NBC Trivia
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74 free NBC trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
73 free NBC trivia questions with answers. NBC is the oldest of America's big networks, and almost a century of history hides behind the peacock. This quiz covers the company itself: the RCA radio days, why the Red and Blue networks were named after pushpins, how the Blue Network became ABC, the G-E-C chimes that became the first audio trademark, and the peacock's eleven feathers becoming six. Then it gets to the shows. Meet the Press, Today and The Tonight Show, Saturday Night Live and Studio 8H, the Must See TV Thursdays of Cheers, Seinfeld and Friends, then The Office, 30 Rock, Parks and Recreation, Law & Order and This Is Us. Sports fans get the Heidi Game, the Olympics, Sunday Night Football and Roundball Rock. Questions range from easy to genuinely obscure, and every answer has been checked against a primary or encyclopaedic source.
30 of 74 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01David Sarnoff orchestrated NBC's launch in 1926 as an executive of which company?
Radio Corporation of America
Radio Corporation of America built NBC's two networks around stations it had acquired: WEAF, founded by AT&T, and WJZ, founded by Westinghouse.
Q 02Which company bought a controlling stake in NBCUniversal in January 2011?
Comcast
Comcast took a 51 percent controlling stake in NBCUniversal in January 2011 and bought out the remaining share in 2013; 30 Rockefeller Plaza was renamed the Comcast Building in 2015.
Q 03NBC introduced its famous bird logo in 1956 to promote what?
Color broadcasting
Color broadcasting: the bird debuted in 1956 as an on-air emblem for NBC's color programs, at a time when the network's parent company was selling color television sets.
Q 04In which 1980s NBC series did David Hasselhoff fight crime in a talking car called KITT?
Knight Rider
Knight Rider's talking car was voiced by an actor who asked to go uncredited and who said in 1982 that he had never met the cast.
Q 05NBC's 1976 trapezoid 'N' logo was nearly identical to which broadcaster's, which sued?
Nebraska ETV Network
Nebraska ETV Network settled out of court: NBC kept its 'N' but handed over more than $800,000 of broadcasting equipment and $55,000 towards a new logo.
Q 06The famous three-note NBC chimes sound which notes?
G, E, C
G, E, C began as a working signal: the chimes cued engineers and stations across the network to switch feeds as one programme gave way to the next.
Q 07Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll starred in which NBC radio serial from 1929?
Amos 'n' Andy
Amos 'n' Andy moved to NBC's Blue Network in August 1929 and grew so popular that many cinemas paused their films to play the 15-minute broadcast.
Q 08A four-note variant known as 'the fourth chime' was reserved by NBC for what?
Events of extreme urgency
The fourth chime signalled events of extreme urgency, calling staff in for urgent bulletins; it was sounded after the Pearl Harbor attack in December 1941 and again on D-Day in June 1944.
Q 09By network lore, how did NBC's Red and Blue radio networks get their names?
From coloured pushpins on affiliate maps
From coloured pushpins on affiliate maps, in one telling: engineers marked WEAF's stations in red and WJZ's in blue. Another version credits red and blue pencils.
Q 10NBC's Blue Network was sold off in 1943 and became which rival network?
ABC
ABC: after the FCC ordered NBC's owner to divest one of its two chains, the Blue Network was sold in 1943 and formally became the American Broadcasting Company on 15 June 1945.
Q 11Edward J. Noble, who bought NBC Blue for $8 million in 1943, had made his fortune selling which product?
Life Savers candy
Life Savers candy made Edward J. Noble rich: he and a partner had bought the rights to the ring-shaped mint in 1913 for just $2,900.
Q 12NBC's cameras at a New York World's Fair made who the first sitting US president to appear on television?
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt opened the fair on 30 April 1939, the day NBC began regular television broadcasts in New York.
Q 13Which NBC program, first aired in 1947, is the longest-running program on American television?
Meet the Press
Q 21In 1972 The Tonight Show left New York for a studio in which California city?
Burbank
Burbank was announced on air as 'Hollywood', while Carson's show kept up the Laugh-In running joke about 'beautiful downtown Burbank'.
Q 22Who succeeded Johnny Carson as Tonight Show host in 1992, a choice blamed for losing Letterman?
