Now Let’s See Who Thursday Trivia REALLY Is!

ROUND 1:

Thursday’s game began with a three-part question that told our teams “one of these things is not like the others”.  We discussed the Manhattan Project and Al Pacino’s recent portrayal of former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno:

We closed the round with a question on the Drake Passage, a body of water named for one of the first Europeans to sail through the area.  Most of our teams knew that the passage is located in this part of the world:

Eleven teams began their night with a perfect first round score.

ROUND 2:

Thursday’s audio question featured three singers celebrating their 50th birthday in 2018: Celine Dion, Kylie Minogue, and Will Smith.  We continued by looking at the two sequels which followed this classic comedy film:

After a question on the Commonwealth Games, we closed with the subject of chemical elements:

–> The two chemical elements with atomic numbers 87 and 31 are both named for the same European country.  One element is named after its current name, the other for its Latin name.  Name either one of these elements.

About half of our teams earned their wager with one of the two correct answers of francium and gallium, with about half of those teams tacking on two bonus points for knowing both elements.  The second round also yielded 11 perfect scores.

Thursday’s second half opened with our nightly Three Clues question:

CLUE 1: Frenchman Jean Nicolet is considered to be the first European to set foot in what is now this state.

CLUE 2: From 1925 to 1967, this state banned the sale of margarine.

Though many teams were tempted, very few decided to go for the early answer bonus here.  It makes sense that a state which is proud of its dairy production would ban the sale of margarine for 40 years.  Nine teams did manage to earn two bonus points by going in early with the correct answer of Wisconsin.  Later, we spoke a little Urdu and looked at the various roles of the late actor Dick Van Patten, including King Roland from “Spaceballs”:

The third round also included the most difficult wagering question of the night, as only 21% of our teams recognized a description of the plant Digitalis, commonly known as foxglove.  As a result, PC Principals (Fish Market) was the only team to record a perfect third round score.

ROUND 4:

Thursday’s final round opened with a question on the VH1 reality dating series “Rock of Love”, before moving onto our most difficult bonus question of the night:

–> Tom Clancy’s first published novel was adapted into a feature film starring Alec Baldwin, while his second novel inspired the name of his video game company.  Name either one of these books.

Most of the field easily earned points here with one correct answer, knowing that Clancy’s first book was “The Hunt for Red October“.  But while there is a video game series named “Rainbow Six” (which is also one of Clancy’s books), that book was not published until 1998, so the answer we were looking for was “Red Storm Rising”.  Only eight teams earned bonus points on this question.  Once again, only one team earned a perfect score in the final round: Clever Team Name (Quincy’s).  Here are Thursday’s highest scores after the fourth round:

The Grille at Flower Hill in Gaithersburg, MD:  Blood Legion  (Next week’s first category: Bob Marley)

Black Walnut Brewery in Leesburg, VA:  Three Fingers Worth  (Next week’s first category: Famous Dogs)