All in the Family Trivia
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110 free All in the Family trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
48 free All in the Family trivia questions with answers. All in the Family changed what an American sitcom could talk about, and it did it from a single living room in Queens. This quiz covers the whole run and its universe: Archie and Edith at the piano, Gloria and Meathead in the spare room, the British show it was adapted from, the two rejected ABC pilots, the five straight years at number one, the Emmys, the spin-offs (Maude, The Jeffersons, Gloria, Archie Bunker's Place, 704 Hauser), the guest visit by Sammy Davis Jr and the chairs that ended up in the Smithsonian. The easy questions ask what Archie calls his son-in-law and which network aired the show. The hard ones want the original pilot's title, the actor Norman Lear first wanted for Archie, the address on Hauser Street, how many Emmys Carroll O'Connor won and the Watergate tape on which Nixon discussed the show. For fans of classic TV, sitcom history and Norman Lear. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the series, its characters, cast and spin-offs, and each question carries the sentence that backs it up.
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Q 01On which network did All in the Family air from 1971 to 1979?
CBS
CBS picked up the show after ABC had rejected two pilots; it premiered on 12 January 1971.
Q 02All in the Family was based on which British sitcom?
Till Death Us Do Part
Till Death Us Do Part, Johnny Speight's BBC sitcom, inspired Norman Lear, who saw his own father in its bigoted lead.
Q 03What does Archie Bunker bark at Edith whenever he wants her to stop talking?
Stifle
Stifle came from Norman Lear's childhood home: his father used to order his mother to 'stifle herself'. In one episode Edith finally snaps and turns the word back on Archie.
Q 04Who produced All in the Family alongside Norman Lear?
Bud Yorkin
Bud Yorkin recalled catching the British original while directing a film in London, hardly believing anyone could put that on television, and sending a copy to his partner Lear.
Q 05The Bunkers live in which borough of New York City?
Queens
Queens was home turf for Carroll O'Connor, though not Archie's side of it: a lawyer's son, he spent part of his youth in one of the borough's most comfortable enclaves.
Q 06What is the Bunkers' home address?
704 Hauser Street
704 Hauser Street is fictional, and the house in the opening credits isn't even in the Bunkers' neighbourhood: it stands miles away on Cooper Avenue in Glendale.
Q 07What nickname does Archie use for his son-in-law Michael Stivic?
Meathead
Meathead came from Norman Lear's own father, who used to call his son 'a meathead, dead from the neck up'.
Q 08What does Archie call his wife Edith?
Dingbat
Dingbat was Archie's put-down, yet Edith gradually became the show's voice of reason: Jean Stapleton played her as a gentle soul whose tenderness cut through all the shouting.
Q 09Which former child star turned down the role of Archie Bunker as too risky?
Mickey Rooney
Mickey Rooney's refusal sent Lear to Carroll O'Connor, who was living in Italy and so sure the show would flop that he asked for a return ticket to Rome before taking the part.
Q 10Which 1968 pilot gave Archie and Edith a different surname?
Justice for All
Justice for All starred Archie and Edith Justice. The network paid for two pilots, with a new daughter and son-in-law in the second, then passed on both; only Carroll O'Connor and Jean Stapleton made it to the series.
Q 11Archie constantly mocks his son-in-law Mike Stivic for which family background?
Polish
Polish-American Mike was a change of plan: in the two unaired pilots, Archie's son-in-law was Irish.
Q 12Mike Evans, who played Lionel Jefferson, co-created which Norman Lear sitcom?
Good Times
Good Times was created by Evans and Eric Monte while he was playing Lionel, a part that later passed for a time to Damon Evans, no relation, before he returned to it in 1979.
Q 13Which actress, later a hit film director, was considered for Gloria before Sally Struthers won the part?
Penny Marshall
Penny Marshall lost out months before marrying Rob Reiner, who did get cast, as Mike. Her own sitcom stardom arrived five years later with Laverne & Shirley.
Q 21Which nostalgic sitcom ended All in the Family's five-season run at number one in the ratings?
Happy Days
Happy Days took the top spot in 1976-77 as the Bunkers slid to twelfth: after five years of arguing about the present, America's favourite show was a cosy comedy set in the 1950s.
