80 free 80s TV trivia questions with answers. Eighties television is the decade of the must-see sitcom and the cliffhanger everybody talked about, and this 80's TV trivia covers both. The sitcom half runs through Cheers, Family Ties, The Cosby Show, The Golden Girls, Night Court, ALF, Growing Pains, Who's the Boss?, Full House, Married... with Children, Newhart, Perfect Strangers and Roseanne. The drama half takes in Dallas and Dynasty, Miami Vice, Knight Rider, The A-Team, Magnum P.I., Hill Street Blues, MacGyver, Moonlighting, St. Elsewhere and Murder, She Wrote, with Saturday-morning cartoons, Letterman and a game-show scandal for good measure. Expect the famous moments - who shot J.R., the Moldavian Massacre, the Newhart dream, the St. Elsewhere snow globe - alongside details only a real couch veteran remembers, like why Uncle Jesse's surname changed or where Cheers ranked in its first season. Difficulty starts easy and climbs. Every answer has been checked against a reference page and carries its source, so the ratings figures, character names and air dates are real rather than recycled from a listicle. Play solo, or lift the whole set for an 80s-themed quiz night.
30 of 80 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Sam Malone, the bar owner played by Ted Danson on Cheers, was a former relief pitcher for which team?
Boston Red Sox
The show ranked 74th out of 77 programs in its first season and was nearly cancelled before critical praise and Emmy wins kept it alive for eleven seasons.
Q 02Which city do Dorothy, Rose, Blanche and Sophia share a house in on The Golden Girls?
Miami
All four lead actresses won a Primetime Emmy, making it one of only four sitcoms where every principal cast member was recognized.
Q 03KITT, the talking car on Knight Rider, was a heavily modified version of which production car?
Pontiac Firebird Trans Am
The car's cool, dry voice belonged to William Daniels, who later played Mr. Feeny on Boy Meets World.
Q 04More than how many Americans watched the 1980 Dallas episode revealing who shot J.R.?
90 million
The show later wrote off an entire season as a dream of Pam Ewing so that Bobby could reappear alive in the shower.
Q 05On Miami Vice, what kind of animal is Sonny Crockett's pet, Elvis?
An alligator
Jan Hammer's instrumental theme for the show climbed to number one on the Billboard chart in November 1985.
Q 06Which actor played Hannibal Smith, the cigar-chomping leader of The A-Team?
George Peppard
The team were former Army Special Forces soldiers falsely convicted of a crime, and B.A. Baracus's fear of flying was a running gag whenever they needed Murdock to fly them somewhere.
Q 07Michael J. Fox's Alex P. Keaton on Family Ties embarrassed his ex-hippie parents by being what?
A Young Republican
Fox won three consecutive Emmys for the role in 1986, 1987 and 1988, filming Back to the Future at night during the show's run.
Q 08Cliff Huxtable, the father on The Cosby Show, worked in which profession?
Obstetrician
The show spent five consecutive seasons as television's top-rated program, a feat only one other sitcom has matched in Nielsen history.
Q 09Thomas Magnum lived in the guesthouse of an estate called Robin's Nest on which Hawaiian island?
Oahu
The estate's caretaker Higgins patrolled the grounds with two Dobermans named Zeus and Apollo, who disliked Magnum as much as he did.
Q 10ALF, the furry alien who moved in with the Tanner family, came from which planet?
Melmac
His real name was Gordon Shumway, and he was performed by puppeteer Paul Fusco, who co-created the series and still voices him.
Q 11"Whatchu talkin' 'bout, Willis?" was the catchphrase of which character on Diff'rent Strokes?
Arnold Jackson
The show gave the world The Facts of Life as a spin-off, following the Drummonds' housekeeper Mrs. Garrett to a girls' boarding school.
Q 12Jessica Fletcher, the mystery novelist of Murder, She Wrote, lived in which fictional Maine town?
Cabot Cove
Angela Lansbury received twelve Emmy nominations for the role and never won, a record for the lead actress in a drama category.
Q 13The Facts of Life's Eastland girls' boarding school was in which state?
New York
A young George Clooney joined the cast in the later seasons as handyman George Burnett, one of several attempts to freshen the show.
