Night Court Trivia
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47 free Night Court trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This Night Court trivia quiz covers the NBC sitcom from its January 1984 debut through the 1992 finale, plus the 2023 revival in which Melissa Rauch's Abby Stone took over her late father's Manhattan courtroom and John Larroquette came back as Dan Fielding. It is written for people who remember the saxophone theme, the magic tricks and the Mel Torme jokes, and for the newer audience who met the night shift through the revival. Expect questions on Judge Harry Stone, Dan, Bull Shannon, Christine Sullivan, Mac and Roz, the bailiffs who came before Roz, the show's creator and his Barney Miller roots, Larroquette's record run of Emmys, the Wheelers, Yakov, the aliens from Jupiter and the last line ever spoken on the show. About a third of the questions are easy for anyone who watched, a third need a closer memory of the cast and specific episodes, and the rest reward the completists who know the ratings history, the theme's composer and the revival's casting changes. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on both series, the episode list and the main actors before publishing, and each question carries the sentence that establishes it. If you think one is wrong, use the report button and we will look again.
30 of 47 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01On which network did the original Night Court air from 1984 to 1992?
NBC
NBC. The show arrived in January 1984 as a mid-season replacement, and within three years the stopgap had climbed into the Nielsen top ten.
Q 02What was Judge Harry Stone's full first name?
Harold
Harold T. Stone was played by Harry Anderson, a real-life magician who worked the trade into the character.
Q 03Night Court's creator had previously written for which police sitcom?
Barney Miller
Barney Miller. Weege wrote and produced for the precinct comedy, then set his own show in an after-hours courtroom, insisting he had seen real ones that were even more bizarre.
Q 04What is prosecutor Dan Fielding's real first name?
Reinhold
Reinhold. The series revealed he was born Reinhold, to rustic parents he had told everyone were dead, and the name was a nod to the show's creator, Reinhold Weege.
Q 05What is the middle name of Night Court bailiff Aristotle "Bull" Shannon?
Nostradamus
Nostradamus. Aristotle Nostradamus Shannon looked far fiercer than he was: in season one a charity turns the gentle bailiff away because his size and appearance are too intimidating.
Q 06Who played public defender Christine Sullivan?
Markie Post
Markie Post. She guested as Christine in season two and joined full-time in season three, having started in television behind the camera on game-show crews.
Q 07What was court clerk Mac Robinson's full first name?
Macintosh
Macintosh. Charles Robinson played Mac from season two to the end of the run, and stepped behind the camera to direct three episodes himself.
Q 08Marsha Warfield's bailiff Roz shares her full name with which Hollywood actress?
Rosalind Russell
Rosalind Russell. Roz took over as bailiff in season four, and Marsha Warfield brought her back in the 2023 revival, by then working as a private investigator.
Q 09Who played the chain-smoking bailiff Hacker in the first two seasons?
Selma Diamond
Selma Diamond. The comedy writer turned actress died of lung cancer after season two, and Florence Halop, who replaced her as bailiff, died of cancer just a year later.
Q 10After Night Court, John Larroquette's own sitcom cast him as the night manager of what?
A bus station
A bus station. In The John Larroquette Show he played a recovering alcoholic whose new job, with a robbery and a missing bus in the pilot alone, tests his resolve to stay sober.
Q 11Which one-season Charlie's Angels star was cast as Night Court's Christine Sullivan but never made it to air?
Shelley Hack
Shelley Hack. By her account the part had been rewritten from a funny lady into a straight woman and wasn't working, so she and the producer mutually agreed at the eleventh hour that she would go.
Q 12Which singer, Meat Loaf's partner on "Paradise by the Dashboard Light", played public defender Billie Young?
Ellen Foley
Ellen Foley. She sang the girl's part on the 1977 record, but Karla DeVito took her place on the tour, and Foley spent just one season in Harry's courtroom.
Q 13Which crooner appeared as himself as Harry's musical idol?
Mel Tormé
Q 21After a first season on Wednesdays, Night Court moved to which night?
Thursday
Thursday. Parked at 9:30, the show broke into the Nielsen top twenty in its second season and held the slot for four years.
Q 22Which sitcom topped the ratings in Night Court's best year?
