Gonna Fly Now at Wednesday Trivia!

Thanksgiving Eve only featured six games of Pour House Trivia, but each of these venues witnessed a highly competitive game, encompassing 61 teams in all:

FIRST ROUND:

Wednesday’s game began with a fairly easy Over / Under question, followed by a look at the term (and the U2 song) ‘elevation’.  We kicked off the Thanksgiving-themed questions with this surprisingly difficult query:

–> In the United States, what is the earliest possible date on which Thanksgiving can fall?

Less than half of our teams remembered that Thanksgiving is pegged for the fourth Thursday in November, which means that if the month starts on a Thursday, the holiday falls on the 22nd.  Ironically, 2018 is one of the years during which it fell on the 22nd.  We closed the first round with a look at this classic sitcom:

Only 19% of our teams tacked on two bonus points by that it was Eva (and not Zsa Zsa) Gabor that starred on “Green Acres”.  As a result, Tokyo Tentacle Storm (Belles’) recorded the only perfect score of the opening round.

SECOND ROUND:

We offered up some ‘thankful’ music in Wednesday’s audio question.  Many of our players were surprised to discover that the tune “Danke Schoen” (as featured during the parade scene in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”) was originally recorded by Wayne Newton:

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0m_giioppT4[/embedyt]

Yes… that is indeed an adult male singing voice (albeit a rather young one).  Other second round topics included the comedic duo of Laurel and Hardy, the most recent Cy Young Award winners, and the novel “101 Dalmatians”.  Only three teams across the board earned bonus points by remembering that Dodie Smith penned that novel, which meant that the second round did not yield any perfect scores.

HALFTIME:

For a timely Thanksgiving halftime page, we featured pictures of celebrities performing at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, as well as a matching section on this weekend’s college football rivalry games.  Seven teams notched a perfect score of 20 points, while the overall average landed at 15.3 points.  These were your highest scoring Wednesday teams at the halftime break:

• Tokyo Tentacle Storm (Belles’):  90
• Kitten Mittens (Quinn’s):  87
• F U Jobu (Belles’):  86
• Team A. J. (Black Hoof):  83
• Originals (Brookside Inn):  80

THIRD ROUND:

As usual, the second half challenged all of our teams, starting with this question on the subject of world geography:

–> In which country would you find BOTH the highest and the lowest points in South America?

Since the Andes mountain range runs along the western coast of the continent, Chile was by far the most popular wrong answer, as only 23% of our teams earned points with the correct response of Argentina, which is home to the 22,837-foot peak of Mount Aconcagua.  Other third round topics included poetry and the memorable Oscar speech from this late actor:

We closed the third round with a question regarding the hit song “It’s Raining Men”.  Only five teams earned bonus points by knowing that former late night sidekick Paul Shaffer co-wrote this tune for The Weather Girls.  None of our teams were able to record 36 points in the third stanza.

FOURTH ROUND:

After opening the final round with a look at the work of veteran TV actor Nathan Fillion, we asked our teams about this shared sports nickname:

We continued with questions concerning “The Phantom of the Opera” and the Mayflower, but we saved the most difficult question for the end of the game, as the final question of the fourth round was asked in the Three Clues format:

CLUE 1: A satellite from the NASA program bearing this name became the first man-made object to reach Jupiter.

CLUE 2: This word completes the advertising slogan: “Catch the spirit of a true BLANK”.

CLUE 3: This seven-letter word is defined as ‘a person who is among the first to explore or settle a new country or area.’

Even after hearing all three clues, many teams lost their wager (and category bonus) with the incorrect response of ‘Voyager’.  While the Voyager program might be better known, it was the Pioneer program that first explored the outer regions of the Solar System.  In addition, very few teams remembered the 1980s advertisements for Pioneer electronics and stereo systems.  With only 21% of the field earning wagering points, none of our teams posted 36 points in Wednesday’s final round.  Here is your pre-final leaderboard on this Thanksgiving Eve:

• Kitten Mittens (Quinn’s):  159
• Tokyo Tentacle Storm (Belles’):  152
• F U Jobu (Belles’):  152
• Valley Girls (Quinn’s):  148
• Teachers Heavy Petters (Fat Daddy’s):  146

WEDNESDAY’S FINAL QUESTION (61.3% success rate):

–> A film released nationwide earlier today marks the eighth installment in which film series that includes a winner of the Best Picture Oscar?

Just over half of our teams responded correctly with the “Rocky” franchise.  The new film “Creed II” marks the eighth film in the franchise, which began with the original 1976 drama that took home the Oscar for Best Picture.  Congratulations to Kitten Mittens (Quinn’s), who earned the only Perfect 21 on Wednesday night after answering every wagering question correctly.  Here is your final Wednesday leaderboard:

• Kitten Mittens (Quinn’s):  171
• F U Jobu (Belles’):  164
• Teachers Heavy Petters (Fat Daddy’s):  158
• Tokyo Tentacle Storm (Belles’):  157
• Team A. J. (Black Hoof):  152
• Valley Girls (Quinn’s):  148
• Flight Level Awesome (Belles’):  146
• Your Mom (GearHouse):  143
• Cake or Death (Black Hoof):  143
• Korner Bar (Quinn’s):  143

WEDNESDAY’S WINNERS:

Valley Grill in Middletown, MD:  NO GAME THIS WEEK  (Next week’s first category: Mercury Seven Astronauts)