Thanksgiving TV Trivia
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70 free Thanksgiving TV trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
67 free Thanksgiving TV trivia questions with answers. Thanksgiving is the one day a year when the television schedule is a tradition in itself, and this quiz covers all of it. Questions run from the Macy's parade broadcast (first televised in 1939, on NBC since 1953, and now the most-watched special of the year) and the National Dog Show that follows it, to the record-breaking NFL games and Punkin Chunkin, and then through the sitcom canon: WKRP's turkey drop, the Cheers food fight, Seinfeld's popped balloon, Friends, The Simpsons, How I Met Your Mother's Slapsgiving, Bob's Burgers, New Girl, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Gilmore Girls, The West Wing's turkey pardon and Master of None's Emmy-winning 'Thanksgiving'. Easier questions ask who says 'As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly' or which streamer carries A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving; the hard ones want the year the parade went to color, TV Guide's ranking of 'Turkeys Away' and which ER star directed The West Wing's holiday episode. It works for a family quiz between the parade and the game, or a themed pub-quiz round. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the parade, the dog show, the NFL's Thanksgiving games and the individual episodes, and each question carries the sentence that backs it up.
30 of 70 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Whose giant balloon has appeared in the Macy's parade more often than any other character's?
Snoopy
Snoopy has been rebuilt again and again since his 1968 debut as a World War I flying ace, returning in new guises that include an astronaut and an ice skater.
Q 02Which network long aired its own unofficial coverage of the Macy's parade, billed without the Macy's name?
CBS
CBS billed its rival telecast 'The Thanksgiving Day Parade on CBS' and for years anchored it from Times Square, while the official broadcaster kept the spot outside the store in Herald Square.
Q 03Which dancers have been Macy's parade regulars since the 1950s?
The Rockettes
The Rockettes began in St. Louis as the Missouri Rockets, settled at Radio City Music Hall in the 1930s and have danced in the parade since 1957.
Q 04Which Today star co-hosted NBC's parade coverage every year from 1995 to 2024 except 2022?
Al Roker
Al Roker's 2022 absence, his first in 27 years, came while he recovered from blood clots in his leg and lungs; Dylan Dreyer filled in for him.
Q 05From 1963 to 1972, Bonanza's Lorne Greene hosted NBC's parade coverage with which future Golden Girls star?
Betty White
Betty White was NBC's parade regular: she also narrated its New Year's Rose Parade for 19 years, until the network dropped her once she became a star on a rival's sitcom.
Q 06Which longtime Today regular hosted NBC's parade telecast from 1987 to 1997?
Willard Scott
Willard Scott, who played the original Ronald McDonald in 1960s commercials before he turned to the weather, hosted from 1987 to 1997 with partners including Mary Hart, Sandy Duncan and Katie Couric.
Q 07Who performed a meme-famous 1980s hit at the 2008 Macy's parade?
Rick Astley
Rick Astley cut in on the puppets of Cartoon Network's Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends float with 'Never Gonna Give You Up', rickrolling millions of viewers at once.
Q 08Why do most singers in the Macy's parade lip-sync?
Floats can't carry sound gear
Floats can't carry sound gear for a live vocal, John Legend explained in 2018 in defence of Rita Ora, who had been caught miming out of time; the stars mouth along to their own recordings.
Q 09NBC's 2025 Macy's parade deal also covers which other Macy's event?
July 4th Fireworks
July 4th Fireworks stay on NBC under the same ten-year deal, struck after the 2024 parade drew a record audience of more than 31 million; a new Macy's special, still unnamed, was promised too.
Q 10Which Spanish-language network carries a simulcast of the Macy's parade?
Telemundo
Telemundo has belonged to NBC since the early 2000s, so the parade's Spanish simulcast, fronted by the network's own hosts, stays in the family.
Q 11For the 1997 parade, MTV aired its own irreverent commentary special starring which animated duo?
Beavis and Butt-head
Beavis and Butt-head heckled the floats from the sidelines in a special hosted by MTV's Kurt Loder, and the network even gave the pair a giant balloon of their own.
Q 12Which 1947 film, long a Thanksgiving TV staple, opens with scenes shot at the real Macy's parade?
Miracle on 34th Street
Miracle on 34th Street filmed its opening while the real 1946 parade was under way, so the cast got one chance at each scene, as its star Maureen O'Hara recalled.
Q 13Which streaming service simulcasts NBC's telecast of the Macy's parade?
Peacock
Q 21Which organisation, older than the American Kennel Club itself, stages the Thanksgiving dog show that NBC televises?
