This 80s cartoon trivia quiz has 50 free questions with answers and covers the decade when toy companies took over Saturday morning and the after-school slot: He-Man and She-Ra, Transformers and G.I. Joe, ThunderCats, Voltron, Jem, My Little Pony, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and the Disney afternoon that started with Gummi Bears and DuckTales. It also has room for the Smurfs, Inspector Gadget, Muppet Babies, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Dungeons & Dragons, The Real Ghostbusters, Danger Mouse and Count Duckula, the Pac-Man cartoon, and the December 1989 night The Simpsons became a series. The questions run from ones anyone who owned a lunchbox will get (what Prince Adam shouts, who Skeletor wants to conquer) to ones for people who read the credits: which Marvel editor invented the Autobots and Decepticons, which studio animated ThunderCats, why the Ghostbusters cartoon needed the word Real, and what Orson Welles was doing five days before he died. Every answer was checked against a reference source and each question shows its citation once you have answered, so it works for a nostalgia round at a pub quiz or an argument-settler in the group chat.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983) was based on which company's toy line?
Mattel
Its success in syndication persuaded other studios that half-hour 'cartoon commercials' could work, reshaping the whole market. Filmation made 130 episodes over two seasons.
Q 02What is the name of Prince Adam's cowardly pet tiger, who transforms into Battle Cat?
Cringer
Alan Oppenheimer voiced both forms of the tiger as well as Skeletor and Man-At-Arms. Every episode ended with a 'moral of the story' to blunt criticism of toy-driven cartoons.
Q 03Which fortress is Skeletor's main goal, since He-Man draws his power from it?
Castle Grayskull
Prince Adam raises the Sword of Power and invokes it by name to transform. Its Sorceress, voiced by Linda Gary, guards the secrets inside.
Q 04How many episodes did She-Ra: Princess of Power run for between 1985 and 1987?
93
Unlike He-Man, whose toys came first, She-Ra was created jointly by Filmation and Mattel, aimed at girls. Her early characters were designed by J. Michael Straczynski's team.
Q 05In The Transformers, how long had the robots lain entombed on Earth before waking in 1984?
4 million years
They had left Cybertron looking for energy and crashed. Father-and-son humans Sparkplug and Spike Witwicky became the Autobots' allies.
Q 06Which Marvel editor-in-chief wrote the story concept that created the Autobots and Decepticons?
Jim Shooter
Hasbro had found the Diaclone and MicroChange toys at the 1983 Tokyo Toy Fair and asked Marvel to build a story around them, repeating the G.I. Joe formula.
Q 07Which Japanese studio was the main animator on the first two seasons of The Transformers?
Toei Animation
They designed the transformation schemes and animation models. In season three the work was shared with the South Korean studio AKOM.
Q 08In The Transformers: The Movie (1986), Orson Welles voiced which planet-sized villain?
Unicron
He recorded the part on October 5, 1985, and died five days later. Leonard Nimoy voiced Galvatron and Eric Idle played the Junkion leader Wreck-Gar.
Q 09Which company produced ThunderCats in 1985?
Rankin/Bass
Better known for stop-motion Christmas specials, the studio had the animation done by Pacific Animation Corporation in Japan, later bought by Disney.
Q 10What is the name of the ThunderCats' legendary weapon, whose hilt holds the source of their power?
The Sword of Omens
The Mutants of Plun-Darr spare the flagship of the fleeing Thunderian fleet only because they hope to capture it. Its Eye lets Lion-O see 'beyond sight'.
Q 11On which planet do the ThunderCats settle after fleeing their dying homeworld?
Third Earth
Damage from the Mutant attack made their original destination unreachable. Mumm-Ra was already waiting there.
Q 12In the 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon, Krang is a disembodied brain banished from where?
Dimension X
He funds most of Shredder's schemes and supplied the Technodrome.
Q 13In the 1987 TMNT cartoon, Splinter was originally a human ninja master by what name?
Hamato Yoshi
That is a big change from the Mirage comics, where Splinter was Yoshi's pet rat. Here the mutagen turned Yoshi into a rat because he was last touching sewer rats.
Q 21In Jem, what is the real name of the record-company owner whose alter ego fronts the Holograms?
