Ham It Up for Monday Night Trivia!

The second half of Season XVI kicked off with 72 teams playing across nine venues.  Tonight’s final question flipped the script at several venues and led to a few fantastic finishes:

ROUND 1:

Monday night’s opening round included a questions on monks and British kings named George, but the subject of earth science led to the most difficult bonus question of the round.  After most teams could identify the basic description of a glacier, we asked the field to name the state (excluding Alaska) which is home to more glaciers than any other.  Only seven teams picked up two bonus points by naming Washington as the correct answer.  According to the Geographic Names Information System, there are nearly 200 named glaciers in the Evergreen State, including over 30 on Mount Rainier alone.  That was certainly the sticking point for most teams, as the first round did not yield any perfect scores on Monday.

ROUND 2:

Monday’s audio question was the most difficult of the season, as we asked our teams to identify three films with the word “Father” in the title.  While nearly every team recognized Steve Martin’s voice in “Father of the Bride”, the next two films were more obscure:

Only 16% of our teams recognized either one of these two films to earn their wager, making this the most difficult wagering question of the night.  In addition, no teams were able to give us the titles of both films to earn a two-point bonus.  The teams that were able to avoid that speed bump cruised through the remainder of the second round, as we touched on such diverse topics as Barry White and this cartoon character:

Just as in the first round, we did not see any teams notch a perfect score of 36 points in the second round.

HALFTIME:

Monday’s halftime page featured pictures of Nobel Prize winners, while the bottom half had our teams matching college team nicknames.  Our average score came in at 16.2 points, with eight teams recording a perfect score of 20 points.  Here are Monday’s top scores at the halftime break:

• Eat Ham (DRP):  87
• Arrondissements of Ouagadougou (Greene Turtle):  85
• Kitten Mittens (Cheesetique):  85
• H.R. Puff ‘N’ Stuff (DRP):  85
• Killer Snails (Hershey’s):  85

ROUND 3:

Monday’s second half began with a three-part question on geographic locales with non-possessive apostrophes in their names (yes, we’re aware of how highly specific that category is), with about one-third of our teams earning two bonus points by turning in three correct answers of Hawai’i, Sana’a (the capital of Yemen), and Coeur d’Alene (the Idaho resort town).  After questions on the philosophical concept of altruism and the layout of a soccer field, we closed the round with the written works of this late comedian:

The final bonus question of the round was also its most difficult, as only 14% of our teams picked up bonus points by knowing that George Carlin‘s highest-grossing box office appearance was actually his voice role in the animated film “Cars”, as Fillmore, the “hippy dippy” Volkswagen bus:

After we blanked the field on perfect rounds in the first half, we saw just two perfect scores in the third stanza: Kitten Mittens (Cheesetique) and Johnny Unpleasants (DRP).

ROUND 4:

The final round began with a question on this current CW series:

We also included a surprisingly difficult bonus question, asking our teams to name the Latin American country which created the original version of this show: “Juana la Virgen“.  Only five teams gave us the correct response of Venezuela.  The most difficult wagering question of the second half followed, in the subject of Colleges and Universities:

–> Which private university got its start in the late 19th century with a $600,000 donation from philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and a land donation by entrepreneur Marshall Field?

Apparently, Marshall Field (and by that matter, his namesake Field Museum) is not as famous as we thought, as only 21% of our teams earned points here with the correct response of the University of Chicago.  Thanks to the opening question, we did not see any perfect scores to close out the final round.  Here are Monday’s top scores after the fourth round:

• Kitten Mittens (Cheesetique):  159
• Eat Ham (DRP):  157
• Arrondissements of Ouagadougou (Greene Turtle):  155
• Gorillas With Machine Guns (Il Forno):  154
• Killer Snails (Hershey’s):  151

MONDAY’S FINAL QUESTION (15.5% success rate):

–> Not only does this animal provide the world’s most widely consumed meat, but no other animal supplies the world with more byproducts.  Name this animal.

For the second week in a row, the final question conversion rate came in at under 20% as about one-sixth of our teams gave us the correct response of pig.  The gelatin created by the hooves of pigs goes into a lot of products, both edible and otherwise.  In an ironic twist, Eat Ham from DRP was winning the entire night, but missed the final question and had to settle for third place.  Congratulations to the Arrondissements of Ouagadougou (Greene Turtle), as the only team to earn the Perfect 21 on Monday by correctly answering all wagering questions.  Here are your top overall scores from Monday night:

• H.R. Puff ‘N’ Stuff (DRP):  162
• Kitten Mittens (Cheesetique):  159
• Arrondissements of Ouagadougou (Greene Turtle):  158
• Del Ray Dummies (DRP):  151
• Eat Ham (DRP):  151
• Stranger Danger (DRP):  146
• Gorillas With Machine Guns (Il Forno):  145
• Westward Ho! (Morgan Inn):  145
• Cher’s Zombie Army (Uno Pizzeria):  142
• Half Nelsons (Il Forno):  142

TONIGHT’S WINNERS:

DRP in Alexandria, VA:  H.R. Puff ‘N’ Stuff  (Next week’s first category: Yoga)

Greene Turtle in Hagerstown, MD:  Arrondissements of Ouagadougou  (Next week’s first category: “The Practice”)

Morgan Inn in Woodbine, MD:  Westward Ho!  (Next week’s first category: Kix – 1980s band)

Hershey’s Restaurant in Gaithersburg, MD:  Killer Snails  ** NINE WINS IN A ROW!! **  (Next week’s first category: Arlo Guthrie – AUDIO)

Uno Pizzeria in Frederick, MD:  Cher’s Zombie Army  (Next week’s first category: Thanksgiving Facts)

Cheesetique in Arlington, VA:  Kitten Mittens  (Next week’s first category: Washington D.C. Landmarks)

Bushwaller’s in Frederick, MD:  Latrilla and the Pussywillows  (Next week’s first category: “Steven Universe”)

Bar Deco in Washington, DC:  Justice League  (Next week’s first category: Scotch Whisky)

Il Forno in Frederick, MD:  Gorillas With Machine Guns  (Next week’s first category: Thanksgiving)