An All-American (Ale House) Edition of Monday Night Trivia!

Monday night featured 82 teams at nine venues, thanks to the opening of our newest location: American Ale House in Hagerstown.  Monday night also featured several surprise victories, so let’s see which teams topped the leaderboard as we begin the sixth week of Season XVI:

ROUND 1:

Our Monday night teams did not have to wait very long for the most difficult bonus question of the night.  We opened the game by asking for the Colombian-born songstress who scored her first U.S. hit with the 2001 song “Whenever, Wherever”.  While virtually the entire field earned their wagers with Shakira, not one team could name the title of her most recent album, released earlier this year:

The hits kept coming, as we followed up that question with our nightly Three Clues question, with Monday’s version dealing with a certain food:

CLUE 1: This food’s name is found in the title of an 1885 painting currently hanging at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.

CLUE 2: Its scientific name is Solanum tuberosum.

Earning a two-point bonus here wasn’t quite as difficult as the Shakira question, but six teams worked off of the term tuberosum and remembered the Vincent Van Gogh painting “The Potato Eaters”:

We closed the round by asking about plaque and three famous men with the last name of Dewey.  Thanks to the first question, we did not see any teams begin the game with a perfect opening round.

ROUND 2:

Monday’s audio question quizzed our teams on these Jim Carrey films:

After questions on Lin-Manuel Miranda’s fundraising efforts for Puerto Rico, we asked this question in the category of U.S. Geography:

–> Among the ten most populous cities in Texas, which is the only one located outside of the Central Time Zone?

After the tough start, the second round eased up on the field, as nine teams swept the second round with a perfect score of 36 points.

HALFTIME:

Monday’s halftime page featured pictures of Major League Baseball team names in their literal form, while we also quizzed our teams on the alma maters of celebrities.  With an average score of 16.3 points, only ten teams notched a perfect 20, with half of those teams playing at Cheesetique in Arlington.  Here are Monday’s top overall scores at the halftime break:

• Rapscallions (Uno Pizzeria):  90
• Arrondissements of Ouagadougou (Greene Turtle):  88
• Killer Snails (Hershey’s):  87
• B-58s (DRP):  87
• SIX TEAMS TIED WITH 86 POINTS

ROUND 3:

Traditionally, the third round is the most difficult in any PHT set, and Monday’s third round was no different.  We opened with a question on the rare topic of Classical Music, looking at “Winter Wind”, an etude composed by Frederic Chopin.  While most teams cringe at the thought of classical music trivia, it was actually the following question that was our most difficult wagering question of the night, though it fell in the category of Video Games:

–> This computer game series began with “The Secret of” this place in 1990, followed by a 1991 sequel with the subtitle “LeChuck’s Revenge”.  Name this point-and-click adventure series by LucasArts which featured a certain mammal in the title.

Only 23% of our teams arrived at this correct answer:

After a three-part question on the geography of Denmark, we followed with two questions that rivaled “Monkey Island” as the toughest wagering question of the night.  First, we asked for the recently concluded Showtime series that featured Matt LeBlanc portraying a fictionalized version of himself.  Only 28% of our teams picked up points with this correct answer:

Finally, we offered up this challenging question on the subject of Chemical Elements:

–> These three elements have German names of Wasserstoff, Sauerstoff, and Stickstoff, which respectively mean ‘water substance’, ‘acid substance’, and ‘smothering substance’.  Give the English names for any two of these three elements.

Once again, 28% of our teams earned their wagers here with the correct answers of hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen.  Needless to say, we did not see any perfect scores in the third round.  In fact, only two teams answered all five wagering questions correctly: MWD and It Ain’t Easy Bein’ Cheesy, both from Cheesetique.

ROUND 4:

We got into playoff mode in the final round, asking this question on the subject of the MLB World Series:

–> Which National League team won its fifth World Series title in 1979, but has failed to reach the Fall Classic ever since?

It’s been nearly 40 years since this team was playing into late October:

We continued with a question on the bizarre connection (and subsequent corporate apology) between a condiment and a pair of cartoon characters:

Across the board, the final round featured two perfect scores: Rapscallions (Uno Pizzeria) and Del Boca Vista (Cheesetique).  Here are Monday’s top scores after the fourth round:

• Kitten Mittens (Cheesetique):  157
• Giant Meteor (Cheesetique):  155
• Misfits (Bushwaller’s):  151
• B-58s (DRP):  151
• Rapscallions (Uno Pizzeria):  150
• Arrondissements of Ouagadougou (Greene Turtle):  150

MONDAY’S FINAL QUESTION (46.8% success rate):

–> An ancient Greek word meaning ‘steersman’ is the source of which prefix commonly used in words relating to computers and virtual reality?

Just under half of our teams earned points on the final question with the correct answer of cyber.  For the third week in a row, we did not see any teams score the Perfect 21 on Monday by answering correctly on all wagering questions.  Here are your top overall scores from Monday night:

• Kitten Mittens (Cheesetique):  168
• Giant Meteor (Cheesetique):  167
• B-58s (DRP):  160
• Worst Case Ontario (DRP):  159
• Tequila Mockingbird (Uno Pizzeria):  156
• Befuddled (Greene Turtle):  156
• Aces (DRP):  155
• MSC (DRP):  155
• Eat Hame (DRP):  155
• H.R. Puff ‘N’ Stuff (DRP):  150
• Free Association (Cheesetique):  150

TONIGHT’S WINNERS:

A special congratulations to Befuddled at Greene Turtle, who came back from third place on the final question to take home their first victory ever!

DRP in Alexandria, VA:  B-58s  (Next week’s first category: “Major League”)

Greene Turtle in Hagerstown, MD:  Befuddled  (Next week’s first category: “Arrested Development”)

Morgan Inn in Woodbine, MD:  Morgan Station  (Next week’s first category: 1960s Music)

Hershey’s Restaurant in Gaithersburg, MD:  Killer Snails  (NO GAME NEXT WEEK – First category on October 30: “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”)

Uno Pizzeria in Frederick, MD:  Tequila Mockingbird  (Next week’s first category: “Beverly Hills Cop”)

Cheesetique in Arlington, VA:  Kitten Mittens  (Next week’s first category: Presidential Facial Hair)

Bushwaller’s in Frederick, MD:  Misfits  (Next week’s first category: Roller Coasters)

Il Forno in Frederick, MD:  MC  (Next week’s first category: “Rocknrolla”)