70 free Thanksgiving TV trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
67 free Thanksgiving TV trivia questions with answers. Thanksgiving is the one day a year when the television schedule is a tradition in itself, and this quiz covers all of it. Questions run from the Macy's parade broadcast (first televised in 1939, on NBC since 1953, and now the most-watched special of the year) and the National Dog Show that follows it, to the record-breaking NFL games and Punkin Chunkin, and then through the sitcom canon: WKRP's turkey drop, the Cheers food fight, Seinfeld's popped balloon, Friends, The Simpsons, How I Met Your Mother's Slapsgiving, Bob's Burgers, New Girl, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Gilmore Girls, The West Wing's turkey pardon and Master of None's Emmy-winning 'Thanksgiving'. Easier questions ask who says 'As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly' or which streamer carries A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving; the hard ones want the year the parade went to color, TV Guide's ranking of 'Turkeys Away' and which ER star directed The West Wing's holiday episode. It works for a family quiz between the parade and the game, or a themed pub-quiz round. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the parade, the dog show, the NFL's Thanksgiving games and the individual episodes, and each question carries the sentence that backs it up.
30 of 70 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In what year was the Macy's parade first televised, as an experimental local broadcast in New York City?
1939
The pictures went out over NBC's experimental station W2XBS, and no station carried the parade at all in 1940 or 1941.
Q 02Which network carried unlicensed Times Square parade coverage, avoiding the Macy's name?
CBS
Because the parade runs on public streets, Macy's can only enforce exclusivity right in front of its Herald Square store. That coverage ended after 2024 amid holiday-programming cuts at Paramount.
Q 03Since what year has NBC been the parade's official broadcaster?
1953
The telecast was only an hour long at first and did not cover all three hours of the parade until 1969.
Q 04Which Today weather anchor co-hosted NBC's parade from 1995 to 2024, missing only 2022?
Al Roker
His 2022 absence, while he recovered from blood clots, left the broadcast hosted entirely by women for the first time.
Q 05From 1963 to 1972, NBC's parade coverage was hosted by Betty White alongside which Bonanza star?
Lorne Greene
It was a decade-long pairing; White would return to Thanksgiving television as a punchline for generations of viewers.
Q 06Which longtime Today weatherman hosted the NBC parade telecast from 1987 to 1997?
Willard Scott
His co-hosts over that decade included Mary Hart, Sandy Duncan, Deborah Norville and Katie Couric.
Q 07In which year did the parade telecast begin airing in color?
1960
The broadcast expanded to two hours the following year, dropped back to 90 minutes in 1962, and finally covered all three hours from 1969.
Q 08As of 2024, roughly how much did NBC pay Macy's per year for the licence to broadcast the parade?
$20 million
It is a bargain: 30-second ads averaged about $900,000 in 2023, comparable to Sunday Night Football, for around $52 million in gross revenue.
Q 09A renewal announced in February 2025 extended NBC's parade rights through which year?
2035
The Wall Street Journal reported NBC had offered a tripled licence fee of $60 million a year to keep the parade and the Macy's 4th of July Fireworks.
Q 10Since 2003 the parade has been simulcast in Spanish on which NBC sister network?
Telemundo
María Celeste Arrarás hosted it from 2003 to 2006; since 2021 Carlos Adyan has led it, joined by former Miss Universe Andrea Meza from 2022.
Q 11For the 1997 parade, MTV aired its own irreverent commentary special starring which animated duo?
Beavis and Butt-head
Kurt Loder hosted, and a balloon of the pair watching from their couch was parked on a rooftop along the route rather than in the parade itself.
Q 12Until 2008, NBC followed its parade coverage with which 1947 film that opens with the parade?
Miracle on 34th Street
The movie used footage of the real 1946 parade, and its afternoon slot was later filled by a same-day rebroadcast of the parade itself.
Q 13Which service, launched in 2020, streams the Macy's parade live to viewers outside the Eastern time zone?
Peacock
Q 21Which organisation, a founding member of the AKC, stages the Thanksgiving dog show that NBC televises?
