Shooting for the Moon at Weekend Trivia!

April 25, 2022

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The final full weekend of April brought 51 teams out for some Pour House Trivia goodness across eight area venues.

FIRST ROUND:

Nothing like starting off Friday’s game with the toughest wagering question of the first round, right? We went presidential with this one:

  • Five U.S. Presidents have repetitive double consonants in their last names. Two of these men were the Harrisons. Who were two of the other three?

Just over three-quarters of the field named two of Thomas Jefferson, Millard Fillmore, and John F. Kennedy for wagering points. Saturday’s opening question coincidentally had the hardest bonus question of the first half, on a query about the nursery rhyme This Old Man. About 26% of teams knew that famous TV detective Columbo whistled that tune as he closed in on a suspect. Other opening round topics over the weekend included the channel-hopping reality competition American Idol, the nursery rhyme This Old Man, and DC’s own National Cherry Blossom Festival. A trio of Friday teams — Empty Nesters (Springfield Manor), Killer Snails (P. B. Dye), and Oh, So Close (P. B. Dye) — earned perfect scores in the first round.

SECOND ROUND:

Friday’s second round opened with a 1-2 punch, first with the audio question. Only five teams earned bonus points by naming all three songs that inspired their own dances: Jimmy Buffett’s Fins, the Cha Cha Slide by DJ Casper, and Bauuer’s Harlem Shake. The night’s hardest wagering question by far directly followed:

  • In the sport of horse racing, stallions, geldings, and mares alike are all known as maidens until they reach which milestone in their career?

Horses have to win a race to shed the maiden name, something that 27% of the field knew to earn their wagering points. On Saturday, teams struggled most with a question about the former Barker’s Beauties from the game show The Price is Right, with a 53% success rate. Teams on Friday also answered questions on Isla Nublar from the Jurassic Park franchise and the country Cambodia previously known as Democratic Kampuchea, while Saturday’s squads handled topics like Harvard University and Pat Riley’s NBA Coach of the Year wins as coach of the Los Angeles Lakers, New York Knicks, and Miami Heat. Perfect scores in the round were achieved by Ten Thousand Dugongs (Mason Social) and Kitten Mittens (Mason Social).

HALFTIME:

Halftime sheets on Friday involved cartoon rodents and answers that included the words rock or roll, while Saturday teams had a page with outdated company logos and previous locations of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. No teams were able to earn all 20 points on the page over the weekend, but teams averaged 14 points as a whole. Coming into the halftime intermission, these were the top-scoring teams:

THIRD ROUND:

Early third-round topics included a Three Clues question about Pittsburgh, tiny crustacean krill, the Dead Sea, and biological term osmosis. Both Friday and Saturday’s hardest questions of the round came midway through. On Friday, about 64% of teams identified the M. Night Shymalan film The Village for wagering points, while just over one-fifth of the field gained bonus points by naming actor Adrien Brody, who played Noah in the film. Saturday’s hardest question of the second half was musical in nature:

  • Which music group’s numerical name was coined as a reference to a low budget horror film?  Its biggest hit was a 1993 cover version of the Patti Smith tune Because the Night.

That band, 10,000 Maniacs, was correctly named by half of Saturday’s field, with just under 35% of teams naming lead singer and eventual solo artist Natalie Merchant for two bonus points. The second round perfectos by Ten Thousand Dugongs (Mason Social) and Kitten Mittens (Mason Social) continued through the third, this time joined by Irish Beer Mafia (Pretzel and Pizza).

FOURTH ROUND:

After 6-4-2s on the number 27 and the term fluke, weekend teams entered the fourth and final round of the night. A sports question struck out a lot of Friday’s field:

  • The home stadiums of these two MLB teams are located more than 1,900 miles apart, the furthest distance among teams that play in the same division. Identify one of those two teams.

The East Coast bias was strong here, but going west was the correct move: 43% of teams named either the Seattle Mariners or Texas Rangers for their wager, while only nine teams knew both teams for bonus points. Other Friday subjects included altruism, Clue characters Miss Scarlett and Professor Plum, and the mythological Golden Fleece. As for Saturday, teams opened the round with the hardest bonus question of the night, regarding Peanuts character Schroeder, the catcher of Charlie Brown’s woeful baseball team. After questions on Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky poem and tennis great Billie Jean King, teams faced a difficult film query:

  • Four years before landing his own role as Commander-in-Chief, Martin Sheen portrayed the White House Chief of Staff in which 1995 romance film that was also written by Aaron Sorkin?

Sheen played the Chief of Staff in The American President, and 73% of Saturday’s field scored with that answer. Killer Snails (P. B. Dye) aced Friday’s fourth round with a perfect score. This was the top of the weekend leaderboard heading into the final question:

FRIDAY’S FINAL QUESTION (35.3% success rate):

  • Which two states are the only ones whose state quarters pay direct homage to the United States space program – one with an astronaut and one with a shuttle?

SATURDAY’S FINAL QUESTION (42.3% success rate):

  • Which seven-letter word, a synonym for ‘zest’ or ‘vitality,’ holds the distinction of being the shortest word in the Official Scrabble Dictionary that could never be played during a standard game?

Having a much better success rate than the previous weekend’s final questions, Friday’s space-case states were Ohio and Florida, while that impossible Scrabble word is pizzazz (with only one Z tile and two blanks in a standard game, no word with four Zs can be played in a game). Two teams from Mason Social, Kitten Mittens and Lone Strangers, hit the Perfect 21 in their game by answering all 21 wagering questions correctly! The weekend’s top teams went like this:

WEEKEND WINNERS:

Springfield Manor Winery in Thurmont, MD: Under Pressure  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Russian Literature)

P. B. Dye Golf Course in Ijamsville, MD: Killer Snails  (NEXT GAME MAY 6 – FIRST CATEGORY: Botany)

Dragon Distillery in Frederick, MD: Cleanup on Aisle Four  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Dragon Ball Z)

Flying Ace Farm in Lovettsville, VA: No MSG (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Ted Lasso)

Doc Waters Cidery in Germantown. MD: Tiny Ships  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: NCAA Volleyball)

Belles’ Sports Bar in Frederick, MD: Slightly Agitated (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: K-Pop Songs)

Pretzel and Pizza Creations in Hagerstown, MD: Barking Bad  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: 1990s Animated Disney Films)

Mason Social in Alexandria, VA: Kitten Mittens  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Pittsburgh)

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