Shoot for the (NBA) Stars at Thursday Night Trivia!
Thursday night featured the opening of our newest venue: The Grille at Flower Hill in Gaithersburg. If you’re ever in the area on a Thursday night, check out this great location and enjoy a game with our newest host Kristi. Last night’s game also featured the return of trivia to Lake Linganore in New Market. All told, we welcomed 104 teams across 15 venues:
ROUND 1:
We took our teams to the “E.R.” to begin Thursday’s game, asking questions about the East River and the song “Eleanor Rigby“. We also discussed the persistent urban legend regarding our heaviest President: William Howard Taft. You may have heard that he once got stuck in the White House bathtub, but as you can see by this picture of his actual White House tub, that story is most likely a myth:
All of our teams knew that Taft was the subject of this myth, but only nine teams earned a bonus by knowing the U.S. Cabinet Department for which he served as Secretary: the now-defunct Department of War. We concluded the round by asking about the feature film debut of this actress:
Yes, Lindsay Lohan first appeared on-screen playing identical twins in the remake version of the Disney film “The Parent Trap”. Exactly one-quarter of our teams earned two bonus points by also knowing that Hayley Mills starred in the original version. As a result, only four teams earned a perfect score in the first round: Clever Team Name (Quincy’s), Power Vacuum (Champion Billiards), Cranius Maximus (Bunker Sports Cafe), and Singing Inferno (Smoketown Brewing).
ROUND 2:
Our nightly audio question features three ‘zoological’ music groups: A Flock of Seagulls (“I Ran”), Temple of the Dog (“Hunger Strike”), and Papa Roach (“Last Resort”). We continued by asking about the numerous sketch comedy shows featuring this versatile British comedienne:
We concluded the second round with our Three Clues question, which proved to be our most difficult bonus question of the first half. We asked for the common name linking the three clues, and only six teams earned bonus points by answering correctly after these two clues had been read:
CLUE 1: This son of Humayan and grandson of Babur ruled India for much of the 16th century.
CLUE 2: A former NFL player with this first name is a color commentator on NBC’s “American Ninja Warrior”.
We’re not sure if those teams knew that we were talking about Mughal Emperor Akbar the Great, or this former Green Bay Packers star:
FUN FACT! In Arabic, the name Gbaja-Biamila means “Big Man, Come Save Me”. These first two clues did not entice many wrong answers, with the majority of the field waiting for the reference to this film character before turning in the correct response:
:
(Yes, “Star Wars” fans, we know that this Ackbar is spelled with an extra letter)
Three teams swept the second round with a perfect score: Breadsticks (Quincy’s), The Fan Club (Grille at Flower Hill), and Unathletico Madrid (Guido’s).
HALFTIME:
Thursday’s halftime round featured pictures of fictitious porcine creatures, as well as a matching section on National Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol. On the top half, the picture which gave our teams the most trouble was Maxwell, the former Geico ‘spokespig’. Six teams recorded a perfect score, with an overall average of 15.9 points. Here are Thursday’s top scores after the first half:
- The Fan Club (Grille at Flower Hill): 90
- Unathletico Madrid (Guido’s): 88
- Stupid Sexy Flanders: Tokyo Drift (Beef ‘O’ Brady’s): 87
- SOS (Olde Mother Brewing): 87
- Beach Bums (Olde Mother Brewing): 87
- Fat, Drunk, and Stupid (Champion Billiards): 87
ROUND 3:
The second half began with a question on Celebrity Endeavors:
–> Which 39-year old celebrity has matriculated at UCLA, Columbia University, New York University, Yale University, Brooklyn College, Warren Wilson College, and Rhode Island School of Design?
The final two questions of the third round were the biggest stumbling blocks for our teams. First, we asked what the acronym SEAL stood for in the phrase Navy SEAL. This question was certainly made more difficult by the fact that many teams did not know that SEAL was even an acronym to begin with. While a few teams were able to figure out the correct answer without already knowing it, we did have enough military personnel in the field to see the correct answer of Sea, Air, Land from 21% of our teams. We closed the round by asking for the title of the first Michael Jackson to be released AFTER the King of Pop turned 18 years old. Unfortunately, the majority of our teams knew that we were NOT talking about “Thriller”, but could not recall the album immediately prior to that record-breaking release. Overall, 30% of our teams arrived at this correct response:
6-4-2 QUESTION:
What better way to kick off the NFL season than with this six-point clue:
–> After defeating the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl 15, who became the first Wild Card team to win a Super Bowl?
