Hawaii Five-0
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
6correct to beat the crowd
50 free Hawaii Five-0 trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Hawaii Five-0 turned a 1968 police drama into one of the big network hits of the 2010s. Steve McGarrett, Danny Williams, Chin Ho Kelly and Kono Kalakaua chased smugglers, spies and the elusive Wo Fat across Oahu for ten seasons, bickering all the way. This quiz covers both versions of the show. Expect questions on the main characters and where they came from, the actors behind them, famous guest stars, crossovers, and the big twists of the early seasons, with extra attention to seasons two and three. A handful go back to the original series, its unforgettable theme tune and the island landmarks it made famous. It is written for fans who watched every week, for anyone working through the box set, and for quiz hosts who want a ready-made TV round. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you can play straight through or print it for a group.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The Five-O of Hawaii Five-O marks which milestone, reached by the islands nine years before the 1968 premiere?
Becoming the 50th state
Becoming the 50th state in 1959 is what the name salutes, and five-O has since become American slang for the police.
Q 02Which Canberra-born actor plays task-force leader Steve McGarrett in the Hawaii Five-0 reboot?
Alex O'Loughlin
Alex O'Loughlin trained at Sydney's National Institute of Dramatic Art before leading the reboot. One of his first acting jobs was as an extra playing a marine in a commercial.
Q 03A CBS insider said the reboot Hawaii Five-0 traded its title's letter O for a zero to improve what?
Search engine results
Search engine results were the worry: a zero set the new show apart from the more than 1.7 million pages Google already listed under the original's spelling.
Q 04Which detective series was created to keep using the costly production facilities built for Hawaii Five-O?
Magnum, P.I.
Magnum, P.I. arrived on CBS months after the older show ended, and its first episodes even refer to Five-O as if both share one world.
Q 05Which actor, the first Felix Leiter of the James Bond films, played McGarrett in the original Hawaii Five-O?
Jack Lord
Jack Lord played Leiter in Dr. No in 1962, then McGarrett for twelve seasons. A CGI recreation of him even shares a scene with the reboot's McGarrett in a 2016 episode.
Q 06How are Chin Ho Kelly and rookie Kono Kalakaua, both recruited in the Hawaii Five-0 pilot, related?
Cousins
Cousins from a clan of Honolulu cops, the pair double as the team's snipers, and Chin looks on Kono as a younger sister.
Q 07Which comedy legend guest-stars in Hawaii Five-0 as Aunt Deb, who raised Steve McGarrett's sister Mary?
Carol Burnett
Carol Burnett plays Deb, a singer who gave up a promising career to raise Mary and who later marries a retired lawyer played by Frankie Valli.
Q 08Hawaii Five-0's Danny Williams transferred to Honolulu from a police department in which state?
New Jersey
New Jersey is where Danny served before following his child to Honolulu after a divorce, and his father is a retired Newark firefighter.
Q 09Which instrumental rock band took a cover of the Hawaii Five-O theme to number four on the Billboard Hot 100?
The Ventures
The Ventures peaked at No. 4 in May 1969 and named an album after the tune, which marching bands at the University of Hawaii adopted as an unofficial fight song.
Q 10Which Hawaii Five-0 informant, an ex-convict, runs a shave ice stand, a shrimp truck and helicopter tours?
Kamekona
Kamekona became Chin's informant while serving time, where Chin handed him the book Think and Grow Rich. In season 3 he earns a helicopter pilot's licence with McGarrett's help.
Q 11Which Ocean's Eleven actor earned a Golden Globe nomination as Danny Williams in the Hawaii Five-0 reboot?
Scott Caan
Scott Caan broke through as Turk Malloy in the heist film, and in the 1990s he rapped as Mad Skillz in the hip hop duo The Whooliganz.
Q 12Hawaii Five-O was America's longest-running police procedural until which series overtook it in 2002?
Law & Order
Law & Order took the record in 2002, though the Honolulu series was still the first police drama to run unbroken for more than a decade.
Q 13Which Walking Dead star plays arms dealer Anton Hesse in the opening scene of the Hawaii Five-0 pilot?
Norman Reedus
Q 21Which Battlestar Galactica actress played rookie officer Kono Kalakaua for seven seasons of Hawaii Five-0?
Grace Park
Grace Park, who played Boomer on that series, earned three Teen Choice nominations as Kono, whose original-series namesake was a man.
