Our Monday night game of Pour House Trivia gave us all the answer to this ‘burning’ question: who is the most famous American to have died of syphilis?  Well, there were a few more interesting facts tossed in as well, but I think that will be the one takeaway.  Meanwhile, one of our venues featured PHT’s top solo player doing what he does best.  With several “under 50%” questions in the fourth round, which teams emerged unscathed and managed to post tonight’s top scores?  Read on to find out:

MONDAY’S STATS AND FACTS (57 teams across seven venues):

–> Highest Overall Score: Kitten Mittens (Basic Burger) with 173

** Third time this season with the highest overall score **

–> Highest Score after Round 4: Kitten Mittens with 161

–> Highest First Half Score: Kitten Mittens with 90

–> Perfect 21 (correct on all wagers and final): A smattering of head-scratchers throughout the second half meant that NO TEAM earned the ‘perfect 21’ tonight.

–> The TV restaurants and military battles on our halftime page proved to be easy for some teams, as the average score reached 17.4, while 22% of our teams scored a perfect 20.

–> The 6-4-2 question played more difficultly, as only 10% of our teams knew the reference to the street art campaign “Andre the Giant Has a Posse”.

–> Congratulations to Mike Maccarone of Stink Floyd, who won as a solo player for a record 28th time!

MONDAY’S FINAL QUESTION (31.9% success rate):

–> In November of 1966, what film overtook “Gone with the Wind” as the highest grossing film of all-time, a title “Gone with the Wind” had held for over 25 years? (you’ll find the answer later in this blog)

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DRP in Alexandria, VA

Trivia inside

A nice evening outside

What more can I ask?

Feeling poetic tonight after we had our first nice evening of the spring season.  However, even though the patio at DRP was calling on people to sit out on the terrace to enjoy their pizzas and beverages, we still had a packed house with fourteen teams to enjoy Monday night Pour House Trivia.

Tonight, our teams literally split up as we had seven teams sit on the upper deck of the restaurant and the other teams sit on the lower deck, leading to me just standing in the middle of the floor.  I felt like asking someone to dance, but we had business to do as Round 1 ended with an eight-way tie for second place.  First place was only two points ahead of the pack.

Our second round featured our audio question, which involved identifying celebrities in commercials.  This proved to be almost everyone’s niner, as well as many teams picking up a two-point bonus.  But what started to separate the pack was a question on the Periodic Table and identifying atomic numbers and their correlation with the names of the elements.  I don’t know if teams realized that we had questions that were somewhat used as clues to another question.  Our starting question for the night was on “Seinfeld” and later teams had to recognize Tom’s Restaurant in our halftime puzzle (OK – that was just a coincidence).  Then, we asked a question on King Lear’s daughters, only to be asked about ‘daughter cells’ in mitosis.  Observant teams may have picked up on that.

Our 6-4-2 question featured one extreme where one team took the risk and picked up six points, while another team took a chance and it did not pay off for them.  After confusing Guyana for Suriname in Round 4, teams had to identify for the Final Question, the movie that overtook “Gone with the Wind” as the highest-grossing film of all time back in 1966.  Most teams put together the fact that repeat visits, catchy music, and something about Julie Andrews leading a bunch of children through the Austrian hillside led to “The Sound of Music”.  In the end, our medal table looked like this:

First Place:  H.R. Puff ‘n’ Stuff

Second Place:  B-58s

Third Place:  The Johnny Unpleasants

After deliberating for nine minutes (not kidding), next week’s first category: The Beatles (the band, not the insect)

Until next time,

~ Chris

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Greene Turtle in Hagerstown, MD

Tonight’s game at the Greene Turtle in Hagerstown kicked off with a musical question about “Beauty and the Beast”, featuring yours truly on the vocals!  I decided to sing Gaston’s song and ask teams to fill in the missing lyric (it was ‘Barge’), and it ended up being a pretty fun song to sing!  The usual audio question of the day was about celebrities in commercials and featured the voices of Dennis Leary, Jennifer Garner, and William Shatner in three different commercials.  Leary was definitely the toughest of the three answers, and I believe Shatner was the easiest.  The chemical element wordplay question proved extremely difficult, asking teams about the only two elements with the same number of letters in their English names as their atomic number (Boron and Carbon).

The halftime page this week asked about restaurants in TV shows, as well as matching battles to the wars they were a part of.  In the second half, we asked a couple of tough questions that shook things up, especially the Three Clues / One Word question.  On that one we learned that there is a Peanuts character who is nicknamed ‘Five’, which definitely threw off everyone.  That question, as well as the shared last name question cost teams plenty of points, and we weren’t even at the final yet!

The final question also shifted the standings because of some clutch answers as well as clutch wagering, with only a few teams answering correctly.  Third place tonight went to Befuddled, who jumped up big time after nailing the final.  Second place went to The People, who bet nothing on the final question (and it paid off).  The win tonight went to The Arrondissements of Ouagadougou, congrats!

