Float Away to Thursday Night Trivia!
Thursday night’s game featured 105 teams playing at 15 venues, but none were more crowded than Quincy’s in Gaithersburg, where host Ian had his hands full with a 20-TEAM FIELD! Let’s see which teams topped the overall leaderboard:
ROUND 1:
Thursday’s game opened with questions on America’s best-selling line of trucks (Ford F-Series) and Civil War Medicine, before moving into the category of Name That Year. We asked for the calendar year in which all three of these events occurred:
1) The Houston Texans play their first NFL game.
2) Former President Jimmy Carter wins the Nobel Peace Prize.
3) East Timor is admitted as the 191st member state of the United Nations.
Even with a two-year buffer, only about half of our teams earned their wager with the answer of 2002. Finally, we closed with a question on a certain game from “The Price is Right”, as well as this parody version often featured on “The Tonight Show”:
After one round of play, eight teams were sitting pretty with a perfect score of 36 points.
ROUND 2:
Thursday’s audio question featured three songs whose titles all begin with the word “Hit”: “Hit the Road, Jack” (Ray Charles), “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” (Pat Benatar), and “Hit ‘em Up, Style” (Blu Cantrell). We followed with a question on Major League Baseball, asking for the National League team that has reached the MLB postseason in each of the last five years (including 2017). With a lot of Washington Nationals fans in the audience, many of our teams certainly hoped that the Nationals were correct, but only 42% of our teams knew it was this other team instead:
We followed up with our nightly Three Clues question, with Thursday’s version discussing a foreign country:
CLUE 1: By total value, this European country is the second-largest exporter of food and agriculture in the world, behind the United States.
CLUE 2: In the year 2000, it became the first country to legalize same sex marriage.
Very few teams even ventured a guess at this point, and across the board, no team earned a two-point bonus. Even after this third clue was revealed, just over half of our teams earned their wager:
CLUE 3: This country’s current King Willem-Alexander took the throne from his mother Beatrix in 2013.
Each of these clues led to the correct answer of the Netherlands. Finally, we took a look at this Broadway smash:
HALFTIME:
Our halftime page featured pictures of Johnny Depp films. With 12 teams recording a perfect score, we saw an overall average of 16.5 points. Here are Thursday’s top scores after the first half:
- Brother of Menelaus (Fish Market): 88
- PC Principals (Fish Market): 87
- Faith Plus One (Guido’s): 87
- Drinking While Thinking (Fish Market): 86
- Lowered Expectations (Quincy’s): 86
ROUND 3:
The third stanza featured our most thought-provoking question on the topic of U.S. Geography:
–> Among the eight U.S. states which border any of the Great Lakes, there are three states that DO NOT share a land or water border with Canada. Name any two of these three states.
Most of our teams earned their wager with Illinois and Indiana, with just 13% of our teams also earning a two-point bonus with Wisconsin. Though it’s hard to tell, Wisconsin’s territory does not reach the Canadian border:
Just as in the second round, the third stanza also featured a bonus question which resulted in zero correct answers across the board. After asking a question about guitarist Richie Sambora, the majority of our field knew that he spent decades in the band Bon Jovi, but no team was able to come up with the title of the band’s most recent album: “This House is Not for Sale”.
ROUND 4:
We touched on celebrity couples in the final round:
–> The first Spanish actor to win an Academy Award is currently married to the first Spanish actress to win an Academy Award. Name both of these performers.
In addition to knowing that Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz were the duo that we were looking for, 15% of our teams also earned a two-point bonus by knowing that these two (along with Scarlett Johansson) appeared onscreen together in the 2008 film “Vicky Cristina Barcelona”. After blanking in the second and third rounds, six teams finished the game with a perfect fourth round. Here are Thursday’s top scores after the fourth round:
- PC Principals (Fish Market): 158
- Breadsticks (Quincy’s): 155
- Dire Wolves (Belly Love): 151
- Nasty Neutrons (Quincy’s): 151
- Lowered Expectations (Quincy’s): 150
FINAL QUESTION (31.7% success rate):
–> Which retail company is the country’s second-largest consumer of helium, trailing only the U.S. government?
Just under one-third of our teams gave us the correct answer of Macy’s. Unfortunately, no team recorded the Perfect 21 tonight by answering all wagering questions correctly. Here are your top overall scores from Thursday:
- Breadsticks (Quincy’s): 164
- Lowered Expectations (Quincy’s): 162
- PC Principals (Fish Market): 158
- Split Personality (Lake Linganore): 151
- Cranius Maximus (Bunker Sports Cafe): 151
- Faking Bad (Lake Linganore): 150
- Just Good Enough (Champion Billiards): 149
- Tuna Noodle Casserole (Guido’s): 147
- Dire Wolves (Belly Love): 144
- Singing Inferno (Smoketown): 143
TONIGHT’S WINNERS:
Springfield Manor Winery in Thurmont, MD: Hoboken Squat Cobblers
THE GAME AT SPRINGFIELD MANOR WILL MOVE TO FRIDAYS AT 7:00p – NEXT GAME ON OCTOBER 6 (First category: SpaceX)
Quincy’s Bar and Grille in Gaithersburg, MD: Breadsticks (Next week’s first category: Franz Kafka)
Champion Billiards in Frederick, MD: Just Good Enough (Next week’s first category: Puddles Pity Party)
Bunker Sports Cafe in Leesburg, VA: Cranius Maximus (Next week’s first category: “Overwatch”)
Lake Linganore Association in New Market, MD: Split Personality (Next week’s first category: 1980s Music – AUDIO)
Smoketown Brewing Station in Brunswick, MD: Singing Inferno (Next week’s first category: Fire Science)
Beef O’ Brady’s in Frederick, MD: Smarty Pants (Next week’s first category: Celebrity Cameos in Music Videos)
Jerry’s Sports Bar in Hagerstown, MD: Bag of Marbles (Next week’s first category: Minnesota Vikings)
Belly Love Brewing in Purcellville, VA: Dire Wolves (Next week’s first category: 1980s TV Sitcoms)
Cushwa Brewing in Williamsport, MD: Slapsgiving (Next week’s first category: “Anchorman”)
Olde Mother Brewing in Frederick, MD: Three Fingers Worth (Next week’s first category: Devan Sings Fleetwood Mac)
The Grille at Flower Hill in Gaithersburg, MD: We Drink and We Know Things (Next week’s first category: 1960s British Invasion)
Right Around the Corner in St. Petersburg, FL: Over 140 (Next week’s first category: “Game of Thrones”)
Fish Market Restaurant in Alexandria, VA: PC Principals (Next week’s first category: “Mystery Science Theater 3000”)
Guido’s in Frederick, MD: Tuna Noodle Casserole (Next week’s first category: Spanish Civil War)