The Facts of Life Trivia
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47 free The Facts of Life trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The Facts of Life started life as a Diff'rent Strokes spin-off nobody expected much from, and ended up running nine seasons on NBC from 1979 to 1988. Charlotte Rae's Mrs. Garrett went from the Drummonds' housekeeper to housemother at Eastland, an all-girls boarding school in Peekskill, New York, and the show followed Blair, Jo, Natalie and Tootie from the dorm to Edna's Edibles, Over Our Heads and beyond. This quiz covers the whole run: the season-one cast that got trimmed (Molly Ringwald included), Jo's arrival on a motorcycle, the fire that turned a bakery into a gift shop, George Clooney's handyman, Cloris Leachman taking over from Rae, the TV movies in Paris and Australia, the theme song written by Alan Thicke and Gloria Loring, and the 2001 reunion. Some questions are easy for anyone who watched after school; others will test people who owned the DVDs. Every answer is checked against a reference source and each question links to where the fact was confirmed.
30 of 47 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Where in New York State is the fictional Eastland School located?
Peekskill
Peekskill, a real city on the Hudson in Westchester County, is home to Eastland, and the season-eight premiere, 'Out of Peekskill', is named for Mrs. Garrett's farewell to it.
Q 02Early in season two, a night out leaves the four Facts of Life girls working to pay for what?
A damaged school van
A damaged school van: the new girl talks the others into taking it to a bar, the night ends at the police station, and the punishment moves all four out of the dorm and into Mrs. Garrett's charge.
Q 03Which future Brat Pack star was part of the large season-one cast before being written out?
Molly Ringwald
Molly Ringwald played budding activist Molly Parker until producers cut four of the seven girls after season one; she was the only one of the four who never came back for the season-eight reunion episode.
Q 04Jo Polniaczek arrives at Eastland in season two on what?
A motorcycle
Nancy McKeon's character roars up to Eastland on a motorcycle in the season-two opener 'The New Girl'; her rivalry with the privileged Blair drove much of the retooled show.
Q 05Which New York borough is Jo from?
The Bronx
She is from the Bronx; a season-three backdoor pilot sent her home to visit her family there, with Megan Follows as her cousin Terry.
Q 06Why did producers first put Tootie on roller skates?
To mask Kim Fields' short stature
Producers put Tootie on roller skates to mask Kim Fields' short stature next to her castmates; the skates became a trademark alongside the braces and gossip.
Q 07What is Tootie's real first name?
Dorothy
Kim Fields played Dorothy 'Tootie' Ramsey for the show's entire run, having first appeared as the character on Diff'rent Strokes.
Q 08How was Mindy Cohn discovered for the role of Natalie on The Facts of Life?
The show's star visited her school
The show's star visited her school: Charlotte Rae and the producers went to Westlake in Los Angeles to study real teenagers, and Rae was so taken with Cohn that Natalie was written for her.
Q 09Which cartoon character did Mindy Cohn voice from 2002 to 2015?
Velma in Scooby-Doo
Velma in Scooby-Doo became Mindy Cohn's voice role with What's New, Scooby-Doo? in 2002, and within a year it had earned her a Daytime Emmy nomination.
Q 10Before Blair Warner, Lisa Whelchel was a cast member of what?
The New Mickey Mouse Club
The New Mickey Mouse Club made the Texas-born Whelchel a Mouseketeer in 1977, and fellow Mouseketeer Julie Piekarski joined her in Eastland's first-season cast as Sue Ann.
Q 11On which sitcom did Kim Fields appear as Penny's friend before The Facts of Life?
Good Times
Good Times cast Kim Fields in two episodes as a friend of Penny, Janet Jackson's character, whose abusive mother had been played by Fields's own mother, Chip Fields.
Q 12In season two, Mrs. Garrett took on what additional job at Eastland?
School dietitian
Mrs. Garrett became Eastland's school dietitian in the retooled second season, with the four girls working in her kitchen and bunking next to her room as punishment; ratings rose at once.
Q 13In The Facts of Life, what was the name of the gourmet food shop Mrs. Garrett opened in season five?
Edna's Edibles
Q 21Which future Oscar nominee played a troublemaking Eastland student in The Facts of Life finale?
Juliette Lewis
Juliette Lewis, later an Oscar nominee for Cape Fear, played one of the new students; Seth Green, Mayim Bialik and Meredith Scott Lynn were also in the never-picked-up co-ed spin-off.
