80 free 60s TV trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
67 free 60s TV trivia questions with answers. 60s TV trivia from the decade television grew up: the years when Mayberry, the Ponderosa, Gotham City and the starship Enterprise all shared the dial. These 80 questions cover the sitcoms (The Andy Griffith Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, Gilligan's Island, The Beverly Hillbillies, Get Smart, Hogan's Heroes), the dramas and westerns (Bonanza, Gunsmoke, The Fugitive, Hawaii Five-O, The Wild Wild West), the sci-fi and fantasy (The Twilight Zone, Star Trek, Lost in Space, Doctor Who, The Prisoner), the cartoons (The Flintstones, The Jetsons, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Scooby-Doo) and the variety shows that shaped the era, from the Beatles on Ed Sullivan to Laugh-In and the Smothers Brothers. The easy ones ask who played Barney Fife or what Maxwell Smart hid in his shoe. The hard ones want the episode count of Gunsmoke, the year Star Trek was cancelled, or which show ended its run at number one. Every answer has been checked against a documented source, so you can settle the argument about whether Ginger or Mary Ann was on the Minnow with confidence. Play it as a nostalgia round for parents and grandparents, or as the tie-breaker at trivia night.
30 of 80 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The Andy Griffith Show is set in Mayberry, a fictional small town in which state?
North Carolina
Griffith himself was from Mount Airy, North Carolina, and the show ended its eight-season run at number one in the ratings.
Q 02Which actor played Deputy Barney Fife, winning multiple Emmys for the role?
Don Knotts
Knotts and Frances Bavier (Aunt Bee) won six Emmys between them; Griffith and the show itself never won one.
Q 03The Andy Griffith Show is one of three series to end its run at number one in the Nielsens. Which are the other two?
I Love Lucy and Seinfeld
The show was never ranked lower than seventh in eight seasons and spun off Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.
Q 04Bonanza's Cartwright family lived on the Ponderosa ranch near which Nevada mining town?
Virginia City
Ben Cartwright had three sons by three different wives; Bonanza ran 14 seasons, making it NBC's longest-running Western.
Q 05Which Bonanza son, played by Dan Blocker, was nicknamed 'Hoss'?
Eric
Adam (Pernell Roberts) was the architect who built the ranch house, and Michael Landon's Joseph was 'Little Joe'.
Q 06How many episodes of Gunsmoke aired over its 20-year run, a scripted primetime record until The Simpsons?
635
James Arness played Marshal Matt Dillon on TV; on the radio version the role belonged to William Conrad.
Q 07Rod Serling wrote or co-wrote how many of The Twilight Zone's 156 episodes?
92
He also hosted and narrated, though in the first season he was heard but almost never seen on camera.
Q 08NBC cancelled the original Star Trek in 1969 after how many episodes?
79
Fans had already saved it once with a letter-writing campaign secretly funded by Gene Roddenberry; a later campaign failed.
Q 09Which 1968 Star Trek episode featured Kirk and Uhura's kiss, one of the first interracial kisses on US TV?
Plato's Stepchildren
In the story the pair are being controlled telekinetically by the planet's rulers, which is how the scene got past the network.
Q 10The Beverly Hillbillies' Clampett family struck oil and moved to California from which mountain range?
The Ozarks
Its season-two episode 'The Giant Jackrabbit' is still the most-watched half-hour sitcom episode ever broadcast.
Q 11The Beverly Hillbillies theme, 'The Ballad of Jed Clampett', was performed by which bluegrass duo?
Flatt and Scruggs
Their single reached number one on the country chart, the only TV theme ever to do so.
Q 12The castaways of Gilligan's Island were shipwrecked after setting out from Honolulu on what kind of trip?
A three-hour tour
The boat was the S.S. Minnow, and the island's location was given as conflicting coordinates in three different episodes.
Q 13Which producer created both Gilligan's Island and, at the end of the decade, The Brady Bunch?
Sherwood Schwartz
Q 21The Addams Family TV series was based on single-panel cartoons from which magazine?
The New Yorker
Charles Addams's cartoon characters had no names until the show gave them some; Vic Mizzy wrote and sang the finger-snapping theme.
Q 22On The Munsters, the family pet Spot was what kind of creature?
A fire-breathing dragon
Fred Gwynne's Herman was modelled on Frankenstein's monster and Al Lewis's Grandpa on Dracula; it aired on CBS opposite ABC's Addams Family.
Q 23Get Smart was created by Mel Brooks and which other writer?
Buck Henry
They pitched it as a mix of James Bond and Inspector Clouseau; the shoe phone was Brooks's idea.
The Brady Bunch premiered in September 1969 and was never a ratings hit until syndication.
Q 14On Bewitched, which actor replaced the ailing original Darrin Stephens for the final three seasons?
Dick Sargent
York left because of chronic back pain; the show had been the second-highest-rated program in America in its debut season.
Q 15I Dream of Jeannie was created by which novelist, later famous for The Other Side of Midnight?
Sidney Sheldon
Barbara Eden's genie was 2,000 years old; the show was set at Cape Kennedy but the office exteriors were NASA's centre at Edwards Air Force Base.
Q 16Rob Petrie, played by Dick Van Dyke, was head writer for which fictional variety programme?
The Alan Brady Show
Carl Reiner played the show-within-a-show's star and based the whole series on his own years writing for Sid Caesar.
Q 17The 1966 Batman series aired how many times a week during its first two seasons?
Twice
Cliffhangers ended the first episode of each week; the show ran 120 episodes on ABC with Neal Hefti's theme.
Q 18The Flintstones was inspired in part by which earlier live-action sitcom, whose star considered suing?
The Honeymooners
Jackie Gleason's lawyers told him he could probably get the cartoon pulled off the air; he decided he did not want to be the man who did that.
Q 19The Flintstones was the first animated series to do what on American television?
Air in prime time
It ran on ABC from 1960 to 1966 and was also the first animated sitcom; Mel Blanc voiced Barney Rubble.
Q 20The Jetsons holds what distinction in ABC's broadcasting history?
Its first programme broadcast in colour
Only 24 episodes were made in 1962–63; new ones were not produced until 1985.
Q 24Hogan's Heroes was set in which fictional German prisoner-of-war camp?
Stalag 13
Werner Klemperer played the oblivious commandant Colonel Klink and John Banner the guard Sergeant Schultz; it ran 168 episodes on CBS.
Q 25In The Fugitive, Dr. Richard Kimble spent four seasons hunting his wife's real killer, described as what?
A one-armed man
David Janssen starred; the 1967 finale drew a 72 percent audience share, a record that stood until Dallas revealed who shot J.R.
Q 26The 1967 series finale of The Fugitive was watched by roughly how many people, a US record at the time?
More than 78 million
That is 25.7 million households, a 45.9 rating and a 72 share; it beat the Beatles' 1964 Ed Sullivan appearance.
Q 27Who composed the theme music for Mission: Impossible, first heard on CBS in 1966?
Lalo Schifrin
The self-destructing tape gag closely resembles a device from a 1964 Nick Carter spy novel.
Q 28Which musical sitcom about four young men in a rock band won the 1967 Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series?
The Monkees
It was considered an upset over favourites like Bewitched, Get Smart and Hogan's Heroes; the show only lasted two seasons on NBC.
Q 29Which Laugh-In cast member was regularly tricked into saying 'Sock it to me' and then doused?
Judy Carne
Richard Nixon famously said the line as a cameo guest during the 1968 campaign, but nobody threw water on him.
Q 30Laugh-In began as a 1967 special and then took over the Monday 8 pm slot of which cancelled spy series?
The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
It quickly became the most popular show in the United States and ran until 1973.