Rockin’ October at Weekend Trivia!

Eight venues played host to Pour House Trivia as the calendar turned to October this weekend. A total of 67 teams turned out, including a packed house at Springfield Manor Winery in Thurmont.

FIRST ROUND:

No question in any of our weekend opening rounds gave our teams too much trouble, as the correct answer rate was at least 75% for each. However, a couple of bonus questions were somewhat tricky. A Friday query about the Chicken of the Sea canned tuna brand saw just 28% of teams name the mermaid as the mythological creature in the brand’s logo. On Saturday, we asked about singer Britney Spears and just over half the field named Jason Alexander as her first spouse for extra points. Other topics in this round included Three Clues about the word giant, the palm tree, and moonless planets Mercury and Venus. There were 13 perfect scores in the first round over the weekend.

SECOND ROUND:

Friday’s audio question was the hardest bonus chance of that game’s first half, as only 15% of teams named all three Keanu Reeves films from the clips played — Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Point Break, and The Devil’s Advocate. Other audio topics were Hugh Jackman films and songs by musicians in the infamous 27 Club. The most difficult wagering query of the first half all weekend was this TV question:

• Debuting earlier this year, which Apple TV+ series focuses on an employee of Lumon Industries named Mark who agrees to the title program that separates his work and non-work memories?

Exactly half the field had Severance as the correct answer. We also ventured into subjects like the monitor lizard, Jessica Alba’s child acting gig on the reboot of Flipper, and the list of resort destinations in the Beach Boys song Kokomo. The perfect second-round trio was comprised of Multiple Scoregasms (Dragon), PB and J (Belles’), and Lone Strangers (Mason Social).

HALFTIME:

Among the list of things to do for halftime this weekend, teams might have had to name films with gambling scenes, match athletes to the league records they set, figure out a mystery theme of top-3 Dancing With the Stars celebs, or match bands to the stage names of their members! The average score was 14.5 points, but four teams went the distance to snag all 20 possible points on their game’s halftime sheet. The top of the halftime leaderboard looked like this:

• Lone Strangers (Mason Social): 92
• Cultured Heathens (Coast Tacobar): 89
• That’s No Moon (Flying Ace): 88
• Meeples (Coast Tacobar): 88
• Slippery Rock, Slippery Roll (Coast Tacobar): 87
• Mean Girls (Mason Social): 87

THIRD ROUND:

There were a couple of questions in the third round that ended up being the hardest wagering question of its respective night. Friday’s second half started with this bit of the highs and lows:

• Among the highest points of each of the contiguous 48 states, Mount Whitney has the highest elevation at 14,505 feet, while Britton Hill stands just 345 feet tall, the lowest high point of any lower-48 state. In which two states would you find these locations?

Teams only had to get one of those two states, California and Florida respectively. About 47% received wagering points, while 15% knew both states. We went over some athletic records for Saturday’s toughest question:

• What is the common characteristic linking these world records in competitive running? 100 meters by Ferdie Adoboe in 13.6 seconds; one mile by Thomas Dold in 5 minutes, 46 seconds; and a marathon by Markus Jurgens in 3 hours, 38 minutes, 27 seconds.

All of those athletes set those records by running those races facing backward, which 42% of the field got right. However, only two had the right answer with an early guess before multiple choices were offered, securing a pair of bonus points in doing so. In the third round, we also went over things like Hall of Fame NFL coach Don Shula, the pseudoscientific divining rod, and the Asian region of Macau. With a few toughies tossed in there, a perfect third-round score was out of reach for our weekend squads.

FOURTH ROUND:

Weekend 6-4-2s handled Pringles, dogs, and Columbia University. We asked our Friday teams about the only three U.S. Presidents who were sitting U.S. senators when they were elected President, and this became the hardest bonus chance all weekend; just two teams were able to name the entire trio of Harding, Kennedy, and Obama. Otherwise, fourth-round topics included Spielberg film 1941, the one-woman play The Belle of Amherst about poet Emily Dickinson, and the Pennsylvania city of Bethlehem. As with the previous round, there were no perfect team scores to be found here. We pulled into the final question station with these top scores:

• PB and J (Belles’): 157
• Lone Strangers (Mason Social): 157
• Cultured Heathens (Coast Tacobar): 156
• Little Brains, Big Egos (Springfield Manor): 155
• Irish Beer Mafia (Coast Tacobar): 155
• Slippery Rock, Slippery Roll (Coast Tacobar): 155

FRIDAY’S FINAL QUESTION (28.3% success rate):

• Located in Kentucky, the Hillerich & Bradsby Company is best known for producing what specific famous product?

SATURDAY’S FINAL QUESTION (42.9% success rate):

• The Koine Dialect, which served as the dialect in which the New Testament was written, is a dialect of which language?

SUNDAY’S FINAL QUESTION (75.0% success rate):

• February 16, 2018 became a record night of alcohol sales on Broadway, resulting in theatres running out of Triple Sec during the opening of a jukebox musical featuring the songs of what musician?

These questions had the respective right answers of Louisville Slugger, Greek, and Jimmy Buffett. The pair of Lone Strangers (Mason Social) and Slippery Rock, Slippery Roll (Coast Tacobar) put up the weekend’s Perfect 21 efforts by answering all 21 wagering questions correctly. Final weekend standings were led by a three-way tie:

• Little Brains, Big Egos (Springfield Manor): 167
• Irish Beer Mafia (Coast Tacobar): 167
• Slippery Rock, Slippery Roll (Coast Tacobar): 167
• Your Mom (Springfield Manor): 163
• Lone Strangers (Mason Social): 163
• PB and J (Belles’): 162
• Backyardigans (Springfield Manor): 159
• Power Vacuum (Dragon): 158
• Cultured Heathens (Coast Tacobar): 156
• Five Heads, One Brain (Springfield Manor): 154

WEEKEND WINNERS:

Springfield Manor Winery in Thurmont, MD: Little Brains, Big Egos  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Hurricane Ian)

P. B. Dye Golf Course in Ijamsville, MD: ON HIATUS  (FIRST CATEGORY AFTER HIATUS: Cryptozoology)

Dragon Distillery in Frederick, MD: Power Vacuum  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Dragons)

Doc Waters Cidery in Germantown. MD: NO GAME  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Kermit the Frog Cameos)

Flying Ace Farm in Lovettsville, VA: Squircle Jerks  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: 1986 New York Mets)

South Mountain Creamery in Frederick, MD: D.C. Swampers  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: U.S. Administrative Law)

Belles’ Sports Bar in Frederick, MD: PB and J  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Singapore Grand Prix)

Pretzel and Pizza Creations in Hagerstown, MD: Quality Guesswork  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Pour House Trivia)

Mason Social in Alexandria, VA: Lone Strangers  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Les Miserables Songs)

Coast Tacobar in Hagerstown, MD: Irish Beer Mafia  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Maryland History)