70s and 80s Pop Culture
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99 free 70s and 80s Pop Culture trivia questions with answers — pop culture quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
44 free 70s and 80s Pop Culture trivia questions with answers. This quiz pairs 70s and 80s music trivia questions and answers with the pop culture that surrounded them. The music half runs from the Bee Gees and Saturday Night Fever, Rumours, Hotel California and ABBA's Eurovision win to Rapper's Delight, the Sex Pistols' only album, then on through Live Aid, Purple Rain, a-ha's pencil-sketch video, Run-D.M.C. and Aerosmith, U2, Whitney Houston, Madonna's first number one and the arrival of the Walkman. The pop culture half covers the shows, films and fads of the two decades: Happy Days and M*A*S*H, Jaws and Star Wars, the Pet Rock, the Atari 2600 and the NES, John Hughes, leg warmers and the first video ever played on MTV. Difficulty is mixed, so anyone who lived through the era will score early points and the chart-nerd questions will separate the true fans. Every answer was checked against a reference source, and each question shows its citation once you have answered, so you can use it as a music round at a quiz night or settle an argument about which album really did stay on the chart for 736 weeks.
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Q 01Which singer's 1978 disco anthem 'I Will Survive' was first released as a B-side?
Gloria Gaynor
Gloria Gaynor's 'I Will Survive' was the B-side of 'Substitute' until club DJs flipped the record; it topped the US chart in 1979 and won the only Grammy ever awarded for Best Disco Recording.
Q 02Which visionary director helmed the 1982 science fiction blockbuster 'E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial'?
Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg directed E.T. from his own idea of an imaginary friend after his parents' divorce; Melissa Mathison wrote the script, and the film overtook Star Wars as the highest-grossing film until Jurassic Park.
Q 03Leather-jacketed greaser Arthur 'The Fonz' Fonzarelli was a central character in which 1970s sitcom?
Happy Days
Fonzie, played by Henry Winkler, was a breakout character on 'Happy Days,' a sitcom that initially focused on Richie Cunningham and his family in the 1950s.
Q 04Which horror-film veteran speaks the rap on Michael Jackson's 'Thriller'?
Vincent Price
Vincent Price recorded the rap in just two takes, reading lines that songwriter Rod Temperton had written in a taxi on the way to the studio.
Q 05What 1970s novelty 'pet' came in a cardboard box with straw and breathing holes?
Pet Rock
The Pet Rock was dreamed up by advertising executive Gary Dahl in 1975 while friends complained about their pets; each rock came with a training manual for commands like 'sit' and 'stay'.
Q 06Which dancers' accessory became mainstream 1980s fashion after the films Fame and Flashdance?
Leg warmers
Leg warmers were first worn by ballet dancers to keep their leg muscles warm and stop them cramping; the aerobics craze then helped carry them from studios into everyday 1980s wardrobes.
Q 07Which 1975 thriller overcame a constantly failing mechanical star to become the prototypical summer blockbuster?
Jaws
Jaws was filmed at sea off Martha's Vineyard, where the mechanical sharks kept breaking down, so the film mostly suggests the creature through John Williams's ominous theme; the shoot ran well over budget and schedule.
Q 08Which 1985 console revitalized the video game industry after the 1983 crash?
Nintendo Entertainment System
The Nintendo Entertainment System was restyled to look like a video recorder and launched with R.O.B., a toy robot, to win over US retailers who had sworn off games consoles after the crash.
Q 09Which comedian hosted her own CBS sketch-and-music variety show from 1967 to 1978?
Carol Burnett
Carol Burnett closed every episode of The Carol Burnett Show by tugging her ear, a silent signal to the grandmother who raised her; she kept doing it after her grandmother died.
Q 10Which band is famously known for their power ballad "Don't Stop Believin'", released in 1981?
Journey
Journey released 'Don't Stop Believin'' on the 1981 album Escape; sung by Steve Perry, it reached No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 and found new life through The Sopranos finale and Glee.
Q 11Which exclusive New York disco, opened in 1977, became a byword for the era's excess?
Studio 54
Studio 54 opened in April 1977 at 254 West 54th Street, the address that gave it its name; co-owners Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager were jailed for tax evasion in 1980.
Q 12Which writer-director defined the 1980s teen film with The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Sixteen Candles?
John Hughes
John Hughes wrote the script for Ferris Bueller's Day Off in less than a week, racing to finish before a looming writers' strike; he went on to write Home Alone.
Q 13Which band released 'Bohemian Rhapsody' in 1975?
Queen
Queen released 'Bohemian Rhapsody' in October 1975 as the lead single from A Night at the Opera; it spent nine weeks at No. 1 in the UK despite its six-minute length and operatic middle section.
Q 21Which group contributed 'Stayin' Alive' and 'Night Fever' to the 1977 Saturday Night Fever soundtrack?