The Cosby Show
The Cosby Show. Night Court peaked at seventh in 1986–87, closing the comedy block that the top-rated show opened, and all four of that block's shows finished in the Nielsen top seven.
Q 23At the start of its final season, Night Court was the Wednesday lead-in for which soon-to-be hit?
Seinfeld
Seinfeld. The newcomer was starting its first full season behind a veteran in its ninth, and within months the network flipped the pair so that it led off the hour instead.
Mel Tormé. The running gag grew into repeat guest spots and a real friendship: when the singer died in 1999, Harry Anderson delivered a eulogy at his funeral.
Q 14Which future Star Trek actor played frequent defendant Bob Wheeler?
Brent Spiner
Brent Spiner. He played hard-luck Bob Wheeler in the mid-1980s, before Star Trek made him Data, then returned to the role in the revival more than 30 years later.
Q 15Which comedian played Night Court's recurring Soviet émigré Korolenko?
Yakov Smirnoff
Yakov Smirnoff. Born in Odesa in Soviet Ukraine, he emigrated to the United States in 1977 and built his act on the naive newcomer, the same persona he brought into Harry's court.
Q 16Which Addams Family star played Buddy Ryan, Harry's stepfather who turned out to be his birth father?
John Astin
John Astin. His Buddy had spent years in and out of mental hospitals, and capped each alarming story with a wide smile and the line "...but I'm feeling much better now."
Q 17Which comedian played prosecutor Oscar Brown in Night Court's final season?
Gilbert Gottfried
Gilbert Gottfried. His loud-mouthed Oscar Brown was hired because Dan had gone missing, and Dan turned up hiding in the sub-basement as the Phantom of the Courthouse.
Q 18Family Guy once showed which US president playing the Night Court theme, backed by Secret Service agents?
Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton. Ernie Watts played saxophone on the real theme, so the cartoon handed the tune to the president who had played sax on a late-night talk show during his 1992 campaign.
Q 19Which future movie star played a cynical teenage runaway in Night Court's second episode in 1984?
Michael J. Fox
Michael J. Fox. Already on Family Ties, he played a shoplifting runaway who sneers at a defendant calling himself Santa Claus, an old man who somehow knows details of everyone's past.
Q 20Which Looney Tunes character stood trial in Harry's court for years of harassing a bird?
Wile E. Coyote
Wile E. Coyote. Harry found him guilty of harassing the Road Runner, told him to go to a restaurant if he was hungry, and ordered him to leave that poor bird alone.
Q 24Christine Sullivan's actress came to Night Court from which action series?
The Fall Guy
The Fall Guy. She played bail bondswoman Terri Michaels there from 1982 to 1985, guesting in Harry's court in between, and became a regular as soon as she left.
Q 25Night Court's Harry Anderson later opened a nightclub in which city?
New Orleans
New Orleans. He had worked its streets as a young performer, and did his one-man show at his own club there until Hurricane Katrina's devastation sent him to Asheville.
Q 26Dan Fielding, like the actor who plays him, comes from which state?
Louisiana
Louisiana. Dan hid his roots until the hick parents he had told everyone were dead came up from there to visit him at the courthouse; John Larroquette was born in the same state.
Q 27Which sitcom staged a Night Court reunion in "The One with the Cast of Night Court"?
30 Rock
30 Rock. To cheer up Kenneth the page, Tracy brings in three of the old cast to film the wedding of Harry and Christine that the original series never showed.
Q 28In Night Court's pilot, how does Harry explain his appointment as a judge?
He was home when they phoned
He was home when they phoned. On the mayor's last day in office, a Sunday, aides worked down a list of a thousand candidates; Harry's name was at the bottom, and nobody else answered.
Q 29In Night Court's fifth season, what happens to Bull before he gives away his life savings?
He is struck by lightning
He is struck by lightning. Hit on the courthouse roof and clinically dead for a few minutes, Bull wakes convinced that God has told him to give everything he owns to the poor.
Q 30Mac marries Quon Le Duc, a woman he knew in which country, so she can stay in the US?
Vietnam
Vietnam. Mac had served there in the war, and a wedding meant only to stop her deportation turned into a real marriage that lasted to the end of the series.