The Waltons Trivia
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100 free The Waltons trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
47 free The Waltons trivia questions with answers. The Waltons ran on CBS from 1972 to 1981, following a big family on a Virginia mountain from the Depression through the Second World War, and ending nearly every episode with the family saying goodnight in the dark. This quiz covers the show from top to bottom: the seven children and what became of each of them, Grandpa and Grandma, Ike and Corabeth Godsey, the Baldwin sisters and their 'Recipe', the pilot film The Homecoming, the reunion movies and the record-breaking Emmy haul. It also goes behind the camera to Earl Hamner Jr., whose own childhood in Schuyler, Virginia gave the show its stories and its narrator's voice, and to the actors, from Will Geer's blacklist years to Michael Learned's unusual first name. The questions run from easy ones any casual viewer can get to genuinely tough ones for people who have seen all nine seasons. Every answer is checked against Wikipedia and cited on the question, so you can see where each fact comes from.
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Q 01The Waltons was created by Earl Hamner Jr., based on which of his novels?
Spencer's Mountain
Spencer's Mountain called its eldest son Clay-Boy Spencer; after a 1963 film with Henry Fonda, the story moved to television and he was renamed John-Boy Walton.
Q 02On which network did The Waltons air its original nine seasons?
CBS
CBS gave it what looked like a death slot, up against two hit shows; instead it ran nine seasons and outlasted both rivals.
Q 03Before creating The Waltons, Earl Hamner Jr. wrote eight episodes of which eerie anthology series?
The Twilight Zone
The Twilight Zone gave Hamner his Hollywood break when Rod Serling accepted his scripts, a decade before the same writer created the gentle world of Walton's Mountain.
Q 04Who is the youngest of the seven Walton children?
Elizabeth
Elizabeth is the baby of the family; the seven were nearly eight, because Jim-Bob's twin brother Joseph died at birth.
Q 05Walton's Mountain sits in which fictional Virginia county?
Jefferson
Jefferson County is fictional, but much of its map is real: the characters drive to Charlottesville and Rockfish, genuine neighbours of the Nelson County village where Earl Hamner grew up.
Q 06John-Boy wins a reporting trip and witnesses which real event of the 1930s?
The Hindenburg disaster
The Hindenburg disaster: John-Boy wins a trip to report on the airship's arrival in 1937, sees it burn and comes home unable to write about it.
Q 07Which president's death is mourned on Walton's Mountain in the final season's opening episode?
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt pardons the Waltons' neighbour Harley Foster shortly before his sudden death in 'The Outrage', and John says goodnight as the funeral train passes.
Q 08How does John Walton Sr. earn the family's living?
Running a lumber mill
Running a lumber mill keeps John on the mountain; in the pilot he worked in a distant town and came home only at weekends, a job he gave up after one fraught Christmas Eve journey.
Q 09The Baldwin sisters distil moonshine that they insist on calling what?
Papa's Recipe
Papa's Recipe is pure whiskey, but the Baldwin sisters make it to honour their late father, the judge, and genuinely believe it is medicinal.
Q 10What does the snobbish Corabeth insist on calling her storekeeper husband?
Mr. Godsey
Mr. Godsey is how Corabeth addresses Ike in company; Ronnie Claire Edwards, who played her, later put the line in the title of her memoir.
Q 11Which Walton's Mountain local is revealed as a First World War hero who holds the Medal of Honor?
Sheriff Ep Bridges
Sheriff Ep Bridges keeps his medals locked away until John-Boy uncovers his war record; Ep tells him he should never have been called a hero for killing other men.
Q 12Which fictional college does John-Boy attend after high school?
Boatwright University
Boatwright University is modelled on the University of Richmond, where Earl Hamner studied in the 1940s and where a drive and the library honour long-serving president Frederic Boatwright.
Q 13Which two Waltons characters' storylines changed to mirror what had really happened to their actors?
Grandma and Grandpa
Q 21The Waltons looked doomed in 1972 when it was scheduled against which hit variety show?
The Flip Wilson Show
The Flip Wilson Show was one of television's hottest hits when The Waltons arrived opposite it on Thursday nights; two years later it was off the air and the mountain family sat second in the ratings.
Q 22Ralph Waite's agent talked him into auditioning for John Walton by promising what?