Next week’s first category:  2017 UEFA Champions League

Until next time,

~ Chad

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Morgan Inn in Woodbine, MD

Thanks everyone for the warm welcome back after missing last week’s game due to the flu, your best wishes are appreciated.  I know for a fact that you were left in great hands with Scott, he’s is one of the best in the biz, and I’ll pass on to him your positive comments when I see him this weekend.  It was an interesting game tonight, considering my PA took a dump.  Good thing Steve at Morgan Inn was prepared, and thanks to his help, we managed to get the job done.  Well, our first category contained an 1980’s hair metal band from the local scene, Kix, and it was nice to remember their one Top 40 hit from back in the day.  The first round also covered some “F” words, a unique Final Four achievement, Ferris Bueller, and this top CBS sitcom still going strong after ten seasons:

Since we effectively had no music tonight, it was tough to do an audio clue without me singing a capella so I changed this up with a little “name that scientist” question.  Well, I wiped out the bar… so blame me for that one. G etting back to our trivia masters’ design, we enjoyed some bisque, played a little “pattycake”, and finished up the round with a word game one the Periodic Table, which our teams handle with great success.  Folks also knew this artist with her most recent, and 30th, top-ten hit “Love on the Brain”, though no one knew her record is second only to “The Material Girl” herself, Madonna:

Round three was by far the toughest of the night, as we struggled with a Shakespearean king and his three daughters. Our biology term caused a bit of a “divide” between the scientists on our teams, and folks (including myself) had NO IDEA that there was a Peanuts character nicknamed “Five”.  We did a little better with the notorious Al Capone and a certain unsavory disease that eventually claimed his lif, and they all fell right back into “time” with a trio of movies with TIME in the title, including this classic film directed by a Monty Python member:

The final round smoothed pretty much back to normal, with a very close score running for second and third place. Folks were all over our “colitas” reference for The Eagles hit song “Hotel California”, though nailing down the lyrics precisely for a bonus proved to be a bit more daunting.  Horse racing and Jeopardy were examined with a common wager between the two known as a “Daily Double”, and we went “all the way” with the 2016 Chicago Cubs.  We also had consistent scoring with trio of Goodmans; John, Mark, and Benny.  Finally, the quickest answer from all of the teams tonight in just under thirty seconds was this classic Nestle candy bar.  Great job!

Great game folks, and thanks for your patience.  I will have the audio situation up and ready to go for the next time we meet.  Here are the results:

First Place:  Morgan Station

Second Place:  Menace to Sobriety

Third Place:  Westward Ho!

Next week, we’ll be heading down to “Ole Miss” for our first category: The University of Mississippi

~ Ronnie

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Hershey’s Restaurant in Gaithersburg, MD

I was excited to see how the Monday game at Hershey’s Restaurant was going to end up!  Our previous winner from a week ago was playing solo without any of her usual teammates, and she came back again, solo style, to defend their current title!  The game started off really close, as they only had a one point lead going into halftime, but after the puzzle page, they just kept building a larger and larger lead with each round.  So much so, that a zero wager on the final question guaranteed them a second win in a row!!

Finishing in 3rd was Nobody Home, 2nd place went to Dangerous Curves and for a second game in a row, Jon Jeffries Fan Club took home the 1st place victory!!  They want an AUDIO question for next week’s first category, and decided on 1980s Hair Bands.

Study up, and I’ll see everyone this Monday at Hershey’s!

~ Jon J

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Uno Pizzeria in Frederick, MD

Holy cow!  The warm weather comes out and so do the teams!  We had a record number of teams here for tonight’s game of Pour House Trivia at Uno Pizzeria in Frederick!

Highlights of the Night:

In “Looks-Like-I’m-Not-The-Only-One-With-An-F-In-Geography”: The “F in Geography” question tonight was a doozy, with Fez and Formosa being really tough pulls across the board.  I can understand Formosa certainly being difficult,  But Fez though…come on, we gave you hat and Morrocco…

In “Don’t-Ask-Me-I-Got-No-Idea”: Listen guys, I get it.  When a question seems obscure, I know first hand that your first instinct is to ask about it.  But I’m sorry guys, I have no idea why there’s a Peanuts character named “Five”, and no I had never heard of him before.  I didn’t even know all the characters HAD names, let alone weird ones.  I’m just as confused as you.

In “Do-I-Need-to-Check-That-One?:  Al Capone was a tough pull tonight. I had no idea that that’s how he died.  I always assumed he had been killed in some gangster shootout.  Didn’t know he’d been playing too fast and loose with the ladies.  That said, of the teams that missed it, we had a LOT of guesses for Babe Ruth.  So NOW I have to go look up how he died, because a lot of people seem to think he was just as wild!

The final was a gamechanger and correct answers were key!

In third place tonight, Simple Minds!

In second place tonight, Tequila Mockingbird!

In first place tonight, as a SOLO no less, Stink Floyd!

