Hey Now! You’re an All-Star (Fruit)…
Our first Thursday game in October welcomed exactly 100 teams playing at 14 venues, which included two teams hoping to join the PHT Wall of Fame by notching their fourth win in a row:
ROUND 1:
Thursday’s opening round was largely a cakewalk for our teams, as about half of the field went five-for-five on wagering questions, topping 30 points in the process. But we tripped up most of our teams with these three difficult bonus questions:
–> Which Major League Baseball stadium is located in Kansas City?
–> Which bespectacled character is the protagonist of the video game series “Half Life”?
–> Who hosted the 25th annual ESPY Awards, held this past July?
In each case, about 20% of our teams answered these bonus questions correctly, with answers of Kauffman Stadium, Dr. Gordon Freeman, and this recently retired star:
Only two teams answered all three bonus questions correctly to complete a perfect first round: Gin and Cupcakes (Fish Market) and Syn Storm (Champion Billiards).
ROUND 2:
Thursday’s audio question offered up a musical tribute to the late Tom Petty, as we featured three singers covering his tunes. Nearly all of our teams earned their wagers here with the first two correct answers of Johnny Cash (“I Won’t Back Down”) and John Mayer (“Free Fallin'”), but the young female voice in the third clip was by far the most difficult to pin:
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVajvomdziQ[/embedyt]
Only nine teams recognized the voice of Elle King to earn a two-point bonus. We continued with a question on the work of Dr. Seuss:
–> Subtitled “The True Facts Concerning History’s Barest Family”, a 1942 book by Dr. Seuss introduces the idea that which 11th century noblewoman had six scandalous sisters?
After a quick cocktail break (specifically, a Bellini), we asked a question concerning this former pop star and California congressman:
Once again, only nine teams earned bonus points on this question, by remembering that Sonny Bono had also served as mayor of Palm Springs. As a result, the only perfect score of the second round was turned in by No Bueno (Quincy’s).
HALFTIME:
Thursday’s halftime page featured pictures of film cameos, with a matching section on authors with initials in their pen names. Overall, we saw a relatively normal average score of 16.2 points, but only two teams managed to record a perfect score of 20 points: Lowered Expectations (Quincy’s) and Brother of Menelaus (Fish Market). Here are Thursday’s top scores after the first half:
- Syn Storm (Champion Billiards): 86
- Brother of Menelaus (Fish Market): 85
- Gin and Cupcakes (Fish Market): 85
- Fan Club (Quincy’s): 85
- Breadsticks (Quincy’s): 85
ROUND 3:
The third stanza featured a question on Current Events, with most of our teams knowing that Saudi Arabia recently allowed its 12 million adult female residents to obtain driver’s licenses. We turned back the clock for next question about the NFL:
–> Name any two of the three NFL franchises which relocated during the decade of the 1980s.
We closed the third round in the category of We Share a First Name, with tonight’s edition dealing with these three musicians:
Only seven teams recognized the descriptions of all three musicians: saxophonist Charlie Parker, Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts, and current pop star Charlie Puth. Once again, we saw just one perfect score in the third round: Brother of Menelaus (Fish Market).
6-4-2 QUESTION:
We jetted off to Hollywood for the six-point clue on our 6-4-2 question tonight:
–> Which Academy Award-winning actress first rose to prominence playing Bond girl Domino Petachi opposite Sean Connery in “Never Say Never Again”?
Exactly one-fifth of our teams earned six points with this blonde bombshell:
Hmm… This is the second blog post this week featuring a shirtless Sean Connery…
ROUND 4:
We opened the final round with a question on this current Netflix series:
Later, we learned that Jimmy Carter is the only U.S. President to have been a member of Future Farmers of America. We closed with our nightly Three Clues question, this time asking about an animal:
CLUE 1: The fictional language of Lapine was spoken by these animals in a 1972 novel.
CLUE 2: On the TV series “Unhappily Ever After”, Bobcat Goldthwait voiced a stuffed animal of this species.
Sitting on opposite ends of the cultural spectrum, these two clues did not entice many incorrect guesses. Across the board, we saw just eight teams earn a two-point bonus, though it’s difficult to say which of these two clues they were working off of:
Most of the field waited for the third and final clue, which asked for the only other animal mentioned in the lyrics of the classic tune “Hound Dog”. Thanks largely to the final question, the final round did not yield any perfect scores. Here are Thursday’s top scores after the fourth round:
- PC Principals (Fish Market): 158
- Gin and Cupcakes (Fish Market): 157
- Brother of Menelaus (Fish Market): 157
- Fan Club (Quincy’s): 155
- Vitrifiers (Champion Billiards): 153
FINAL QUESTION (97.0% success rate):
–> Native to southern Asia, the Carambola is an oblong fruit with five distinctive ridges running down its sides. When cut open widthwise, the cross-section of this fruit takes the form of which shape?
Needless to say, this question was not as difficult as we originally thought… Indeed, the starfruit is much more common than we realized:
So, our Thursday teams were awarded with an unexpected softball tonight, which lead to a whopping 12 teams notching a Perfect 21 tonight by answering all wagering questions correctly. Here are your top overall scores from Thursday:
- PC Principals (Fish Market): 170
- Gin and Cupcakes (Fish Market): 169
- Brother of Menelaus (Fish Market): 169
- Thundercats (Bunker Sports Cafe): 166
- Fan Club (Quincy’s): 165
- Vitrifiers (Champion Billiards): 165
- Your Mom (Bunker Sports Cafe): 165
- Blumpkin Spice Latte (Quincy’s): 164
- Charlie and the Vodka Factory (Champion Billiards): 163
- Breadsticks (Quincy’s): 161
TONIGHT’S WINNERS:
Quincy’s Bar and Grille in Gaithersburg, MD: Fan Club (Next week’s first category: Original MLB Team Cities)
Champion Billiards in Frederick, MD: Vitrifiers (Next week’s first category: Roller Coasters)
Bunker Sports Cafe in Leesburg, VA: Your Mom (Next week’s first category: Harry Potter Films)
Lake Linganore Association in New Market, MD: Split Personality
THIS WEEK CONCLUDES OUR FALL SEASON AT LLA. CHECK THE SCHEDULE NEXT SPRING!
Smoketown Brewing Station in Brunswick, MD: Hans Gruber Preservation Society (Next week’s first category: Scottish Kilt Plaids)
Beef O’ Brady’s in Frederick, MD: Harsh Reality (Next week’s first category: Ben & Jerry’s Flavors)
Jerry’s Sports Bar in Hagerstown, MD: LB Cool J (Next week’s first category: LL Cool J)
Belly Love Brewing in Purcellville, VA: Formerly Known as TWA (Next week’s first category: Bicycle Components)
Cushwa Brewing in Williamsport, MD: Slapsgiving (Next week’s first category: “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer”)
Olde Mother Brewing in Frederick, MD: Birds of War (Next week’s first category: Dwayne Johnson Films)
The Grille at Flower Hill in Gaithersburg, MD: We Drink and We Know Things (Next week’s first category: Motown Lyrics)
Right Around the Corner in St. Petersburg, FL: Five Easy Pieces (Next week’s first category: Aerosmith’s #1 Hits – AUDIO)
Fish Market Restaurant in Alexandria, VA: PC Principals (Next week’s first category: Tom Petty – AUDIO)
Guido’s in Frederick, MD: Unathletico Madrid (Next week’s first category: FIFA World Cup)