70 free Bonanza trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
62 free Bonanza trivia questions with answers. Bonanza ran for 14 seasons and 431 episodes, and for most of the 1960s it was the biggest show on American television. This quiz covers the whole run: Ben Cartwright and his three sons by three wives, the thousand-square-mile Ponderosa on Lake Tahoe, Hop Sing, Sheriff Coffee and Virginia City, the famous galloping theme, the color-TV gamble that saved the show before it aired, Pernell Roberts walking away, Dan Blocker's death and the reunion movies that followed. Easy questions ask which network aired it and what the ranch was called. The hard ones want to know which sponsor moved it to Sunday nights, how many episodes were really shot at the Ponderosa theme park, and who made the cast's saddles. It suits a family quiz night with fans who grew up on the reruns, or anyone who wants to test how well they really know the Cartwrights. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the series, its cast and its characters, and each question shows the sentence that backs it up.
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Q 01On which network did Bonanza originally air from 1959 to 1973?
NBC
It became the network's longest-running Western, and NBC's parent RCA used its color broadcasts to sell color TV sets.
Q 02What is the name of the Cartwright family ranch?
The Ponderosa
The name comes from the ponderosa pine common across the West.
Q 03Who played patriarch Ben Cartwright?
Lorne Greene
Greene later played another patriarch, the fleet commander in the original Battlestar Galactica.
Q 04Which real Nevada town was the closest to the Cartwright ranch?
Virginia City
The show's title itself refers to the Comstock Lode silver strike beneath the town.
Q 05The Cartwright ranch sat on the eastern shore of which body of water?
Lake Tahoe
The famous opening sequence was filmed in a meadow on the lake's east side near Round Hill, Nevada.
Q 06What was Hoss Cartwright's real first name?
Eric
His Swedish mother named him after her father; the nickname was a mountain-country term for a big, friendly man.
Q 07How many sons did Ben Cartwright have on the show?
Three
Each son had a different mother; Ben was widowed three times.
Q 08Which Cartwright son was the architect who built the ranch house?
Adam
Adam was written as a university-educated architectural engineer, unlike his brothers.
Q 09Who played the family's cook, Hop Sing?
Victor Sen Yung
He was already familiar to film audiences as Jimmy Chan, the number two son in the Charlie Chan movies.
Q 10Where was Bonanza's title term borrowed from?
Miners' slang for a rich vein of silver ore
It refers to the 1859 Comstock Lode strike under Virginia City.
Q 11How many episodes of Bonanza were made?
431
Only Gunsmoke ran longer among network Westerns.
Q 12Which Western is the only one that ran longer than Bonanza on American network TV?
Gunsmoke
Gunsmoke ran on CBS for 20 seasons.
Q 13The Cartwrights' three mothers were given three different ancestries. Which set is correct?
English, Swedish and French Creole
Flashback episodes filled in each wife's story: Elizabeth Stoddard, Inger Borgstrom and Marie.
Why did NBC keep Bonanza despite talk of cancelling it before it premiered?
Q 21Whose orchestra took an instrumental Bonanza theme to No. 19 on the Hot 100 in 1961?
Al Caiola
A country legend later cut a vocal version with his own lyrics that barely scraped the chart.
Q 22Which country star recorded a version of the Bonanza theme with rewritten lyrics for a 1962 single?
Johnny Cash
He co-wrote the words with Johnny Western; the series never used his version.
Q 23The actor who played Ben Cartwright had a 1964 spoken-word number one about which Old West outlaw?
Johnny Ringo
Greene also cut a spoken-word tribute to the family ranch, which quietly shrank it to half a million acres.
It was filmed in color and helped RCA sell color TV sets
RCA, NBC's parent, was also the primary sponsor for the first two seasons.
Q 15Which sponsor took over when Bonanza moved to Sunday nights for its third season?
Chevrolet
The Sunday 9 pm slot sent the ratings soaring, and the show reached number one by 1964.
Q 16Between which years was Bonanza the number one show in the Nielsen ratings?
1964 to 1967
It appeared in the top five for nine consecutive seasons, a record at the time.
Q 17Which sitcom was Bonanza scheduled against in the fall of 1972, hastening its cancellation?
Maude
The move to Tuesday nights and Dan Blocker's death sent ratings plunging.
Q 18Under what title did NBC air Bonanza reruns in prime time in the summer of 1972?
Ponderosa
The syndicated reruns kept that name until the series ended, then reverted to Bonanza.
Q 19Who wrote Bonanza's famous theme song?
Jay Livingston and Ray Evans
The pair also wrote 'Que Sera, Sera' and 'Mona Lisa'; David Rose orchestrated their theme for TV.
Q 20What happened to the scene of the Cartwrights singing the theme song at the end of the pilot?
It was cut before broadcast as too campy
Pernell Roberts, the only trained singer among them, refused to join in and fiddled with the reins instead.
Q 24In which country was Ben Cartwright's actor born?
Canada
As a CBC newsreader during the war his grim delivery earned him the nickname 'The Voice of Doom'.
Q 25What role did Ben Cartwright's actor later play in the original Battlestar Galactica?
Commander Adama
TV Guide in 2007 ranked Ben Cartwright the nation's second-most popular TV father, behind only Cliff Huxtable.
Q 26Which sport did Dan Blocker star in at Sul Ross State in Texas?
Football
He graduated in 1950 with a degree in speech and drama and later taught school before acting.
Q 27In which war did Dan Blocker serve as an infantry sergeant, earning a Purple Heart?
Korean War
He served with the 45th Infantry Division from December 1951 to August 1952.
Q 28Which restaurant chain did Dan Blocker part-own and promote in character as Hoss?
Bonanza Steakhouse
He agreed to be spokesman and make franchise appearances in exchange for a stake.
Q 29What caused Dan Blocker's death in May 1972?
A pulmonary embolism after gallbladder surgery
He was 43; Robert Altman had just cast him in The Long Goodbye and dedicated the film to him.
Q 30Bonanza's writers made TV history in the autumn of 1972 by doing what?
Acknowledging a major character's death in the storyline
A later sequel film finally explained that Hoss had drowned trying to save someone.