Q 22Which entertainer played himself in a 1972 episode, calling at the Bunker house to collect a briefcase left in Archie's cab?
Sammy Davis Jr.
Sammy Davis Jr. ends the visit by posing for a photo with Archie and kissing him on the cheek as the shutter clicks, setting off one of the longest studio laughs in the show's history.
Q 23Which museum was given Archie and Edith's chairs from the All in the Family set?
The Smithsonian
Q 14Which actress and singer played Edith's cousin Maude in two episodes before her own spin-off?
Bea Arthur
Bea Arthur made such an impression in her first guest spot that a network executive phoned Norman Lear at once to say the character needed a series of her own.
Q 15What business made George Jefferson rich enough to move to Manhattan?
Dry cleaning
Dry cleaning paid for the Jeffersons' move, and it changed life next door too: Mike and Gloria rented the house they left behind, finally getting out from under Archie's roof.
Q 16George Jefferson was heard about but never seen until 1973, while Norman Lear waited for Sherman Hemsley to finish what?
A Broadway musical
A Broadway musical, Purlie, had Hemsley's word and he wouldn't break it. Lear held the part open and wrote in George's brother Henry to do the sparring with Archie in the meantime.
Q 17The theme song 'Those Were the Days' is performed by Archie and Edith at what instrument?
A piano
A piano was, by composer Charles Strouse's account, his suggestion: his happiest boyhood memories were of his family gathered round one to sing, and he pictured Archie and Edith the same way.
Q 18The composer of the All in the Family theme later wrote which stage hit about an orphan?
Annie
Annie's composer, Charles Strouse, wrote the Bunkers' theme with lyricist Lee Adams. He had studied under Aaron Copland and meant to write for the concert hall before the theatre claimed him.
Q 19Unlike most 1960s sitcoms, All in the Family was recorded on what medium?
Videotape
Videotape was a point of pride: a voice over the closing credits announced that the show was recorded on tape before a live audience, because Lear refused to use canned laughter.
Q 20How did Norman Lear originally want to shoot All in the Family?
In black and white
In black and white was Lear's request for the pilot that finally aired, but the network balked and the Bunkers went out in colour.
The Smithsonian keeps the two armchairs in its National Museum of American History, which credits the show with shattering television comedy's tradition of happy families untouched by social strife.
Q 24All in the Family got its chance when its network turned against hit shows that were favourites of whom?
Rural viewers
Rural viewers kept those shows highly rated, but the network wanted a more affluent city audience, so its new president cleared out the country comedies in what became known as the rural purge and gambled on the Bunkers.
Q 25Which US president complained to his aides that an episode of All in the Family glorified homosexuality?
Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon was caught on his own White House tapes in 1971, recapping for two aides the episode in which Archie's macho football-player friend turns out to be gay.
Q 26Why was Carroll O'Connor missing from the 1974 episodes in which Archie vanishes on the way to a convention?
A contract dispute
A contract dispute over money kept O'Connor away, so the writers had Archie go missing, and a castmate recalls that Norman Lear was ready to kill the character off for good before his star settled.
Q 27Which crime drama did Carroll O'Connor star in after Archie, as police chief Bill Gillespie?
In the Heat of the Night
In the Heat of the Night turned TV's most famous bigot into a Mississippi police chief working side by side with a Black detective, and won O'Connor a fifth Emmy to add to his four as Archie.
Q 28Jean Stapleton turned down the role of which Willy Wonka child's mother?
Mike Teevee
Mike Teevee's mother was offered to Stapleton for the 1971 film, but the shoot clashed with the All in the Family pilot, so she picked the sitcom over the boy who is obsessed with television.
Q 29After playing Edith, Jean Stapleton was first choice to star in which hit 1980s series, but turned it down?
Murder, She Wrote
Murder, She Wrote's producers wanted Stapleton before anyone else, and one of them later wrote that her withdrawal threatened to stop the project dead, until Angela Lansbury took the part of Jessica Fletcher.
Q 30Rob Reiner, who played Mike Stivic, is the son of Carl Reiner, creator of which classic 1960s sitcom?
The Dick Van Dyke Show
The Dick Van Dyke Show began as Carl Reiner's scripts about his own life as a TV comedy writer, with himself in the lead. It sold only after a producer insisted the part be recast.