An Artistic Finish at Monday Trivia!
As we (finally) close in on the last two weeks before PHT World Series XIX, Monday’s game welcomed 107 teams across 11 venues.
FIRST ROUND:
Monday’s game opened with a question concerning Einstein’s most notable scientific equation, though the accompanying bonus question stumped most of our teams. Only 11% of the field knew that Einstein was born in the German city of Ulm. Other first round topics included the board game Candy Land, the novel “Fahrenheit 451”, and the nightly Three Clues question, which began with these two facts:
CLUE 1: She earned five Emmy nominations for portraying Sheila Jackson on “Shameless”.
CLUE 2: She voiced Jessie in one of the most successful animated film franchises of all-time.
Nearly one-fourth of our teams picked up bonus points by turning in the early answer of Joan Cusack. Eight teams stormed out of the gate with a perfect first round score of 36 points.
SECOND ROUND:
We played three songs with rather similar titles in Monday’s audio question, asking our teams to identify “Let it Go” by Demi Lovato, “Let Her Go” by Passenger, and “Let Me Go” by Cake. The second round also covered blue jeans, the origin of the football term ‘gridiron’, and the TV series “The Golden Girls”, the latter of which included the most difficult bonus question of the first half. Only nine teams knew that future Oscar nominee Don Cheadle made an early career appearance on the spinoff series “The Golden Palace”. An equally difficult bonus question closed the second round, as only 10% of the field could name both Egypt and Syria as the two members of the United Arab Republic of the early 1960s. Thanks to these two bonus questions, the second round did not yield any perfect scores.
HALFTIME:
Monday’s halftime page depicted film scenes set in foreign countries, while the bottom half asked our teams to match U.S. Presidents with their respective pets. Seven teams ran the table by posting a perfect score of 20 points, while the overall average reached 15.3 points. These were your highest scoring teams at Monday’s halftime break:
- Great Heathen Army (Morgan Inn): 90
- Morgan Station (Morgan Inn): 90
- Outdoor Alcoholics (Flanagan’s): 90
- Notch Eight (Il Forno): 90
- Killer Snails (Hershey’s): 89
THIRD ROUND:
Monday’s second half kicked off with a question about characters from “The Simpsons”, specifically the ex-husbands of Marge’s sister Selma Bouvier. After a quick trip to Lake Tahoe, we asked a three-part question which required our teams to denote the location of the superfluous umlauts in the names of the rock bands Motorhead, Queensryche, and Spinal Tap. About half of the field earned wagering points, but only five teams earned bonus points by knowing all three of the individual letters over which umlauts are found. Respectively, those letters are O, Y, and N. We closed the third stanza with questions regarding the eyewear company Luxottica and the two athletes named Reggie Jackson (one of which is much more famous than the other). Thanks to superfluous umlauts, Ask Jeeves (Bushwaller’s) posted the only perfect score of Monday’s third round.
FOURTH ROUND:
After enjoying some Hawaiian coffee in the 6-4-2 question, Monday’s final round included topics such as the drama film “L.A. Confidential”, the card game Solitaire, the Broadway musical “Rent”, and the exotic dish Peking duck. In a bit of an oddity, the difficulty level dropped significantly in the final round, as 14 teams earned a perfect score of 36 points. Here is Monday’s leaderboard after four rounds pf play:
- Killer Snails (Hershey’s): 162
- Morgan Station (Morgan Inn): 161
- Notch Eight (Il Forno): 161
- Kitten Mittens (Mark’s Pub): 160
- FOUR TEAMS TIED WITH 158 POINTS
MONDAY’S FINAL QUESTION (39.4% success rate):
–> From 1987 to 1990, four different paintings became the “Most Expensive Painting Ever Sold”, with each one topping the last. For your wager, which artist painted all four of these record-setting pictures?
Thanks to titles such as Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers, Irises, and Portrait of Dr. Gachet, about two-fifths of the field knew that we were looking for Vincent Van Gogh. Congratulations to the three teams that answered every wagering question correctly to earn the coveted Perfect 21: Kitten Mittens (Mark’s Pub), Not Your Team (Dawg House), and Outdoor Alcoholics (Flanagan’s). Here is Monday’s final overall leaderboard:
- MSC (DRP): 168
- Great Heathen Army (Morgan Inn): 166
- Power Vacuum (Bushwaller’s): 164
- This is How We Go Down (Bushwaller’s): 163
- Half Nelsons (Uno Pizzeria): 162
- Not Your Team (Dawg House): 161
- Morgan Station (Morgan Inn): 161
- Notch Eight (Il Forno): 161
- Irish Beer Mafia (Greene Turtle): 161
- Kitten Mittens (Mark’s Pub): 160
MONDAY’S WINNERS:
DRP in Alexandria, VA: MSC (Next week’s first category: Stan Lee Film Cameos)
Greene Turtle in Hagerstown, MD: Irish Beer Mafia (Next week’s first category: Prince – AUDIO)
Morgan Inn in Woodbine, MD: Great Heathen Army (Next week’s first category: Conspiracy Theories)
Hershey’s in Gaithersburg, MD: Killer Snails (Next week’s first category: Babe Ruth)
Uno Pizzeria in Frederick, MD: Half Nelsons (Next week’s first category: Elton John Songs)
Bushwaller’s in Frederick, MD: Power Vacuum (Next week’s first category: Matthew Brady)
Rockwell Brewery in Frederick, MD: Fat Thor (Next week’s first category: Disney Movies of the 2000s)
Mark’s Pub in Falls Church, VA: Kitten Mittens (Next week’s first category: “Hard Knocks” – TV)
Dawg House in Waynesboro, PA: Not Your Team (Next week’s first category: Guinness Brewery at St. James’ Gate)
Flanagan’s Harp and Fiddle in Bethesda, MD: Outdoor Alcoholics (Next week’s first category: Mother Sauces)
Il Forno in Frederick, MD: Notch Eight (Next week’s first category: Classical Art)