Exactly one-third of our teams gave us this correct answer:
ROUND 4:
The fourth round gave us our two most difficult wagering questions of the night, but the first of these two featured a notable twist. Normally, the most difficult question of the night is accompanied by most teams wagering their lowest available wager. Tonight, we saw about half of the incorrect responses accompanied by high wagers of seven or even nine points! It looks we may have stumbled upon the dreaded common misconception:
–> Headquartered in Rockville, Maryland, which hotel company operates chains such as Comfort Inn, Quality Inn, Econo Lodge, and Clarion Hotels?
Sure, there aren’t many American hotel companies to choose from, but this question seemed to be a magnet for the incorrect answer of Marriott. Indeed, Marriott is also headquartered in Maryland (Bethesda to be exact), but all of those chains are owned and operated by this company:
Across the board, only 16% of our teams earned points here. The second half of this one-two punch asked about this current drama film featuring Jeremy Renner:
It seemed like a lot of our teams were able to surmise that this film was “the one in the snow with the guns”, but only 19% of the field arrived at the actual correct answer: “Wind River”. With the toughest round of the night in the books, we saw just one perfect score in the final stanza: Power Vacuum from Champion Billiards. Here are Thursday’s top scores after the fourth round:
- The Fan Club (Grille at Flower Hill): 164
- Power Vacuum (Champion Billiards): 158
- Fat, Drunk, and Stupid (Champion Billiards): 152
- Slapsgiving (Cushwa Brewing): 152
- PC Principals (Fish Market): 151
- Washington Foreskins (Bunker Sports Cafe): 151
FINAL QUESTION (48.7% success rate):
–> Who is the only person in NBA history to be named Most Valuable Player, Coach of the Year, and Executive of the Year?
Nearly half of our teams celebrated (just like this) by arriving at the correct answer:
Congratulations to Power Vacuum from Champion Billiards, as the only teas to record the Perfect 21 tonight by answering all wagering questions correctly. Here are your top overall scores from Thursday:
- Power Vacuum (Champion Billiards): 165
- Slapsgiving (Cushwa Brewing): 164
- Fat, Drunk, and Stupid (Champion Billiards): 164
- PC Principals (Fish Market): 162
- Brother of Menelaus (Fish Market): 161
- My Harry Potter Has Hogwarts (Smoketown Brewing): 161
- Lowered Expectations (Quincy’s): 159
- Your Mom (Bunker Sports Cafe): 158
- Thundercats (Bunker Sports Cafe): 158
- Breadsticks (Quincy’s): 158
TONIGHT’S WINNERS:
Springfield Manor Winery in Thurmont, MD: Hoboken Squat Cobbler (Next week’s first category: World of Outlaws Sprint Car Racing)
Quincy’s Bar and Grille in Gaithersburg, MD: Lowered Expectations (Next week’s first category: The Iliad)
Champion Billiards in Frederick, MD: Power Vacuum (Next week’s first category: XTC – music group)
Bunker Sports Cafe in Leesburg, VA: Thundercats (Next week’s first category: “The Last Starfighter”)
Lake Linganore Association in New Market, MD: Faking Bad (Next week’s first category: “Star Wars”)
Smoketown Brewing Station in Brunswick, MD: My Harry Potter Has Hogwarts (Next week’s first category: Looney Tunes)
Beef O’ Brady’s in Frederick, MD: Stupid Sexy Flanders: Tokyo Drift (Next week’s first category: “Doctor Who”)
Jerry’s Sports Bar in Hagerstown, MD: Bag of Marbles (Next week’s first category: World War II)
Belly Love Brewing in Purcellville, VA: Dire Wolves (Next week’s first category: The Periodic Table)
Cushwa Brewing in Williamsport, MD: Slapsgiving (Next week’s first category: “The Wire”)
Olde Mother Brewing in Frederick, MD: Birds of War (Next week’s first category: Transformers Generation 2)
The Grille at Flower Hill in Gaithersburg, MD: The Fan Club (Next week’s first category: Maryland Breweries)
Right Around the Corner in St. Petersburg, FL: Better Red Than Dead (Next week’s first category: “Game of Thrones”)
Fish Market Restaurant in Alexandria, VA: PC Principals (Next week’s first category: “Freaks and Geeks”)
Guido’s in Frederick, MD: Unathletico Madrid (Next week’s first category: Hunter S. Thompson)