80s Pop Culture
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97 free 80s Pop Culture trivia questions with answers — pop culture quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
50 free 80s Pop Culture trivia questions with answers. The 1980s gave us MTV, Michael Jackson's Thriller, the Nintendo Entertainment System, neon fashion, and some of the most iconic movies ever made. From Ghostbusters to The Breakfast Club, from Madonna to Prince, the decade was packed with cultural moments that still resonate today. Test your knowledge of 80s music, movies, TV shows, toys, fashion, and technology with 97 questions that cover every corner of this totally radical decade.
30 of 97 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Whose video was the first ever shown on MTV?
The Buggles
The Buggles' Video Killed the Radio Star opened MTV on August 1, 1981, and in 2000 the channel chose it again as the one-millionth video it aired.
Q 02Which 1985 film strands a teenager in 1955, where his own parents must still fall in love?
Back to the Future
Back to the Future's script was rejected more than 40 times before a studio agreed to make it, as co-writer Bob Gale has often recalled.
Q 03Which Michael Jackson album became the best-selling album of all time?
Thriller
Thriller owes its rock edge to Eddie Van Halen, who played the guitar solo on 'Beat It' as an unpaid favour to producer Quincy Jones; the 1982 album went on to outsell every other.
Q 04Who directed the 1982 sci-fi film about an alien stranded on Earth who befriends a young boy?
Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg's team first offered the alien's trail of sweets to M&M's, but Mars said no; Hershey's Reese's Pieces took the part instead, and their sales soared.
Q 05Which 1980 arcade game was designed to bring women and couples into arcades that were mostly a male hangout?
Pac-Man
Pac-Man designer Toru Iwatani found arcades gloomy places where only boys hung out, so he built a cheerful game around eating in the hope that women and couples would come in and play.
Q 06Which 1979 Sony gadget was first sold in America as the Soundabout and in Britain as the Stowaway?
Walkman
The Walkman went on sale abroad as the Soundabout in America, the Stowaway in Britain and the Freestyle in Australia, until the Japanese name caught on and Sony adopted it worldwide.
Q 07Which band's 'Every Breath You Take' topped the Hot 100 for eight weeks in 1983?
The Police
The Police saw 'Every Breath You Take' taken for a tender love song, but its writer has called it sinister, a lyric about surveillance and control; it was America's biggest hit of 1983.
Q 08Which 1984 comedy has three sacked university scientists set up a paranormal pest-control business in New York?
Ghostbusters
Ghostbusters was written by Dan Aykroyd for himself and John Belushi; after Belushi died in 1982, the script was reworked with Harold Ramis and Bill Murray joined the team.
Q 09Rubik's Cube, the puzzle craze of the early 1980s, was invented by an architecture professor from which country?
Hungary
Hungary's Ernő Rubik built his first cube in 1974 from wood, rubber bands and paper clips; sold at home as the Magic Cube, it was relaunched under his name in 1980 and swept the world.
Q 10Which 1980s cop show made pastel suits and sockless loafers a fashion trend?
Miami Vice
Miami Vice was filmed under a famous production rule, 'no earth tones', so reds and browns gave way to flamingo pink, lime green and Caribbean blue on screen, and soon in menswear.
Q 11Which 1982–93 sitcom's theme song sang of a place 'where everybody knows your name'?
Cheers
Cheers opened to dismal ratings and nearly died in its first season; NBC programming chief Brandon Tartikoff kept the Boston bar comedy alive, and it ran for eleven years.
Q 12Which doll line caused shopping frenzies in 1983, each doll coming with adoption papers?
Cabbage Patch Kids
Cabbage Patch Kids were 'adopted', not sold: the originals were 'delivered' at a former clinic in Georgia fitted out as a baby hospital, and by late 1983 shoppers were brawling in stores to get one.
Q 13Which Prince album and film of the same name featured 'When Doves Cry' and 'Let's Go Crazy'?
Purple Rain
Q 21Which film out-grossed every other release of the 1980s?
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial began at Columbia, which spent about $1 million developing it and then let it go to Universal, where it overtook Star Wars as the biggest box-office earner yet seen.
Q 22Which John Hughes film puts five students from different cliques in Saturday detention?
The Breakfast Club
The Breakfast Club turned 'Don't You (Forget About Me)' into a US number one, though Bryan Ferry had turned the song down and Simple Minds only recorded it reluctantly.
