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This Family Ties trivia quiz has 50 free questions with answers and covers all seven seasons of the NBC sitcom about ex-hippie parents raising a Young Republican in Reagan-era Columbus, Ohio. There are questions on Alex, Mallory, Jennifer and Andy Keaton, on Steven's PBS station and Elyse's architecture career, on Skippy, Nick, Ellen and Lauren, and on the show's ending in 1989. The behind-the-scenes half digs into how Matthew Broderick passed on Alex, why the parents were supposed to be the stars, the 'Sit, Ubu, sit' closing tag, the theme song sung by Johnny Mathis and Deniece Williams, how Billy Vera's 'At This Moment' went to number one because of the show, Michael J. Fox's three straight Emmys, and the future stars who guested, from Tom Hanks to River Phoenix. Questions run from easy to expert, and every answer has been checked against a reliable source.
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Q 01Which actor turned down the role of Alex P. Keaton before it went to the eventual star?
Matthew Broderick
Broderick passed and made WarGames instead. Fox won three consecutive Emmys for the role and married his on-screen girlfriend Tracy Pollan in 1988.
Q 02In which city is Family Ties set?
Columbus, Ohio
Steven Keaton is a Buffalo native who runs the fictional local PBS station WKS. Elyse works as an independent architect.
Q 03On which network did Family Ties air from 1982 to 1989?
NBC
It ran seven seasons, moving from Wednesdays to Thursdays behind The Cosby Show and finally to Sundays for its last two years.
Q 04Who created Family Ties?
Gary David Goldberg
Goldberg based it on watching his own radical generation raise kids who were 'definitely to the right' of their parents. He later created Spin City and Brooklyn Bridge.
Q 05What is Steven Keaton's job?
Manager of a public TV station
He runs WKS, the fictional local PBS affiliate. Ed O'Neill auditioned for the role but decided he was not right for it.
Q 06What is Elyse Keaton's profession?
Architect
She and Steven met and married at college in Berkeley in 1964, having lived as hippies in California in the 1960s.
Q 07Which actress played Elyse Keaton?
Meredith Baxter
Baxter had played the eldest daughter on the 1970s drama Family; the new show mirrored it by adding a fourth child later on.
Q 08Which actor played Steven Keaton?
Michael Gross
Gross went on to play survivalist Burt Gummer in every Tremors film and the TV series, the only actor to appear in all of them.
Q 09What unusual coincidence do the actors who play Steven and Elyse share?
They were born on the same day in the same year
Both were born June 21, 1947, and were only fourteen years older than their on-screen son Michael J. Fox.
Q 10Who played Mallory Keaton?
Justine Bateman
Bateman, older sister of Jason Bateman, won a Young Artist Award in 1985. Laura Dern had been considered for the role.
Q 11Which episode reveals that Mallory has a higher IQ than Alex?
Designated Hitter
Mallory is otherwise written as a shopping-obsessed airhead and constant target for Alex's teasing.
Q 12Who played tomboy Jennifer Keaton?
Tina Yothers
Jennifer shares her parents' liberal values more than her siblings do and cares mostly about sports.
Q 13Which child actor played Andy Keaton from season five onward?
Brian Bonsall
He later played Worf's son Alexander on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Twins Garrett and Tyler Merriman played baby Andy in season four.
Q 21With what pitch was Family Ties sold to the network?
Hip parents, square kids
Elyse and Steven were meant to be the leads, but the audience reacted so strongly to Alex during the fourth taping that the show reorganized around him.
Q 22How did The New York Times famously sum up Alex P. Keaton when the show ended?
Greed with the face of an angel
Goldberg said he never intended Alex to be sympathetic, but Fox's likability kept audiences from seeing 'the darker side of what he's actually saying.'
Q 23How many consecutive Emmys did the actor playing Alex win as Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series?
Three
Q 14Why was baby Andy written into the show in season three?
The actress playing Elyse was pregnant in real life
Andy then aged about four years between seasons four and five, a classic sitcom time jump.
Q 15What is the name of the Keatons' nerdy neighbor with a crush on Mallory?
Skippy Handelman
Marc Price played Irwin 'Skippy' Handelman and won a Young Artist Award for it in 1986.
Q 16Mallory's boyfriend Nick Moore, played by Scott Valentine, was written as what kind of character?
A Sylvester Stallone-esque artist
Nick's grunted 'Ay' catchphrase and leather jacket made him a fan favorite from season four onward.
Q 17Which actress played Alex's girlfriend Ellen Reed and later married the actor who played Alex?
Tracy Pollan
They married in 1988. Fox joked that for a decade they could not step onto a dance floor without hearing 'At This Moment.'
Q 18Which future Friends star played Alex's girlfriend Lauren Miller in the final two seasons?
Courteney Cox
Cox joined in season six, three years after her Bruce Springsteen 'Dancing in the Dark' video.
Q 19Which future Oscar winner played Elyse's brother Ned Donnelly in three episodes?
Tom Hanks
Ned's story arc included a memorable episode about alcoholism, foreshadowing Hanks's dramatic career.
Q 20Which young actor played Eugene Forbes in the episode 'My Tutor'?
River Phoenix
Feldman appeared in 'The Disciple' and Wheaton in ''D' Is for Date.' Christina Applegate, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Crispin Glover also guested.
He won in 1986, 1987 and 1988, and added a Golden Globe in 1989. He was filming Back to the Future at night during the show's third season.
Q 24Which episode won the 1987 Emmy for Outstanding Writing in a Comedy Series?
A, My Name Is Alex
The hour-long episode, in which Alex confronts a friend's death on a bare stage, also won a technical Emmy.
Q 25What is the title of the Family Ties theme song?
Without Us
Jeff Barry and Tom Scott wrote it. It was credited simply as 'Us' in season one.
Q 26Which duo sang the theme song from episode 11 onward?
Johnny Mathis and Deniece Williams
Producers were unhappy with the first version by Dennis Tufano and Mindy Sterling. A full-length version appears on Mathis and Williams' album That's What Friends Are For.
Q 27Which 1981 Billy Vera song went to number one in 1987 after being used as Alex and Ellen's love theme?
At This Moment
NBC said it had never had such a response to a song. It became one of the last gold-certified 45s and the last country-charting song to top the pop chart for 13 years.
Q 28What kind of dog is Ubu, seen in the closing tag of every episode?
A black Labrador Retriever
Ubu Roi, named after the French play, was Goldberg's college dog. The photo with a frisbee was taken in the Tuileries Garden in Paris.
Q 29What does the show's creator say over the Ubu Productions closing logo?
Sit, Ubu, sit! Good dog!
The bark that follows was created by a sound engineer. Goldberg titled his 2008 memoir Sit, Ubu, Sit.
Q 30Which fictional college does Alex attend?
Leland University
Lauren Miller, his later girlfriend, was a psychology graduate student there. His earlier love Ellen Reed was a feminist artist.