Desperate Housewives Trivia
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99 free Desperate Housewives trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
50 free Desperate Housewives trivia questions with answers. Eight seasons, 180 episodes and one dead narrator who never stopped talking. This Desperate Housewives quiz covers all of it: Mary Alice's blackmail note, the season-long mysteries from the Applewhite basement to Alejandro's cover-up, the four leads and the neighbors who came and went, and the flash-forward endings the finale gave Susan, Lynette, Bree and Gaby. It also digs behind the camera: the backlot street that used to be The Munsters' block, the six networks that passed on Marc Cherry's script, the Emmys, the Golden Globes, the Nicollette Sheridan lawsuit and the writers' strike that cut season 4 short. Casual fans will get the early ones; the expert tier is for people who remember which house had no interior. Every answer has been checked against a primary source, mostly the Wikipedia articles for the show, its episodes and its characters, and each question shows its citation. Play it solo, or use it as a ready-made round for a trivia night.
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Q 01Which Desperate Housewives lead was best known as Lois Lane on Lois & Clark before playing Susan Mayer?
Teri Hatcher
Teri Hatcher went from Lois Lane to Bond girl Paris Carver in Tomorrow Never Dies, a part Monica Bellucci also tested for before the studio insisted on an American actress.
Q 02Which actress plays the perfectionist homemaker Bree Van de Kamp on Desperate Housewives?
Marcia Cross
Marcia Cross first read for the narrator, Mary Alice, before creator Marc Cherry insisted that she try out for Bree instead.
Q 03Which actress plays Gabrielle Solis, the former model, on Desperate Housewives?
Eva Longoria
Eva Longoria was the first lead cast, after admitting at her audition that she had read only her own part of the script; Marc Cherry said that was when he knew she was right.
Q 04Who voices Mary Alice Young, the narrator of Desperate Housewives from beyond the grave?
Brenda Strong
Brenda Strong was a late replacement: the pilot had already been shot with another actress as narrator, and the part was recast after ABC picked the series up.
Q 05What is the name of the fictional town where Desperate Housewives is set?
Fairview
Fairview was designed as an everyplace: the production designer watched old family sitcoms such as Father Knows Best to give its streets a classic American look.
Q 06Which event in the Desperate Housewives pilot sets the whole series in motion?
A neighbor's suicide
A neighbor's suicide opens the story: Mary Alice Young shoots herself, and her friends only start digging once they find a blackmail note among her belongings.
Q 07What trade does new neighbor Mike Delfino ply when he arrives on Wisteria Lane in Desperate Housewives?
Plumber
Plumber is only half the story: Mike has really moved in to find out what happened to his missing ex-girlfriend, hired by her father.
Q 08How far forward does the story of Desperate Housewives jump between seasons 4 and 5?
Five years
Five years pass at the end of season 4, a leap Marc Cherry later said worked well because it let every character start from scratch.
Q 09Which actress joined Desperate Housewives in season 7 as Renee Perry, Lynette's old college friend?
Vanessa Williams
Vanessa Williams came straight from Ugly Betty, which had just ended, as producers hunted for a saucy successor to Edie Britt, gone since season 5.
Q 10What does Susan Mayer do for a living when Desperate Housewives begins?
Children's book illustrator
Children's book illustrator Susan also writes them, starting with Ants in My Picnic Basket; when money runs short in season 7 she takes a job modelling lingerie on a website.
Q 11Which ABC hit launched in 2005 in the hour straight after Desperate Housewives?
Grey's Anatomy
Grey's Anatomy was a four-week stand-in for Boston Legal that rated so well ABC kept it in the slot behind Desperate Housewives.
Q 12Marc Cherry was best known for writing and producing which sitcom before he created Desperate Housewives?
The Golden Girls
The Golden Girls had made his name, but his Housewives script was still turned down by CBS, NBC, HBO and Lifetime before ABC bought it.
Q 13Which actor plays Orson Hodge, the man Bree marries in season 3 of Desperate Housewives?
Kyle MacLachlan
Kyle MacLachlan's Orson turns out to be the driver who ran Mike Delfino down in the season 2 finale, and he later goes to prison for it.