Great game tonight, and congratulations on a Solo-Win for Stink Floyd!  Well done, Mike!  Next week we’ll kick things off with a Buddy Holly question!  Study up, and we’ll see you next time!

Until then,

~ Ian

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Basic Burger in Arlington, VA

As the old saying goes “If you give free beer, they will come”.  We were so happy to have Devil’s Backbone with us tonight to dole out some goodies and sample some free beer – lots of newbies joined us tonight, as well as our regulars, so it was a full house at Basic Burger!  Our Winner’s Choice category was the TV series “Twin Peaks”, as about half of our teams were fans of the bizarre show and correctly answered about the “Man From Another Place” and his unique physical trait – dwarfism.

Round two had just a couple of misses, but only ONE team was able to name BOTH solo artists to reach the milestone of 30 top-ten hits on the Billboard 100 Chart – Rihanna and Madonna.  Halftime seemed to be no trouble at all, even though the subjects were widely varied.  TV restaurants in the top half and matching battles to wars on the bottom half – I guess our teams are learned in MANY areas as HALF of them got a perfect score.

Round 3 featured a trio of tough questions.  Surprisingly, a three-part movie question was one of the toughest of the night.  Teams were given descriptions of movies that all included the word ‘Time’ in their titles.  The best wrong guess of the night was for “This 1995 thriller starring Johnny Depp is notable for taking place in real time”.   Nope, not “Edward Scissor Time”, but nice try!  “Nick of Time” is what we were looking for!  On the 6-4-2 question, only High School Prom dared answer after the six-point clue: “According to a street art campaign inspired by Shepard Fairey, which French-born celebrity “as a posse”.   They correctly answered Andre the Giant before anyone else, gaining two crucial points on the field.  The toughest question of the night came at the end of round four – identifying the shared surname given the following descriptions:

1)  He has hosted “Saturday Night Live” 13 times, the third-highest total in the show’s history.

2)  Along with Alan Hunter and J. J. Jackson, he was one of the original MTV ‘VJ’s.

3)  This entertainer penned the autobiography entitled “The Kingdom of Swing”.

The majority of our teams named “Martin” as the shared name, assuming Steve Martin had hosted the most and making up other Martin names to follow suit.  Given Roseanne was on the halftime puzzle, I thought maybe, just MAYBE John Goodman might be on their minds and pop up – but only two teams answered Goodman, and only one got all three first names correct for the bonus (John, Mark, and Benny).  The final question did not vary scores much and leaders stayed in their positions most of the game.  Our winners were:

First Place:  Kitten Mittens

Second Place:  High School Prom

Third Place:  Walking Talking Stephen Hawking

Next week’s first category:  MLB Opening Day

Cheers!

~ Kate

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Il Forno Pizzeria in Frederick, MD

For the first time in a long, long while, as I walked into il Forno, I saw people SITTING OUTSIDE!  It’s warm again! Lovely weather, lovely night!  We had another game of trivia tonight at il Forno to continue this very entertaining Season XV!  The Jeff King Experience has not lost a game this season, and it’s mostly been just a team of two.  A terrifying twosome at that, winning eight in a row to continue their ‘perfect season’!  It would take a great game to knock this team off its hot streak, but tonight might be the night!

Going into the halftime break, it was Jeff King who led the field, but the lead was certainly not insurmountable.  We had Much More Deeper right behind them, a recent trend we’ve seen out of this team who as of late has been a very strong team!  Much More Deeper has been with us for a long, long time and though they loved playing, never really finished that high consistently.  Nowadays, they are a THREAT!  They finished in the money last week and looked to see if they could snipe a win tonight!

Jeff King had a bit of a slip up during the 3rd round, missing their five-point bonus chip, which that led to another team taking the top spot!  MC moved into first place as we entered the 6-4-2 question!  Their reign at the top was not long, as they settled for four points on the 6-4-2, letting Jeff King tie up the game.  A strong finish in the final round let The Jeff King Experience hold down the lead going into the final question.

It was a tough final tonight; a bit under half answered correctly.  Defensive wagers and strong gets would play a huge role in how the game finished tonight.  Here’s how it goes…  Lots of teams missing up near the top, so we had a bit of a switching in the standings.  Third place went to Half a Brain!  They were in fifth place going into the final question, but with a correct get, they moved into a money spot!  Congrats!  Another very consistent duo, Half a Brain has finished in the top three on a regular basis around here!  MC missed the final, moving out of the money after having the lead with just six questions left!  Oh no!

Second place tonight went to Much More Deeper, who played great all night but just couldn’t pull it together to get enough points to move into the lead.  Your winners tonight, like every other night this season: The Jeff King Experience.  They got the final, pulled back from a slip in the third round, and held onto the win streak.  We’ll see who can beat these guys some time this season.  Maybe next week?  Come join us and find out!

Next week’s first category:  NCAA Basketball Tournament History

~ Bill