The Bee Gees
The Bee Gees joined Saturday Night Fever only in post-production: John Travolta had rehearsed his dance scenes to Boz Scaggs and Stevie Wonder. The soundtrack became the best-selling album ever until Thriller.
Q 22Which band's 'Hotel California' won the Grammy for Record of the Year in 1978?
The Eagles
The Eagles' 'Hotel California' began as an instrumental demo Don Felder recorded in a rented beach house in Malibu; Don Henley and Glenn Frey added the words, and Felder and Joe Walsh trade its closing guitar solo.
Q 23Which 1977 album, made as its band's two couples broke up, sold over 40 million copies and won Album of the Year?
Q 14Which 1980s animated series pitted Prince Adam's alter ego against Skeletor?
Masters of the Universe
Masters of the Universe began as a Mattel toy line in 1982, and the He-Man cartoon followed a year later to sell it; each episode closed with a short moral lesson.
Q 15Which activity boomed after Frank Nasworthy introduced polyurethane wheels in 1972?
Skateboarding
Skateboarding boomed after Frank Nasworthy's Cadillac Wheels replaced hard clay wheels with grippy polyurethane in 1972; Skateboarder magazine relaunched in 1975 and purpose-built skateparks followed.
Q 16Which actor voiced Darth Vader in Star Wars (1977) but asked to go uncredited?
James Earl Jones
James Earl Jones dubbed over David Prowse, the man in the suit, whose West Country accent George Lucas thought wrong for the part; Jones saw his lines as mere 'special effects' and took no credit until 1983.
Q 17Which song opened MTV's very first broadcast on August 1, 1981?
Video Killed the Radio Star
Video Killed the Radio Star by The Buggles, a British hit from 1979 that had barely made the US Top 40, opened the channel at 12:01 a.m.; Pat Benatar's 'You Better Run' came second.
Q 18Which series ran from 1972 to 1983, eleven years for a three-year war, following an army surgical unit in Korea?
M*A*S*H
M*A*S*H's fictional 4077th was loosely based on the real 8055th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital of the Korean War.
Q 19Which 1977 console found its killer app in a 1980 port of Space Invaders?
Atari 2600
The Atari 2600 was sold as the Video Computer System until 1982; its Space Invaders port quadrupled sales of the console, but critics panned the Pac-Man port that followed two years later.
Q 20Tom Selleck turned down which film role when CBS would not release him from Magnum, P.I.?
Indiana Jones
Indiana Jones went to Harrison Ford only weeks before filming on Raiders of the Lost Ark; a Hollywood strike then delayed Magnum, P.I. for months, so Selleck could have made the film after all.
Rumours
Rumours turned its break-ups into songs: Lindsey Buckingham wrote 'Go Your Own Way' about Stevie Nicks, and her own song about the split, 'Dreams', became Fleetwood Mac's only US No. 1 single.
Q 24Which song won the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest for ABBA after they considered entering 'Hasta Mañana' instead?
Waterloo
Waterloo won at the Brighton Dome and launched ABBA worldwide; at Eurovision's fiftieth-anniversary show in 2005 it was voted the best song in the contest's history.
Q 25Which 1973 album charted for over 14 years on the Billboard 200 but topped it once?
The Dark Side of the Moon
The Dark Side of the Moon held No. 1 for a single week yet logged 741 weeks on the Billboard 200 by 1988; Pink Floyd took its spoken lines from roadies and Abbey Road staff answering Roger Waters's flashcard questions.
Q 26Which trio's 1979 debut 'Rapper's Delight' is credited with bringing rap to a mass audience?
The Sugarhill Gang
The Sugarhill Gang (Wonder Mike, Big Bank Hank and Master Gee) were assembled by producer Sylvia Robinson; 'Rapper's Delight', built on Chic's 'Good Times' bassline, reached the US Top 40 in 1979-80.
Q 27Which producer co-wrote Donna Summer's 1977 hit "I Feel Love", built around a Moog synthesizer?
Giorgio Moroder
Giorgio Moroder co-wrote and produced 'I Feel Love' with Pete Bellotte for Summer's album I Remember Yesterday, whose closing track was meant to sound like 'the future'; Brian Eno called it the sound of the future.
Q 28Which punk band split after just one studio album?
Sex Pistols
Sex Pistols singer Johnny Rotten quit after the last show of a chaotic US tour, in San Francisco in January 1978, signing off 'Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?'; Never Mind the Bollocks was under three months old.
Q 29Which duo's 'Bridge over Troubled Water' swept the 1971 Grammys?
Simon & Garfunkel
Simon & Garfunkel had already split by the time 'Bridge over Troubled Water' swept the 1971 Grammys; Paul Simon wrote it but gave the lead vocal to Art Garfunkel, a choice he came to regret.
Q 30Which president did Elvis Presley ask for a federal narcotics badge?
Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon received Elvis at the White House on 21 December 1970 after the singer wrote offering to become a 'Federal Agent-at-Large' against drugs; in the Oval Office he said he could get through to the hippies.