Q 21Which First Lady joked at a White House correspondents' dinner, "Ladies and gentlemen, I am a desperate housewife"?
Laura Bush
Laura Bush told the 2005 dinner that her husband was sound asleep by nine o'clock, leaving her to watch Desperate Housewives with the vice president's wife.
Q 22How does Edie Britt die in season 5 of Desperate Housewives?
Electrocution
Electrocution: Edie survives crashing her car, then steps out onto a live power line, and she narrates a later episode from beyond the grave in Mary Alice's place.
Q 23Where do Lynette and Tom Scavo end up living after the Desperate Housewives finale?
A New York penthouse
Q 14Which Desperate Housewives lead won the 2005 Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series?
Felicity Huffman
Felicity Huffman beat two of her own co-stars, nominated in the same category that night; the fourth lead was left out, which Marc Cherry called a 'horrendous error'.
Q 15Which Oscar-nominated actress played Betty Applewhite, who keeps a prisoner in her basement on Desperate Housewives?
Alfre Woodard
Alfre Woodard admitted, when Marc Cherry rang to offer her the part, that she had never seen his show; he wanted her simply because he liked her in everything.
Q 16Dana Delany turned down Bree three times, then joined Desperate Housewives in season 4 as which character?
Katherine Mayfair
Katherine Mayfair finally brought her to Wisteria Lane; Delany had refused Bree because the part was too much like the one she had just played on Pasadena.
Q 17The murder of whose stepfather, Alejandro, is the cover-up that drives the final season of Desperate Housewives?
Gabrielle
Gabrielle's husband Carlos kills Alejandro with a candlestick in the season 7 finale, and the friends hide the body while a dinner party goes on around them.
Q 18Desperate Housewives overtook which series as the longest-running hour-long show with all-female leads?
Charmed
Charmed set the mark with 178 episodes, so Housewives, which ended on 180, edged past it only on the night of its two-hour finale.
Q 19The two-hour Desperate Housewives finale aired in 2012 on which American holiday?
Mother's Day
Mother's Day, May 13, suited a farewell to four wives and mothers, and the two hours packed in a wedding, a birth and a death.
Q 20Kathryn Joosten won two Emmys for playing which Desperate Housewives resident of Wisteria Lane?
Karen McCluskey
Karen McCluskey made a star of a late starter: Joosten had been a psychiatric nurse and did not take up acting until she was 42.
A New York penthouse overlooking Central Park is the reward: Lynette moves east to become a CEO, and the couple grow old there with six grandchildren.
Q 24Who sent the blackmail note found among Mary Alice Young's belongings on Desperate Housewives?
Martha Huber
Martha Huber, the lane's nosiest neighbor, pays for it: Paul Young kills her when he finds out, and her sister Felicia then arrives to learn what happened.
Q 25Which illness is Lynette Scavo diagnosed with at the end of season 3 of Desperate Housewives?
Hodgkin's lymphoma
Hodgkin's lymphoma: Lynette hides her chemotherapy under wigs to dodge her neighbors' pity, while her estranged mother Stella moves in to help.
Q 26Marc Cherry conceived Desperate Housewives while watching news coverage of which criminal case with his mother?
Andrea Yates
Andrea Yates had drowned her children, and when Cherry asked how any mother could be that desperate, his own mother replied, 'I've been there.'
Q 27Which composer wrote the Emmy-winning opening theme of Desperate Housewives?
Danny Elfman
Danny Elfman, who also wrote The Simpsons theme, supplied only the title music; he left the first episodes' score to his old Oingo Boingo bandmate Steve Bartek.
Q 28The fictional hometown of Desperate Housewives lies in which equally fictional state?
Eagle State
Eagle State is printed on the license plates, but it sits nowhere in particular: the production designer wanted 'neither a red state nor a blue state'.
Q 29Most Desperate Housewives episode titles are taken from the songs and lyrics of which composer?
Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Sondheim was creator Marc Cherry's habit: he named episodes after songs such as 'The Ladies Who Lunch', 'Children Will Listen' and 'Every Day a Little Death'.
Q 30What is the title of the final episode of Desperate Housewives?
Finishing the Hat
Finishing the Hat ends on a poker game at which the four friends vow it will not be their last together; the narrator then reveals that it was.