A Rough Ride for Wednesday Night Trivia!

Wednesday night’s game of Pour House Trivia saw many of our teams cruising along quite nicely through two rounds, until hitting a brick wall to start the second half.  Overall, our field consisted of 82 teams playing at 14 venues:

ROUND 1:

Wednesday’s opening round began with a three-part question on baby animals followed by a little Last Word / First Word fun:

–> What three-word name would you have if the former Boston College player who was drafted third overall by the Atlanta Falcons in 2008 would later star in the film “La La Land”?

Coming up with Matt Ryan Gosling was a cinch for most of our teams.  We then stuck our teams with the most difficult bonus question of the night.  After the majority of the field was able to surmise that the Italian city of Milan is home to one of the “Big Four” Fashion Weeks, we asked our teams to name the Italian administrative region for which Milan serves as the capital.  Only seven teams were able to come up with this correct answer:

(mapsoftheworld.com)

Maybe the unsuccessful teams should have stayed with thoughts of football to come up with the correct response of Lombardy.  Finally, we closed the round by asking about this mother-daughter duo:

Obviously, the Italian geography bonus was the sticking point for most teams, but two teams did manage to secure a perfect score in the first round: Dusty Baker School of Management (Bennigan’s – Clarksburg) and Deaf Squirrels (Memories).

ROUND 2:

For Wednesday’s audio question, we asked our teams to identify three bands based on the notable closing notes from their songs.  While most teams were able to earn their wagers with two correct answers, the bonus was once again elusive, as only 14% of our teams recognized all three bands: Van Halen (“Hot For Teacher”), Nine Inch Nails (“Closer”), and Coldplay (“Viva La Vida”).  We followed up by asking for the nickname shared by these three people:

Yes, it’s former San Antonio Spurs star George Gervin, fictional “Top Gun” pilot Tom Kazinski, and X-Men mutant Robert Drake, all of which were known as Iceman.  After questions on board games and ancient Greek philosophy, only one team swept the second round: Flight Level Awesome from Belles’.

HALFTIME:

Wednesday’s halftime page included photos of famous American homes such as Graceland or the Hemingway House, while the bottom half dealt with the somewhat arbitrary placement of apostrophes in brand names and geographic locations.  While our average score was relatively high at 16.8, securing a perfect 20 proved to be quite difficult, as no perfect scores were turned in on Wednesday (though several teams topped the high score list at 19 points).  Here are Wednesday’s top scores after the first half:

• Momentary Lapse of Reason (Bennigan’s – Frederick):  87
• Dusty Baker School of Management (Bennigan’s – Clarksburg):  86
• Eddie LeBec Fan Club (The Tavern):  86
• Flight Level Awesome (Belles’):  85
• Tokyo Sex Robot (Belles’):  85
• Deaf Squirrels (Memories):  85

ROUND 3:

The third round began with a one-two punch that sent most of our teams to the canvas.  First up, everyone’s least favorite category of African Geography:

–> While it does extend into Namibia and South Africa, the Kalahari Desert is found primarily in which African country?

Whether they knew the exact location of the Kalahari desert, or knew that it is the only country that borders both Namibia and South Africa, only nine teams came up with this correct response of Botswana.  The round continued with another difficult query, this time in the subject of Biographical Films.  We asked our teams to name the 1988 biopic directed by Clint Eastwood which starred Forest Whitaker as jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker.  Though we did mention that the film was titled after Parker’s nickname, we did NOT include any Alfred Hitchcock hints to lead our teams the correct answer of “Bird“:

Our teams fared (slightly) better here, with a total of 14 teams answering correctly.  Once we got past those speed bumps, the rest of the round progressed much easier, as most of our teams earned points on questions regarding works of art depicting the goddess Venus and the invention of velcro.  But the damage had been done, as no teams notched a perfect score of 36 points.

6-4-2 QUESTION:

The six-point clue on Wednesday’s 6-4-2 recounted a bizarre tale from world history:

–> In 18th century Sweden, King Gustav III was determined to show that this beverage was toxic, so he created an experiment whereby a condemned prisoner was forced to drink it daily.

Only seven teams earned the full six points here with the correct response of coffee.

ROUND 4:

After a rough third round, the questions eased up a bit for the final stanza.  The most difficult question of the round was asked in the category of Pop Music:

–> In April of 2016, which songstress became the first musical act to reach No. 1 on the Billboard 200 Album Chart with each of her first six studio albums?

While there are certainly many plausible answers (Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, Adele, Lady Gaga), the teams with a keen sense of a musical timeline were able to remember that it has been almost 18 months since the release of Beyonce’s latest album: “Lemonade”.  After questions on nitrogen and the Lincoln Navigator, we closed the final round by discussing this “mile high” ballpark:

In terms of perfect scores, the final was actually the easiest (by far), as 12 teams notched 36 points in the fourth stanza.  Here are Wednesday’s top overall scores after the fourth round:

• Tokyo Sex Robot (Belles’):  159
• Momentary Lapse of Reason (Bennigan’s – Frederick):  158
• Unfrozen Caveman Lawyers (Clover Theater):  155
• Oneders (Bennigan’s – Clarksburg):  155
• Deaf Squirrels (Memories):  154
• Satan’s School for Squirrels (Memories):  154

FINAL QUESTION (51.2% success rate):

–> With just under four months of hostilities, what was the shortest of the United States’ formally declared wars?

In spite of its name, the War of 1812 actually lasted nearly three years, but that was still the most popular wrong answer.  About half of the field was able to answer correctly with the Spanish-American War (April 21 – August 13, 1898).  Congratulations to Tokyo Sex Robot, as the only team to earn the Perfect 21 tonight by answering all wagering questions correctly.  Here are Wednesday’s top overall scores:

• Tokyo Sex Robot (Belles’):  166
• Deaf Squirrels (Memories):  166
• Flight Level Awesome (Belles’):  165
• Shakeweight (Valley Grill):  160
• Dusty Baker School of Management (Bennigan’s – Clarksburg):  159
• Olney the Lonely (The Tavern):  159
• The Gang Ruins Trivia (Valley Grill):  159
• Roaming Gnomes (Bennigan’s – Clarksburg):  158
• Mountain Misfits (Furnace Bar and Grill):  157
• If You’re Not First, You’re Last (The Tavern):  155

TONIGHT’S WINNERS:

Attaboy Beer in Frederick, MD:  Fat Kids Are Hard to Kidnap  (NEXT GAME ON OCTOBER 4 – First category: “Game of Thrones”)

Valley Grill in Middletown, MD:  Shakeweight  (Next week’s first category: Delmarva Sports Teams)