Good Times Trivia
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50 free Good Times trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Good Times ran on CBS from 1974 to 1979 and was television's first sitcom about a Black two-parent family. This Good Times trivia quiz has 50 free questions with answers covering the whole run: the Evans family's Chicago apartment, Florida and James, J.J. and his catchphrase, Thelma, Michael, Willona, Bookman, Penny, and the neighborhood regulars from Sweet Daddy Williams to Ned the Wino. It also digs into what happened off camera: why John Amos was written out, why Esther Rolle left and came back, who painted J.J.'s artwork, who almost played Michael, where the theme song came from and how the series ended. Some questions are easy for anyone who watched the reruns; the later ones are for people who know the episode titles. Every answer was checked against the show's Wikipedia entries and its episode guide, and each question links to the page that establishes it.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Good Times was a spin-off of which sitcom, on which Florida Evans had been the housekeeper?
Maude
Maude was itself a spin-off of All in the Family, making Good Times a spin-off of a spin-off; Florida had worked for Maude Findlay in Tuckahoe, New York.
Q 02On which network did Good Times air its entire six-season run?
CBS
CBS aired all six seasons but kept moving the show, from Fridays to Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Mondays and Saturdays, before cancelling it in 1979.
Q 03Good Times was created by Eric Monte and which actor, best known as Lionel Jefferson?
Mike Evans
Mike Evans was still playing Lionel on All in the Family when he and his friend Eric Monte pitched their producer a sitcom about a struggling Black family.
Q 04Which producer developed Good Times and served as its first executive producer?
Norman Lear
Norman Lear disliked J.J.'s shouted catchphrase, the actor who played him recalls, but the director insisted on it in every episode and it became the show's signature.
Q 05In which city does the Evans family of Good Times live?
Chicago
Chicago was home to co-creator Eric Monte, who grew up in one of its housing projects and set the family's struggles there.
Q 06Which actress played Thelma, the Evans family's only daughter, on Good Times?
Bern Nadette Stanis
Bern Nadette Stanis was 20 when she began playing 16-year-old Thelma, a part her TV father complained was neglected once the scripts turned to J.J.'s clowning.
Q 07Which real housing project appears in the opening and closing credits of Good Times?
Cabrini-Green
Cabrini-Green appears in the credits but is never named on screen; the last of its high-rises was demolished in 2011.
Q 08Before Good Times renamed him James, Florida's husband had which first name, later given to James's father?
Henry
Henry was a New York firefighter in his guest spots on Florida's earlier sitcom; Good Times renamed him James, a man scraping by on odd jobs, and later introduced a Grandpa Henry.
Q 09Which future late-night host, then a joke writer for the actor who played J.J., had a small Good Times guest part?
Jay Leno
Jay Leno played a clinic patient in 1976's "J.J. in Trouble"; the show's breakout star had hired him and David Letterman, both struggling comics, to write for his stand-up act.
Q 10James Evans, who left school after sixth grade, sometimes hustles extra money at which game?
Pool
Pool is James's side hustle: in an early episode he wins the money the family needs at a pool hall over Florida's objections, between manual jobs like dishwashing and construction.
Q 11Who played James Evans on Good Times?
John Amos
John Amos clashed with the writers over the show's drift toward clowning; he later said the producers "got tired of having their lives threatened over jokes" and dropped him.
Q 12Which Good Times actor was 26 when cast as a teenager?
Jimmie Walker
Jimmie Walker, a stand-up comic, was 26 when he was cast as 17-year-old J.J., which left him less than eight years younger than the actor playing his father.
Q 13What nickname does James give his youngest son Michael, because of his political activism?
The militant midget
"The militant midget" fits a boy who joins protest marches and keeps his family briefed on every injustice he sees.
Q 21Which comedian turned a famously hard-to-hear line of the Good Times theme into a quiz question on his sketch show?
Dave Chappelle
Dave Chappelle's "I Know Black People" sketch quizzed contestants on a line heard as "hangin' in a chow line" or "hangin' in and jivin'"; asked in 2007, the song's two lyricists could not agree on the words either.
