80s Sitcoms
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50 free 80s Sitcoms trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The 1980s were a golden age for the half-hour comedy. Networks filled prime time with family living rooms, workplace ensembles and the occasional visitor from outer space, and tens of millions of viewers tuned in week after week. Many of today's biggest film stars got their start in front of a studio audience on these shows. This quiz covers the decade's best-loved sitcoms, including Cheers, The Cosby Show, The Golden Girls, Family Ties, Growing Pains, Who's the Boss?, Night Court, Newhart, ALF, Roseanne and The Wonder Years. Questions range over the characters and where they lived, the actors who played them, spin-offs, behind-the-scenes stories and the finales people still talk about. It is written for anyone who grew up with these shows or found them later in reruns. Early questions are friendly to casual viewers, while later ones reward fans who remember the supporting casts and short-lived cult favorites.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Family Ties star spent his nights filming Back to the Future while taping the NBC sitcom by day?
Michael J. Fox
Michael J. Fox taped the sitcom by day, then traveled to the film set and often got home early the next morning. Producers agreed only on condition that Family Ties took priority.
Q 02Which Golden Girls actress was over a year younger than Bea Arthur, who played her daughter Dorothy?
Estelle Getty
Estelle Getty was aged for the camera with make-up and a wig to play Sophia Petrillo, the Sicilian-born mother.
Q 03Which future Oscar winner joined the Seaver household on Growing Pains as Luke Brower, a homeless teenager?
Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo DiCaprio was cast to win over teenage viewers, then written out so he could start work on the film This Boy's Life.
Q 04Which future ER star played a handyman on The Facts of Life years before becoming a movie leading man?
George Clooney
George Clooney was added to the regular cast in a bid to lift the ratings. He went on to play Roseanne Barr's supervisor, Booker Brooks, on Roseanne.
Q 05Which future Oscar winner starred in Bosom Buddies as a man posing as a woman to live in a cheap hotel?
Tom Hanks
Tom Hanks and Peter Scolari played two young admen whose apartment is demolished, so they move into a women-only building in disguise. The sitcom is now best known for launching his film career.
Q 06Which animated family debuted in short cartoons on The Tracey Ullman Show before landing its own sitcom?
The Simpsons
The Simpsons filled the gaps around the commercial breaks for three seasons. In those early shorts, Homer's voice was an impression of Walter Matthau.
Q 07On ALF, which family pets does the furry alien house guest keep trying to catch and eat?
Cats
Cats are on his menu, so the Tanners' pet Lucky is never safe. When he adopts one of his own to eat, he grows too fond of it to go through with the meal.
Q 08Al Bundy of Married... with Children, once a high school football star, earns a living in which job?
Shoe salesman
Shoe salesman is the hard-luck job Al Bundy hates, so he keeps reliving his high school glory days as an all-state fullback.
Q 09Which twin sisters shared the role of youngest daughter Michelle Tanner on Full House?
Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen
Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen took turns as Michelle, and for years were credited under a single name so viewers would not realize she was played by twins.
Q 10Which hit comedy ended in 1983 with a finale that drew about 106 million American viewers?
M*A*S*H
M*A*S*H signed off with an episode that out-drew that year's Super Bowl, and half-minute ad slots in it cost more than the big game's.
Q 11The bar in Cheers was modeled on the real Bull & Finch Pub in which American city?
Boston
Boston is home to the Bull & Finch Pub, which the creators picked out of a phone book. Its exterior is the bar viewers see in the establishing shots.
Q 12Which Cheers barfly is an on-and-off accountant who finally lands a dream job tasting beer at a brewery?
Norm Peterson
Norm Peterson is hailed by name by everyone in the bar each time he walks through the door, a running joke from the earliest seasons.
Q 13Which actor joined Cheers as a naive young bartender from Indiana after Nicholas Colasanto died?
Woody Harrelson
Woody Harrelson arrived in the fourth-season opener, an episode that also dealt with the death of Coach. His character happens to share his first name.
Q 21Which Who's the Boss? star had earlier played a boxing cab driver on the sitcom Taxi?
