Silver Spoons
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50 free Silver Spoons trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Silver Spoons was one of the defining family sitcoms of the 1980s. A serious boy turns up on the doorstep of the wealthy father he has never met, a grown-up more interested in play than work, and the two spend five seasons teaching each other how to act their age. This quiz covers the whole run. There are questions on the Stratton household and the people around it, the house itself, the actors and what they did before and after, the writers and producers behind the scenes, and the many celebrities that dropped in for an episode. It is written for fans raised on Ricky and his friends, and for quiz hosts planning an eighties television round. Every answer comes with a short explanation, and the difficulty runs from easy openers to a few questions for devoted fans.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which future Arrested Development star played Ricky's troublemaking best friend Derek on Silver Spoons?
Jason Bateman
Jason Bateman played bad boy Derek Taylor from 1982 to 1984, two decades before he led the cast of Arrested Development.
Q 02What ridable vehicle runs through the Stratton mansion that Ricky moves into on Silver Spoons?
A freight train
A freight train built to scale and big enough to ride runs through a mansion that Edward has also stocked with arcade games.
Q 03Mr. T plays himself on Silver Spoons when Edward hires him to do what job for Ricky after a bully strikes?
Bodyguard
Bodyguard was a job Mr. T knew well: before fame he spent almost ten years guarding clients who included Muhammad Ali and Steve McQueen.
Q 04Which arcade game's theme music sets Edward Stratton III doing a little jig on Silver Spoons?
Pac-Man
Pac-Man, the best-selling arcade game of all time, was still a fresh craze when the sitcom began in 1982, and Edward's jig shows how childlike he is.
Q 05Ricky Schroder landed Silver Spoons after his film debut opposite Jon Voight in which boxing drama?
The Champ
The Champ made Schroder, at nine, the youngest Golden Globe winner in history. He played the son of Voight's former fighter.
Q 06Which Diff'rent Strokes star visits Silver Spoons, where Ricky shows off by hacking top-secret files?
Gary Coleman
Gary Coleman dropped by in character as Arnold, a role he also carried into The Facts of Life and Hello, Larry.
Q 07On Silver Spoons, fun-loving millionaire Edward Stratton III owns a firm called Eddie's that makes what?
Toys
Toys suit someone the series paints as an overgrown child: Edward has never taken responsibility for anything, his own firm included.
Q 08Which pop singer's visit to the Stratton mansion on Silver Spoons leaves Dexter so smitten he plans to move west?
Whitney Houston
Whitney Houston played herself in the fourth-season opener, months after her debut album came out on Valentine's Day 1985.
Q 09Joining Silver Spoons, Dexter's nephew Alfonso tries to impress Ricky's crowd by claiming to know whom?
Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson was a fair boast: actor Alfonso Ribeiro had danced in a 1984 Pepsi commercial with him and his brothers.
Q 10The Stratton mansion seen in the Silver Spoons opening credits is really a private home in which country?
England
England is home to Compton Wynyates, the Warwickshire manor in the credits, even though the Strattons are meant to live in New York.
Q 11Which actor and prolific jingle writer played childlike millionaire Edward Stratton III on Silver Spoons?
Joel Higgins
Joel Higgins wrote more than 200 advertising jingles, for brands such as Kool-Aid and M&M's, alongside a stage career that took him to Broadway.
Q 12Which former top model and Buck Rogers star played Kate, Edward's assistant and later wife, on Silver Spoons?
Erin Gray
Erin Gray had flown as Colonel Wilma Deering in Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, and before acting she was one of America's top television models.
Q 13Which Oscar winner, famous as a fearsome law professor, played Ricky's grandfather on Silver Spoons?
John Houseman
Q 21The original Silver Spoons theme was sung by Ron Dante, the real voice behind which chart-topping cartoon band?
The Archies
The Archies existed only in a cartoon, yet with Dante singing lead their Sugar, Sugar was the top-selling record of 1969 in the United States.
Q 22What is the maiden name of Kate, who works for Edward before marrying him in season three of Silver Spoons?
