?
An hourglass
The hourglass sequence also closed every episode until November 2001, when NBC swapped it for a split-screen promo reel.
Q 04Which original cast member played Dr. Tom Horton and read the opening narration from 1966 until his death?
Macdonald Carey
His introduction originally continued 'This is Macdonald Carey, and these are the Days of Our Lives'; that second line was retired after he died in 1994, but his voice still opens the show.
Q 05Which announcer spoke the show's opening phrase in its first months, before the Horton patriarch's actor took over?
Ed Prentiss
Prentiss followed the line by billing the show as 'a new dramatic serial' starring its Horton patriarch during that first season.
Q 06Horton matriarch Alice Horton was famous around Salem for making what treat?
Donuts
They even became a plot device: Alice once used a drugged batch to help Bo spring Roman from custody.
Q 07Frances Reid, who played Alice Horton from the very first episode, died in which year?
2010
She was 95 and still under contract to the show, though her final on-screen appearance had come in December 2007; the character was written out that June with a reunion of past cast members.
Q 08Which sweet-sounding nickname does the ever-resurrecting villain Stefano DiMera go by?
The Phoenix
His signet ring bears the bird, and the show treats it as the reason he keeps rising from the dead; his sons EJ, Andre and Chad have all worn it.
Q 09In which 1981 NBC miniseries did Joseph Mascolo play mob boss Salvatore Maranzano, landing him the Stefano role?
The Gangster Chronicles
Mascolo first appeared as Stefano on January 18, 1982, and would play him on and off for 34 years.
Q 10When Mascolo left Days in 2001, he turned up as Massimo Marone on which CBS soap?
The Bold and the Beautiful
He played Massimo from 2001 to 2006, then came home to Salem in 2007 alongside Thaao Penghlis and Leann Hunley.
Q 11Which grieving Salem resident finally shot Stefano dead in January 2016?
Hope Brady
She believed he was responsible for Bo's recent death; as he fell back into his wheelchair his hand knocked over the chess pieces he loved.
Q 12Stefano's portrayer had a supporting role as Len Peterson in which 1978 sequel?
Jaws 2
Mascolo was also a trained clarinettist and studied acting under Stella Adler before his film career.
Q 13When Marlena became possessed by the devil in the mid-1990s, who performed the emergency exorcism?
John Black
John happened to be a priest then; Soap Opera Digest said the story changed daytime storytelling in the 1990s.
Q 21Susan Seaforth Hayes, the only cast member in all seven decades of the show, plays whom?
Julie Olson Williams
She first appeared in December 1968 as a recast of an original character; her mother, Elizabeth Harrower, later wrote for the show.
Q 22Which actress has played Maggie Horton on Days of Our Lives since 1973?
Suzanne Rogers
She marked 50 years on the show in 2023 and won a Daytime Emmy for the role back in 1979.
Q 23Drake Hogestyn made his debut in January 1986 as a bandaged mystery man known by what name?
The Pawn
A former minor-league third baseman, he was considered too young for the part until his screen test with Deidre Hall won it.
Q 14Which magazine dismissed the possession storyline as 'The Dumbest Soap Plot Ever'?
Entertainment Weekly
Ratings disagreed: the supernatural era made Days the most-watched soap among young and middle-aged women and one of NBC's five most profitable shows.
Q 15Which head writer was behind both the possession story and the later Salem Stalker saga?
James E. Reilly
He left in 1997 to create Passions, was lured back in 2003, and his stories pushed Days to number two in the ratings.
Q 16The 2003-04 Salem Stalker was eventually unmasked as which beloved character?
Marlena Evans
It later emerged she had been brainwashed by Andre DiMera, and every 'victim' turned up alive on a tropical island.
Q 17The Stalker's victims were found alive on the island of Melaswen, a name that is what spelled backward?
New Salem
The reveal was so grand that the show introduced a new orchestration of its theme for it, then dropped it after eight episodes.
Q 18Which lounge-singer character did Bill Hayes originate in 1970 and play until 2024?
Doug Williams
The character's final appearance streamed posthumously on Peacock in July 2024; Hayes was 98 when he died.
Q 19In 1976 Bill Hayes and Susan Seaforth Hayes became the only daytime actors to make the cover of which magazine?
Time
The couple had married in real life in 1974 and their characters Doug and Julie are widely counted as daytime's first supercouple.
Q 20Long before Salem, Bill Hayes topped the Billboard charts in 1955 with which song?
The Ballad of Davy Crockett
Three different recordings of the song sat in the top 30 at once during the coonskin-cap craze; Hayes had earlier sung on Sid Caesar's Your Show of Shows.
Q 24Hogestyn's amnesiac 1986 character was revealed to be which presumed-dead Salem police officer?
Roman Brady
When the original actor returned in 1991 the show retconned Hogestyn's version into a separate man, creating the John and Marlena pairing.
Q 25Before acting, Drake Hogestyn played third base in the farm system of which Major League team?
New York Yankees
He had gone to the University of South Florida on a baseball scholarship as a pre-dentistry major, and was injured in 1977.
Q 26Marlena arrived in Salem in 1976 practising which profession?
Psychiatrist
She was introduced as one of Mickey Horton's doctors, and her jealous twin sister Samantha was played by Deidre Hall's real-life twin, Andrea.
Q 27Deidre Hall starred as which Saturday-morning superheroine for Sid and Marty Krofft in 1976?
Electra Woman
She later juggled Days with the NBC drama Our House by taping the soap on Saturdays.
Q 28Kristian Alfonso, who played Hope, won a gold medal at age 13 in which sport before an injury ended it?
Figure skating
A tobogganing accident forced her to quit; she then signed with Wilhelmina Models before her first Days air date on April 14, 1983.
Q 29In 1999, Stefano brainwashed Hope into believing she was which European royal?
Princess Gina
The alter ego fell for John and kidnapped him, so Stefano exiled her to Paris.
Q 30Peter Reckell first aired as Bo Brady in which year?
1983
Rebellious blue-collar Bo was quickly paired with upper-class Hope Williams, one of daytime's defining supercouples.