Tony Danza
Tony Danza had been a professional boxer in real life before he turned to acting, and both of his sitcom characters shared his first name.
Q 22On Night Court, which jazz singer is the judge's musical idol and turns up as himself in several episodes?
Mel Tormé
Mel Tormé made nine guest appearances as himself on the courtroom comedy, plus one more as a guardian angel.
Q 23Which Night Court actor won four straight Emmys as prosecutor Dan Fielding, then withdrew from contention?
John Larroquette
John Larroquette took the supporting-actor prize every year from 1985 to 1988, then had his name taken off the ballot for 1989.
Q 14Which Cosby Show spin-off followed Denise Huxtable to the fictional, historically Black Hillman College?
A Different World
A Different World lost Lisa Bonet after one season, then carried on without her and spent four of its six seasons in the ratings top five.
Q 15Cliff Huxtable of The Cosby Show, married to lawyer Clair, works as which kind of doctor?
Obstetrician
Obstetrician Cliff Huxtable grew out of the star's stand-up routines about his own family life. The first pitch made him a limousine driver instead.
Q 16Which Golden Girls housemate tells odd stories about growing up in the farm town of St. Olaf, Minnesota?
Rose Nylund
Rose Nylund is a naive Norwegian American widow who raised five children with her late husband, Charlie, before moving south to Florida.
Q 17On The Golden Girls, which dessert do the housemates famously share during late-night kitchen talks?
Cheesecake
Cheesecake came out whenever the women gathered to talk through the week's problem. The dessert even gives its name to a 2025 mystery novel based on the sitcom.
Q 18On ALF, the alien who crash-lands in the Tanner family's garage comes from which exploded home planet?
Melmac
Melmac was destroyed in a nuclear war, and he survived only because he was away on duty with its Orbit Guard at the time.
Q 19The blue-collar Conner family of Roseanne lives in the fictional town of Lanford in which Midwestern state?
Illinois
Illinois is home to Lanford, where Dan picks up sporadic contracting work and Roseanne waits tables at Rodbell's luncheonette.
Q 20Which actor narrates The Wonder Years as the adult Kevin Arnold looking back on his suburban childhood?
Daniel Stern
Daniel Stern voiced the grown-up Kevin and directed several episodes too. Film fans know him as Marv, one of the burglars in Home Alone.
Q 24On Newhart, backwoodsman Larry has two odd-job brothers who both answer to which first name?
Darryl
Darryl and Darryl stay silent for the whole run, then finally speak on screen for the first time in the last episode.
Q 25The finale of Newhart ends with Bob Newhart waking beside which actress, his wife from his 1970s sitcom?
Suzanne Pleshette
Suzanne Pleshette returned as Emily Hartley on the old bedroom set, revealing that the entire innkeeping series had been her husband's dream.
Q 26Which child star played Arnold Jackson, a Harlem boy taken in by a Park Avenue widower, on Diff'rent Strokes?
Gary Coleman
Gary Coleman had caught producers' attention in commercials, and the sitcom was devised as a vehicle for him and co-star Conrad Bain.
Q 27Which future Brat Pack star was written out of The Facts of Life after one season as an original schoolgirl?
Molly Ringwald
Molly Ringwald was one of four original actresses written out together. She had won the part after an appearance on parent series Diff'rent Strokes.
Q 28Which Growing Pains dad also co-wrote the theme songs for Diff'rent Strokes and The Facts of Life?
Alan Thicke
Alan Thicke was a busy theme composer before he played Dr. Seaver, and also wrote the original theme for the game show Wheel of Fortune.
Q 29On Punky Brewster, the title orphan's dog was named for NBC's programming chief and so answers to which name?
Brandon
Brandon the dog honors network boss Brandon Tartikoff, who also named the heroine after a tomboy he had a crush on as a boy.
Q 30Which child actor played troublemaking friend Derek on Silver Spoons before starring in The Hogan Family?
Jason Bateman
Jason Bateman was such a hit as the bad-boy friend that producers gave him a sitcom of his own, It's Your Move. At 18 he was directing episodes too.