One Day at a Time
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50 free One Day at a Time trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
One Day at a Time put a divorced mother at the centre of a prime-time sitcom in 1975, when that was a rare thing to see on television. Ann Romano raised two teenage daughters, argued with them, dated and built a career, while Schneider turned up with advice nobody had asked for. Four decades later, a reboot told the same kind of story about a new family, the Alvarezes. This quiz covers both versions. The questions on the original deal with Ann, Julie, Barbara and Schneider, the actors who played them, the boyfriends and husbands who came and went, and how the story finally wrapped up. The questions on the reboot follow Penelope, Lydia, Elena and Alex through the biggest moments of their four seasons, along with the guest stars and the people behind the camera. It suits anyone who watched the original in its first run or in reruns, anyone who binged the reboot, and trivia hosts planning a classic TV round. Character questions sit beside cast and production questions, and every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which rock guitarist did the actress who played Barbara on One Day at a Time marry in 1981, midway through its run?
Eddie Van Halen
Eddie Van Halen married the sitcom's Barbara in 1981, three years before the final episode aired. Their son Wolfgang was born in 1991.
Q 02In the 1975 sitcom One Day at a Time, Ann Romano moves her daughters from Logansport to which Midwestern city?
Indianapolis
Indianapolis is where the newly divorced Ann starts over, though every episode was taped before a studio audience in Hollywood.
Q 03Which actress plays Lydia, grandmother of the Alvarez family, in Netflix's One Day at a Time?
Rita Moreno
Rita Moreno was the first actor announced for the reboot. She said she took the part on the condition that Lydia be sexual.
Q 04Grandmother Lydia of Netflix's One Day at a Time fled which country, the ancestral homeland of the Alvarez family?
Cuba
Cuba is the homeland Lydia left after Fidel Castro took power. The reboot reimagined the 1975 sitcom around a Latino family.
Q 05Which producer developed the 1975 One Day at a Time and returned in his nineties to produce the Netflix reboot?
Norman Lear
Norman Lear, born in 1922, was an executive producer on both versions. His company first pitched rebuilding the sitcom around a Latino family.
Q 06Which actress, the original Julie on One Day at a Time, returned in the Netflix reboot as counselor Pam Valentine?
Mackenzie Phillips
Mackenzie Phillips came back as Pam Valentine, who leads a therapy group for female veterans. Off screen, she had started work as a drug rehab counselor in 2016.
Q 07Which actress played divorced mother Ann Romano for all nine seasons of the original One Day at a Time?
Bonnie Franklin
Bonnie Franklin first appeared on television at age nine, on The Colgate Comedy Hour. She stayed with the sitcom for its entire run.
Q 08Which organization's central saying shares its exact wording with the title of the sitcom One Day at a Time?
Alcoholics Anonymous
Alcoholics Anonymous uses the phrase as its central sobriety saying. The title took on an ironic edge in 1980, when one of the sitcom's young stars entered rehab.
Q 09Which singer performs the re-recorded theme song of Netflix's One Day at a Time, in an arrangement by her husband?
Gloria Estefan
Gloria Estefan sang the 1975 theme in a new arrangement by her husband Emilio. She later guest-starred as Mirtha, Lydia's estranged sister.
Q 10What job does Schneider hold at the apartment house where Ann Romano lives in the original One Day at a Time?
Superintendent
Superintendent Schneider hands out mostly unwanted advice to his tenants, above all to Ann. In the Netflix reboot, the character became the wealthy landlord instead.
Q 11Which actor won an Emmy for playing the meddlesome Schneider on the original One Day at a Time?
Pat Harrington
Pat Harrington Jr. won the Emmy in the sitcom's final year, and was one of only three cast members to stay for the entire run.
Q 12Which future Food Network host joined the original One Day at a Time at fifteen as wisecracking daughter Barbara?
Valerie Bertinelli
Valerie Bertinelli was 15 when the sitcom began and appeared in 208 of its 209 episodes, missing only one in nine seasons.
Q 13Penelope Alvarez, the single mother in Netflix's One Day at a Time, is a veteran of which branch of the military?
US Army
Q 21Near the end of the original One Day at a Time, Ann Romano accepts a job in which foreign city?
