50 free Green Acres trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
41 free Green Acres trivia questions with answers. Green Acres was the strangest show on 1960s television: a Manhattan lawyer buys a broken-down farm, his Hungarian wife throws the dishes out of the window, the neighbours' pig goes to school and everyone can hear the fife music except Oliver. This quiz covers all six seasons: the radio show it grew out of, Mr. Haney's window-shade signs, Eb calling Oliver 'Dad', Hank Kimball's rambling, Sam Drucker's many jobs, Alf and Ralph Monroe, Arnold Ziffel's Patsy Awards, the crossovers with Petticoat Junction and The Beverly Hillbillies, the theme song sung by the stars, the rural purge that killed it and the 1990 reunion movie. Easy questions ask who played Oliver and Lisa and what kind of animal Arnold is; the hard ones want the show's working titles, the newscaster who anchored the pilot, the breed of pig and how many actors Tom Lester beat for the part of Eb. Written for classic TV fans, MeTV watchers and anyone who can still sing the theme. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the series, its characters and cast, and each question carries the sentence that backs it up.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Oliver Douglas gives up what career in Manhattan to become a farmer?
Attorney
Eddie Albert played him. Albert had two Oscar nominations and a Bronze Star for rescuing Marines at Tarawa.
Q 02Which Hungarian-born actress played Lisa Douglas?
Eva Gabor
She later voiced Duchess in The Aristocats and Miss Bianca in The Rescuers. On the show Lisa admits her only talent is impersonating her sister Zsa Zsa.
Q 03On which network did Green Acres air from 1965 to 1971?
CBS
Filmways produced it as a sister show to Petticoat Junction, and CBS gave Paul Henning the slot without asking for a pilot.
Q 04The 1950 CBS radio series the show grew out of was named after which family?
The Granbys
Jay Sommers created both. The radio couple, played by Bea Benaderet and Gale Gordon, were modelled on their My Favorite Husband characters.
Q 05Which of these was a proposed title before the series became Green Acres?
The Eddie Albert Show
Country Cousins was the other. Sommers ended up writing and producing about a third of the episodes.
Q 06What was the Douglases' farm known as before Oliver bought it?
The Old Haney Place
Haney sold it, then stripped out the sink, stove, cow and tractor and sold them back to Oliver one by one.
Q 07Which former newscaster and What's My Line host anchored the mockumentary pilot episode?
John Charles Daly
A few weeks later Albert and Gabor returned the favour as Mystery Guests on What's My Line and thanked him on air.
Q 08What is unusual about the Green Acres theme song?
The two stars sing it themselves
Vic Mizzy composed it. He also wrote The Addams Family theme, complete with finger snaps.
Q 09Which instrument plays 'Yankee Doodle' whenever Oliver launches into a speech about the American farmer?
A fife
Every character on screen can hear it except Oliver, and they look around trying to work out where it is coming from.
Q 10Mr. Douglas's full name honours which famous American?
Oliver Wendell Holmes
He does his farm chores in a three-piece suit, which the town decides is ruining Hooterville's image.
Q 11What car does Oliver drive in the early seasons, in stark contrast to the town's decrepit vehicles?
A Lincoln Continental convertible
Later seasons swapped it for a Mercury Marquis convertible.
Q 12According to Lisa in 'Wings Over Hooterville', what was she during World War II when she met Oliver?
A sergeant in the Hungarian underground
He was a US Army Air Forces flier who had bailed out. She gives several other versions in later episodes, including one where her father is the deposed King of Hungary.
Q 13What does Lisa sometimes do with dirty dishes instead of washing up?
Q 21Who is the only person in Hooterville who insists Arnold is just a pig?
The city lawyer Douglas
Everyone else understands his grunts as English, and Oliver keeps slipping and treating him as a boy anyway.
Q 22Which newscast does Arnold watch to keep up with the issues?
The CBS Evening News
He also plays checkers with the townsfolk and wins, plays the piano and is working on a novel.
Q 23Which famous TV animal is implied to be the horse that talks Arnold out of a Hollywood role?
Mr. Ed
The horse needs the job to send his son to Stanford, so Arnold behaves badly on purpose and gets fired.
Throws the lot out the kitchen window
Her hotcakes, made from Kate Bradley's recipe, became the show's infamous inedible 'hotscakes'.
Q 14Which shifty salesman sold Oliver the farm and keeps selling him back his own fittings?
Mr. Haney
He turns up on cue with a custom sign painted on a green pull-down window shade for every occasion.
Q 15Pat Buttram said Mr. Haney was inspired by which real-life showbiz figure?
Colonel Tom Parker
Buttram had spent years as Gene Autry's comic sidekick, so he knew a few managers.
Q 16What does farmhand Eb Dawson habitually call Oliver and Lisa, to Oliver's annoyance?
Dad and Mom
Tom Lester beat around 400 actors for the part, reportedly because he was the only one who could milk a cow.
Q 17Why did Tom Lester say he won the role of Eb over hundreds of other actors?
He was the only one who knew how to milk a cow
He grew up on a farm in Laurel, Mississippi. In summer breaks he toured the country preaching at revivals.
Q 18How did the show explain Eb's absence during the first half of the 1967-68 season?
He had eloped and was on his honeymoon
Tom Lester actually had mononucleosis.
Q 19What kind of animal is Arnold Ziffel?
A pig
Fred and Doris Ziffel treat him as their son. He goes to school, watches westerns and signs his own name.
Q 20What breed is Arnold?
Chester White
The original pig came from Union Star, Missouri. Since pigs grow fast, several Arnolds were used over the run.
Q 24Who trained Arnold and virtually all the other animals on the rural sitcoms of the era?
Frank Inn
He said you can never force or reprimand a pig or it will stop working for you. Arnold won him three Patsy Awards.
Q 25What is the secret about carpenter Ralph Monroe, Alf's 'brother'?
Actually Alf's sister
Alf explains they would not get work if people knew. The pair never finish the Douglases' bedroom, not even by the 1990 reunion.
Q 26Which newspaper does Sam Drucker edit?
The Hooterville World Guardian
He is also postmaster, notary, constable, justice of the peace and a volunteer firefighter, on top of running the general store.
Q 27What is Hank Kimball's job?
County agricultural agent
He starts a sentence, contradicts himself, contradicts the contradiction and wanders off. Alvy Moore relied on teleprompters to get through the dialogue.
Q 28How much older than Eddie Albert was Eleanor Audley, who played his mother Eunice?
Five months
She urged Lisa to 'come back to America'. Audley also voiced Maleficent and Cinderella's stepmother for Disney.
Q 29Which Petticoat Junction hotel owner gave Lisa the hotcake recipe that became her infamous 'hotscakes'?
Kate Bradley
Bea Benaderet played her in a few early episodes. Her Billie Jo was the only Bradley sister never to appear on Green Acres.
Q 30In a 1967 Green Acres episode, the Hooterville theatre stages a play in homage to which series, with Lisa as Granny?
The Beverly Hillbillies
Oliver played Jethro. From 1968 the Clampetts themselves visited Hooterville, uniting all three Henning shows in one universe.