Q 23Which pop star kept a $5 million fee in 1989 after Pepsi pulled the ad over a controversial video?
Madonna
Purple Rain also changed record shops: after Tipper Gore heard her 11-year-old daughter play its song 'Darling Nikki', she co-founded the group whose campaign put Parental Advisory stickers on albums.
Q 14Which home console, test-marketed in New York in October 1985, revived the American video game industry?
NES
The NES reached America when retailers wanted nothing to do with video games after the industry's collapse, so Nintendo pitched it with a light gun and a toy robot called R.O.B. to make it seem new.
Q 15Which 1986 comedy has a teenager fake an illness to go joyriding around the city in a borrowed sports car?
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Ferris Bueller's Day Off was written in a single week: John Hughes's logbook shows the story pitched one day and the script finished six nights later, at up to 26 pages a night.
Q 16Which band released "Livin' on a Prayer" in 1986, with its talk box guitar riff?
Bon Jovi
Bon Jovi nearly left it off Slippery When Wet: Jon Bon Jovi thought the song wasn't good enough until he was talked round, and Richie Sambora's talk box riff became its hook.
Q 17Which sitcom featured four older women sharing a home in Miami and ran from 1985 to 1992?
The Golden Girls
The Golden Girls cast Estelle Getty as Sophia, mother of Bea Arthur's Dorothy, even though Getty was a year younger than Arthur and needed a wig and heavy make-up to play the part.
Q 18Which Apple computer launched in January 1984, two days after a Ridley Scott commercial inspired by George Orwell?
Macintosh
The Macintosh ad appalled Apple's board, and the agency was told to sell off the airtime; it kept one slot, claiming no buyer could be found, and the film ran once nationally.
Q 19Which 1985 charity single did Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie write to raise money for African famine relief?
We Are the World
We Are the World was recorded in one all-night session straight after the American Music Awards, when the stars were already in Los Angeles; a sign on the door told them to check their egos.
Q 20Which 1983 film used an uncredited double, Marine Jahan, for many of Jennifer Beals's dance scenes?
Flashdance
Flashdance drew on the life of dancer Maureen Marder, who went uncredited, just like Marine Jahan, the double who performed many of Jennifer Beals's dance scenes.
Madonna's 'Like a Prayer' video, with its burning crosses, drew condemnation from the Vatican and a boycott threat; Pepsi dropped her commercial and its tour sponsorship but let her keep the money.
Q 24What was the hero of 1981's Donkey Kong called before Nintendo gave the character a famous new name?
Jumpman
Jumpman was what Nintendo called its carpenter hero until Nintendo of America renamed him after Mario Segale, the landlord of its warehouse in Washington state.
Q 25Which 1987 film has Patrick Swayze's resort instructor fall for a guest played by Jennifer Grey?
Dirty Dancing
Dirty Dancing was a low-budget gamble by Vestron, a video company that meant to show it in cinemas for a weekend and then put it on tape; it became a worldwide hit instead.
Q 26Which Cyndi Lauper hit did its writer, Robert Hazard, first record in 1979 from a man's point of view?
Girls Just Want to Have Fun
Girls Just Want to Have Fun began as Robert Hazard's 1979 demo, sung as a girl-crazy bad boy; Lauper rewrote the lyrics, with his blessing, into a feminist anthem.
Q 27Midge Ure and which other musician organised the London-Philadelphia benefit of 13 July 1985?
Bob Geldof
Bob Geldof was spurred by Michael Buerk's BBC reports on the Ethiopian famine: he and Midge Ure wrote Band Aid's Christmas single in 1984, then staged Live Aid at Wembley and in Philadelphia.
Q 28Which cartoon heroes began in a 1984 comic that two friends self-published as a parody of superhero books?
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles began as a black-and-white spoof that Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird paid for with a tax refund and a loan from Eastman's uncle; a 1987 toy deal and cartoon made them a craze.
Q 29Which 1988 film mixed live action and animation, with cartoons living alongside humans?
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
Who Framed Roger Rabbit left Bob Hoskins in trouble at home: his young son refused to speak to him for two weeks, furious that a father with friends like Bugs Bunny had never brought them round.
Q 30Which 1987 Def Leppard album includes "Pour Some Sugar on Me"?
Hysteria
Hysteria took more than three years to make, delayed when drummer Rick Allen lost an arm in a car crash on New Year's Eve 1984; he taught himself to play one-armed and stayed in the band.