I’ve Come Undone for Thursday Night Trivia!

ROUND 1:

Thursday’s opening round touched on such topics as TV game show hosts and the Ozark Mountains, but it was a pair of bonus questions that separated the better teams from the rest of the field.  First, we asked our teams to name either one of the two dog breeds which have ranked as the two most popular American dog breeds for each of the last eight years.  While nearly every team named one of the two breeds correctly, only 23% of our teams earned bonus points by knowing both of these breeds:

ROUND 2:

The third round featured three rather difficult bonus questions, staring with our nightly audio question.  We played three songs whose titles included the word “Fire”.  Most teams earned points by recognizing the first two songs: “Light My Fire” by The Doors and “We Didn’t Start the Fire” by Billy Joel.  But only eight teams overall earned bonus points by recognizing “I See Fire” by Ed Sheeran.  Next, we followed up with a question on this classic film featuring a dozen title characters:

While most teams knew that Henry Fonda took on the lead role in “12 Angry Men”, only eight teams earned bonus points by knowing which juror number his character was assigned: Juror #8.  It is mentioned on several occasions in the film, but at least every team had (at worst) a one-in-twelve shot at the bonus!  Needless to say, this answer led to some raucous celebrations for some teams that “knew” it.  Next, we asked about the culinary nut also known as a Filbert, which is used to flavor this tasty alcoholic treat:

Maybe we should have swapped out Frangelico for Nutella, as only about half of our teams knew that we were asking for the Hazelnut.  Finally, we asked about this Olympic gold medalist who recently retired by losing the final 100-meter race of his career:

While most teams knew that we were asking for Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt, only 21% of our teams knew that it was American athlete Justin Gatlin who defeated Bolt in his final race.  With three tough bonus questions, only one team was able to earn a perfect score of 36 points in the second round: Birds of War from Olde Mother Brewing.

The second half began with questions on the Bernoulli principle and the Hawaiian fire goddess Pele, before moving into a little Christmas in August:

–> Though it is not a legal play, which of Santa’s reindeer has a name which would theoretically have the highest corresponding point value in the game of Scrabble?

After running trough the list of names, most teams landed on the correct answer of Blitzen after remembering that the Z is worth ten points.  The bonus question here was extremely difficult, as we asked for the exact Scrabble value of that name.  Most of our teams overshot the total, which I suspect is due to the fact that many more people now play Words With Friends (and its inflated point values) instead of Scrabble.  As a result, only six teams were able to come up with the correct bonus answer of 18 points (specifically, the Z is worth ten, the B is worth three, the other five letters are worth one each).  Next up, we asked about the most recent addition to color scheme of these candies:

Finally, we concluded with a three-part question on words that begin with “BAT”, with the bonus hinging on this exploration device of yesteryear:

Yes, it’s the long-forgotten bathysphere, which was answered correctly by just 31% of our teams.  Congratulation to Nasty Neutrons from Quincy’s, as they were the only team to earn a perfect score in the third round.

Finally, we concluded the fourth round by asking about the rock band which set a Guinness record for Most People Riding on a Skateboard.  Here’s Weezer performing this not-so-memorable act:

The final round did not feature any perfect scores.  Here are Thursday’s top scores after the fourth round: