50 free The Facts of Life trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
The Facts of Life started life as a Diff'rent Strokes spin-off nobody expected much from, and ended up running nine seasons on NBC from 1979 to 1988. Charlotte Rae's Mrs. Garrett went from the Drummonds' housekeeper to housemother at Eastland, an all-girls boarding school in Peekskill, New York, and the show followed Blair, Jo, Natalie and Tootie from the dorm to Edna's Edibles, Over Our Heads and beyond. This quiz covers the whole run: the season-one cast that got trimmed (Molly Ringwald included), Jo's arrival on a motorcycle, the fire that turned a bakery into a gift shop, George Clooney's handyman, Cloris Leachman taking over from Rae, the TV movies in Paris and Australia, the theme song written by Alan Thicke and Gloria Loring, and the 2001 reunion. Some questions are easy for anyone who watched after school; others will test people who owned the DVDs. Every answer is checked against a reference source and each question links to where the fact was confirmed.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In what New York town is the fictional Eastland School located?
Peekskill
The season-eight premiere was even titled 'Out of Peekskill,' the episode in which Mrs. Garrett marries and leaves for Africa.
Q 02How many seasons did The Facts of Life run on NBC?
Nine
It aired from August 1979 to May 1988, and NBC had planned a tenth season before Mindy Cohn and Nancy McKeon decided to leave.
Q 03Which future Brat Pack star was part of the large season-one cast before being written out?
Molly Ringwald
She played budding social activist Molly Parker. Julie Anne Haddock, Julie Piekarski and Felice Schachter were dropped at the same time.
Q 04Jo Polniaczek arrives at Eastland in season two on what?
A motorcycle
Jo is a Polish-American scholarship student from the Bronx, and her rivalry with the privileged Blair drove much of the retooled show.
Q 05Which New York borough is Jo from?
The Bronx
The season-three episode 'Jo's Cousin,' a failed backdoor pilot, sent her home to visit her family there, with Megan Follows as her cousin Terry.
Q 06Why did producers first put Tootie on roller skates?
To mask Kim Fields' short stature
The skates became one of her trademarks along with the braces and the gossip. Fields had earlier lost a Diff'rent Strokes role for being taller than Gary Coleman.
Q 07What is Tootie's real first name?
Dorothy
Kim Fields played Dorothy 'Tootie' Ramsey for all nine seasons, having first appeared as the character on Diff'rent Strokes.
Q 08How was Mindy Cohn discovered for her role on the show?
Charlotte Rae met her giving a school tour during research
Rae and the producers were visiting Westlake School in Holmby Hills; the principal had assigned Cohn as tour guide and they were charmed by her comic timing.
Q 09Which cartoon character did Mindy Cohn voice from 2002 to 2015?
Velma in Scooby-Doo
She succeeded B.J. Ward in the role and reprised it in Lego Dimensions.
Q 10Before Blair Warner, Lisa Whelchel was a cast member of what?
The New Mickey Mouse Club
She auditioned at 12 and became a Mouseketeer, then played the preppy, wealthy Blair for nine years.
Q 11How was Nancy McKeon discovered for the show?
A Hallmark commercial in which she cried on cue
McKeon was tutored on set and, while on the show, was granted a private audience with Pope John Paul II with her parents.
Q 12Which sitcom gave Kim Fields her first fame before The Facts of Life?
Good Times
She appeared as a friend of Penny, who was played by Janet Jackson.
Q 13In season two, Mrs. Garrett took on what additional job at Eastland?
School dietitian
The retooled second season, with the four girls confined to a spare room next to her bedroom as punishment, sent ratings up immediately.
Q 21In the two-part series finale, what does Blair do to save Eastland from closing?
She buys the school
The finale doubled as a backdoor pilot in which Blair, now headmistress, is forced to make Eastland co-ed; the new students included Seth Green and Mayim Bialik.
Q 22Which future Oscar nominee played one of Blair's troublemaking new students in the series finale?
Juliette Lewis
Seth Green, Mayim Bialik and Meredith Scott Lynn were also among the students of the never-picked-up co-ed Eastland spin-off.
Q 23Who co-wrote the show's theme song with Al Burton and Gloria Loring?
Alan Thicke
Q 14What was the name of the gourmet food shop Mrs. Garrett opened in season five?
Edna's Edibles
It was the show's way of keeping the girls under one roof after Blair and Jo graduated Eastland at the end of season four.
Q 15What replaced the food shop after it was destroyed by fire in the season-seven premiere?
A pop-culture gift store, Over Our Heads
The rebuild episodes 'Into the Frying Pan' and 'Grand Opening' all landed in the weekly top ten, and George Clooney joined the cast the same season.
Q 16George Clooney's character on The Facts of Life had what job?
Handyman
George Burnett is hired to help rebuild the shop after the fire; it was one of several sitcom stops for Clooney before ER made him a star.
Q 17Who replaced Charlotte Rae as the girls' guardian for the final two seasons?
Cloris Leachman
She played Mrs. Garrett's sister Beverly Ann Stickle, a character deliberately similar to her Emmy-winning Phyllis Lindstrom from The Mary Tyler Moore Show.
Q 18How was Mrs. Garrett written out of the show at the start of season eight?
She married and moved to Africa
The heavily promoted one-hour season-eight premiere sent her off with a Peace Corps husband; Rae felt she had done all she could with the character.
Q 19Which young shop worker did Beverly Ann legally adopt in the episode 'A Boy About the House'?
Andy Moffett
Mackenzie Astin, brother of Sean, played Andy over four seasons from 1985 to 1988.
Q 20Which of the four girls lost her virginity in the season-nine episode 'The First Time'?
Natalie Green
The storyline was written for Blair, but Lisa Whelchel refused it on religious grounds and asked to be written out of the episode, which aired with a parental advisory.
Thicke and Loring, then married, had also written the Diff'rent Strokes theme; Loring sang the later 'You take the good, you take the bad' version.
Q 24Which pair of writers created The Facts of Life?
Dick Clair and Jenna McMahon
Clair and McMahon, a comedy-writing team, later created Mama's Family and It's a Living.
Q 25In the Diff'rent Strokes pilot for the spin-off, what does Kimberly ask Mrs. Garrett to help with?
Sewing costumes for a student play
The dorm's housemother had just quit; Mrs. Garrett puts on a successful play but, at the end of the pilot, chooses to stay with the Drummonds.
Q 26By its third season The Facts of Life was NBC's number two show overall, behind which program?
Real People
It had ranked 70th out of 105 shows in its first season; the season-two retool and a Wednesday 9:30 slot turned it into a top-30 fixture for the rest of the decade.
Q 27In September 1985 NBC moved the show to Saturday nights as a lead-in for which new series?
The Golden Girls
Facts aired at 8:30 ahead of the 9 p.m. newcomer; the following season it was pushed to the brutal 8 p.m. slot and still won its hour.
Q 28Where did Mrs. Garrett and the girls travel in the 1982 TV movie?
Paris
The Facts of Life Goes to Paris aired days before the season-four premiere and was later chopped into four half-hour episodes for syndication.
Q 29The 1987 TV movie The Facts of Life Down Under sent the gang to which city?
Sydney
NBC scheduled it against the finale of ABC's miniseries Amerika and it still finished 13th for the week; the girls visit Eastland's sister school, Koolunga.
Q 30Which of the four girls was missing from the 2001 TV movie The Facts of Life Reunion?
Jo
Nancy McKeon was tied up with her series The Division. The reunion aired on ABC rather than NBC.