Jerrica Benton
She runs Starlight Music, and the series was created by Christy Marx for the same Hasbro-Sunbow-Marvel team behind G.I. Joe and Transformers.
Q 22The first season of Voltron (1984) was adapted from which Japanese anime series?
Beast King GoLion
Season two's 'Vehicle Team Voltron' came from an unrelated show, Dairugger XV. It was the top-rated syndicated kids' show for two years.
Q 23In Adventures of the Gummi Bears, what does gummiberry juice let the bears do?
Bounce like rubber balls
Q 14The Fred Wolf TMNT series was first shown in syndication as a five-part miniseries at what time of year?
Christmas 1987
Fred Wolf Films produced it, and the full run began in October 1988 and lasted until 1996, making it one of the decade's longest-lived cartoons.
Q 15DuckTales (1987) was based on Uncle Scrooge comics created by which cartoonist?
Carl Barks
The show ran 100 episodes and most plots involve treasure hunts or villains after Scrooge's Number One Dime. Donald leaves the boys with Scrooge to join the Navy.
Q 16Which DuckTales pilot went on to become a main character in Darkwing Duck?
Launchpad McQuack
He is famous for crashing every aircraft he flies. DuckTales premiered in syndication in September 1987 and ended in November 1990.
Q 17Which Get Smart star voiced Inspector Gadget from 1983?
Don Adams
The show was DIC's first syndicated cartoon and the first animated series presented in stereo. Gadget survives thanks to luck, his niece and the family dog.
Q 18What is the name of Inspector Gadget's dog, who secretly saves him in disguise?
Brain
Gadget usually mistakes the disguised dog for a M.A.D. agent and chases him. Niece Penny does the actual detective work with her computer book.
Q 19On which US network did Hanna-Barbera's blue-skinned Peyo adaptation run from 1981 to 1989?
NBC
Network president Fred Silverman got the idea after buying his daughter Melissa a Smurf doll in Aspen. Peyo, the Belgian creator, supervised the stories.
Q 20How many episodes of Hanna-Barbera's Peyo adaptation aired between 1981 and 1989?
256
They contained 417 separate stories. The characters were originally called 'les Schtroumpfs' when Peyo created them in 1958.
Grammi makes it from a secret recipe; on humans it gives temporary super-strength but works only once a day. The show ran six seasons from 1985.
Q 24In which kingdom's forest do the Gummi Bears live in their secret home of Gummi Glen?
Dunwyn
Their human friends are Princess Calla and the squire Cavin. The lavishly budgeted show set a new bar that rival studios had to match.
Q 25Why did the 1986 Ghostbusters cartoon have to add 'The Real' to its title?
A dispute with Filmation over its own Ghost Busters
Filmation had a 1975 live-action show and its own cartoon called Ghostbusters. In 1988 the show was retitled again, to Slimer! and the Real Ghostbusters.
Q 26Muppet Babies grew out of a dream sequence in which 1984 film?
The Muppets Take Manhattan
The film came out two months before the show premiered on CBS. Muppet Babies went on to win seven Daytime Emmys, four of them consecutive for Outstanding Animated Program.
Q 27Which trio of female characters did the 1983 Alvin and the Chipmunks series introduce?
The Chipettes
Brittany, Jeanette and Eleanor got their own caretaker, Miss Beatrice Miller, in 1986. The show ran on NBC until 1990.
Q 28In the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon (1983), how do the six kids get transported into the realm?
On an amusement-park roller coaster
Dungeon Master gives each of them a magic item matching a D&D character class. The show ran 27 episodes on CBS with animation by Toei.
Q 29Where is the secret headquarters of Cosgrove Hall's mouse secret agent hidden?
Inside a pillar box on Baker Street
He and Penfold take orders from Colonel K and fight Baron Silas Greenback. Nickelodeon picked up the show in 1984 and it became a US hit.
Q 30Count Duckula (1988) was a spin-off from which other Cosgrove Hall cartoon?
Danger Mouse
An earlier, villainous Duckula had been a recurring baddie there; the spin-off made him a vegetarian vampire. Nickelodeon co-produced it after its US success with the parent show.