The Buck Stops at Tuesday Trivia!

Trivia Tuesday came and went this week at 17 area locations for 164 different teams, which included Smoketown Creekside‘s 21-teamer and 19 squads playing at Solace Outpost – Falls Church!

FIRST ROUND:

A couple of difficult bonus opportunities in Tuesday’s opening round added some trickiness to what were otherwise successful wagering questions. We asked about cereal brand General Mills, but only a fifth of the field knew the company is headquartered in Minnesota. A Three Clues question about actor Jack Nicholson saw only six teams name him after a pair of clues for two extra points, the lowest bonus success rate of the game. For the round’s hardest wagering query, we went back a couple of decades for the start of a celebrity’s career:

• Whose sudden rise to fame was capped off with her recording of A Moment Like This, a song released 20 years ago this week?

Kelly Clarkson, fresh off becoming the first American Idol, released that song in 2002; just over three-quarters of our teams had that correct answer. This was the only round on Tuesday in which no teams had perfect scores.

SECOND ROUND:

The audio question served up another trio of TV theme songs covered in unexpected ways. About 12% of teams were able to get all three shows: The Simpsons (covered by Green Day), Batman (covered by The Flaming Lips), and Monk (covered by Snoop Dogg). After questions on the radius arm bone and the purely blue-and-white flags of Finland and Greece, we had the hardest wagering chance of the night:

• Prior to her 2019 passing, which African American Nobel Prize winner saw four of her books selected for Oprah’s Book Club?

There were many (incorrect) guesses of Maya Angelou, but that author is Toni Morrison, good for a 34% correct-answer rate. Hungry Hungry Georgian Hippos (Dudley’s) and Quizzy McTriviaface (Antietam) had the only perfect scores in this round.

HALFTIME:

Teams had to supply the names of ten different pieces of glassware, then follow a Seinfeld mystery theme on the bottom half of the halftime page. The average score was 16.6 points, and nine teams got all 20 points. At the halftime break, these squads boasted the high scores:

• Quizzy McTriviaface (Antietam): 89
• Hungry Hungry Georgian Hippos (Dudley’s): 86
• Smartinis (Dudley’s): 85
• Supernovas (Dudley’s): 85
• Marshfellows (Solace Outpost – FC): 85
• Brain Freeze (Gentleman Jim’s): 85

THIRD ROUND:

Bonus points came at a premium in Tuesday’s game, and that was no different in the third round. This question came first and was the hardest of the five:

• An East German glam rocker is the title character of which stage musical with a five-word title, co-created by John Cameron Mitchell?

About half the field had the right answer, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, while 28% knew that Neil Patrick Harris portrayed the title character in the 2014 Broadway revival. The next question went to war:

• The French and Indian War is considered to be the North American theater of the global military conflict bearing which numerical name?

Barely more than the previous question, 51% successfully named the Seven Years’ War. A three-parter about the original Law & Order TV series saw 18% of teams get all three parts right. At the end of the round, a question about Robin Hood‘s Friar Tuck had a bonus success rate of 21%, for the teams that knew that character was a badger in the Disney animated adaptation. Even with those bonus hurdles, there were two perfect scores, by Smartinis (Dudley’s) and Little Brains, Big Egos (Distilled).

FOURTH ROUND:

There were four six-point scores earned on Tuesday’s 6-4-2 about author Roald Dahl. We started this round with the White Stripes song Seven Nation Army and a flashback of Hurricane Andrew before reaching its toughest wagering question:

• Named for a Swedish scientist, which microscopic unit of measurement is equal to one ten-billionth of a meter?

After a minute, we introduced a crossword-style clue as an extra hint; about two-fifths of the field earned points with the right answer of angstrom, but 18% didn’t need to wait for that clue and received bonus points for answering early. Six teams had perfect scores here, the most of any round on Tuesday. Before the final question, these were the top-scoring teams:

• Hungry Hungry Georgian Hippos (Dudley’s): 160
• Just For Fun (Dudley’s): 157
• Little Brains, Big Egos (Distilled): 156
• Smartinis (Dudley’s): 156
• FOUR TEAMS TIED WITH 155 POINTS

FINAL QUESTION (28.7% success rate):

• Four NFL teams have each appeared in at least eight Super Bowls, but which of these teams has a losing Super Bowl record with just three wins?

With a 3-5 record in Super Bowls, that team is the Denver Broncos. For the first time in a few weeks, we had a Perfect 21, as Just For Fun (Dudley’s) correctly answered all 21 wagering questions. Here’s your look at the top of the final leaderboard:

• Just For Fun (Dudley’s): 169
• Comfortably Dumb (Smoketown Creekside): 164
• Quiz Khalifa (Solace Outpost – FC): 160
• Little Brains, Big Egos (Distilled): 159
• Way Off Base (Nighthawk): 159
• Morgan Station (Upper Deck): 158
• QE3 (Olney): 157
• Killer Snails (Olney): 156
• Quiz in My Pants (Dudley’s): 155
• Fresh Meat (Upper Deck): 154
• Innovations (Dudley’s): 154

TUESDAY’S WINNERS:

Cuginis Restaurant in Poolesville, MD: Crusty Rods  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Star Trek)

Upper Deck in Mount Airy, MD: Morgan Station  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: The Princess Bride)

Olney Winery in Olney, MD: QE3  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Jon Sings Broadway)

Dudley’s Sport and Ale in Arlington, VA: Just For Fun  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Charlie Sheen TV Shows)

Ramparts Tavern & Grill in Arlington, VA: Tell Your Dog I Said Hi  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: TV Dogs)

Solace Outpost – Falls Church in Falls Church, VA: Quiz Khalifa  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Glee)

Smoketown Creekside in Frederick, MD: Comfortably Dumb  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Seinfeld)

Distilled in Frederick, MD: Little Brains, Big Egos  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Musical Fruit)

Antietam Brewery in Hagerstown, MD: Quizzy McTriviaface  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Steganography)

Gentleman Jim’s in Gaithersburg, MD: Fan Club  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Athletes That Wore #24)

Nighthawk Pizza in Arlington, VA: Way Off Base  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: NFL MVPs)

Coach’s Corner Grill in Purcellville, VA: Pho Q  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Venomous U.S. Snakes)

Chalkboard Wings & BBQ in Alexandria, VA: Wing Dingo  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Electricity)

The Zone in Ashburn, VA: We Thought This Was Speed Dating  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Ted Lasso)

Elo’s Italian Restaurant in Alexandria, VA: Cell Phony Baloney  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Superhero Sidekicks)

Solace Outpost – Navy Yard in Washington, DC: See You Next Tuesday  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Jurassic Park)

Tommy Joe’s in Bethesda, MD: Cream Team  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: 21st Century Video Games)