Q 21The Simpsons made their first appearance in April 1987 as short segments on which program?
The Tracey Ullman Show
The half-hour series did not premiere until December 17, 1989, with a Christmas episode, making it the last great sitcom launch of the decade.
Q 22Which 80s action hero refused to carry a gun, relying on a Swiss Army knife and duct tape?
MacGyver
The character became a verb in the Oxford Dictionaries in 2015, meaning to make or repair something in an improvised way.
Q 23What make and model was the General Lee, the orange car of The Dukes of Hazzard?
1969 Dodge Charger
Q 14Sgt. Phil Esterhaus ended every roll call on Hill Street Blues with which line?
Let's be careful out there
The show won eight Emmys for its debut season, a record for a first-year series that stood until The West Wing in 2000.
Q 15The 1988 finale of St. Elsewhere implied the entire series took place inside what object?
A snow globe
The reveal that St. Eligius existed in the imagination of the autistic boy Tommy Westphall spawned a fan theory that hundreds of crossover-linked shows are also his dream.
Q 16Which sitcom finale revealed the whole show was a dream of Dr. Bob Hartley from an earlier series?
Newhart
Bob Newhart's innkeeper Dick Loudon woke up in bed with his wife from The Bob Newhart Show, in a finale TV Guide called one of the most memorable ever.
Q 17Which show's 1988 debut aired on ABC immediately after Super Bowl XXII, with narration by Daniel Stern?
The Wonder Years
Fred Savage's Kevin Arnold grew up between 1968 and 1973 to Joe Cocker's cover of "With a Little Help from My Friends," and the show won the comedy Emmy after just six episodes.
Q 18Maddie Hayes and David Addison worked cases at which detective agency on Moonlighting?
Blue Moon
The show made Bruce Willis a star and had a theme song co-written and sung by Al Jarreau that became a hit in its own right.
Q 19Which show's 'Moldavian massacre' finale left nearly the entire cast lying in a bullet-riddled chapel?
Dynasty
The Carringtons of Denver hit number one in the ratings that spring, and Alexis and Krystle's catfights in a lily pond and a salon became the show's signature.
Q 20Which sitcom was the first primetime series broadcast on the newly launched Fox channel in 1987?
Married... with Children
Al Bundy's misery ran 259 episodes, still the longest-running live-action sitcom in Fox history, with Frank Sinatra's "Love and Marriage" as its theme.
Waylon Jennings sang the theme and narrated every episode as "the Balladeer," and the show at one point ranked second in the ratings only to Dallas.
Q 24About how many watched the 1993 Cheers finale, the decade's most-watched series episode?
93 million
The bar's exterior shots were of a Boston pub then called the Bull & Finch, which was picked out of a phone book and later became one of the busiest bars in America.
Q 25Balki Bartokomous of Perfect Strangers came from which fictional Mediterranean island?
Mypos
Balki and cousin Larry's "Dance of Joy" was described as a cross between the do-si-do and the hokey pokey, and the show's spin-off Family Matters outlasted it.
Q 26V.I.C.I., the android girl of the syndicated sitcom Small Wonder, was an acronym for what?
Voice Input Child Identicant
Robotics engineer Ted Lawson passed Vicki off as his adopted daughter for four seasons and 96 episodes of first-run syndication.
Q 27Mork & Mindy and which other sitcom were both spun off from Happy Days?
Laverne & Shirley
The ABC series was the first US show shot at 30 frames per second, but it could not survive being scheduled against Dallas and Miami Vice.
Q 28Which two 80s series were both spun off from Happy Days?
Laverne & Shirley and Mork & Mindy
The phrase "jumping the shark" was coined in 1985 for a 1977 Happy Days episode in which Fonzie does exactly that on water-skis.
Q 29Which 80s drama recast its lead detective from Loretta Swit to Meg Foster to Sharon Gless?
Cagney & Lacey
Between them Tyne Daly and Gless won the lead-actress drama Emmy six years running, and fan campaigns twice reversed the show's cancellation.
Q 30Playing Dan Fielding on Night Court earned John Larroquette how many consecutive Emmys?
Four
Larroquette then withdrew his name from consideration; the show ran nine seasons on NBC with Harry Anderson as the magic-loving Judge Harry Stone.