Shining Bright at Weekend Trivia!

Eight area locations welcomed 98 total teams over the weekend who were ready to take in some Pour House Trivia.

FIRST ROUND:

Friday’s first main question was about the prehensile body parts of various animals; 80% of the field got it right overall, but about two-fifths earned bonus points by doing so before four possible choices were revealed. Saturday’s hardest wagering question in this round was about the 90s songs of Jewel. Later on, 13% of those teams named Pontiac before the last of its Three Clues to get two extra points. Other topics in this round over the weekend included cop/canine films Turner & Hooch and K-9, beer brand Michelob, and Mexican staple food pico de gallo. Seven weekend squads had perfect scores in the first round.

SECOND ROUND:

Teams had to name three Disney films from a corresponding song for Friday’s audio clue. On Saturday, they were asked to name three films that used the Olympics as a major plot point; on this one, 21% of our teams named all of Cool Runnings, Foxcatcher, and Munich for bonus points. Both games’ toughest first-half wagering queries came in the second round. Friday’s question about sportscaster Jim Nantz had a 44% success rate, while this was Saturday’s toughie:

• Featuring a former Friends actress in the lead role, which sitcom set in Florida split its six seasons between ABC and TBS before its final episode aired in March 2015?

Cougar Town was correctly answered by 60% of the field.  Two teams provided a perfect second-round score: The Gang Plays Bar Trivia (Belles’) and Mean Girls (Mason Social).

HALFTIME:

Halftime tasks on Friday involved naming famous people with surnames that are also common first names, then matching countries to their previous names. Saturday’s teams had to name former American Olympic gold medalists and match movies to their taglines. The average weekend team scored 14.3 points out of 20 and ten teams in all were perfect. These were the highest scores at intermission:

• Irish Beer Mafia (Pretzel and Pizza): 91
• Mean Girls (Mason Social): 90
• No MSG (Flying Ace): 89
• Clean Up on Aisle Four (South Mtn.): 89
• D. C. Swampers (South Mtn.): 88
• Pickle Bushes (Springfield Manor): 88
• The Gang Plays Bar Trivia (Belles’): 88

THIRD ROUND:

This round started with the hardest bonus chance in Friday’s game; we asked about the Secretary of Homeland Security, the last in the official line of U.S. presidential succession and only one team knew that the current secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, was born in Cuba. We also asked this question, the hardest way to earn wagering points in Friday’s third round:

• Developed into a 2006 DreamWorks film, which comic strip created by Michael Fry and T. Lewis tells the story of a raccoon named R.J., a turtle named Verne, and a squirrel named Hammy? They all come to terms with their woodlands being taken over by suburbia.

Over the Hedge was successfully named by 69% of teams. Saturday’s third round featured a couple of really difficult bonus opportunities, starting with this TV question:

• On the TV series The Munsters, which type of mythical monster was the family’s youngest child Eddie?

Eddie was a werewolf, and 52% of the field got that right. However, only one team knew that Eddie was portrayed in the original series by Butch Patrick. Later on, we asked an eventual multiple-choice question in the music awards category:

• At the 1991 Grammy Awards, which singer won the award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance, despite the fact that he had passed away about two years earlier?

Roy Orbison won a posthumous Grammy award for Oh, Pretty Woman; 39% of our teams named him after four choices were given, but none were able to do so before those choices for bonus points. Because of those difficult bonuses, no perfect scores were earned in this round.

FOURTH ROUND:

About a quarter of Friday’s field named the planet Venus and two Saturday teams knew the acronym OMG from a single announced clue; those teams got all six points in the 6-4-2 section of the game. The hardest wagering question on Friday showed up in this round:

• If you were driving down the road and spotted a Maryland license plate with the designation HDV, which specific recognition would have been bestowed upon the owner of that vehicle?

That designation goes to an Honorably Discharged Veteran, named by 28% of Friday’s teams. They also handled queries on the Who Shot JR cliffhanger from the TV series Dallas, the 80s benefit concerts known as Live Aid, and LeBron James, the youngest NBA All-Star Game MVP in league history. For Saturday’s fourth round, we started with a baseball question about all-time saves leader Mariano Rivera in which again, only one team got bonus points for knowing he was born in Panama. The hardest question in this round came on this page-to-screen ask:

• Sharing its title with a prominent magazine, which British work subtitled A Novel Without a Hero featured Becky Sharp is its lead heroine? This novel which was adapted for the big screen in 2004.

About 39% of the field got that right with an answer of Vanity Fair. This time, Lone Strangers (Mason Social) provided the weekend’s only fourth-round perfecto. Going into the final question, these teams were on top of things:

• Little Brains, Big Egos (Springfield Manor): 157
  
• Clean Up on Aisle Four (South Mtn.): 155
• D. C. Swampers (South Mtn.): 155
• Mean Girls (Mason Social): 154
• The Gang Plays Bar Trivia (Belles’): 154

FRIDAY’S FINAL QUESTION (19.8% success rate):

• Which media franchise includes two live-action TV series, two animated TV series, three live-action feature films, two animated feature films, a Broadway musical, and five video game titles. It was named for an American cartoonist who created a set of characters that first appeared in the magazine The New Yorker in 1938.

SATURDAY’S FINAL QUESTION (17.4% success rate):

• Among the 16 elements whose two-letter chemical symbols are identical to U.S. postal code abbreviations, which element has the lowest atomic number?

That massive media franchise we asked about on Friday is The Addams Family, soon to get bigger with an upcoming Netflix series. Saturday’s element in question was neon, with a chemical symbol it shares with the Nebraska two-letter postal code. There were no Perfect 21 teams this past weekend able to answer all 21 wagering questions correctly. Final weekend scores are as follows:

• Little Brains, Big Egos (Springfield Manor): 162
• Baron’s Xbox (Mason Social): 162
• Five Heads, One Brain (Springfield Manor): 160
• No MSG (Flying Ace): 156
• The Gang Plays Bar Trivia (Belles’): 153
• Bad Ales (Flying Ace): 145
• Mean Girls (Mason Social): 145
• Quality Guesswork (Pretzel and Pizza): 144
• Clean Up on Aisle Four (South Mtn.): 143
• D. C. Swampers (South Mtn.): 143

Lone Strangers (Mason Social) receives an honorable mention for reaching 160 points with more than seven players, thereby playing over the limit.

WEEKEND WINNERS:

Springfield Manor Winery in Thurmont, MD: Little Brains, Big Egos  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: The Planets (Gustav Holst))

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

Dragon Distillery in Frederick, MD: Mouse Rat  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Evil (TV series))

Doc Waters Cidery in Germantown. MD: True B.S.  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: U.S. Civil War)

Flying Ace Farm in Lovettsville, VA: No MSG  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Paul Blart, Mall Cop)

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

Belles’ Sports Bar in Frederick, MD: The Gang Plays Bar Trivia  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: 4-H Club)

Pretzel and Pizza Creations in Hagerstown, MD: Quality Guesswork  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Gilmore Girls)

Mason Social in Alexandria, VA: Baron’s Xbox  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Friends Guest Stars)