Days of Our Lives Trivia
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This Days of Our Lives trivia quiz has 68 free questions with answers and spans the whole run of daytime's longest hourglass, from the November 1965 premiere on NBC to the 2022 move to Peacock and the 15,000th episode. It starts with the essentials - Salem, the Hortons and Bradys, Macdonald Carey's opening line, Alice's donuts, Stefano DiMera's many resurrections - then digs into the storylines fans still argue about: Marlena's possession, the Salem Stalker and the island of Melaswen, Princess Gina, and the deaths of Bo and Stefano. There is plenty on the people too: Bill and Susan Seaforth Hayes on the cover of Time, Deidre Hall's Saturday-morning superhero past, Drake Hogestyn's baseball career, Kristian Alfonso's figure-skating gold, Alison Sweeney's disguise as Stan, and the alumni who went on to Supernatural and three straight Emmys. And yes, Joey Tribbiani's Dr. Drake Ramoray gets his due. Roughly a third of the questions are warm-ups a casual viewer can answer; the rest climb toward the trivia only a decades-long fan would know. Every answer has been checked against Wikipedia and the sources it cites, and each explanation adds one more thing worth knowing.
30 of 68 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Days of Our Lives premiered under which president?
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson was in office when the soap debuted on November 8, 1965; it struggled in the ratings for three seasons, then climbed into daytime's top three by 1972.
Q 02Unlike the Massachusetts town of witch-trial fame, the Salem of Days of Our Lives lies in which state?
Illinois
Illinois: the soap's Salem is an invented middle-America city, built so that one family of doctors, the Hortons, could carry both hospital drama and family saga.
Q 03Which timepiece fills the opening titles of Days of Our Lives as its famous first line is spoken?
An hourglass
An hourglass has opened the soap since 1965, and the actor who speaks the line over it died in 1994; his recording still starts every episode.
Q 04Which original cast member played Dr. Tom Horton and read the opening narration until his death?
Macdonald Carey
His introduction originally continued 'This is Macdonald Carey, and these are the Days of Our Lives'; that second line was retired after he died in 1994, but his voice still opens the show.
Q 05Which future Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star originated bad girl Billie Reed on Days of Our Lives in 1992?
Lisa Rinna
Lisa Rinna left in 1995 and twice reclaimed the part after another actress had played Billie, in 2002 and in 2012; she was back as Billie again in 2021.
Q 06Horton matriarch Alice Horton was famous around Salem for making what treat?
Donuts
Donuts were Alice's trademark and once her weapon: she fed a drug-laced batch to a wrongly jailed friend, then helped Bo Brady spring him on the way to hospital.
Q 07Which actress played Alice Horton from the 1965 premiere until 2007?
Frances Reid
Frances Reid died in 2010 at 95; the show then let Alice die off screen that June, after her family had gathered to say goodbye.
Q 08Days of Our Lives crime boss Stefano DiMera is known by which nickname?
The Phoenix
The Phoenix earned the name by returning from apparent death again and again over three decades, like the mythical bird that rises from its own ashes.
Q 09Charles Shaughnessy, later Maxwell Sheffield on The Nanny, spent eight years on Days of Our Lives as which secret agent?
Shane Donovan
Shane Donovan's romance with Kimberly Brady made the pair one of daytime's 1980s supercouples; a year after Shaughnessy left Salem in 1992, he was starring opposite Fran Drescher.
Q 10After leaving Days of Our Lives in 2001, Joseph Mascolo played Massimo Marone on which CBS soap?
The Bold and the Beautiful
The Bold and the Beautiful revealed his character to be Ridge Forrester's biological father; after five years he went home to Salem and Stefano.
Q 11Which grieving Salem resident finally shot Stefano dead in January 2016?
Hope Brady
Hope Brady shot him at the DiMera mansion, and a police colleague helped her hide the body in a building slated for demolition.
Q 12Before Days of Our Lives, Joseph Mascolo played developer Len Peterson in which 1978 sequel?
Jaws 2
Jaws 2 put him on cinema screens three years before a Days head writer saw him play a real-life mob boss in a 1981 miniseries and created Stefano DiMera especially for him.
Q 13When Marlena became possessed by the devil in the mid-1990s, who performed the emergency exorcism?
John Black
John Black, then led to believe he was a priest, drove the devil out of Marlena; when she was possessed again in 2021, her son, a real priest, came home to help.
