Pour House Trivia Keeps Going and Going and Going…
Monday night featured 75 teams at eight venues. Two of those teams are still hanging their hopes on a “perfect season”, looking to make it five in a row!:
ROUND 1:
We wasted no time challenging our teams on Monday night, as we opened the game with a question on the scientific classification of human beings. Most of our teams knew that the scientific genus and species name for humans is homo sapiens, but only six teams snagged the first two-point bonus of the night by also knowing that the family name is hominidae (though we usually use the term ‘hominids’). Next, we asked about this recently revived advertising character:
We closed the round by asking about three films whose titles include stand-alone letters, one of which was this dystopian adaptation of a graphic novel:
The bonus on the science question proved to be the sticking point which prevented most of our teams from notching a perfect first round score, as the six teams who scored those two points were also the only teams to sweep the opening stanza.
ROUND 2:
Monday’s audio question offered up three songs with rhyming titles. The field had little trouble with the first two songs (“Jaded” by Aerosmith and “Complicated” by Avril Lavigne), but “Vindicated” by Dashboard Confessional was certainly the most difficult, leading to just 15% of our teams earning bonus points. Later, we asked about this American volcano (seen here before and after its notable 1980 eruption):
The second round gave us the most difficult wagering question of the first half:
–> Which martial art will be added as an official medal event at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo?
We received plenty of answers for judo and taekwando, but both of those are already Olympic events. Only 21% of our teams knew that it is karate that will be making its Olympic debut in a few years. The round concluded with a question on space exploration, as we surprised a few teams with the fact that BOTH the first man and the first woman to travel into outer space were Soviets (Yuri Gagarin and Valentina Tereshkova). During the second round, only Kitten Mittens (Cheesetique) notched a perfect score of 36 points.
HALFTIME:
Monday’s halftime page featured pictures of TV shows that fit a hidden theme, as well as foreign translations for the names of animals. For most teams, the only issue keeping them from a perfect score was identifying the hidden theme that linked the TV shows: they aired original episodes on two different networks. As a result, there were more than a dozen scores of 19 points, but only three teams notched a perfect 20: Westward Ho! (Morgan Inn), Killer Snails (Hershey’s), and Cerebral Cinco (Cheesetique). Here are Monday’s top overall scores at the halftime break:
- Killer Snails (Hershey’s): 90
- Aces (DRP): 88
- Westward Ho! (Morgan Inn): 85
- Cher’s Zombie Army (Uno Pizzeria): 85
- It Ain’t East Being Cheesy (Cheesetique): 85
- Giant Meteor (Cheesetique): 85
ROUND 3:
Monday’s third round opened with a discussion of the high-speed rapping abilities of Eminem, followed by the memory of this embarrassing moment from recent U.S. history:
–> In a 1992 incident caught on videotape, U.S. President George H.W. Bush suddenly fainted just after vomiting into the lap of which country’s Prime Minister?
Providing fodder for “Saturday Night Live” and Mad magazine, this incident took place in Japan. After a question about two people (and a pig) named Abner, we took a snack break with this organic brand:
Finally, we turned back the clock for our sports fans by finishing the third round with a question on boxing legend Joe Louis. The third round did not yield any perfect scores.
6-4-2 QUESTION:
Monday’s six-point clue was short and too the point, but incredibly difficult nonetheless:
–> Derived from an ancient Greek word, the term cynophobia refers to the abnormal fear of what animal?
While many teams might have been considering the correct answer, only one was bold enough to venture a guess after only hearing this clue. Congratulations to Kitten Mittens (Cheesetique) for snagging those six points.
ROUND 4:
The final round featured some fun with Roman numerals, as we asked for the common English word which is also the smallest prime number greater than 1,000 (as written in Roman numerals). Despite a number of guesses, the number 1,001 is NOT a prime number (143 x 7 = 1,001). The answer we were looking for was 1,009, which is written as MIX in Roman numerals. The final round also included queries on DNA and phrases which include the initials “P.T.” , but we finished the final stanza by getting a little risque:
–> Winner of the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Picture of the 1990s, which film is the highest grossing NC-17 rated film of all-time at the domestic box office?
I’ve never seen the film “Showgirls”, but I can imagine the intensity and cinematic impact of a scene like this:
Once again, we did not see any perfect scores in the final round. Here are Monday’s top scores after the fourth round:
- Killer Snails (Hershey’s): 157
- Kitten Mittens (Cheesetique): 154
- Giant Meteor (Cheesetique): 154
- Wingardium Mimosa (DRP): 148
- Westward Ho! (Morgan Inn): 147
- Cher’s Zombie Army (Uno Pizzeria): 147
MONDAY’S FINAL QUESTION (37.4% success rate):
–> “When I was three and Bailey was four, we had arrived in the musty little town, wearing tags on our wrists which instructed – “To Whom It May Concern” – that we were Marguerite and Bailey Johnson Jr., from Long Beach, California, en route to Stamps, Arkansas…” Thus opens a 1969 autobiography, the first published work by what American author?
The book referenced here is “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”, the autobiography of Maya Angelou (who was born with the real name of Marguerite Johnson). For the second week in a row, we did not see any teams score the Perfect 21 on Monday by answering correctly on all wagering questions. Here are your top overall scores from Monday night:
- Killer Snails (Hershey’s): 169
- Kitten Mittens (Cheesetique): 166
- Gorillas with Machine Guns (Il Forno): 158
- Giant Meteor (Cheesetique): 154
- Wingardium Mimosa (DRP): 153
- Three Fingers Worth (Il Forno): 148
- Westward Ho (Morgan Inn): 147
- Fat Kids Are Hard to Kidnap (Il Forno): 144
- Eat Ham (DRP): 143
- Piggy Doodles (Il Forno): 140
TONIGHT’S WINNERS:
DRP in Alexandria, VA: Wingardium Mimosa (Next week’s first category: Toledo, Ohio)
Greene Turtle in Hagerstown, MD: That’s a Niner (Next week’s first category: “Friends”)
Morgan Inn in Woodbine, MD: Westward Ho (Next week’s first category: “M*A*S*H”) ** FIVE WINS IN A ROW **
Hershey’s Restaurant in Gaithersburg, MD: Killer Snails (Next week’s first category: Tom Petty – AUDIO)
Uno Pizzeria in Frederick, MD: Cher’s Zombie Army (Next week’s first category: Three Clues / One Murder)
Cheesetique in Arlington, VA: Kitten Mittens (Next week’s first category: Horror Films)
Bushwaller’s in Frederick, MD: Beer Busters (Next week’s first category: 1980s New Wave Music – AUDIO)
Il Forno in Frederick, MD: Gorillas with Machine Guns (Next week’s first category: Scientists) ** FIVE WINS IN A ROW **