Ask a Favor from the President of Weekend Trivia…

October 14, 2019

With the MLB playoffs in the background, our four weekend games welcomed a total of 40 teams.

FIRST ROUND:

We wasted no time challenging our Friday teams, as each of their first two bonus questions were quite treacherous.  First, only four out of 24 Friday teams knew that the Mall of America is located in the suburban Minnesota city of Bloomington.  Next, only ONE Friday team (Slightly Agitated at P.B. Dye) knew that John Milius directed the original film version of “Red Dawn”.  Our Saturday teams faced an easier slate of questions, as they breezed through topics such as U.S. cities, the young adult novel “A Wrinkle in Time”, and the TV series “Miami Vice”.  Both perfect scores from the first round were posted on Saturday, as Full Bullpen (Belles’) and Weasigators (Pretzel & Pizza) each earned 36 points in the opening stanza.

SECOND ROUND:

Friday’s audio question got our teams back on solid footing, as a majority of the field earned bonus points by recognizing the opening drum beats to several hits of the 1980s.  Our Saturday teams also faced an easier trio of songs, identifying the numerical music groups 4 Non Blondes, 30 Seconds to Mars, and 98 Degrees.  The difficulty picked up dramatically thanks to a pair of sports-related bonus questions.  On Friday, only three teams knew that the Washington D.C. franchise in the upcoming restoration of the XFL will be called the D.C. Defenders.  Meanwhile, none of our Saturday teams knew that the Los Angeles Dodgers squared off against the Minnesota Twins in the 1965 World Series (during which Sandy Koufax refused to pitch on Yom Kippur).  As a result of these questions, we did not see any perfect second round scores last weekend.

HALFTIME:

Topics from last weekend’s halftime pages included comic strip characters, films with exclamation points in their titles, archipelagos, and titles of TV pilot episodes.  These pages yielded a combined average score of 17.3 points, as seven teams notched a perfect score of 20 points.  Here are your top weekend teams at the halftime break:

THIRD ROUND:

We kicked off Friday’s second half with the nightly Three Clues question, which began with these two facts:

CLUE 1: During the 1960’s, this superhero was joined by a dog named Ace for many of his adventures in comics.

CLUE 2: The first (and youngest) person to portray this character on screen was Lewis Wilson in 1943.

None of our 24 Friday teams even attempted a guess at the two-point bonus.  Instead, every team waited for the third clue to earn wagering points with the correct answer of Batman.  Once again, our Saturday teams dealt with a difficult bonus question in the category of sports, as only two Saturday teams knew that Jim Courier won consecutive French Open men’s singles titles in 1991 and 1992.  Other third round topics included the song “A Boy Named Sue”, the adrenal glands, and the 1912 U.S. Presidential election.  None of our weekend teams swept the third round with a perfect score.

FOURTH ROUND:

Final round topics from last weekend included The Federalist Papers, the country music song “Heads Carolina, Tails California”, the Biblical city of Jericho, and the tie-in between the game Monopoly and the TV series “The Walking Dead”.  A Friday question about cocktails gave us the most difficult wagering question of the first four rounds:

–> Garnished with an orange peel, which Italian cocktail is made of one part gin, one part vermouth Rosso, and one part Campari?

Only two Friday teams responded correctly with the Negroni.  With each of the three bonus questions from Saturday’s final round yielding a success rate of under 20%, none of our weekend teams recorded a perfect final round score.  These were your highest scoring weekend teams after four rounds of play:

FRIDAY’S FINAL QUESTION (4.2% success rate):

–> Which body part belonging to Galileo is kept in a shrine at the History of Science Museum in Florence, Italy?

SATURDAY’S FINAL QUESTION (50.0% success rate):

–> Covering over 600,000 square miles, what is the largest country by area located entirely on the continent of Europe?

If you’re good at math, you can probably figure out that exactly ONE Friday team earned wagering points on Friday’s final question with Galileo’s middle finger.  The solitary correct answer led to one of the biggest standings jumps we’ve ever seen in a regular season game, as Birthday Party leapt from tenth place to the winner’s circle at Springfield Manor Winery.  Meanwhile, exactly half of our Saturday teams responded correctly with Ukraine.  None of our teams earned the Perfect 21 last weekend.  Here is your final weekend leaderboard:

LAST WEEKEND’S WINNERS:

Springfield Manor Winery in Thurmont, MD:  Birthday Party   (Next week’s first category: Famous October Birthdays)

Black Walnut at P.B. Dye in Ijamsville, MD:  Slightly Agitated   (NO GAME NEXT WEEK – First category on Oct. 25: Kennedy Family)

Vanish Brewery in Leesburg, VA:  NO GAME THIS WEEK   (Next week’s first category: Medieval English Monarchs)

Frey’s Brewing in Mount Airy, MD:  NO GAME THIS WEEK   (NO GAME NEXT WEEK – First category on Oct. 25: “The Godfather”)

868 Estate Vineyards in Hillsboro, VA:  NO GAME THIS WEEK   (NO GAME NEXT WEEK – First category on Oct. 26: Nuclear Physics)

Belles’ Sports Bar in Frederick, MD:  Sexual Chocolate   (Next week’s first category: Triple 50/50 – Four Cycle or Rotary Engine?)

Pretzel & Pizza Creations in Hagerstown, MD:  D.C. Swampers    (Next week’s first category: Wines of Beaujolais)

Earn $100 for Referring PHT

Categories

Recent Posts

Posted in