Are You Threatening Me? It’s Wednesday Night Trivia!
We returned to a full schedule for Wednesday’s game this week, welcoming 108 teams across 15 venues:
ROUND 1:
Wednesday’s game opened with a question concerning this upcoming film in the “Star Wars” anthology series:
After avoiding a case of the chickenpox, we asked a surprisingly difficult first round question on the subject of the automotive industry:
–> This Honda model was the first car from a Japanese manufacturer to be produced in the United States. In 2014, the ten millionth American-made car of this model rolled off a Honda assembly line in Ohio.
The Honda Civic was a much more popular answer than we anticipated, as just under half of our teams responded correctly with the Honda Accord. Furthermore, only 11% of our teams picked up two bonus points by knowing (within one year either way) that the first American-made Honda Accord was produced in 1982. As a result, only three teams began Wednesday night with a perfect score: Flight Level Awesome (Belles’), Sprinkles Are For Winners (The Tavern), and Stephen Hawking’s Karaoke Machine (Valley Grill).
ROUND 2:
Wednesday’s audio question featured three songs named for historical figures, specifically “Geronimo” (Sheppard), “Paul Revere” (Beastie Boys), and “Casey Jones” (Grateful Dead). After a question on Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, we asked our teams to name either one of the two NHL teams named for birds:
We closed the first half with a question on the many TV roles of veteran actor Jimmy Smits. Once again, a difficult bonus question greatly reduced the number of perfect scores, as only 13% of our teams knew that Mr. Smits can currently be seen portraying Dr. Isaac Rosa on the ABC drama “How to Get Away With Murder”. The second round also yielded three perfect scores: Dave Martinez School of Management (Bennigan’s – Clarksburg), Breakfast For Dinner (Furnace), and Irish Mafia (Applebee’s).
HALFTIME:
For Wednesday’s halftime, our teams looked at photographs from various decades of the 20th century and matched American companies to their respective headquarters. With 15% of our teams notching perfect scores, we saw an overall average of 16.4 points. Here are Wednesday’s top scores after the first half:
- Dave Martinez School of Management (Bennigan’s – Clarksburg): 91
- Flight Level Awesome (Belles’): 90
- 63 Earths Fit in Uranus (Barefoot Bernie’s): 90
- Hamster Relish (Memories): 90
- Sprinkles Are For Winners (The Tavern): 89
ROUND 3:
Wednesday’s third round began with a baseball question that inadvertently became one of the more deceptive questions we’ve asked in a while:
–> Later this year, Vladimir Guerrero will become the first Hall of Famer to feature the logo of which franchise on his bronze plaque?
It appears that too much knowledge contributed to the downfall of several teams on this question. Those teams that not big baseball fans simply guessed an answer and wagered one point. However, our baseball experts knew that Vlad spent most of his career split between the Montreal Expos and the Los Angeles Angels. Unfortunately, some of those experts did not realize that Gary Carter, Andre Dawson, and Tim Raines are already wearing Montreal Expos hats on their Hall of Fame plaques, so the correct answer was the Los Angeles Angels. With only 22% of our teams earning point, this certainly was a difficult question, but some of our strongest teams tossed away their nine-point wagers! The rest of the round actually proceeded rather smoothly, with our teams performing well on questions concerning NBC sitcoms of the 1980s, the novel “Treasure Island”, and the color auburn. After avoiding the speed bump to begin the half, Sexual Chocolate (Memories) earned the only perfect score of the third round.
ROUND 4:
Wednesday’s final round included this question on chemical elements,:
–> Which element with atomic number 15 is associated with the scientific phenomena of chemiluminescence?
Just like U.S. Presidents, Best Picture Oscar winners, and world capitals, the Periodic Table is an extremely frequent topic at every trivia night, but nonetheless, only 41% of the field answered correctly with phosphorus, with many teams opting instead for the most common wrong answer of neon (which is atomic number ten). The final round also included questions on the “Fifty Shades of Grey” film series, the city of Sao Paolo, and this Three Clues question about a certain beer brand:
CLUE 1: Founded in Chico, California, this is currently the seventh largest brewing company in the United States.
