Remote Control (Game Show)
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40 free Remote Control (Game Show) trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Remote Control was MTV's first game show, a pop-culture quiz that ran for five seasons from 1987 to 1990. Three contestants sat in recliners, picked channels on a big-screen TV and answered questions about sitcoms, commercials and pop songs, while a cast of young comedians wandered in to act the questions out. This quiz covers the show the way its fans remember it: the host and his heckling sidekick, the strange channels and playground punishments, the undignified exits for losing players, and the grand prize round. It also takes in the celebrities who dropped by, the cast members who went on to bigger things, and the versions made for syndication and for other countries. It is pitched at anyone who watched MTV in the late 1980s, at game show collectors, and at comedy fans curious about where some famous careers began. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you pick up the stories behind the set even on the ones you miss.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which future movie star played Stud Boy on MTV's Remote Control while he was still an NYU student?
Adam Sandler
Adam Sandler also appeared as the Trivia Delinquent, and a writer recalled the studio audience going nuts the moment he walked on stage.
Q 02MTV's Remote Control was taped on a Manhattan set dressed to look like which part of the host's childhood home?
A basement
A basement, complete with washer, dryer and water heater, fit the premise that a TV-obsessed kid had built his own studio under his parents' house.
Q 03The giant Pez dispenser on the set of MTV's Remote Control was modelled on which Newlywed Game host?
Bob Eubanks
Bob Eubanks gave permission for his likeness after Wink Martindale turned the producers down, and tiebreaker questions were pulled from the dispenser.
Q 04Remote Control co-creator Joe Davola had a menacing character, nicknamed Crazy, named after him on which NBC sitcom?
Seinfeld
Seinfeld borrowed the real producer's name for "Crazy" Joe Davola; the real one went on to develop In Living Color as a Fox executive.
Q 05One Remote Control channel made contestants decide whether a celebrity was dead, alive or of which nationality?
Canadian
Canadian was the twist added by a head writer who came from Canada himself; naming Bonanza's Lorne Greene as both dead and Canadian scored double.
Q 06Which Los Angeles rock band appeared as contestants during the fifth and final MTV season of Remote Control?
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Red Hot Chili Peppers took the contestants' chairs shortly before Blood Sugar Sex Magik (1991) became their first major commercial success.
Q 07Who beat LL Cool J and Julie Brown when three celebrities played MTV's Remote Control for charity in season two?
Weird Al Yankovic
Weird Al Yankovic won the charity game, and in another episode he walked onto the set as a channel himself and tormented the two losing players.
Q 08Remote Control's studio audience often serenaded an ejected contestant with which number-one hit of 1961?
Hit the Road Jack
Hit the Road Jack, a Ray Charles chart-topper, was one of the goodbye songs the audience sang while the loser was dragged away chair and all.
Q 09Which Remote Control penalty channel gave points to contestants who endured a noogie or a wet willy?
Wheel of Torture
Wheel of Torture let a contestant accept a points penalty instead, or win points by sitting through a charley horse delivered by the announcer.
Q 10Which gravel-voiced comedian was the announcer and sidekick on MTV's Remote Control before joining Saturday Night Live?
Colin Quinn
Colin Quinn read the sponsors' prize copy with such open contempt in the first week that advertising executives nearly had him fired.
Q 11Which stand-up comedian, a Star Search contestant in 1984, became the host of MTV's Remote Control in 1987?
Ken Ober
Ken Ober went on to host Smush and ESPN's Perfect Match, and later produced his old sidekick's panel show Tough Crowd.
Q 12Which comedian from the Boston stand-up scene played Keith Richards and Andy Warhol in sketches on Remote Control?
Denis Leary
Denis Leary knew the show's creators from Emerson College, where he had founded a comedy workshop, and his high-speed MTV rants soon followed.
Q 13Which Remote Control hostess, also an MTV VJ at the time, later starred in Sliders and Anaconda?
Kari Wuhrer
Kari Wuhrer lasted longest of the show's hostesses, through seasons two and three, and a producer called her the one who managed to break out.