Q 21Susan Seaforth Hayes, on Days of Our Lives in each of its seven decades, plays which character?
Julie Olson Williams
Julie Olson Williams was already a character in the 1965 premiere, played by a different actress; Seaforth Hayes inherited the part in December 1968 and later married, in real life, the co-star who played her great love.
Q 22Which actress originated farm girl Maggie on Days of Our Lives in 1973?
Suzanne Rogers
Suzanne Rogers, a former Radio City Rockette, spent her first two and a half years in the role on crutches, because Maggie arrived unable to walk after a car accident.
Q 23Drake Hogestyn joined Days of Our Lives in January 1986 as a mystery man known only by which name?
The Pawn
Q 14What pet name did Bo Brady famously give his great love on Days of Our Lives?
Fancy Face
Fancy Face stuck so firmly that the couple gave the name to their boat, on which they left Salem in 1987 to sail around the world with their young son.
Q 15Which Days of Our Lives head writer devised both the demonic-possession story and the Salem Stalker murders?
James E. Reilly
James E. Reilly gave up the job in the late 1990s and created the supernatural soap Passions, then was hired back in 2003 to lift the ratings while still running his own show.
Q 16The 2003-04 Salem Stalker was eventually unmasked as which beloved character?
Marlena Evans
Marlena Evans was no killer after all: a vengeful DiMera had brainwashed her, and the townspeople she had 'murdered' were found alive on a tropical island.
Q 17The Salem Stalker's supposed victims were found alive in which far-off place?
Melaswen
Melaswen is 'New Salem' spelled backward: a replica of the town on a tropical island, built by a vengeful DiMera to hold the neighbours everyone thought murdered.
Q 18Which lounge-singer character did Bill Hayes originate in 1970 and play until 2024?
Doug Williams
Doug Williams arrived as a convicted con man who had shared a prison cell with a Horton; Hayes's performance led the writers to build the part up, and he played it for 54 years.
Q 19In 1976, married Days of Our Lives co-stars Bill Hayes and Susan Seaforth Hayes shared the cover of which magazine?
Time
Time put the pair on the cover of an issue about soap operas; they had met on the set in 1970 and married in 1974, two years before their characters did.
Q 20Long before Salem, Bill Hayes topped the Billboard charts in 1955 with which song?
The Ballad of Davy Crockett
The Ballad of Davy Crockett spent five weeks at number one in his version, which climbed higher than the recording by Fess Parker, the actor who played Crockett on television.
The Pawn went to Hogestyn after he screen-tested with Deidre Hall; their chemistry made him her leading man, and he was still on the show in 2024.
Q 24Drake Hogestyn's amnesiac mystery man of 1986 was first revealed to be which presumed-dead Salem policeman?
Roman Brady
Roman Brady he stayed for five years, until the original actor returned in 1991 and the writers turned Hogestyn's version into a different man with a new name.
Q 25Before acting, Drake Hogestyn spent two seasons as an infielder in the farm system of which Major League team?
New York Yankees
New York Yankees: the St. Louis Cardinals had drafted him too, but he signed with New York, and an injury after two minor-league seasons turned him toward acting.
Q 26Marlena arrived in Salem in 1976 practising which profession?
Psychiatrist
Psychiatrist Marlena appeared to be strangled to death in 1982, but the victim proved to be her twin sister, played by Deidre Hall's real-life twin, Andrea.
Q 27Deidre Hall starred as which Saturday-morning superheroine for Sid and Marty Krofft in 1976?
Electra Woman
Electra Woman lasted a single season of 16 short episodes, while the soap role Hall began that same year has kept her on screen, on and off, for five decades.
Q 28Kristian Alfonso was a competitive athlete in which sport until a leg injury forced her to give it up?
Figure skating
Figure skating was her first ambition; when a crushed leg ended it, she signed with Wilhelmina Models as a teenager, and that work brought her to NBC's notice.
Q 29Stefano DiMera once reprogrammed Hope to believe she was which titled alter ego?
Princess Gina
Princess Gina was a real art thief and Hope's exact double; Stefano loaded her memories into Hope so that she could steal art for him.
Q 30What did Bo Brady ride into Salem in 1983?
Motorcycle
A motorcycle carried Bo into town, and later carried the woman he loved away from the altar as she was about to marry a sleazy politician.