Black TV Show Trivia
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This Black TV show trivia quiz has 48 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 48 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Carlton Banks's signature dance on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air is set to which Tom Jones song?
It's Not Unusual
It's Not Unusual: Alfonso Ribeiro later sued the makers of Fortnite over the dance, but the US Copyright Office refused to register it as choreography.
Q 02Who played the second Aunt Vivian on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air after Janet Hubert left?
Daphne Maxwell Reid
Daphne Maxwell Reid: she played Aunt Viv for the final three seasons, and Janet Hubert and Will Smith only spoke again 27 years later, on the 2020 reunion special.
Q 03Martin Payne, played by Martin Lawrence, started the sitcom Martin as a DJ at which fictional Detroit station?
WZUP
WZUP: in later seasons Martin leaves the radio booth to host his own TV talk show, Word on the Street.
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 05On The Cosby Show, what was Cliff Huxtable's medical specialty?
Obstetrics
Obstetrics: Bill Cosby first pitched Cliff as a blue-collar limousine driver, until his wife, Camille, persuaded him to make the parents a doctor and a lawyer.
Q 06A Different World was set at Hillman College, a fictional historically Black college in which state?
Virginia
Virginia: after season one was judged not to capture life at a historically Black college, Howard University alumna Debbie Allen was brought in to revamp the show.
Q 07What is Steve Urkel's famous catchphrase on Family Matters?
Did I do that?
Did I do that?: Urkel was slated for a single appearance, but viewers loved him so much that Jaleel White joined the main cast in season two.
Q 08Family Matters was a spin-off of which sitcom?
Perfect Strangers
Perfect Strangers: Harriette Winslow ran the elevator at the newspaper where Larry and Balki worked, and ABC liked her so much it built a show around her family.
Q 09George Jefferson made his fortune from what kind of business?
Dry-cleaning stores
Dry-cleaning stores: the success of his chain let George and Louise move from Queens to a spacious apartment on Manhattan's East Side.
Q 10Good Times was a spin-off of which sitcom?
Maude
Maude: the writers later killed off Florida's husband, James, prompting her famous anguished cry of 'Damn, damn, damn!'
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 12Which filmmaker created OWN's drama Queen Sugar and hired only women to direct its episodes?
Ava DuVernay
Ava DuVernay: many of the directors she hired came from the Black independent film world, and Oprah Winfrey executive produced the drama with her.
Q 13The Parkers, which ran on UPN from 1999 to 2004, was a spin-off of which show?
Moesha
Moesha: Countess Vaughn's Kim Parker left after season four for the spin-off, in which she and her mother, Nikki, both enroll at Santa Monica College.
Q 21Empire, the Fox musical drama about the Lyon family, was created by Danny Strong and which film director?
Lee Daniels
Lee Daniels: he partly based Lucious, the mogul who rejects his gay son Jamal, on his own father.
Q 22In Starz's Power, what alias does Omari Hardwick's drug dealer character go by?
Ghost
Ghost: by day James St. Patrick runs the upscale nightclub Truth, the business he hopes will carry him out of the drug trade.
Q 23Who created, wrote and starred in the Fox sketch show In Living Color?
Keenen Ivory Wayans
Keenen Ivory Wayans: he gave early breaks to then-unknown comics Jim Carrey and Jamie Foxx, and cast several of his own siblings in the show.
Q 14Who created the 2000 UPN sitcom starring Tracee Ellis Ross as Joan Clayton?
Mara Brock Akil
Mara Brock Akil: with Kelsey Grammer among its executive producers, her sitcom was a big enough hit to survive UPN's merger and carry on at The CW.
Q 15Which UPN sitcom gave rise to the CW series The Game in 2006?
Girlfriends
Girlfriends: after The CW cancelled The Game in 2009, BET revived it, and its 2011 return drew 7.7 million viewers.
Q 16On The Bernie Mac Show, what did Bernie call the audience when he broke the fourth wall?
'America'
'America': the show grew out of Mac's stand-up about suddenly raising his sister's children, which is exactly what his character does after she enters rehab.
Q 17Everybody Hates Chris was based on Chris Rock's teenage years in which Brooklyn neighbourhood?
Bedford-Stuyvesant
Bedford-Stuyvesant: like the real Rock, young Chris is bused across town to a mostly white school, where he is bullied.
Q 18Who created Black-ish, which ran on ABC from 2014 to 2022?
Kenya Barris
Kenya Barris: he drew the show from his own family, and like Dre's wife, Bow, his real-life wife was an anesthesiologist.
Q 19Insecure grew partly out of which Issa Rae web series?
Awkward Black Girl
Awkward Black Girl: when money ran out, Rae turned to Kickstarter, and fans pledged more than $56,000 to finish its first season.
Q 20In Atlanta, Brian Tyree Henry plays a rapper known by what stage name?
Paper Boi
Paper Boi: as Alfred's local hit takes off, his broke cousin Earn, stuck selling credit cards at the airport, talks his way into managing him.
Q 24Which future superstar danced as one of In Living Color's Fly Girls?
Jennifer Lopez
Jennifer Lopez: after the Fly Girls she danced in Janet Jackson's 'That's the Way Love Goes' video, one of the other options here, before turning to acting.
Q 25Sister, Sister starred Tia and Tamera Mowry as twins who were what?
Separated at birth, reunited as teens
Separated at birth, reunited as teens: the adopted twins find each other by chance while shopping at a Detroit mall, and Tamera's father invites Tia and her mother to move in.
Q 26On Nickelodeon's Kenan & Kel, which drink does Kel famously love?
Orange soda
Orange soda: Nickelodeon built the sitcom around the pair after their comic chemistry stood out on its sketch show All That.
Q 27The Proud Family's 2022 revival on Disney+ carries what subtitle?
Louder and Prouder
Louder and Prouder: its creators said the original had to use coded language on social issues, but the revival could tackle them head-on.
Q 28That's So Raven centred on a teenager with what secret ability?
Psychic visions
Psychic visions: they are usually vague, so Raven often misreads them, and her schemes to stop a vision coming true can make things worse.
Q 29Who created and hosted TV's Soul Train?
Don Cornelius
Don Cornelius: in 1966 he gave up selling cars and insurance to take a broadcasting course, which led to radio and TV jobs.
Q 30Marla Gibbs starred as gossipy housewife Mary Jenkins on which 1985-1990 NBC sitcom?
227
227: it adapted a stage play set in the 1950s, but the series moved the action to present-day Washington, D.C.