Jay Leno
Jay Leno took over Tonight in May 1992; the passed-over David Letterman left for CBS and launched the Late Show opposite him in August 1993.
Q 23Late Night with David Letterman debuted in 1982 in the late-night slot vacated by what?
The Tomorrow Show
The Tomorrow Show ended after host Tom Snyder refused NBC's offer of a later slot; in 1995 Letterman's own company produced Snyder's new show, which followed his on CBS.
Meet the Press began on radio in 1945 to promote The American Mercury magazine, then moved to NBC television on 6 November 1947.
Q 14Which NBC Saturday-morning sitcom followed Zack Morris and his friends at Bayside High?
Saved by the Bell
Saved by the Bell was born out of a failed cable sitcom, Good Morning, Miss Bliss, and kept four of its cast, among them Mark-Paul Gosselaar as Zack.
Q 15Who moderated NBC's flagship political interview show from 1991 until his death in 2008?
Tim Russert
Tim Russert, NBC's Washington bureau chief, summed up election night 2000 by writing 'Florida, Florida, Florida' on a whiteboard on air.
Q 16Which NBC executive is credited with creating both Today and The Tonight Show in the 1950s?
Sylvester 'Pat' Weaver
Sylvester 'Pat' Weaver also loosened single sponsors' grip on shows by selling ad time in short blocks to many advertisers; his daughter is the actress Sigourney Weaver.
Q 17What kind of creature was J. Fred Muggs, a Today show regular in the 1950s?
A chimpanzee
A chimpanzee, J. Fred Muggs joined Today in 1953 when the show was struggling, and ratings and advertising rose.
Q 18Today's home studio at Rockefeller Center, opened in 1994, is Studio what?
1A
Studio 1A, a ground-level windowed studio on Rockefeller Plaza, opened in June 1994 as a return to the show's 1950s origins in an exhibition hall just down the block.
Q 19Who was the first host of The Tonight Show when it debuted in 1954?
Steve Allen
Steve Allen hosted the first network Tonight broadcast on 27 September 1954, after fronting a local late-night version on New York's WNBT, and stayed until January 1957.
Q 20Who shared Tonight hosting duties with its first host during the 1956–57 season?
Ernie Kovacs
Ernie Kovacs hosted Tonight on Mondays and Tuesdays in 1956–57 while the show's original host, newly given a Sunday primetime series, kept only Wednesday through Friday.
Q 24Who hosted the very first episode of Saturday Night Live in October 1975?
George Carlin
George Carlin hosted the premiere on 11 October 1975 but appeared in none of its sketches, performing stand-up between the acts instead.
Q 25What nickname was given to the original Saturday Night Live cast?
The Not Ready for Prime-Time Players
The Not Ready for Prime-Time Players was a jab at a rival network's variety show, hosted by Howard Cosell, whose comics were billed as the 'Prime Time Players'.
Q 26On which night did NBC run its 'Must See TV' comedy block in the 1990s?
Thursday
Thursday was Must See TV night: Friends and ER anchored the lineup from 1994, and the tag was later stretched to other nights as well.
Q 27Which Cheers spin-off later won a then-record 37 Emmys?
Frasier
Frasier's producers set it in Seattle, as far from Boston as they could, so NBC could not demand guest spots for the Cheers regulars.
Q 28After leaving Boston, Dr Crane hosts a call-in psychiatry show on which fictional Seattle radio station?
KACL
KACL is the fictional Seattle talk station where Dr Crane hosts his call-in show; he had left Boston, and the Cheers bar, after his marriage to Lilith ended.
Q 29The 1989 pilot for Jerry and Larry David's sitcom about a New York comedian aired under what title?
The Seinfeld Chronicles
The pilot aired as The Seinfeld Chronicles in July of that year; NBC then ordered only four more episodes, and the show took off once it was scheduled after Cheers in 1993.
Q 30Which NBC sitcom bowed out in 1998 as Nielsen's number one show, a feat only two series had managed before?
Seinfeld
Seinfeld ended by its star's choice: Jerry Seinfeld turned down a reported $5 million an episode for a tenth season, and 76.3 million watched the finale.