Q 22Which actor, Hurley on Lost, joined Hawaii Five-0 as conspiracy theorist Jerry Ortega?
Jorge Garcia
Jorge Garcia began as a guest in season 4 and became a regular in season 5, reuniting with a fellow Lost castaway already on the team.
Q 23Under which code name did Steve McGarrett's mother work for the CIA before faking her death in Hawaii Five-0?
Shelburne
Shelburne is the name Wo Fat hunts obsessively, believing its owner killed his father. Mother and son finally reunite in Japan in the season 3 premiere.
Norman Reedus plays Anton, whom McGarrett is forced to shoot during an ambush on his convoy. Anton's brother Victor then executes McGarrett's father in reply.
Q 14Which other CBS crime drama crossed over with Hawaii Five-0 twice during season 2, once as a two-part story?
NCIS: Los Angeles
NCIS: Los Angeles sent Kensi Blye to Honolulu first, then Callen and Sam Hanna for a two-parter that finished on their own show with Danny and Chin as guests.
Q 15Each Halloween, Hawaii Five-0's Max Bergman dresses as a character from the films of which actor?
Keanu Reeves
Keanu Reeves films supply the medical examiner's costume every year, a tradition as dependable as his habit of reciting trivia until the team cut him off.
Q 16Steve McGarrett calls his Hawaii Five-0 team his ohana, a Hawaiian word with what meaning?
Family
Family is what ohana means, and the show's Hawaiian episode titles use the word too: one season 4 title translates as Family Comes First.
Q 17Before a knee injury sent her to the police academy, what was Kono Kalakaua's career in Hawaii Five-0?
Professional surfer
Professional surfer Kono was only days from graduating when McGarrett recruited her, at first for what was simply called the Governor's Task Force.
Q 18Which actor, the first cast for the Hawaii Five-0 reboot, played Chin Ho Kelly for its first seven seasons?
Daniel Dae Kim
Daniel Dae Kim signed on in February 2010, days before a McGarrett was found, and came straight from six years as Jin on Lost.
Q 19Which 1974 car does Steve McGarrett restore in Hawaii Five-0, the very one driven by the original show's star?
Mercury Marquis
The Mercury Marquis is written in as the pride of McGarrett's late father, and the real car has belonged to stuntman John Nordlum since the original series ended.
Q 20The creator of Hawaii Five-O borrowed the name of archvillain Wo Fat from what kind of Honolulu business?
A restaurant
A restaurant in downtown Honolulu gave the villain his name, and Chin Ho was named for Chinn Ho, the developer whose hotel appears in the opening titles.
Q 24In season 2 of Hawaii Five-0, Jenna Kaye lures Steve McGarrett into Wo Fat's trap in which country?
North Korea
North Korea is where Jenna trades McGarrett for a fiancé who was already dead. Wo Fat shoots her, and Joe White leads an unsanctioned rescue that costs him his career.
Q 25Which Backdraft star plays Frank Delano, boss of a gang of corrupt ex-cops, in Hawaii Five-0?
William Baldwin
William Baldwin plays Delano, and after Chin kills the character, his vengeful brother Paul is played by real-life sibling Daniel Baldwin.
Q 26Which Heroes star, once a digital effects artist, played medical examiner Max Bergman in Hawaii Five-0?
Masi Oka
Masi Oka worked at Industrial Light & Magic after a computer science degree, then found fame as Hiro Nakamura. He left the Honolulu series midway through season 7.
Q 27Steve McGarrett of Hawaii Five-0 is named for a grandfather who died aboard which ship at Pearl Harbor?
USS Arizona
The USS Arizona went down with Ensign Steven McGarrett in December 1941, three months before his son John was born, making the reboot's hero a third-generation Navy man.
Q 28Which Navy intelligence officer leaves the islands at Steve McGarrett's side in the Hawaii Five-0 finale?
Catherine Rollins
Catherine Rollins cracks the cipher left by McGarrett's late mother, which helps catch the last villain, and the two reunite as he departs.
Q 29Who decided the ending of Kapu, the season 3 episode of Hawaii Five-0 about a professor and his students?
Viewers voting online
Viewers voting online settled it, and the eastern and western halves of the country each saw the ending their own time zones had chosen.
Q 30In the original Hawaii Five-O, which Honolulu landmark houses the offices of McGarrett's unit?
Iolani Palace
Iolani Palace was the unit's fictional base, and the reboot nods to it by setting its headquarters in the building directly across the street.