Raisin the Roof at Weekend Trivia!

A total of 39 teams came in from the cold to one of a half-dozen Pour House Trivia locations over the weekend. On top of that, Dragon Distillery in Frederick, MD hosted a special holiday-themed game!

FIRST ROUND:

Wagering questions across the weekend’s first-round offerings were very successful. However, bonus chances weren’t so polite in some cases. On Friday, a question about Earth’s Arctic Circle granted bonus points to one-sixth of teams who got within five of its 66 degrees North latitude. The final question of this round on Friday regarded Lucy Van Pelt from the Peanuts franchise, but the football was pulled out from under everyone’s feet since no team knew the names of both of her brothers: Linus and Rerun. A three-parter on Saturday covered trending topics of 2022, including this final question in the trio:

• A spring tweet from a New Zealand rugby league manager sparked a debate about whether there are more doors or more WHAT in the world?

Maybe more for the TikTok set, but that debate is whether Earth has more doors or wheels; a quarter of the field got bonus points on this question. Other topics in this round included caramel, baseball and acting bloopers, and the various names of the character Americans know as Where’s Waldo. Six teams earned perfect scores in this round.

SECOND ROUND:

Topics in the weekend audio clues included Christmas film franchises, three songs with the word Sunday in the title, and marching band covers of famous songs. Saturday’s was bonus trouble, as only 16% of teams knew all three musical acts — U2 (Sunday Bloody Sunday), The Monkees (Pleasant Valley Sunday), and The Lonely Island (Lazy Sunday) — for extra points. Friday’s most difficult wagering query came in the second round:

• The name of what Harlem jitterbug dance was inspired by Charles Lindbergh, who famously hopped the Atlantic in 1927?

Only a third of teams correctly named the Lindy Hop. Sports was the topic of the toughest first-half question on Saturday:

• In 2021, the Seattle Kraken became the 32nd and most recent team to join which major North American pro sports league?

The NHL was given as the right answer by 75% of teams, but none could identify the Climate Pledge Arena as the current home of the Kraken. Otherwise, we covered subjects such as African-American heavyweight boxing champs Joe Louis and Jack Johnson, the Pepto-Bismol medicine brand, and the Grand Canal of Venice, Italy. There were no perfect scores in any second round over the weekend.

HALFTIME:

Subjects at halftime included pop culture-centric Monopoly special editions, Saturday Night Live host superlatives, and fictional butlers! Two teams all weekend racked up a perfect 20-pointer on their page, while the average team scored 14.4 points. We reached the halftime break with this top of the leaderboard:

• Barking Bad (Pretzel and Pizza): 89
• Friday Night Lights (Flying Ace): 86
• PB and J (Belles’): 85
• Lone Strangers (Mason Social): 85
• Ten Thousand Dugongs (Mason Social): 85

THIRD ROUND:

The midpoint of Saturday’s third round featured the hardest wagering question of the weekend, again talking sports:

• Next Saturday, which MLB stadium used by an AL East team will host the inaugural version of its namesake college football bowl game, after COVID concerns canceled the game in 2020 and 2021?

We will soon finally have the Fenway Bowl, hosted at Boston’s Fenway Park; only one team earned wagering points on that question. Friday’s most difficult wagering try came on a three-part question about George Washington’s crossing of the Delaware River, in which 44% of the field earned points. Some other third-round topics were the human endocrine system, the South American nation of Uruguay, and cybersecurity company Symantec. We had a pair of perfect teams in this round: Five Heads, One Brain (Springfield Manor) and Friday Night Lights (Flying Ace).

FOURTH ROUND:

In order, 6-4-2 subjects over the weekend were car company Mazda, the number 13, and the color black. Friday’s last round began with a three-parter on fictional characters surnamed Christmas as seen in Dumb and Dumber, The World is Not Enough, and The Expendables; 38% of teams named at least two of those films, while a round-low 11% received bonus points for getting all three right. This question in Saturday’s fourth round was also a toughie:

• In the United Kingdom, the title of Chancellor of the Exchequer is the equivalent of which U.S. Cabinet position?

Here in the States, we have the Secretary of the Treasury as 75% of Saturday’s teams knew enough to get right. We also discussed long-serving U.S. Senators Patrick Leahy and Chuck Grassley, Three Clues about the element lithium, and the solar wind astronomical phenomenon. No perfect scores were achieved in the fourth round. Pre-final question standings featured a tie for first:

• Five Heads, One Brain (Springfield Manor): 153
• Friday Night Lights (Flying Ace): 153
• PB and J (Belles’): 152
• Nerd Birds (Pretzel and Pizza): 147
• Three Broads (Belles’): 143

FRIDAY’S FINAL QUESTION (61.1% success rate):

• According to the text of an 1843 work, which fictional character earned a salary of 15 shillings per week, a figure whose modern equivalent would be about $5,000 U.S. dollars per year?

SATURDAY’S FINAL QUESTION (25% success rate):

• Which comic strip artist has been the namesake for two species of animals: a louse and a butterfly?

SUNDAY’S FINAL QUESTION (33.3% success rate):

• Sporting her red bonnet and long brown hair, Lorraine Collett was the model for the original trademark of what brand, whose slogan at one point asked Had your iron today?

Friday’s final answer was Bob Cratchit from A Christmas Carol, while Saturday asked about The Far Side creator Gary Larson and Sunday’s brand was Sun-Maid Raisins. Unfortunately, no team reached the Perfect 21 achievement for getting points on all 21 wagering questions in any weekend outing. These teams finished the weekend above the rest:

• Soccer is for Women (Springfield Manor): 160
• Apocalypse Meow (Belles’): 154
• Five Heads, One Brain (Springfield Manor): 153
• Friday Night Lights (Flying Ace): 153
• Barking Bad (Pretzel and Pizza): 153
• PB and J (Belles’): 148
• Shipwrecked (Springfield Manor): 147
• WTF (Flying Ace): 147
• Murph’s Masters (Belles’): 147
• Three Broads (Belles’): 147

WEEKEND WINNERS:

South Mountain Creamery in Frederick, MD: DC Swampers  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Current U.S. Senators)

Springfield Manor Winery in Thurmont, MD: Soccer is for Women  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Italian Geography)

SPRINGFIELD MANOR WILL BEGIN AN IMMEDIATE HIATUS UNTIL SPRING.

Dragon Distillery in Frederick, MD: G Money  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Triple 50/50: Queen (band) or Queen Elizabeth II?)

Flying Ace Farm in Lovettsville, VA: Friday Night Lights  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: 1980s WWF)

Belles’ Sports Bar in Frederick, MD: Apocalypse Meow  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Hamlet)

Pretzel and Pizza Creations in Hagerstown, MD: Barking Bad  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: 2022 FIFA World Cup)

Mason Social in Alexandria, VA: Wee Tame Clan  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: 1990s TV Cartoons)

Coast Tacobar in Hagerstown, MD: NO GAME  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Star Wars)