Kennel Club of Philadelphia
It is one of only six benched dog shows left in the United States, meaning dogs stay on display all day for spectators.
Q 22Roughly how many viewers watched NBC's 2024 Thanksgiving dog show?
12 million
NBC's Jon Miller credits an 'alma mater effect': viewers root for whatever breed they own.
Q 23Which now-defunct network first televised NFL Thanksgiving Day games, three years before a rival took over in 1956?
DuMont
The 1965 Lions–Colts Thanksgiving game later became the first NFL broadcast in color.
NBC still delays the broadcast from the Central time zone westward so it fills the same 8:30-to-noon slot everywhere.
Q 14Starting with the 2023 edition, NBC's parade coverage was moved to begin at what time Eastern?
8:30 a.m.
The half-hour shift squeezed the Thanksgiving edition of Today down to just 90 minutes.
Q 15Which balloon hit a lamppost in the 1997 parade, injuring a spectator and prompting size limits?
The Cat in the Hat
Falling debris fractured a woman's skull and left her in a coma for 24 days; Mayor Giuliani's task force then banned the largest balloons and removed lamppost arms from the route.
Q 16Which video game character's parade balloon hit a Columbus Circle lamppost in 1993, injuring two people?
Sonic the Hedgehog
The top of the post broke off inside the balloon and dragged it down.
Q 17Why was the parade suspended from 1942 to 1944?
Rubber and helium were needed for the war effort
Because of the gap, the 100th anniversary of the first parade came in 2024 but the 100th parade itself is not until 2026.
Q 18What reward did Macy's offer in 1928 to whoever found the balloons released at the end of the parade?
$100
The bounty fell to $50 the next year, and in 1931 aviator Clarence Chamberlin decapitated a dragon balloon with his wingtip to claim it.
Q 19From 2002, what aired on NBC after the parade, hosted by John O'Hurley and David Frei?
The National Dog Show
The show itself dates to 1879 in Philadelphia; NBC Sports rebranded it when it took over the Thanksgiving slot.
Q 20NBC's Thanksgiving dog show was inspired by which 2000 Christopher Guest mockumentary?
Best in Show
NBC had lost its Thanksgiving football rights in 1998 and its filler, It's a Wonderful Life, was underperforming in the slot.
Q 24Which player received John Madden's first on-air 'Turkey Leg Award' in 1989?
Reggie White
Madden later escalated to a six-legged turkey and, from 1997, the turducken; Emmitt Smith holds the record with five Thanksgiving MVP awards.
Q 25Roughly how many watched the record-setting 2025 Chiefs–Cowboys Thanksgiving game?
57 million
All three 2025 Thanksgiving games set records; the Chiefs–Cowboys audience peaked at 61.4 million and was then the most-watched NFL regular-season game ever.
Q 26Which WKRP in Cincinnati character says 'As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly'?
Arthur Carlson
Gordon Jump played the hapless station manager, whose secret promotion involved dropping live birds from a helicopter.
Q 27Which WKRP reporter gives the Hindenburg-style play-by-play as turkeys crash into the mall?
Les Nessman
Richard Sanders played him; his 'Oh, the humanity!' echoes Herbert Morrison's 1937 airship broadcast, and the whole disaster happens off screen.
Q 28WKRP's 'Turkeys Away' was based on Atlanta manager Jerry Blum's real stunt tossing live turkeys from what?
A pickup truck
Blum's stunt was in a Dallas shopping-center parking lot; he later admitted saying almost the same closing line as his fictional counterpart.
Q 29Where did TV Guide rank 'Turkeys Away' on its 1997 list of the 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time?
Number 40
It slipped to 65th when the magazine revisited the list in 2009, still ahead of most of the sitcoms that copied it.
Q 30The 1986 Cheers episode 'Thanksgiving Orphans' is famous for ending in what?
A food fight
Director James Burrows shot it twice, unchoreographed after Sam flings cranberry sauce at Diane, and the leftover food was donated to charity.