The Fellowship of Weekend Trivia…

Last weekend marked the end of the winter hiatus for one of our most popular venues, as 14 teams took in a Friday night game at Springfield Manor Winery in Thurmont, MD.  With that boost in attendance, we welcomed 82 teams across seven venues last weekend.

FIRST ROUND:

Opening round topics from last weekend included the companies of Amazon and Samsung, the teen comedy film Clueless, the Mohs scale of mineral hardness, and the work of former child actor Haley Joel Osment.  That final topic included the most difficult bonus question of the first round, as only three weekend teams remembered that Osment’s first big screen role was his portrayal of the title character’s son in the film Forrest Gump.  Six teams swept the opening round with a perfect score of 36 points.

SECOND ROUND:

Last week’s weekend audio questions featured the topics of fraternal music groups and songs whose titles begin with the word Everybody.  From there, we discussed the chemistry term mole, the melon-flavored liqueur Midori, the sitcom Arrested Development, and the Boston Market restaurant chain.  Our Friday teams dealt with the most difficult wagering question from last weekend’s first half:

• Some have debated that Rome or Baghdad may have reached the milestone first, but the common consensus among historians is that in 1811, which current national capital was the first city to attain a population of one million people?

We received a number of guesses for Asian cities such as Tokyo and Beijing (or Peking as it was known then), but only eight out of 53 Friday teams responded correctly with London.  As a result, the only perfect scores from last weekend’s second round were posted by two Saturday teams: Edible Derangements (Pretzel and Pizza) and Nerd Birds (Pretzel and Pizza).

HALFTIME:

Topics from last weekend’s halftime pages included Dr. Seuss book covers, famous people named Charles (or Charlie or Chuck), and notable sports boxscores.  The overall average reached 16.5 points, with eight teams notching a perfect halftime score.  At the halftime break, the weekend leaderboard included these teams:

• Edible Derangements (Pretzel and Pizza): 90
• Quality Guesswork (Pretzel and Pizza): 89
• Alcoholics Unanimous (P. B. Dye): 88
• Nerd Birds (Pretzel and Pizza): 88
• SIX TEAMS TIED WITH 86 POINTS

THIRD ROUND:

All of our weekend teams began their second half with an extremely difficult bonus question.  On Friday, just three teams earned bonus points by knowing that the acronym SONAR stands for Sound Navigation and Ranging.  Meanwhile, our other weekend teams dealt with this geographic query:

• Identify either the South American country or the African country that are the respective locations of Angel Falls and Tugela Falls, the two tallest waterfalls on Earth.

Once again, only three teams earned bonus points with both correct answers of Venezuela and South Africa.  Other third round topics included the Panda Express restaurant chain, former University of Delaware quarterback Joe Flacco, French artist Henri Matisse, and Caribbean islands.  As a result of the opening bonus questions, none of our weekend teams earned a perfect third round score.

FOURTH ROUND:

Final round topics from last weekend included the musical film The Rocky Horror Picture Show, the music group Fall Out Boy, comedian Jordan Peele, the insurance company GEICO, and the novel Brave New World.  Once again, a single bonus question in each weekend game kept the perfect scores off the board in the final round.  Only two of our Friday teams knew that Kelsey Grammer originally voiced the GEICO Gecko, just as only two weekend teams knew that the novel Brave New World borrowed its title from a line in the Shakespearean play The Tempest.  After four rounds of play, these were your highest scoring weekend teams:

• Quality Guesswork (Pretzel and Pizza): 156
• Nerd Birds (Pretzel and Pizza): 156
• Alcoholics Unanimous (P. B. Dye): 155
• Slightly Agitated (P. B. Dye): 154
• Now On the Tee (P. B. Dye): 154

FRIDAY’S FINAL QUESTION (19.3% success rate):

• Pauline Phillips created which pen name by combining the names of an Old Testament woman and the 8th President of the United States?

SATURDAY’S FINAL QUESTION (22.2% success rate):

• Derived from a work of literature, which two-word quote from a 2002 film is the only 21st century quote to appear on the American Film Institute’s list of the 100 Greatest Movie Quotes?

The respective correct answers to these final questions were Abigail Van Buren (also known as Dear Abby) and “my precious” (from The Lord of the Rings).  Congratulations to Quality Guesswork (Pretzel and Pizza), who posted the only Perfect 21 of the weekend by answering all 21 wagering questions correctly.  Here is your final weekend leaderboard:

• Quality Guesswork (Pretzel and Pizza): 168
• Alcoholics Unanimous (P. B. Dye): 167
• Edible Derangements (Pretzel and Pizza): 165
• Killer Snails (P. B. Dye): 163
• Off Beats (Pretzel and Pizza): 159
• Five Heads, One Brain (Springfield Manor): 157
• Smarty Pants (Belles’): 156
• Nerd Birds (Pretzel and Pizza): 155
• Slightly Agitated (P. B. Dye): 154
• Lone Strangers (Mason Social): 153 

WEEKEND WINNERS:

Springfield Manor Winery in Thurmont, MD: Five Heads, One Brain  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Ghostbusters: Afterlife)

P. B. Dye Golf Course in Ijamsville, MD: Alcoholics Unanimous  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: The Grateful Dead)

Dragon Distillery in Frederick, MD: Cleanup on Aisle Four  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Daddy’s Home 2)

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

Belles’ Sports Bar in Frederick, MD: Smarty Pants  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: John Hughes Films)

Pretzel and Pizza Creations in Hagerstown, MD: Quality Guesswork  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Love is Blind – Season 2)

Mason Social in Alexandria, VA: Lone Strangers  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Volkswagen History)