It’s Coen Down at Thursday Trivia!

Nineteen venues played host to a total of 183 teams on Thursday for Pour House Trivia, including a 24-team outing at Aslin Beer Co and a group of 20 more teams at Olde Mother Brewing!

FIRST ROUND:

Thursday’s first round offerings had to do with best-selling Mexican import beers Corona and Modelo, as well as three fateful April events through history — the Titanic hitting the iceberg, the fatal shooting of President Abraham Lincoln, and Noah Webster publishing the first edition of his namesake dictionary. Other questions involved Mount Hood in Oregon and Wedding Crashers leads Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn. This round was no match for our Thursday squads, as 26 teams were perfect in the first.

SECOND ROUND:

We stepped into the coffee shop to start the second round with three acoustic covers of famously non-acoustic songs Take on Me by a-ha, Jump by Van Halen, and Gnarls Barkley’s Crazy. The hardest wagering question of the first half came two questions later:

• Starring a two-time Oscar-winning actress, which current NBC limited series focuses on a true crime case in Missouri about the murder of a woman and how her friend became a prime suspect?

A little less than half the field were able to name either the show, The Thing About Pam, or its lead actress, Renee Zellweger to earn their wager. The final question of the round was the most difficult bonus opportunity in the first half, with a question about the Cleveland Guardians; just 18% of teams knew that the Guardians play their home games at Progressive Field. Perfect second-round scores were recorded by seven teams.

HALFTIME:

Thursday’s halftime page covered 21st-century film remakes and restaurant slogans. The average score was an impressive 17.3, and 21 teams put up a perfect 20 points. Coming into the halftime intermission, here were the top-scoring teams:

• Street Sharks (Fourscore): 90
• Washington Foreskins (Loudoun Kitchen): 90
• Bugs Are Dumb (Aslin): 90
• Enjoy the Gator Gumbo (Aslin): 89
• In Omnia Paratus (Aslin): 89

THIRD ROUND:

In the third round, teams were faced with a tough bonus question to start, with only 14.7% of the field able to name all three two-word alliterative world capital cities: Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), Phnom Penh (Cambodia), and San Salvador (El Salvador). The most difficult wagering question of all came in this round as well:

• It would seem evident by its title that this Shakespeare play is not a tragedy. What is the name of this play which, at 1,787 lines, is Shakespeare’s shortest?

That play was A Comedy of Errors, which was a tragedy to a majority of Thursday’s teams — only 31.1% named it correctly. Other third-round topics included dental-care brand (and upstate New York college) Colgate and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who just released their 12th studio album earlier this month! We have to give shoutouts to Power Vacuum (Champion) and Pterodactyl (Casita Romos), the only teams who were perfect in the third.

FOURTH ROUND:

The fourth and final round of this game came after a 6-4-2 on the African country Morocco which saw 14 teams name it right after only the first clue! After questions on various types of fish and the similarly-named desserts macaron and macaroon, we reached the toughest question of the round, regarding the two current NBA franchises who have never reached their conference playoff finals. About 59% of teams were able to name either the Charlotte Hornets or New Orleans Pelicans, with only 14.2% naming both to snag the most difficult pair of bonus points in the game. Six teams got through the round with a perfect score! Before we hit the final question, this was the top of the leaderboard:

• In Omnia Paratus (Aslin): 162
• Washington Foreskins (Loudoun Kitchen): 161
• Ten Thousand Dugongs (Quinn’s): 160
• Street Sharks (Fourscore): 160
• The Gang Plays Bar Trivia (Olde Mother): 160
  

FINAL QUESTION (25.7% success rate):

• Based on an ancient work of literature, what is the most recent film whose soundtrack won a Grammy Award for Album of the Year?

You’ll have to go back two decades to find that film, O Brother Where Art Thou?, which is based on the epic Homer work The Odyssey. Nobody was able to secure a Perfect 21 by answering every wagering question correctly in Thursday’s game but hey, there’s always next week! The Thursday leaderboard shook out like this:

• The Gang Plays Bar Trivia (Olde Mother): 169
• Power Vacuum (Champion): 166
• Walter’s Minions (Smoketown): 166
• Alcoholics Unanimous (Olde Mother): 166
• Painful Burning Sensation (Smoketown): 165
• Just Us Two (Mark’s): 165
• Quarter Century (Crooked Run): 165
• Washington Foreskins (Loudoun Kitchen): 164
• Pinball Wizards (Aslin): 164
• Happy Birthday Will (Solace Outpost): 164

(Happy belated birthday, Will!)

THURSDAY’S WINNERS:

Smoketown Brewing Station in Brunswick, MD: Walter’s Minions  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Coen Brothers Films)

Pour Dog House in Millersville, MD: Steve Holt!  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Arrested Development)

Champion Billiards in Frederick, MD: Power Vacuum  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Midnight Oil)

Loudoun Kitchen and Bar in Leesburg, VA: Washington Foreskins  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: The Academy Awards)

Olde Mother Brewing in Frederick, MD: The Gang Plays Bar Trivia  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Triple 50/50 (Tiny Countries))

Belly Love Brewing in Purcellville, VA: Pho Q  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: 1980s Hair Bands)

Solace Brewing in Sterling, VA: Sunglasses at Night  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Formula One Racing)

Bad Habits Bar & Grill in Martinsburg, WV: Griswolds  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: State Capitals)

Brewery Fire in Taneytown, MD: Great Heathen Army  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Classic Board Games)

Fourscore Beer Co. in Gettysburg, PA: Risky Business  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Crochet)

Crooked Run in Sterling, VA: Quarter Century  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: The Legend of Zelda)

Solace Outpost in Falls Church, VA: Happy Birthday Will  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: ACC Men’s Basketball)

Homaide Brewing in Williamsport, MD: Mashley  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: MLB Stadiums)

Orioles Nest #331 in Frederick, MD: NO GAME THIS WEEK  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Alanis Morissette)

Bear Brick Oven Pizza in Silver Spring, MD: DC Swampers  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Hercule Poirot Films)

Preston’s Pub in Manassas Park, VA: That’s What She Said  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Washington Nationals)

Casita Romos in Mount Airy, MD: Pterodactyl  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Gone in 60 Seconds)

Quinn’s in Arlington, VA: Ten Thousand Dugongs  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: U. S. National Parks)

Aslin Beer Co in Alexandria, VA: Pinball Wizards  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Blue Laws)

Kalypso’s Sports Tavern in Reston, VA: Out of Controllers  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Websites of the 2000s)

Lake Linganore Association at Eaglehead in New Market, MD: Axolotls  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: 8-Bit 1990s Songs (audio))

Mark’s Pub in Falls Church, VA: Just Us Two  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Nikola Tesla)