Q 22Who co-wrote The Facts of Life theme song with Al Burton and Gloria Loring?
Alan Thicke
Alan Thicke wrote it with his then-wife Gloria Loring, who sang the 'You take the good, you take the bad' opening; with Burton, the couple had already written the Diff'rent Strokes theme.
Q 23The Facts of Life's creators, Dick Clair and Jenna McMahon, won Emmys writing for which variety series?
Edna's Edibles was the show's way of keeping the girls under one roof after Blair and Jo graduated from Eastland at the end of season four.
Q 14What replaced Mrs. Garrett's shop on The Facts of Life after the season-seven fire?
A pop-culture gift store, Over Our Heads
The burned-out food shop was rebuilt as Over Our Heads, a pop-culture gift store, across the season-seven episodes 'Into the Frying Pan' and 'Grand Opening'; George Clooney joined the cast that season.
Q 15George Clooney's character on The Facts of Life had what job?
Handyman
Clooney's George Burnett is the handyman hired to rebuild the shop after the fire in season seven; it was one of several sitcom stops before ER made him a star.
Q 16Who played Mrs. Garrett's sister Beverly Ann after Charlotte Rae left The Facts of Life?
Cloris Leachman
Cloris Leachman, an Oscar winner best known as Phyllis on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, arrived as Beverly Ann in the season-eight premiere and took over the shop and the girls for the last two seasons.
Q 17How was Mrs. Garrett written out of The Facts of Life in season eight?
She married and moved to Africa
She married and moved to Africa: in the one-hour premiere Mrs. Garrett weds an old Peace Corps flame and joins him there, because Charlotte Rae felt she had done all she could with the part.
Q 18Which youngster did Mrs. Garrett's sister Beverly Ann legally adopt in season eight?
Andy Moffett
Andy Moffett, played by Mackenzie Astin, was a foster kid who worked at the girls' shop; when his foster parents split up in season eight, Beverly Ann stepped in and adopted him.
Q 19Which of the four girls lost her virginity in the final-season episode 'The First Time'?
Natalie Green
Natalie Green sleeps with her boyfriend Snake on their first anniversary in 'The First Time', a February sweeps episode that NBC opened with a warning to parents.
Q 20In The Facts of Life's two-part finale, what does Blair do to save Eastland from closing?
She buys the school
She buys the school and becomes its headmistress, then has to admit boys to keep it afloat; the two-parter doubled as a pilot for a spin-off that NBC never ordered.
The Carol Burnett Show
The Carol Burnett Show won the pair three writing Emmys, and 'The Family', a recurring sketch they created there, later grew into their sitcom Mama's Family.
Q 24In the Diff'rent Strokes backdoor pilot, what does Kimberly ask Mrs. Garrett to help with?
Sewing costumes for a student play
Sewing costumes for a student play brings Mrs. Garrett to Kimberly's school, where the housemother has just quit; offered the job, she turns it down, then takes it when the spin-off begins three months later.
Q 25What is the full first name of Nancy McKeon's character?
Joanna
Joanna Marie Polniaczek is the name on the dorm list when she arrives in season two, where Mrs. Garrett pairs her as a roommate with Blair, the rich girl she will spar with for years.
Q 26In September 1985 NBC moved The Facts of Life to Saturday nights as a lead-in for which new series?
The Golden Girls
The Golden Girls premiered at 9 p.m. on September 14, 1985, straight after the Facts season opener; NBC had put its reliable veteran at 8:30 to bolster a new Saturday comedy block.
Q 27In the two-hour 1982 TV movie spun off from The Facts of Life, where did Mrs. Garrett and the girls travel?
Paris
The Facts of Life Goes to Paris aired on September 25, 1982, days before the season-four premiere, and was later chopped into four half-hour episodes for syndication.
Q 28The 1987 TV movie The Facts of Life Down Under sent the gang to which city?
Sydney
Sydney is the gang's base in the 1987 TV movie, where Jo and Blair get mixed up with a jewel thief while Tootie and Natalie head off into the Outback.
Q 29Which of the four girls was missing from the 2001 TV movie The Facts of Life Reunion?
Jo
Jo was the only one absent: Nancy McKeon was tied up with her series The Division, and the reunion aired on ABC rather than NBC.
Q 30Which holiday brings Mrs. Garrett and the girls back together in The Facts of Life Reunion?
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is the excuse: Natalie talks Mrs. Garrett and the others into spending the holiday together at a hotel Blair now owns, in a film ABC aired four days before the 2001 holiday.