Q 21Which Brady Bunch actor's turn on Remote Control led to a best-selling memoir co-written with the show's head writer?
Barry Williams
Barry Williams met head writer Chris Kreski at a 1989 Brady Day taping, and their book Growing Up Brady went on to sell more than 300,000 copies.
Q 22What name did Remote Control give the end-of-round moment when popcorn or candy was dumped on contestants from above?
Snack Break
Snack Break treats had to be soft enough not to hurt, so cereal, marshmallows and gummy worms rained down on the contestants' upturned bowls.
Q 23On MTV's Remote Control, which phrase described the TV, and the last-place contestant, at the moment of elimination?
Off the Air
Q 14Winners of MTV's Remote Control were strapped to which brand of adjustable bed for the grand prize round?
Craftmatic
Craftmatic was suggested by an MTV News writer who covered late-night TV, where the bed's cheap commercials were a familiar sight.
Q 15Facing a wall of nine TV sets, a Remote Control champion had 30 seconds to identify what?
Music video artists
Music video artists had to be named from nine clips playing at once; each right answer switched a set off, and a clean sweep won a car or a trip.
Q 16Which media company distributed the syndicated Remote Control that ran alongside the MTV original in 1989–90?
Viacom
Viacom had bought MTV Networks a few years earlier, so selling a second version to local stations kept the hit inside the same company.
Q 17On Remote Control's Spring Break episodes, losing contestants ended up in what instead of going through a wall?
A swimming pool
A swimming pool sat beside the contestants' beach chairs, and each channel was a college-age extra in a numbered T-shirt who peeled it off to reveal the category.
Q 18The host of Remote Control missed its last episodes to film which NBC sitcom based on a Steve Martin movie?
Parenthood
Parenthood gave him the part Rick Moranis played in the film, but NBC cancelled the sitcom after 12 episodes, while his sidekick closed out the quiz.
Q 19Actors dressed as which trio were all ejected after round one of Remote Control's 1988 Christmas episode?
The Three Wise Men
The Three Wise Men played so badly that the host had all of them yanked at once, reset the scores to zero and brought on three new contestants.
Q 20Which former Partridge Family child star auditioned to host MTV's Remote Control and later played it as a contestant?
Danny Bonaduce
Danny Bonaduce impressed the co-creator, who thought his fame would win press coverage, but the job went to a little-known stand-up instead.
Off the Air was announced by a siren and flashing studio lights, seconds before the last-place player was hauled away backwards.
Q 24Which 30-second lightning round decided the winner of Remote Control from the second season through the fourth?
Think Real Fast
Think Real Fast paid 10 points an answer, and players usually had to supply a missing word in a title or correct a wrong one.
Q 25In Remote Control's Beat the Baloney, what did a contestant solve before a costumed character circled the studio?
A math problem
A math problem was the task; the baloney version began as a writer's job-interview pitch for a tribute to lunch meat, with a cast member in costume.
Q 26In Remote Control's first season, the leader could win a prize by guessing which of three what held it?
Refrigerators
Refrigerators hid one small prize and two revolting food items, a setup much like the Big Deal doors on Let's Make a Deal.
Q 27Because one chair flipped over backwards at elimination, every contestant on MTV's Remote Control had to wear what?
Seat belts
Seat belts went on all three players, the art director said, so that everyone was treated equally whichever chair they were given.
Q 28In Remote Control's first season, an ejected contestant's chair sometimes slid back through the wall holding what?
A skeleton
A skeleton in the returning chair implied the player had been killed backstage, in a season when the camera also shook and the picture turned to static.
Q 29To save money, Remote Control borrowed its digital scoring displays from which Nickelodeon game show?
Double Dare
Double Dare was sister channel Nickelodeon's hit, and its set designer also created the MTV show's cluttered, home-made look for very little money.
Q 30Which Oakland rapper turned up as a guest announcer on Remote Control's final episodes at the peak of his fame?
MC Hammer
MC Hammer took the announcer's microphone for one of the last episodes, taped on location in the year U Can't Touch This hit.