The Gallery of Modern Wednesday Trivia!

December 30, 2022

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Pour House Trivia had its latest Wednesday game at 18 locations this week, at which a total of 178 teams came to show off their knowledge.

FIRST ROUND:

This game began with questions on the classic film It’s a Wonderful Life and the origins of Netflix, before we reached the most difficult query in the first round. Teams had to guess the year in which the following three events took place:

  • Former pro wrestler Jesse The Body Ventura is sworn in as Governor of Minnesota.
  • The Sopranos debuts on HBO.
  • The Big Mouth Billy Bass was first introduced into stores.

Teams that got within three years received their wager, but the 28% of the field that answered 1999 not only got it exactly right, but earned two extra points for doing so. Perfect scores in this round were achieved by 13 teams.

SECOND ROUND:

Songs with Bible-referencing titles were the theme of Wednesday’s audio question, at which one-fifth of the field named all three musical acts (Tom Jones with Delilah, Mumford and Sons with Babel, and Lady Gaga with Judas) for bonus credit. A couple of wagering questions later in the round were the two hardest of the first half. First up, we headed to Europe:

  • Tucked in the Pyrenees Mountains, which landlocked country of about 180 square miles borders only Spain and France?

Just a touch below half of our teams correctly named the nation of Andorra, while the lowest bonus success rate of the first half saw 7.8% of teams also name its national language, Catalan. The next question took to the final frontier:

  • Gene Roddenberry created which Star Trek navigator as a direct response to the popularity of Davy Jones from The Monkees, even giving the character an identical hairstyle?

About 39% of teams were correct to go with Pavel Chekov. The only perfect score here on Wednesday went to Missing the Mint (GearHouse).

HALFTIME:

Presidential caricatures and TV shows-within-a-show (such as FYI on Murphy Brown, and TGS with Tracy Jordan for 30 Rock) comprised Wednesday’s halftime page. There were 71 perfect teams in this part of the game, while the average score was 17.9 points. A tie for first highlighted the standings before the second half began:

  • Satan’s School for Girls (Memories): 90
  • Alcoholics Unanimous (Belles’): 90
  • Sexual Chocolate (Memories): 89
  • Stink Floyd (Belles’): 89
  • FIVE TEAMS TIED WITH 88 POINTS

THIRD ROUND:

This round began with a question about the three largest Caribbean islands by area, Cuba, Hispaniola, and Jamaica; 23% of teams named all three for bonus points, which was actually the highest bonus-answer success rate of the round. After a question about pharma giant Bristol-Myers Squibb, we honored the 68th birthday of actor Denzel Washington with this three-parter:

  • 1) He won his first Oscar for which Civil War film?
  • 2) He played the father of Ray Allen’s character in which basketball drama?
  • 3) He was last nominated for an Academy Award for portraying which Shakespearean character?

In order, those answers were Glory, He Got Game, and Macbeth (from The Tragedy of Macbeth). On that question, 41% of teams got at least two of those three answers, but a round-low 11% had all three. We ended the round with a question about Justin Welby, the current Archbishop of Canterbury, at which 19% of the field added two points by naming former Archbishop and assassination victim Thomas Becket. Seven teams recorded a perfect third-round effort on Wednesday.

FOURTH ROUND:

Eleven teams posted a six-pointer on Wednesday’s 6-4-2 about the first name Jeremy. The last round of the night started with a question on the legal term entrapment, the definition of sulfuric acid, and former NBA coach Pat Riley’s trademark of the term threepeat. For the night’s most difficult wagering question, teams heard this:

  • Although their name sounds like it would be a singular person, which four-person band has topped the Billboard Mainstream Rock Songs on multiple occasions with songs that include Safari Song, Highway Tune, and When the Curtain Falls?

A little more than a quarter of our teams knew that band, Greta Van Fleet. Finally, we concluded with a Three Clues question about a certain television character. These two clues came up first:

  • This animated TV character first appeared onscreen in 1991.
  • Hailing from Kirkwall, this character has used the pseudonyms Dr. William MacDougal III, William MacMoran, and G.K. Willington Esquire.

Only eleven teams — 6.1% of Wednesday’s squads — submitted the correct answer at this point. Everyone left to answer received this final clue:

  • This character is a school worker at Springfield Elementary.

In total, 50.5% of teams gave the right character, Groundskeeper Willie from The Simpsons. Once again, this round had just one perfect team: All My Axes Do My Taxes (Axes and O’s). These were the high scores heading into the final question:

FINAL QUESTION (65.7% success rate):

  • Gallery 818 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City is devoted to which painter, whose gardens in Giverny were the principal subject for his late works?

We referenced water lilies in that question, which led almost two thirds of our teams to get the right answer, Claude Monet. Wednesday’s Perfect 21 teams, Satan’s School for Girls (Memories) and Toasty (Grape Escape), recorded correct answers for each of the game’s wagering questions. At the end of the night, these were the overall leaders:

WEDNESDAY’S WINNERS:

Belles’ Sports Bar in Frederick, MD: Stink Floyd  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Star Trek: Insurrection)

Memories Charcoal House in Mount Airy, MD: Sexual Chocolate  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Survivor Champions (seasons 1-40))

Quinn’s on the Corner in Arlington, VA: Donner Party People  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Famous Zachs)

GearHouse Brewing in Chambersburg, PA: Missing the Mint  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Britney Spears)

TGI Fridays in Hagerstown, MD: What the Fork  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Bro-cabulary)

Idiom Brewing in Frederick, MD: Irregardlessly Unrelevant  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Outkast)

Axes and O’s in Sterling, VA: All My Axes Do My Taxes  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: 1990s Grunge Bands)

Hops N Shine in Alexandria, VA: Johnny Doesn’t Know  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Gladiator)

Sully’s Pour House in Herndon, VA: Black Zexcellence  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: 2000s NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournaments)

Falling Branch Brewery in Street, MD: I’m Useless  (FIRST CATEGORY AFTER HIATUS: Pregnancy)

NOTE: Falling Branch Brewery will begin an immediate hiatus until early February 2023.

T.J. Stone’s in Alexandria, VA: We Work Here  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Washington Capitals)

Craftworx Taproom in Gainesville, VA: Skagway  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Amusement Parks)

Barstool Sportsbook in Charles Town, WV: Five Horsemen of the Apocalypse  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: MLB World Series of the 1970s)

Grape Escape in Gaithersburg, MD: Toasty  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Beer)

Shipgarten in McLean, VA: Minnows  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Super Smash Bros.)

Elysium Axe Bar in Purcellville, VA: NO GAME  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation)

Thick-N-Thin Brewing in Hagerstown, MD: Irish Beer Mafia  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Disco Songs (audio))

Celtic House in Arlington, VA: Arrowski  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Apollo Program)

Mark’s Pub in Falls Church, VA: Liz and the Minions  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Psych)

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