An Oscar-Winning Edition of Thursday Night Trivia!
Thursday night’s game featured 93 teams playing at 13 venues, as we were reminded once again that literature is an actual trivia category. On to the recaps!:
ROUND 1:
Thursday’s game opened with a question on this media franchise (and its current feature film):
The Bronies in the audience were able to shine on the bonus question, which asked for the name of the lead character of this film. Only nine teams came through with the correct answer of Twilight Sparkle. The round continued with a look at the origins of croquet, followed by a query concerning this public transportation system:
Once again, only nine teams were able to earn an extra two points by knowing that BART stands for Bay Area Rapid Transit. We closed the first round with four teams posting a perfect score: Syn Storm (Champion Billiards), Hans Gruber Preservation Society (Smoketown), Dire Wolves (Belly Love), and Unathletico Madrid (Guido’s).
ROUND 2:
Thursday’s audio question was of the spoken word variety, as we played clips from three TV shows that featured fictional brand-name products: the elixir Vitameatavegamin (“I Love Lucy”), the putrid soft drink Slurm (“Futurama”), and the hybrid food Cheesy Blasters (“30 Rock”):
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1W8R5TSNNk[/embedyt]
Next, we learned that many of our teams were (loosely) participating in Zymurgy, which is the scientific study of fermentation. After a quick look at Papal names, we offered up the most difficult wagering question of the first half, asking for the bedding brand which produces the Beautyrest mattress. Exactly one-third of our teams earned points with this brand:
We closed the second round with our nightly Three Clues question, with Thursday’s edition involving our teams identifying the decade in which three events occurred. We offered a two-point bonus to any team that turned in the correct response after these two clues were read:
EVENT 1: Pete DePaolo wins the Indianapolis 500, becoming the first driver to average more than 100 miles per hour for the entire race.
EVENT 2: Eugene O’ Neill wins three Pulitzer Prizes for Drama.
With some teams having just a one-point wager available, we saw a number of early guesses, but only four teams snagged that bonus with the correct answer of the 1920s. As a result, none of our teams swept the second round with a perfect score.
HALFTIME:
Thursday’s halftime page dealt with George Clooney films and ‘super’ words. Overall, we saw an average score of 17.2 points, with 11 teams recording a perfect score of 20 points. Here are Thursday’s top scores after the first half:
- Syn Storm (Champion Billiards): 87
- Drinking While Thinking (Fish Market): 87
- PC Principals (Fish Market): 86
- Hans Gruber Preservation Society (Smoketown): 86
- Thundercats (Bunker Sports Cafe): 86
- In Dog Beers, We’ve Had One (Olde Mother Brewing): 86
ROUND 3:
The third round opened with a question on U.S. Geography, as we asked our teams to identify the two most populous U.S. cities which lie along the Canadian border. Most of the field earned their wager with the correct response of Detroit, but only 18% earned bonus points by knowing that Buffalo (and not Seattle) also sits along the border. We continued with a trip to the bookstore, as we asked our most difficult wagering question of the night:
–> A Harlem teenager named John Grimes is the lead character of “Go Tell in On the Mountain”, the first novel penned by which author and civil rights activist?
Only 16% of our teams earned points here with the correct response of James Baldwin:
Later, we asked about this brand of food processor whose name was derived as a portmanteau of ‘cuisine’ and ‘art’:
We closed the round with another difficult question, asking for the adjective which is found in the stage names of hip hop artists Antwan Patton, Sean Anderson, and Antonio Hardy. While there are certainly plenty of rappers with the word ‘L’il’ in their stage names, we went in the opposite direction on this question, as the correct answer we were looking for was ‘Big‘ (specifically, Big Boi, Big Sean, and Big Daddy Kane). With only 27% of our teams earning points here, we saw another round with no perfect scores.
6-4-2 QUESTION:
We went around the globe for the six-point question on Thursday:
–> Including both the mainland and overseas territories, which foreign country covers the most time zones in the world, with 12 total?