Kennel Club of Philadelphia
The Kennel Club of Philadelphia had run its show since 1879; when NBC came calling in 2002, the old local fixture was given a grander name for television.
Q 22NBC's Thanksgiving dog show host John O'Hurley played which Seinfeld character?
J. Peterman
J. Peterman, Elaine's globe-trotting catalogue boss, was based on a real company; when it relaunched after going under, O'Hurley put his own money in and became a part-owner.
Q 23Which network first televised NFL Thanksgiving games, three years before a rival took over in 1956?
DuMont
Peacock, NBCUniversal's streamer, carries the telecast alongside NBC, which tape-delays the parade outside the Eastern time zone so that it fills the same morning slot everywhere.
Q 14When their lifting gas ran short in 1958, how did Macy's parade balloons travel the route?
Dangling from cranes
Dangling from cranes was the fix: after a round of calls to the balloons' maker, Goodyear, Macy's pumped its giants full of plain air and hoisted them along the route.
Q 15Which balloon hit a lamppost in the 1997 parade, injuring a spectator and prompting size limits?
The Cat in the Hat
The Cat in the Hat balloon's lamppost strike sent debris that fractured a spectator's skull and left her in a coma for nearly a month; the city then capped balloon sizes, which retired the Cat for good.
Q 16Which video game character's parade balloon hit a Columbus Circle lamppost in 1993, injuring two people?
Sonic the Hedgehog
Sonic the Hedgehog, the first video game character to fly in the parade, was blown into the post by a gust; the lamp snapped off and fell into the crowd, hitting an off-duty police officer.
Q 17Why was the parade suspended from 1942 to 1944?
Rubber and helium were needed for the war effort
Rubber and helium were needed for the war effort, so a dragon balloon was ceremonially deflated at City Hall and some 650 pounds of balloon rubber went for scrap.
Q 18In the early years, what happened to Macy's balloons after the parade?
Released into the sky
Released into the sky, each balloon drifted for days and earned a reward for whoever returned it, until one nearly brought down a plane in the early 1930s and the practice ended.
Q 19From 2002, what aired on NBC after the parade, hosted by John O'Hurley and David Frei?
The National Dog Show
The National Dog Show looks live but isn't: it is judged on a weekend earlier in November, then edited down to two hours for Thanksgiving Day.
Q 20Which 2000 Christopher Guest mockumentary inspired NBC's post-parade Thanksgiving broadcast?
Best in Show
Best in Show, Guest's send-up of dog-show people, gave NBC Sports' Jon Miller the idea at a time when the old film NBC ran after the parade was sinking in the ratings.
DuMont carried the Detroit Lions' Thanksgiving games for three seasons before the network folded in 1956 and a rival took them over.
Q 24Which broadcaster began awarding a turkey leg to the NFL Thanksgiving game's star in 1989?
John Madden
John Madden gave the first leg to Eagles pass rusher Reggie White; when one drumstick proved too few for a whole offensive line, a Texas barbecue owner built him a six-legged turkey.
Q 25Which team hosted the Chiefs in 2025's record-setting Thanksgiving game?
Dallas Cowboys
Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott outduelled Patrick Mahomes before 57.2 million viewers, a record for an NFL regular-season game and about a third above the old one, set at Dallas's own 2022 Thanksgiving game.
Q 26Which WKRP in Cincinnati character says 'As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly'?
Arthur Carlson
Arthur Carlson, the hapless station manager played by Gordon Jump, delivers it as the episode's last line, after his secret giveaway of live turkeys over a shopping mall ends in carnage.
Q 27Which WKRP reporter gives the Hindenburg-style play-by-play as turkeys crash into the mall?
Les Nessman
Les Nessman, played by Richard Sanders, narrates the off-screen turkey drop with 'Oh, the humanity!', echoing Herbert Morrison's 1937 Hindenburg broadcast.
Q 28In WKRP's 'Turkeys Away', the station's Thanksgiving giveaway drops live turkeys from what?
A helicopter
A helicopter trailing a 'Happy Thanksgiving from WKRP' banner does the dropping; the real radio promotion behind the plot was humbler, with turkeys tossed off the back of a truck.
Q 29In WKRP's 'Turkeys Away', the horrified newsman says the falling turkeys are hitting the ground like what?
Sacks of wet cement
Sacks of wet cement is his image, and viewers have to take his word for it: the whole drop happens off screen, with the camera fixed on the reporter's horrified face.
Q 30The 1986 Cheers episode 'Thanksgiving Orphans' is famous for ending in what?
A food fight
A food fight breaks out among the Cheers gang at Carla's house when the turkey stays undercooked and tempers boil over; the episode aired on Thanksgiving Day 1986.