Blast Off With Thursday Night Trivia!

ROUND 1:

Thursday’s opening round started very well for most of our teams, but a pair of bonus questions quickly separated the top teams from the rest of the field.  First, we asked our teams to name any one of the four players who were Major League Baseball’s first African-American All-Stars in 1949.  Here are the four men we were looking for:

Of course, every team named Jackie Robinson (far right) to earn their wager, but we gave bonus points to any team that could come up with a second name as well.  Those teams that stuck to the Brooklyn Dodgers for their second guess earned two extra points, naming pitcher Don Newcombe (next to Jackie) or catcher Roy Campanella (far left).  Some teams earned their bonus by naming Larry Doby, who became the first black player in the American League when he signed with the Cleveland Indians in 1947.  Across the board, 26% of our teams earned bonus points here.  The round concluded with a question on the gemstone aquamarine, with 21% of our teams earning another two-point bonus by knowing that it is the birthstone of March.  Seven teams kicked off their game with a perfect score of 36 points in the first round.

ROUND 2:

Our nightly audio question featured three pairs of pop songs, with each pair sharing an identical title.  Bonus points were doled out in droves, as most of our teams knew all three song titles: “California Girls (Gurls)” (Beach Boys, Katy Perry), “Superman” (Lazlo Bane, Five for Fighting), and “Photograph” (Ed Sheeran, Nickleback).  The second round continued with this thought-provoking question on the topic of Disney films:

–> Premiering in 1959 and 1989 respectively, these two movies represent either end of the longest gap of Disney Princesses appearing on film.

Teams were only required to name of the two films in order to earn points here, but exactly one-third of our teams earned a two-point bonus by naming both “Sleeping Beauty” and “The Little Mermaid”.  Who can forget that memorable scene where these two characters enjoyed a seaside picnic?

Funny, I don’t remember this scene either…   Anyway, after questions concerning Applebee’s restaurants and the Stephen Crane novel “The Red Badge of Courage”, we saw nine teams earn a perfect score in the second round.

As usual, the third round offered up our most difficult wagering questions of the night, starting with this query on the topic of Toys & Games:

–> Spinning off such toys as “Funny Face”, “Brunette Betty”, and “Dapper Dan”, which toy introduced in 1955 featured metal filings which were moved with a magnetic wand in order to add features to a cartoon face?

A few of our teams were able to work off of the other names to determine that alliteration was going to be in play, but only 29% of our teams arrived at this correct response:

The round continued with a rather difficult Over / Under question in the category of Astronomy, as many teams greatly overestimated the number of men who have walked on the moon (it’s only TWELVE!).  Only 17% of our teams earned bonus points here by correctly answering all three clues.  We closed the round in the subject of TV Superheroes, as we asked about this comedic Marvel character who has appeared on numerous TV series over the years:

The final round eased up on our teams, as we touched on topics such as the Mockingbird and the first Super Bowl title for the Baltimore Ravens.  We learned that Jessica Alba started her own consumer goods company (and then almost immediately forgot it), before taking a quick trip to New Orleans to enjoy this sweet cocktail known as the Sazerac:

The only sticking point for many teams was the final question of the round, which dealt with the not-so-popular topic of World Geography.  We asked our teams to name any two of the three countries that border both Germany and Italy.  Most teams earned their wager, but only 22% of the field earned bonus points by naming all three:

Ten teams notched perfect scores in the final round.  Here are Thursday’s top scores after the fourth round: