Bonanza Trivia
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120 free Bonanza trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Oct 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 01Bonanza, the Western about the Cartwright family, ran from 1959 to 1973 on which US network?
NBC
NBC aired Bonanza for all 14 seasons, from September 1959 to January 1973, making it the network's longest-running Western.
Q 02What is the name of the Cartwright family ranch?
The Ponderosa
The Ponderosa takes its name from the ponderosa pine, the tall yellow pine common across the mountain West and the Sierra Nevada.
Q 03Who played patriarch Ben Cartwright?
Lorne Greene
Lorne Greene played Ben Cartwright for all 14 seasons; he was 44 when the series began, only 13 years older than Pernell Roberts, who played his eldest son.
Q 04Which real Nevada town was the closest to the Cartwright ranch?
Virginia City
Virginia City, the real Nevada boomtown, was the Cartwrights' nearest town; they rode in to see the sheriff, and the show's original town set was modeled on it.
Q 05The Cartwrights' thousand-square-mile ranch in Bonanza sat on the eastern shore of which body of water?
Lake Tahoe
Lake Tahoe is the body of water; the fictional ranch covered the Nevada side east of the lake, and the opening map burns away to reveal the Cartwrights riding out of its pines.
Q 06What was Hoss Cartwright's real first name?
Eric
Eric was his given name on the show; the nickname was explained as an old-country term for a big, friendly man, which suited Dan Blocker's 6-foot-4 frame.
Q 07How many sons did Ben Cartwright have when Bonanza began in 1959?
Three
Three sons rode with Ben at the start, each by a different wife; he had been widowed three times before the series began.
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
Victor Sen Yung played Hop Sing; 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
Miners' slang for a rich vein of silver ore gave the show its title, a nod to the 1859 Comstock Lode strike beneath the Cartwrights' nearest town.
Q 11How many episodes of Bonanza were made?
431
Bonanza made 431 episodes across 14 seasons between 1959 and 1973, second only to one other network Western in longevity.
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 13Which set of ancestries was given to the mothers of Ben Cartwright's sons?
English, Swedish and French Creole
English, Swedish and French Creole: Elizabeth Stoddard of New England, Inger Borgstrom from Sweden and Marie from New Orleans, each profiled in a flashback episode.
Q 21Whose orchestra took an instrumental Bonanza theme to No. 19 on the Hot 100 in 1961?
Al Caiola
Al Caiola's guitar-led orchestra took an instrumental 'Bonanza' to No. 19 on the Hot 100 in 1961, the same year his 'The Magnificent Seven' theme also charted.
Q 22Which country star recorded a version of the Bonanza theme with rewritten lyrics for a 1962 single?
Johnny Cash
Johnny Cash recorded 'Bonanza!' in 1962 with words he co-wrote with Johnny Western; the series never used his version.
Q 23Ben Cartwright's actor had a 1964 spoken-word number one about which real Old West outlaw?
Johnny Ringo
Johnny Ringo, the Arizona gunman, was the subject of 'Ringo', the 1964 spoken-word ballad by Ben Cartwright's actor that topped the Billboard Hot 100 that December.
Q 14Why did NBC keep Bonanza despite its weak ratings in the early seasons?
It was filmed in color and helped RCA sell color TV sets
It was filmed in color and helped RCA sell color TV sets; RCA, the network's parent, was also the show's primary sponsor for the first two seasons.
Q 15Which sponsor took over when Bonanza moved to Sunday nights for its third season?
Chevrolet
Chevrolet became the sponsor when Bonanza moved to Sunday at 9 pm in 1961; the Cartwrights appeared in Chevrolet commercials, and the Sunday slot sent the ratings soaring.
Q 16Between which years was Bonanza the number one show in the Nielsen ratings?
1964 to 1967
From 1964 to 1967 Bonanza was television's top-rated show every season, part of a nine-season run in the Nielsen top five.
Q 17Which sitcom was Bonanza scheduled against in the fall of 1972, hastening its cancellation?
Maude
Maude, the new CBS hit, was Bonanza's Tuesday-night opponent in fall 1972; the move from Sunday plus the loss of Dan Blocker sent ratings plunging and the network cancelled it in January 1973.
Q 18What was the name of Ben Cartwright's horse on Bonanza?
Buck
Buck was Ben Cartwright's buckskin; his sons' mounts were Chub, the pinto Cochise and Sport.
Q 19Who wrote Bonanza's famous theme song?
Jay Livingston and Ray Evans
Jay Livingston and Ray Evans wrote the theme; the pair also wrote 'Que Sera, Sera' and 'Mona Lisa', and David Rose scored the series and arranged their theme for television.
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
It was cut before broadcast as too campy; the footage of the four Cartwrights singing the lyrics as they rode off survived and resurfaced decades later on home video.
Q 24In which country was Ben Cartwright's actor born?
Canada
Canada: he was born in Ottawa in 1915, and as a CBC radio newsreader during the war his grim delivery earned him the nickname 'The Voice of Doom'.
Q 25Ben Cartwright's actor later played which role in the original Battlestar Galactica?
Commander Adama
Commander Adama, leader of the fugitive fleet in the 1978 Battlestar Galactica, gave the actor a second famous patriarch role, which he reprised in Galactica 1980.
Q 26Which sport did Dan Blocker star in at Sul Ross State in Texas?
Football
Football: Dan Blocker played on the Sul Ross State line before graduating in 1950 with a degree in speech and drama, and he taught school before acting.
Q 27In which war did Dan Blocker serve as an infantry sergeant, earning a Purple Heart?
Korean War
Korean War: Dan Blocker served as an infantry sergeant with the 45th Infantry Division from December 1951 to August 1952 and was awarded a Purple Heart.
Q 28Which restaurant chain did Dan Blocker part-own and promote in character as Hoss?
Bonanza Steakhouse
Bonanza Steakhouse, founded in 1963, gave Dan Blocker a stake in return for promoting it in character; the chain later came under the same owner as a rival named for the Cartwright ranch.
Q 29What caused Dan Blocker's death in May 1972?
A pulmonary embolism after gallbladder surgery
A pulmonary embolism after gallbladder surgery killed Dan Blocker at 43; Robert Altman had just cast him in The Long Goodbye and dedicated the film to him.
Q 30Who was Little Joe's bride, murdered soon after the wedding, in the 1972 episode 'Forever'?
Alice Harper
Alice Harper, played by Bonnie Bedelia, marries Joe in 'Forever' and is killed by her brother's gambling creditors, sending Joe on a revenge hunt.