Q 22What did Esther Rolle insist on before she would agree to star in Good Times?
A father for the family
A father for the family: the producers first imagined Florida raising her children alone, and Esther Rolle refused to sign until a husband was written back in.
Q 23Ralph Carter had to be bought out of which Broadway musical to play Michael on Good Times?
Raisin
Q 14What does Michael, the youngest of the Evans children on Good Times, dream of becoming?
A lawyer
A lawyer, and more: the actor who played his father recalled a boy who "aspired to become a Supreme Court justice" and complained that the writers dropped such stories for J.J.'s antics.
Q 15What is the surname of the building superintendent, nicknamed "Buffalo Butt"?
Bookman
Bookman, the building's indolent superintendent, so annoys his tenants that they petition to have him fired in season five, and he has to scheme to win the job back.
Q 16Which future Diff'rent Strokes star made two guest appearances on Good Times in 1978?
Gary Coleman
Gary Coleman, then ten, turned up in a talent-show episode that April and again in October; a month later Diff'rent Strokes made him a star.
Q 17In the Good Times episode "Black Jesus", who does J.J. use as the model for his portrait of Jesus?
Ned the Wino
J.J. paints Jesus with the face of Ned the Wino, the neighborhood drunk played by Raymond Allen; the family's luck seems to improve while the painting hangs in the apartment.
Q 18Which artist painted most of the works credited to J.J. on Good Times, including The Sugar Shack?
Ernie Barnes
Ernie Barnes painted most of the canvases shown as J.J.'s work; The Sugar Shack, seen in the show's credits, also became the cover of Marvin Gaye's album I Want You.
Q 19Who played Keith Anderson, the man Thelma marries on Good Times?
Ben Powers
Ben Powers played Keith Anderson, who marries Thelma and joins the cast as a regular in the final season; an injury on the wedding day wrecks the career he had lined up.
Q 20Before Good Times, the actor who played James Evans was Gordy the weatherman on which sitcom?
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
The Mary Tyler Moore Show cast him after two of its producers saw him writing and performing sketches on a variety show; he played weatherman Gordy Howard on and off for its first four seasons.
Ralph Carter was appearing in the Broadway musical Raisin, based on A Raisin in the Sun, so the producers bought out his contract; early episodes credit him as appearing courtesy of that show.
Q 24Which Good Times character did guest star Chip Fields play in seasons five and six?
Penny's abusive mother
Penny's abusive mother, who abandons the girl in season five and schemes to win her back a year later; Fields's own daughter Kim guested on the show in 1978.
Q 25Which magazine ran Esther Rolle's 1975 interview attacking the J.J. character?
Ebony
In a 1975 Ebony interview Rolle said the writers had made J.J. "more stupid" and enlarged the role; she and the actor playing James both pushed for more serious storylines.
Q 26After Good Times dropped him, the actor who played James Evans earned an Emmy nomination for which miniseries?
Roots
Roots aired the year after he was let go, three seasons in, for clashing with the sitcom's writers; he played Toby, the adult Kunta Kinte.
Q 27How was James Evans written out of Good Times?
Killed in a car accident in Mississippi
Killed in a car accident in Mississippi, where he had gone for a promising new job; the producers chose to kill the character off instead of recasting him.
Q 28Which two-part Good Times episode opens season four with the news of James's death?
The Big Move
The Big Move is named for the family's plan to follow James to a new job out of state; the telegram announcing his death arrives in the middle of their going-away party.
Q 29On Good Times, which household object does Florida smash when her grief breaks through after James's funeral?
A punch bowl
A punch bowl is what Florida hurls to the floor, crying "Damn, damn, damn!", after holding an eerily cheerful front through the gathering that followed James's funeral.
Q 30On Good Times, Florida ends season four engaged to which shop owner, played by Moses Gunn?
Carl Dixon
Carl Dixon, the shop owner played by Moses Gunn, marries Florida off screen; Esther Rolle disliked the storyline partly because Carl was an atheist and Florida a devout Christian.