CLUE 2: One of its varieties topped Food & Wine Magazine’s listing of The 25 Most Important American Craft Beers Ever Brewed.
CLUE 3: Its year round offerings include Pale Ale, Torpedo Extra IPA, Nooner Pilsner, and Hop Hunter IPA.
Even after hearing all three clues, just over half of our teams answered correctly with this brand:
The final round yielded the highest number of perfect scores on Wednesday, as eight teams notched 36 points on their way to the final question. Here are Wednesday’s top scores after four rounds of play:
- 63 Earths Fit in Uranus (Barefoot Bernie’s): 163
- Flight Level Awesome (Belles’): 161
- Sexual Chocolate (Memories): 160
- Pyeongchang Style (Quinn’s): 160
- Unfrozen Caveman Lawyers (Clover Theater): 159
FINAL QUESTION (17.9% success rate):
–> Which animated series once depicted a fictionalized version of David Letterman’s late night talk show, with Letterman voicing himself during the segment “Top Ten Ways to Break Stuff”?
In the early 1990s, Letterman was a big fan of animator Mike Judge, so he agreed to voice himself on an episode of “Beavis & Butthead”. Just under one-fifth of our teams answered correctly. For the second week in a row, Sexual Chocolate from Memories scored the only Perfect 21 on Wednesday by answering every wagering question correctly. These were your top overall scores from Wednesday:
- Sexual Chocolate (Memories): 168
- Kitten Mittens (Quinn’s): 167
- 63 Earths Fit in Uranus (Barefoot Bernie’s): 163
- Flight Level Awesome (Belles’): 161
- Olney the Lonely (The Tavern): 153
- Sarcastic Jerks in the Back (Clover Theater): 151
- Pyeongchang Style (Quinn’s): 150
- I’d Eat That Off Of a Flip Flop (Furnace): 150
- Fat Kids Are Hard to Kidnap (Valley Grill): 150
- Unfrozen Caveman Lawyers (Clover Theater): 147
- FOUR TEAMS TIED WITH 146 POINTS
TONIGHT’S WINNERS:
Valley Grill in Middletown, MD: Fat Kids Are Hard to Kidnap (Next week’s first category: French Painters)
The Tavern in Olney, MD: Sparkles Are For Winners (Next week’s first category: “A River Runs Through It”)
Belles’ Sports Bar in Frederick, MD: Flight Level Awesome (Next week’s first category: Malice in Dallas)
Bennigan’s in Frederick, MD: HoJo MoJo (Next week’s first category: “Rent”)
Nido’s Ristorante in Frederick, MD: Witiots (Next week’s first category: American Revolution)
Barefoot Bernie’s in Hagerstown, MD: 63 Earths Fit in Uranus (Next week’s first category: Football Comebacks)
Delirium Cafe in Leesburg, VA: Cake or Death (Next week’s first category: African Capitals)
Quinn’s on the Corner in Arlington, VA: Kitten Mittens (Next week’s first category: “Hamilton”)
Angus & Ale in Berkeley Springs, WV: The Cubist (Next week’s first category: 1980s Music)
Clover Theater in Cloverdale, CA: Sarcastic Jerks in the Back (Next week’s first category: Famous Model Train Enthusiasts)
Bennigan’s in Clarksburg, MD: Dave Martinez School of Management (Next week’s first category: HGTV)
Memories in Mount Airy, MD: Sexual Chocolate (Next week’s first category: Triple 50/50 – Zombie Movies: Fast or Slow Zombies?)
Furnace Bar and Grill in Thurmont, MD: I’d Eat That Off of a Flip Flop (Next week’s first category: Triple 50/50 – Astronomy or Astrology?)
Applebee’s in Waynesboro, PA: Irish Mafia (Next week’s first category: A Song of Ice and Fire)