Summers
Summers gained a hyphen after the third-season wedding, when Kate became Katherine Summers-Stratton.
Q 23What job does the stuffy Dexter Stuffins hold for Edward Stratton III from season two of Silver Spoons?
Business manager
Business manager Dexter replaced Edward's first-season attorney, Leonard Rollins, and proved a good deal stuffier than his predecessor.
John Houseman won his Oscar as Professor Kingsfield in The Paper Chase, after decades as a producer who co-founded the Mercury Theatre with Orson Welles.
Q 14Which network aired the first four seasons of Silver Spoons, pairing it on Saturdays with Diff'rent Strokes?
NBC
NBC first slotted the comedy at 8:30 on Saturdays, right after Diff'rent Strokes, then moved it to Sunday evenings for its third season.
Q 15Before moving in with Edward on Silver Spoons, Ricky had been sent by his remarried mother to board where?
A military academy
A military academy is where Edward first sends Ricky straight back, before a change of heart brings the boy home to the mansion for good.
Q 16Early in Silver Spoons, Edward dresses up as what to take Ricky out of boarding school and bring him home?
A swamp monster
A swamp monster costume is how Edward reclaims the son he had only just sent away, a stunt that sums up his playful idea of fatherhood.
Q 17Which boy band does Ricky promise will appear at his party to impress a girl on Silver Spoons?
Menudo
Menudo, the Puerto Rican group that later launched Ricky Martin, gave the episode its title, Menudo Madness.
Q 18Silver Spoons is set in the fictional town of Shallow Springs, located in which real corner of New York?
Long Island
Long Island is where the scripts put the Stratton estate, although the house shown in the credits stands thousands of miles away.
Q 19Which street, also the Munsters' famous address, is home to the Stratton mansion on Silver Spoons?
Mockingbird Lane
Mockingbird Lane was best known as the spooky 1313 address of the Munsters before the Strattons moved onto a street of the same name.
Q 20What is the one-word title of the Silver Spoons theme song, written by Rik Howard and Bob Wirth?
Together
Together was recorded in three versions over the run, moving from a guitar-led original to a synthesized take and finally a rock arrangement in 1986.
Q 24Flying the Strattons to the Caribbean on Silver Spoons, Kate makes an emergency landing in which region?
Bermuda Triangle
Bermuda Triangle trouble leaves everyone stranded far from home for the holiday, in a two-part story titled Voyage of the Darned.
Q 25On Silver Spoons, Edward must run up the steps of which New York landmark to help a fund-raiser?
Empire State Building
Empire State Building stair racing is real: an annual run-up to its 86th-floor observation deck began in 1978.
Q 26On Silver Spoons, a visiting Olympic champion suggests Alfonso's trouble in class stems from which condition?
Dyslexia
Dyslexia is suggested by the 1976 Olympic decathlon champion, credited then as Bruce Jenner and now known as Caitlyn Jenner, during a visit to the mansion.
Q 27What kind of animal do Ricky and Derek find and want to keep in a first-season Silver Spoons episode?
An orangutan
An orangutan turns up in an episode titled I'm Just Wild About Harry, one of 22 made for the first season.
Q 28Which Leave It to Beaver mother plays the teacher Ricky tries to pair with his grandfather on Silver Spoons?
Barbara Billingsley
Barbara Billingsley, forever June Cleaver, plays a teacher who decides that she and Grandfather Stratton are better off as just friends.
Q 29Ricky and Derek try to persuade two women to join them at which band's Chicago concert on Silver Spoons?
Duran Duran
Duran Duran tickets drive the second-season opener, Passports to Pleasure, which takes the boys far from home to Chicago.
Q 30Alfonso Ribeiro joined Silver Spoons in 1984 fresh from starring as young Willie in which Broadway musical?
The Tap Dance Kid
The Tap Dance Kid opened in December 1983 and earned Ribeiro an Outer Critics Circle nomination. Savion Glover later took over his title role.