London
London is where Ann heads in the penultimate episode, leaving both daughters behind to raise families of their own.
Q 22Which Betty White sitcom reunited the actresses who played Ann and Barbara on One Day at a Time?
Hot in Cleveland
Hot in Cleveland starred the original Barbara, and her TV mother guest-starred in one of her last acting roles. The actors behind Julie and Schneider made cameos too.
Q 23Which singer of the 1962 chart-topper Johnny Angel played Ann Romano's business partner Francine on One Day at a Time?
Shelley Fabares
Penelope's US Army service left her with PTSD, and her therapy group of fellow female veterans recurs throughout the reboot.
Q 14Which network aired the original One Day at a Time, a fixture of its hit Sunday-night lineup in the early 1980s?
CBS
CBS paired it on Sunday nights with Alice and The Jeffersons, yet moved the sitcom around its prime-time schedule eleven times.
Q 15After Netflix canceled One Day at a Time following three seasons, which cable channel revived it for a fourth?
Pop TV
Pop TV picked it up, making the sitcom the first original program canceled by Netflix to be revived on a traditional linear network.
Q 16Which actress stars as single mother Penelope Alvarez in Netflix's One Day at a Time?
Justina Machado
Justina Machado played Vanessa Diaz on Six Feet Under before leading the reboot, a part that won her two Imagen Awards for best actress.
Q 17Which song serves as the theme of both the 1975 and 2017 versions of One Day at a Time?
This Is It
This Is It was sung on the 1975 original by Polly Cutter. When the reboot changed networks for season four, the theme was cut for time.
Q 18Which actor, Ned Ryerson in Groundhog Day, plays Penelope's lonely boss Dr. Berkowitz in Netflix's One Day at a Time?
Stephen Tobolowsky
Stephen Tobolowsky plays the lonely doctor, who employs Penelope and slowly grows close to her mother Lydia.
Q 19In which Los Angeles neighborhood does the Alvarez family live in Netflix's One Day at a Time?
Echo Park
Echo Park replaced the Midwestern setting of the 1975 original. Like that sitcom, the reboot was recorded in front of a live studio audience, at Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City.
Q 20The finale of the original One Day at a Time sends Schneider to which state to care for his niece and nephew?
Florida
Florida is where Schneider heads in the last episode. Ann had already left town in the episode before, so the finale belongs to him.
Shelley Fabares first guest-starred as Ann's office rival, then became a regular. Her real-life aunt played Ann's mother on the same sitcom.
Q 24Which WKRP in Cincinnati star joined One Day at a Time as Sam Royer, who becomes Ann Romano's second husband?
Howard Hesseman
Howard Hesseman, WKRP's Johnny Fever, played Sam in the last two seasons. Sam is also the father of Barbara's husband.
Q 25What medical emergency leaves Lydia between life and death as season two of Netflix's One Day at a Time ends?
A stroke
A stroke leaves Lydia in hospital for the finale, Not Yet, whose script the Writers Guild Foundation listed among the best of the 2010s.
Q 26The father of the actress who played Julie on One Day at a Time led which 1960s folk-rock vocal group?
The Mamas & the Papas
The Mamas & the Papas were led by her father, and in the 1980s she toured as a singer with a re-formed version of the group.
Q 27Before One Day at a Time, the actress who played Julie appeared at twelve in American Graffiti for which director?
George Lucas
George Lucas cast her as Carol, and because she was only 12, producer Gary Kurtz had to become her legal guardian during filming.
Q 28Which future Star Wars lead guest-starred on the original One Day at a Time as Harvey Schneider?
Mark Hamill
Mark Hamill played Harvey in the 1976 episode Schneider's Pride and Joy, a year before Star Wars made him Luke Skywalker.
Q 29Melissa Fumero and Stephanie Beatriz, Penelope's cousins in One Day at a Time, were co-stars on which police sitcom?
Brooklyn Nine-Nine
Brooklyn Nine-Nine made them co-stars. In the Alvarez family, Fumero plays Estrellita, Penelope's childhood best friend, and Beatriz plays Pilar.
Q 30What does teenage activist Elena Alvarez reveal to her family in the first season of Netflix's One Day at a Time?
She is gay
She is gay, something she works out after briefly dating a classmate named Josh. The news does not sit well with her father, Victor.