Oops, Wednesday Trivia Did It Again!

Fourteen locations hosted a total of 143 Pour House Trivia teams on Wednesday.

FIRST ROUND:

Things started well enough in Wednesday’s game, as teams had no trouble with things like the song America the Beautiful, the carpenter ant, and comedy film subtitles. However, things took a slight downturn with the final wagering question:

• Snickers has recently partnered for commercials with which global entertainment company and its superstars, including Seamus, Baron Corbin, and Otis?

About 53% of the field recognized those names as WWE superstars, the lowest correct-answer rate of the first half. Seven of those teams used that answer to cap off a perfect first round.

SECOND ROUND:

We played a trifecta of game show sound effects for the audio question, followed by a question on the Norse mythological origin of the day named Friday. The second round’s toughest wagering question came on a Swift journey:

• A fictional race of horses known as Houyhnhnms are depicted as intelligent and cultured beings capable of conversation. These beings are featured prominently in which literary work of the early 18th Century?

That novel, Gulliver’s Travels, was named correctly by 54 percent of our teams. The round ended with questions about the Mona Lisa and then-Olympic nations that no longer exist, namely West Germany and the USSR. A game-high eleven teams recorded perfect scores here.

HALFTIME:

Wednesday’s halftime page dealt with Saturday Night Live celebrity impressions and famous national foods. Nineteen teams were able to achieve a perfect 20 points on the sheet, while the average score being 17.2 points. A first-half perfect score led the halftime scoreboard:

• Sexual Chocolate (Memories): 92
• Stinkfist (Idiom): 90
• Virtual Cigar (Hops N Shine): 90
• I Think I’m Here For Trivia (Craftworx): 89
• Pterodactyls (Belles’): 89
• Texas-Sized Ten-Four (Idiom): 89

THIRD ROUND:

The third round pulled no punches this time around, as the first two wagering questions proved to be the toughest pair on the night. First, a three-parter to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the film E.T. the Extraterrestrial made a lot of teams want to phone home; only 23% of the field got even two of the three answers right for wagering points, while a game-low four teams got all three parts correct for the bonus. We immediately followed with the hardest wagering chance of the game:

• In 1959, the most notable of the quiz show scandals involved contestants Charles Van Doren and Herbert Stempel, both of whom were featured as characters in the 1994 film Quiz Show. What was the name of the rigged game show on which these two men became famous?

Twelve percent of Wednesday’s squads correctly named that show, Twenty-One. Other third-round topics included folk-rock band The Lumineers, the kingdom taxonomic rank, and Michael Landon’s starmaking turn on the Western TV series Bonanza. You might not be too shocked to read that no teams put up a perfect score in this round.

FOURTH ROUND:

Wednesday’s 6-4-2 on the pearl was guessed after just a single clue by nine teams for the maximum six points. In round four, teams encountered queries on African city Timbuktu, the elimination of Mr. Potato Head‘s pipe accessory, and the dual inspiration behind the Mercedes-Benz automaker names. A Three Clues question about MLB’s Los Angeles Angels was the hardest way to earn points in this round; 36% of teams named it for points, but just 12 teams were able to do so after a pair of clues for bonus points. Five of those bonus dozen teams scored a perfect 36 points in the fourth round. Before the final question, these were the top-scoring groups:

• Sexual Chocolate (Memories): 164
• Virtual Cigar (Hops N Shine): 156
• Fresh Off the U-Haul (Mark’s): 153
• What the Fork (TGI Fridays): 152
• Titanic Was an Inside Job (Hops N Shine): 152
• Marco Polo and the Peanuts (Idiom): 145

FINAL QUESTION (15.4% success rate):

• Currently sitting at over 25 million copies in sales, an album from which performer is the best-selling album of all time that was recorded by a teenage solo artist?

Britney Spears is still the record holder for teenage solo artist record sales, with her debut album …Baby One More Time. A Perfect 21 eluded Wednesday’s squads, since none were able to answer every wagering question correctly. However, these teams boasted the highest total scores in the game:

• Titanic Was an Inside Job (Hops N Shine): 164
• Stinkfist (Idiom): 158
• Pterodactyls (Belles’): 154
• Sexual Chocolate (Memories): 152
• Scared Money Don’t Make Money (Idiom): 150
• Nerd Immunity (Falling Branch): 149
• Let’s Have Another Round (T. J. Stone’s): 148
• What the Fork (TGI Fridays): 147
• SIX TEAMS TIED WITH 145 POINTS

WEDNESDAY’S WINNERS:

Moe’s Peyton Place in Springfield, VA: NO GAME  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Apples)

Valley Sports Grill in Middletown, MD: Think, McFly, Think  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Jurassic Park (franchise))

Belles’ Sports Bar in Frederick, MD: Pterodactyls  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Britney Spears)

Memories Charcoal House in Mount Airy, MD: Sexual Chocolate  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: 1980s ACC Point Guards)

GearHouse Brewing in Chambersburg, PA: Fashionably Late  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Forensic Anthropology)

TGI Fridays in Hagerstown, MD: What the Fork  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Only Murders in the Building)

Idiom Brewing in Frederick, MD: Stinkfist  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Christopher Guest)

Axes and O’s in Sterling, VA: Comfortably Dumb  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Comic Book Artists)

Hops N Shine in Alexandria, VA: Titanic Was an Inside Job  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Michael Jackson)

Sully’s Pour House in Herndon, VA: Two-Wheel Tricycle  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: 1980s Action Films)

Falling Branch Brewery in Street, MD: Nerd Immunity  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Pokemon)

T. J. Stone’s in Alexandria, VA: Let’s Have Another Round  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Clue (film))

Craftworx Taproom in Gainesville, VA: I Think I’m Here For Trivia  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: The Lego Movie)

Barstool Sportsbook in Charles Town, WV: Trivia Vampires  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Ancient Roman History)

Grape Escape in Gaithersburg, MD: D. C. Swampers  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: African Capitals)

Mark’s Pub in Falls Church, VA: Fresh Off the U-Haul  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Men’s College World Series)