I Don’t Know, Just Put Shatner…

ROUND 1:

If you read yesterday’s blog, you would know that Wednesday’s first round featured three relatively easy bonus questions.  Thursday was a completely different story.  We began with a question on the always-popular topic of We Share a Last Name, except this version featured fictional characters who share the same last name, specifically these three:

We offered a two point bonus to any team that knew all three first names, but remembering the first name of President Snow from “The Hunger Games” was quite the daunting task.  Unfortunately, no team could remember all three of these first names of Coriolanus, Chrissy, and Jon, which meant that no team earned bonus points here.  After discussing the scientific merits of NOT using your cell phone, we finished up the opening stanza with this “Star Trek” question:

–> You’ll be able to name the subtitle to the film “Star Trek V” if you can simply recite the opening narration from the original “Star Trek” television series.  What is the three-word subtitle to “Star Trek V”?

Actually, the correct answer appears in the first line of the opening narration:

We threw our teams a bit of a curveball on the bonus, which asked for the director of this film.  There were several teams that must have said “I have no idea, just put down Shatner”, which of course would have led them to the correct answer, as William Shatner got behind the camera for the first time to direct this sequel.  While 32% of our teams came up with that bonus, no teams notched a perfect score in the opening round thanks to the Snow question, .

ROUND 2:

Our nightly audio question featured three tunes with murderous lyrics, and our teams had no trouble recognizing the sounds of Johnny Cash (“Folsom Prison Blues”), The Jimi Hendrix Experience (“Hey Joe”), and Maroon 5 (“Wake Up Call”).  Next up, our football fans had a chance to shine by remembering Willie Parker outrunning the Seattle Seahawks on this 75-yard scamper in Super Bowl XL:

We offered a two-point bonus on this question to anyone who could name which other member of the Pittsburgh Steelers won the Super Bowl MVP Award that year in spite of Parker’s record-setting run.  Only 22% of our teams earned that bonus with the correct response of Hines Ward.  We moved into the high-brow categories next, asking for the profession associated with Walter Gropius, Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, and Eero Saarinen.  The majority of the field had no problem coming up with the correct response of architecture.  Finally, the second round ended with a question on Bizarre News Stories:

–> When the liquor brand Jagermeister threw a pool party in 2013, organizers wanted to create a special effect of mist in the pool by adding liquid nitrogen to the water.  The stunt put nine people in the hospital, because the nitrogen combined with which element, creating a toxic gas?

While most teams knew that most swimming pools include a healthy does of chlorine, only 19% of our teams earned a two-point bonus by knowing (within one either way) that the atomic number of chlorine is 17.  As a result, six teams swept the second round with a perfect score.  Hey, that’s still a vast improvement over the first round…

The second half began with an opera question, as we asked our teams to identify any two of the three works created by Italian composer Giacomo Puccini which are among the six most-performed operas worldwide.  There’s a reason we call it the Dreaded Opera Category, and it goes without saying that opera is not a strong subject for many teams, as evidenced by the fact that this was our most difficult wagering question of the night.  Only 21% of our teams earned any points here, with just four teams earning bonus points by knwoing all three correct answers: “La Boheme”, “Tosca”, and “Madama Butterfly”.  We followed that with a question on the mantis shrimp:

We finished the third round with a question on (men’s and women’s) college basketball:

–> Only twice in NCAA history has a school won BOTH the Men’s and Women’s Division I NCAA Basketball Championship in the same year.  Coincidentally, both of those feats were accomplished by the same school.

Most of our teams arrived at the correct answer of the University of Connecticut Huskies.  Here’s their most recent joint appearance at the White House.

The final round eased up on our teams, with about half of the field earning their wagers on all five questions.  Teams also earned bonus points by knowing the author of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” (Ken Kesey) and the actual name of the Captain in the 1970s musical duo The Captain and Tennille.  It turns out that the Captain’s real name is Daryl Dragon.  That fact leads me to this question: why on Earth would you use a stage name if your real name was as awesome as Daryl Dragon?  Maybe his career as a death metal guitarist failed, so he made the transition into cheesy soft rock.  I digress…  We also asked a question about this newest panelist on the ABC reality series “Shark Tank”:

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