A Revolution of Tuesday Night Trivia!

After a week off, the Tuesday night Pour House Trivia crowd was back in action, and in record numbers to boot!  At Champion Billiards in Frederick, host Sam had her hands full with 21 teams!  Overall, the 16 venues brought in 123 teams, an all-time PHT record!

ROUND 1:

Our game began with a three-part question concerning movie rivals (such as the Jets / Sharks and the Autobots / Decepticons), before moving on to a question about this basketball legend:

As a bonus, we asked for the correct spelling of Magic’s actual first name, but only 20% of our teams came up with E-A-R-V-I-N to earn those two points.  Finally, our Three Clues category asked about a classic British TV show, and its (rather unbearable) film adaption:

About half of our teams did not need the third clue here, earning another two-point bonus by knowing that the film “The Avengers” (with the inclusion of the word ‘THE’) is generally considered to be one of the worst films of the 1990s.  After the first round, a total of 15 teams held a perfect score.

ROUND 2:

Our audio clue featured three “Little” songs:  “Little Lies” (Fleetwood Mac), “Little Things” (Bush), and “Little Lion Man” (Mumford and Sons).  We continued with a question that had some teams singing a certain radio advertising jingle: “Oh, oh, oh, O’ Reilly…  Auto Parts!”  We then asked for the two men found on either side of this famous photograph:

About one-third of our teams earned bonus points here by naming both Winston Churchill (left) and Joseph Stalin (right).  We followed by asking for the mythological sea goddess who imprisoned Odysseus, but is also the namesake for a genre of Caribbean music and a ship once used by Jacques Cousteau.  Coming up with Calypso was no problem for most of our teams.  After a concluding question on Great Lakes Geography, we had seven teams score 36 points in this round, with three teams running the table on the entire first half with a perfect score of 72 points.

HALFTIME:

Fictional princesses (and the actresses who played them) were featured on Tuesday’s halftime page, yielding an average score of 14.3 points.  There were only five perfect halftime pages tonight, but three of those five were turned in at Monkey La La!  I guess they just love their princesses out there.  Here are Tuesday’s overall top scores after the first half:

• Wonton Destruction (Monkey La La):  91
• Fan Club (Senor Tequila’s):  91
• Sofa King Smart (Quincy’s South):  91
• Cher’s Zombie Army (Shuckin’ Shack):  90
• Love in the Time of Cthulhu (Monkey La La):  89
• Wingardium Triviosa (Quincy’s South):  89

ROUND 3:

The third round gave us our most difficult wagering question of the night, and not surprisingly, it was in the subject of literature:

–> In modern usage, this adjective is used as a synonym for ‘depressing’ or ‘grim’, but it is used in a different context to describe the titular “House” in a novel penned by Charles Dickens.  What is this adjective?

Only 36% of our teams were familiar with the Dickens work “Bleak House”, but I am sure that even most of those people never actually read it.  Changing gears, we moved into the next subject of Celebrity Scandals, with most teams earning their wager by remembering the Miss America scandal involving Vanessa Williams.  But only 12% of our teams earned bonus points by also knowing her only #1 hit song:

We closed the round with a three-part question on TV Twins, with only 18% of our teams earning bonus points here by remembering all three sets of names, including these students from Springfield Elementary School:

Who could forget Sherri and Terri?  Four teams swept the third round with a perfect score of 36 points: Jungle Fever (Champion Billiards), Comfortably Dum (Champion Billiards), Cher’s Zombie Army (Shuckin’ Shack), and Wingardium Triviosa (Quincy’s South).

6-4-2 QUESTION:

The six-point clue on our 6-4-2 question was short and simple:

–> The newly-named element of Nihonium is named for which foreign country?

Obviously, there is no country called Nihon, but 22% of our teams knew that Nihon (or Nippon) is the NATIVE name for the country of Japan.