The show would never sell
The show would never sell, his agent promised: do the pilot, pick up a couple of bucks and go back to New York. Waite stayed for nine seasons.
Q 23Which Walton sibling marries in the first of the six reunion movies?
Erin
Grandma and Grandpa: Ellen Corby's 1976 stroke was written in as Grandma's, and when Will Geer died in 1978 the next season opened with the family mourning Grandpa.
Q 14Mary Ellen's first husband Curt, a doctor, is reported killed in which event?
The attack on Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor: Curt is reported killed there, but years later Mary Ellen finds him alive in Florida, living under another name and unwilling to come home.
Q 15Olivia is written out of The Waltons when which illness sends her to Arizona?
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis sends Olivia to an Arizona sanatorium; Rose Burton, a relative, moves in to look after the family, and John later goes west to be with his wife.
Q 16Which Happy Days star guest-starred on The Waltons as Seth, Jason's musical friend who is dying of leukemia?
Ron Howard
Ron Howard played Seth Turner in 'The Gift', which aired just nine days after Happy Days made him TV's sunniest teenager, Richie Cunningham.
Q 17Which future Three's Company star played Reverend Matthew Fordwick on The Waltons?
John Ritter
John Ritter's young preacher arrives fresh from the seminary, gets drunk on the Baldwin sisters' moonshine and is sacked, until the congregation agrees to forgive him.
Q 18Who played Olivia Walton in the 1971 pilot movie The Homecoming, before the role was recast for the series?
Patricia Neal
Patricia Neal had survived a serious stroke before filming, and Earl Hamner and the producers doubted her health could stand a weekly series, so Olivia was recast.
Q 19Which famous ventriloquist played Grandpa Zeb in the 1971 pilot movie The Homecoming?
Edgar Bergen
Edgar Bergen played Grandpa only in the pilot movie: when it became a weekly series every adult role except Grandma was recast, and Will Geer took over the part.
Q 20Which future Blazing Saddles star played preacher Hawthorne Dooley in The Homecoming, the Waltons pilot movie?
Cleavon Little
Cleavon Little's preacher helps John-Boy search for his father on Christmas Eve; three years later he was Sheriff Bart, riding into a town that did not want him, in Mel Brooks's comedy.
Erin marries Paul Northridge, her brother's business partner, in A Wedding on Walton's Mountain, but only after her old flame Ashley Longworth Jr. turns up to complicate things.
Q 24A Walton Thanksgiving Reunion, made in 1993, revolves around which real event of the 1960s?
The assassination of John F. Kennedy
The assassination of John F. Kennedy overshadows a Thanksgiving already heavy with grief: Ben and Cindy have lost their daughter Virginia and cannot agree about adopting another child.
Q 25Which Primetime Emmy did The Waltons win in 1973?
Outstanding Drama Series
Outstanding Drama Series went to The Waltons after a single season, months after it had been scheduled against two hit shows and written off.
Q 26Which Waltons star won a fourth Emmy for the drama Nurse?
Michael Learned
Michael Learned was billed as 'Miss Michael Learned' in the early seasons so viewers would not think a man played Olivia; her 1982 win for Nurse brought her lead-actress Emmys to four.
Q 27Which actress, James Stewart's mother in It's a Wonderful Life, won a 1977 Emmy as Martha Corrine Walton?
Beulah Bondi
Beulah Bondi had played James Stewart's mother in four films; her Martha Corrine first appeared two years earlier, ready to take up arms rather than leave land wanted for a mountain parkway.
Q 28Which president vowed to make families "a lot more like the Waltons and a lot less like the Simpsons"?
George H. W. Bush
George H. W. Bush said it at the 1992 Republican convention; he had drawn the same comparison that January, and Bart Simpson answered on air, 'Hey, we're just like the Waltons. We're praying for an end to the Depression, too.'
Q 29Which original Waltons star narrates the 2021 remake The Waltons: Homecoming?
Richard Thomas
Richard Thomas, the original John-Boy, appears on screen to introduce the film and narrates it as the older John-Boy looking back, while Logan Shroyer plays the teenager.
Q 30In which Virginia community was Waltons creator Earl Hamner Jr. born and raised?
Schuyler
Schuyler was a soapstone company town; when its mill closed in the Depression, Hamner's father took a factory job in another town and came home at weekends, the journey behind the Christmas pilot.