This Black TV show trivia quiz has 50 free questions with answers and spans more than fifty years of television, from Julia and Soul Train through the Norman Lear era of Sanford and Son, Good Times and The Jeffersons, the NBC and Fox golden age of The Cosby Show, A Different World, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Martin, Living Single and In Living Color, the UPN and WB years of Moesha, Girlfriends and The Steve Harvey Show, and today's Insecure, Atlanta, Black-ish, Abbott Elementary, Snowfall and Watchmen. Questions cover characters, settings, creators, spin-offs, catchphrases and records, with a mix of easy crowd-pleasers and harder questions for people who can name every Wayans. It works for a Black History Month quiz, a game night or a family reunion. Every answer was checked against a reference page and each question carries the sentence that supports it.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Will is sent from which city to live with his wealthy relatives?
Philadelphia
The show ran on NBC from 1990 to 1996. Quincy Jones was pitched the idea and produced it; a dramatic reimagining, Bel-Air, arrived on Peacock in 2022.
Q 02Who played the second Aunt Vivian on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air after Janet Hubert left?
Daphne Maxwell Reid
The recasting became one of TV's most famous, and Will and Carlton acknowledged it in-show with a joke.
Q 03Martin Payne, played by Martin Lawrence, started the sitcom Martin as a DJ at which fictional Detroit station?
WZUP
He later hosted the talk show Word on the Street. The Fox sitcom ran five seasons from 1992 to 1997.
Q 04Living Single followed six friends sharing a brownstone in which New York neighbourhood?
Prospect Heights, Brooklyn
Yvette Lee Bowser created it for Fox in 1993, a year before Friends used a similar premise.
Q 05The Cosby Show spent how many consecutive seasons as television's top-rated show?
Five
Only All in the Family has matched that. The Huxtables were an upper-middle-class Brooklyn family; the show ran on NBC from 1984 to 1992 for 201 episodes.
Q 06A Different World was set at Hillman College, a fictional historically Black college in which state?
Virginia
After Lisa Bonet left, the show centred on Whitley Gilbert and Dwayne Wayne. Howard alumna Debbie Allen was hired to make campus life more authentic.
Q 07Steve Urkel was originally written into Family Matters as what?
A one-time guest character
Jaleel White's nerdy neighbour arrived midway through season one and became the show's protagonist. The series was itself a Perfect Strangers spin-off.
Q 08Family Matters was a spin-off of which sitcom?
Perfect Strangers
Harriette Winslow was the elevator operator at the Chicago Chronicle on that show. Family Matters ran eight seasons on ABC and one on CBS.
Q 09George Jefferson made his fortune from what kind of business?
Dry-cleaning stores
The Jeffersons moved from Queens to a Manhattan high-rise. The show, spun off from All in the Family, ran 11 seasons and 253 episodes.
Q 10Good Times, television's first Black two-parent family sitcom, was a spin-off of which show?
Maude
Maude itself spun off from All in the Family. The Evans family's Chicago housing project is implicitly Cabrini-Green.
Q 11Sanford and Son was based on which British sitcom?
Steptoe and Son
Redd Foxx's Fred Sanford ran a junk business at 9114 South Central Avenue in Watts. Till Death Us Do Part became All in the Family.
Q 12Brandy's 1996-2001 UPN sitcom was set in which Los Angeles neighbourhood?
Leimert Park
The UPN show ran from 1996 to 2001 and spun off The Parkers, starring Mo'Nique and Countess Vaughn.
Q 13The Parkers, which ran on UPN from 1999 to 2004, was a spin-off of which show?
Moesha
Mo'Nique and Countess Vaughn played mother and daughter Nikki and Kim Parker attending college together.
Q 21Empire, the Fox musical drama about the Lyon family, was created by Danny Strong and which film director?
Lee Daniels
Terrence Howard and Taraji P. Henson starred as Lucious and Cookie. It ran from 2015 to 2020.
Q 22In Power, Omari Hardwick's James St. Patrick is a drug dealer known by what alias?
Ghost
The Starz series was created by Courtney Kemp with 50 Cent and ran from 2014 to 2020 before several spin-offs.
Q 23Quinta Brunson plays Janine Teagues, a second-grade teacher, in Abbott Elementary. Where is the school?
West Philadelphia
The ABC mockumentary won the 2023 Golden Globe for best comedy series and Emmys for Brunson and Sheryl Lee Ralph.
Q 14Who created the 2000 UPN sitcom starring Tracee Ellis Ross as Joan Clayton?
Mara Brock Akil
It ran on UPN from 2000 and then The CW until 2008, and spun off The Game. Akil later created Being Mary Jane.
Q 15The Game (2006) was a spin-off of which sitcom?
Girlfriends
It launched on The CW, was cancelled, and was revived by BET, then Paramount+.
Q 16On The Bernie Mac Show, what did Bernie call the audience when he broke the fourth wall?
'America'
The Larry Wilmore-created Fox show ran 2001-2006; its premise came from Mac's stand-up about taking in his sister's kids.
Q 17Everybody Hates Chris was based on Chris Rock's teenage years in which Brooklyn neighbourhood?
Bedford-Stuyvesant
Rock narrated; Tyler James Williams played young Chris and Terry Crews his penny-pinching father Julius.
Q 18Who created Black-ish, which ran on ABC from 2014 to 2022?
Kenya Barris
It ran 175 episodes and spun off Grown-ish, with Yara Shahidi's Zoey heading to college, and Mixed-ish.
Q 19Insecure grew partly out of which Issa Rae web series?
Awkward Black Girl
Rae co-created it with Larry Wilmore. It premiered on HBO in 2016 and earned Rae three Emmy nominations for lead actress.
Q 20In Atlanta, Brian Tyree Henry plays a rapper known by what stage name?
Paper Boi
Donald Glover's Earn manages him. The FX show won two Peabodys and two Golden Globes for best comedy series.
Q 24Who created, wrote and starred in the Fox sketch show In Living Color?
Keenen Ivory Wayans
It launched Jim Carrey, Jamie Foxx and David Alan Grier, and its Fly Girls dancers included Jennifer Lopez, with Rosie Perez choreographing.
Q 25Which future superstar danced as one of In Living Color's Fly Girls?
Jennifer Lopez
Carrie Ann Inaba, later a Dancing with the Stars judge, was another Fly Girl.
Q 26Sister, Sister starred Tia and Tamera Mowry as twins who were what?
Separated at birth, reunited as teens
It began on ABC's TGIF in 1994 and moved to The WB, running 119 episodes in all.
Q 27Kenan & Kel, starring Kenan Thompson and Kel Mitchell, was set in which city?
Chicago
The Nickelodeon sitcom ran from 1996 to 2001. Kel's character was famous for loving orange soda.
Q 28The Proud Family's 2022 revival on Disney+ carries what subtitle?
Louder and Prouder
The original ran on Disney Channel from 2001 to 2005, following 14-year-old Penny Proud.
Q 29That's So Raven centred on a teenager with what secret ability?
Psychic visions
The Disney Channel hit ran four seasons from 2003 to 2007 and later spawned Raven's Home.
Q 30Soul Train aired nationally in syndication from 1971 until which year?
2006
Don Cornelius created it in Chicago and remained its longest-serving host. Johnson Products, maker of Afro Sheen, was an early sponsor.