ROUND 4:

Appropriately, the final round began with a question on MLB All-Stars, but the answers we were not looking for players from last night’s Midsummer Classic.  When asked which two 21st century New York Yankees are the only two pitchers to have appeared in least nine All-Star games, about half of our teams earned bonus points by remembering these two players:

The final round featured the most difficult bonus question of the night, as we asked which two U.S. states do NOT divide themselves into counties, but rather parishes or boroughs.  Most teams knew that Louisiana is divided into parishes, but the field must have been stuck on New York from the baseball question, as it was by far the most popular second answer.  Although New York City is divided into boroughs, the state itself is divided into counties, just like (almost) every other state.  Only six teams earned bonus points by knowing that Alaska is divided into boroughs!  We concluded the round with a three-part question on music group abbreviations, with most teams getting a kick out of the fact that we only asked for what the ‘A’ stood for in N.W.A.  No comment…   Oh, and we also asked about this film quote:

Three teams earned a perfect score of 36 points in the final round, including Irregardlessly Unnrelevant (Shuckin’ Shack) and Wiseacres (Champion Billiards).  But special recognition goes to Wingardium Triviosa  (Quincy’s South), who becomes the first team of the Summer Fling season to sweep an entire second half, earning 36 points in each round and six points on the 6-4-2 question.  Here are Tuesday’s overall top scores after the fourth round:

• Wingardium Triviosa (Quincy’s South):  169
• Wonton Destruction (Monkey La La):  163
• Fan Club (Senor Tequila’s):  163
• Wiseacres (Champion Billiards):  162
• Cher’s Zombie Army (Shuckin’ Shack):  162

FINAL QUESTION (18.7% success rate):

–> Between 1793 and 1805, the French government introduced and used names such as Germinal, Floreal, Thermidor, and Brumaire.  These were new names given to what group of items?

It didn’t last very long, but the French government tried (and failed) to assign new names to the Months of the Year.  Congratulations to Wonton Destruction, Wingardium Triviosa, Uncle Jack, and Fan Club, who all scored the Perfect 21 tonight by answering correctly on all 21 wagering questions.  Here are the top ten scores overall from Tuesday night:

• Wingardium Triviosa (Quincy’s South):  180
• Wonton Destruction (Monkey La La):  175
• Uncle Jack (Quincy’s South):  171
• Wiseacres (Champion Billiards):  163
• Sofa King Smart (Quincy’s South):  162
• Scott Puts the STD in STUD (Monkey La La):  161
• Polar Vortex (The Block):  158
• Capital Hillbillies (Capitol City Brewing):  154
• Bad Hombres (FireFlies):  153
• Clavins (Blue Parrott):  152

CONGRATULATIONS TO WINGARDIUM TRIVIOSA, THE FIRST TEAM TO EARN 180 GAME POINTS IN 2017!

TONIGHT’S WINNERS:

Whole Foods Market in Ashburn, VA:  Less Clues  NEXT GAME – AUGUST 1st  (First cateogry: Classic Cars)

Capitol City Brewing in Arlington, VA:  Capital Hillbillies  (Next week’s first category: 1980s Hair Bands)

Champion Billiards in Frederick, MD:  Wiseacres  (Next week’s first category: “Around the World in 80 Days”)

Cugini’s in Poolesville, MD:  Lightfoot  (Next week’s first category: Human Physiology)

Orioles Nest #331 in Frederick, MD:  Clucktards  (Next week’s first category: Iron Maiden)

Senor Tequila’s in Germantown, MD:  Fan Club  (Next week’s first category: Triple 50/50 – Disney World or Disneyland?)

Fireflies in Alexandria, VA:  Bad Hombres  (Next week’s first category: “Gilmore Girls” (original))

Shuckin’ Shack in Frederick, MD:  South Street Crew  (Next week’s first category: “Gravity Falls”)

Top Golf in Ashburn, VA:  Taco Tuesday  (Next week’s first category: Christmas Carol Lyrics)

Primanti Brothers in Hagerstown, MD:  Shirts and Skins  (Next week’s first category: Baltimore Orioles (since 2011))

The Block in Annandale, VA:  Polar Vortex  (Next week’s first category: 1990s Disney Films)

Blue Parrott in St. Petersburg, FL:  Clavins  (Next week’s first category:  )

Monkey La La in Frederick, MD: Wonton Destruction  (Next week’s first category: J.R.R. Tolkien characters)

Quincy’s South in Rockville, MD: Wingardium Triviosa  (Next week’s first category: “Wicked”)

Casa Tequila in Lovettsville, VA:  Thundercats  (Next week’s first category: Batman)

Outta the Way Cafe in Derwood, MD:  Meercats Be Crazy  (First category for July 11: Pop Music Rivalries)