Congratulations to the Fan Club (Quincy’s), MSP (Fish Market) and Can’t Buy the Thrill (Champion Billiards), who were the only teams to earn six points with the correct answer of France:
ROUND 4:
We opened the final round with a question on these award show hosts:
The round continued with our second-most difficult wagering question of the night, which once again encompassed a work of literature. Using the Last Word / First Word theme, we stumped most of our teams with this offering:
–> Which five-word answer would you have if a war film featuring Denzel Washington and Meg Ryan included the reading of a work from the Robert Frost poetry collection “New Hampshire”?
Only 19% of our teams earned points here with the correct response of “Courage Under Fire and Ice”. We closed the final stanza with a sports question, asking our teams about golfer Rory McIlroy, former baseball slugger Mark McGwire, and “Monday Night Football” broadcaster Sean McDonough. After two rounds without any perfect scores, Indians (Bunker Sports Cafe) and Just Here For the Trivia (Cushwa Brewing) each notched scores of 36 points during the final round. Here are Thursday’s top scores after the fourth round:
- PC Principals (Fish Market): 154
- Drinking While Thinking (Fish Market): 151
- Big Game Killas (Olde Mother Brewing): 151
- Indians (Bunker Sports Cafe): 151
- Unathletico Madrid (Guido’s): 149
FINAL QUESTION (59.8% success rate):
–> Though many Oscar-winning films are centered on the concept of love, what is the only film to have won the Oscar for Best Picture whose title contains the word ‘LOVE’?
Just under three-fifths of the field turned in this correct response:
Congratulations to Indians (Bunker Sports Cafe) as the only team to earn the Perfect 21 tonight by answering all wagering questions correctly. Here are your top overall scores from Thursday:
- PC Principals (Fish Market): 164
- Unathletico Madrid (Guido’s): 161
- Indians (Bunker Sports Cafe): 160
- Singing Inferno (Smoketown Brewing): 157
- Drinking While Thinking (Fish Market): 156
- Hans Gruber Preservation Society (Smoketown Brewing): 156
- Your Mom (Bunker Sports Cafe): 154
- Big Game Killas (Olde Mother Brewing): 153
- No Bueno (Quincy’s): 153
- Birds of War (Olde Mother Brewing): 152
- Cranius Maximus (Bunker Sports Cafe): 152
TONIGHT’S WINNERS:
Quincy’s Bar and Grille in Gaithersburg, MD: No Bueno (Next week’s first category: Classic Arcade Games)
Champion Billiards in Frederick, MD: Syn Storm (Next week’s first category: “Back to the Future” Franchise)
Bunker Sports Cafe in Leesburg, VA: Indians (Next week’s first category: Muhammad Ali)
Smoketown Brewing Station in Brunswick, MD: Singing Inferno (Next week’s first category: Golf Terminology)
Beef O’ Brady’s in Frederick, MD: Harsh Reality (Next week’s first category: The Beatles)
Jerry’s Sports Bar in Hagerstown, MD: Bag of Marbles (Next week’s first category: The Beatles)
Belly Love Brewing in Purcellville, VA: Formerly Known as TWA (Next week’s first category: Malawi)
Cushwa Brewing in Williamsport, MD: Just Here For the Trivia (Next week’s first category: Diesel Engines)
Olde Mother Brewing in Frederick, MD: Big Game Killas (Next week’s first category: “Jaws”)
The Grille at Flower Hill in Gaithersburg, MD: We Drink and We Know Things (Next week’s first category: The Beach Boys)
Right Around the Corner in St. Petersburg, FL: Better Red Than Dead (Next week’s first category: HOST CHOICE)
Fish Market Restaurant in Alexandria, VA: PC Principals (Next week’s first category: Battles of the French and Indian War)
Guido’s in Frederick, MD: Unathletico Madrid (Next week’s first category: New York Giants)