The Madness of Thursday Night Trivia!
The backdrop of the NCAA basketball tournament didn’t keep the crowds away, as we welcomed 113 teams across 14 venues on Thursday night:
ROUND 1:
Thursday’s game began with a look at the multi-continental city of Istanbul, followed by a sports question in the Triple 50/50 format. We asked our teams whether or not the outer lines are IN or OUT in the respective sports of tennis, basketball, and volleyball. Most of the field had no trouble coming up with three correct answers to earn a two-point bonus. We continued with this question on foreign companies:
–> In which foreign country would you find the company which bore the original name Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services?
The common name of this company was formed as an acronym of its original name:
After closing the round with a question on the film work of Harrison Ford, we saw 14 teams earn perfect first round scores.
ROUND 2:
Thursday’s audio question featured three bands with excessively long names: Queens of the Stone Age (“No One Knows”), The Presidents of the United States of America (“Lump”), and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (“If You Leave”). Yes, that last one is spelled correctly… the Brits toss in an extra ‘O’. Regardless of the spelling, only 14% of our teams earned bonus points with three correct answers. After a question on early video games, we quizzed our teams on the TV roles of actress Kaley Cuoco. Once again, this question included a rather difficult bonus question, as just nine teams knew that Kaley was once married to professional tennis star Ryan Sweeting. We closed with the most difficult wagering question of the first half:
–> Respectively composed by Verdi, Puccini, and Bizet, these three works are often referred to as the “ABCs” of opera. For your wager, name any two of these three works.
With a niche topic such as opera, we saw many ‘all-or-nothing’ responses from the field. Most teams either knew all three titles, or did not earn any points after failing to arrive at any two of these three correct answers:
Thanks to the first two bonus questions, the second round did not yield any perfect scores.
HALFTIME:
We took a trip around the world on Thursday’s halftime page, asking our teams to recognize clothing from foreign countries. With an average score of 16.5 points, we saw 13% of the field record perfect scores. Here are Thursday’s top scores after the first half:
- Brother of Menelaus (Fish Market): 90
- Your Mom (Bunker Sports): 90
- The Gang Wins the Super Bowl (Olde Mother): 90
- Scoobies (Smoketown Brewing): 88
- 1-2-3 Drink (Cushwa Brewing): 88
ROUND 3:
Thursday’s second half opened with this question on romantic drama films:
–> Both released in the 21st century, name either one of the two most recent films to feature Richard Gere and Diane Lane in the lead roles.
Apparently, this genre is not a favorite among our teams, as just eight teams could come up with both correct answers: “Unfaithful” and “Nights in Rodanthe”. Later, we looked at the multiple uses of the phrase “brick house” before looking at the islands of Hawaii, the hormone Oxytocin, and the early career work of this rapper (and former teen actor):
Back then, Drake was known as Aubrey Graham when he portrayed Jimmy Brooks on the Canadian TV franchise “Degrassi”. Despite that fact that the most recent incarnation currently appears on Netflix, only nine teams earned the final bonus points of the third round by knowing that this current show carries the subtitle “Next Class”. As a result, none of our teams ran the table with a perfect third round.
ROUND 4:
Normally, our nightly Three Clues question tends to be a popular choice for the potential five-point category bonus, but the teams that went that route on Thursday might have regretted that decision, as this edition proved to be one of the most difficult wagering questions of the night:
CLUE 1: The title of the Mariah Carey album released in November of 1994.
CLUE 2: This phrase comprised the first text message in history.
CLUE 3: These two words follow this 2017 tweet: “I am proud to have led the charge against the assault of our cherished and beautiful phrase”.
Even after hearing all three clues, less than one-third of our teams answered correctly with “Merry Christmas”:
We closed with a figure skating question that surprised many of our teams in that very few people knew the correct spelling of the term salchow. Thanks to the Three Clues question, only one team earned a perfect final round score: the aptly named All My Rexes Live in Texas (Fish Market). These were your top Thursday scores after the fourth round:
- Brother of Menelaus (Fish Market): 162
- PC Principals (Fish Market): 158
- Washington Foreskins (Bunker Sports): 158
- Harsh Reality (Beef O’ Brady’s): 156
- Your Mom (Bunker Sports): 156
FINAL QUESTION (10.7% success rate):
–> The filmmaking of Andrei Tarkovsky, the paintings of Caravaggio, and the writing of Gabriel Garcia Marquez are all referenced in which music video that won the 1991 MTV Video of the Year Award?
Thursday’s final question was unexpectedly difficult, as we barely cracked double digits with the number of correct answers. The Madonna video “Like a Prayer” does include a wide array of allegorical imagery, but that video (which also won the MTV Video of the Year Award) was just a couple years older. Instead, we were looking for the R.E.M. song “Losing My Religion”:
Congratulation to PC Principals (Fish Market) and Your Mom (Bunker Sports), who were the only teams to record the Perfect 21 on Thursday with correct answers on all wagering questions. Here are your top overall scores from Thursday:
- PC Principals (Fish Market): 170
- Quiz In My Pants (Cushwa Brewing): 160
- Uranus Fly Trap (Smoketown Brewing): 159
- Power Vacuum (Champion Billiards): 159
- Clever Team Name (Quincy’s): 158
- Your Mom (Bunker Sports): 158
- All My Rexes Live in Texas (Fish Market): 156
- Slapsgiving (Cushwa Brewing): 155
- Lowered Expectations (Quincy’s): 154
- Brother of Menelaus (Fish Market): 153
TONIGHT’S WINNERS:
Quincy’s Bar and Grille in Gaithersburg, MD: Clever Team Name (Next week’s first category: “Sherlock” – BBC series)
Champion Billiards in Frederick, MD: Power Vacuum (Next week’s first category: Acronyms with Multiple Meanings)
Bunker Sports Cafe in Leesburg, VA: Your Mom (Next week’s first category: Model Trains)
Smoketown Brewing Station in Brunswick, MD: Uranus Fly Trap (Next week’s first category: Guillermo Del Toro FIlms)
Beef O’ Brady’s in Frederick, MD: Harsh Reality (Next week’s first category: “Black Mirror”)
Belly Love Brewing in Purcellville, VA: Dire Wolves (Next week’s first category: Algebra)
Cushwa Brewing in Williamsport, MD: Quiz in My Pants (Next week’s first category: 1990s Hip Hop)
Olde Mother Brewing in Frederick, MD: The Gang Wins the Super Bowl (Next week’s first category: Double Nobel Laureates)
The Grille at Flower Hill in Gaithersburg, MD: Who Would Know That? (Next week’s first category: World Capitals)
Black Walnut Brewery in Leesburg, VA: My Name is Judge (Next week’s first category: Films Based on 1990s “SNL” Sketches)
Right Around the Corner in St. Petersburg, FL: Danzig (Next week’s first category: Famous Redheads)
Dawg House in Waynesboro, PA: We Are Groot (Next week’s first category: Teddy Roosevelt)
Fish Market Restaurant in Alexandria, VA: PC Principals (Next week’s first category: Terry Gilliam)
Guido’s in Frederick, MD: Carpal Tunnel of Love (Next week’s first category: Triple 50-50 (AUDIO) – Jacks Mannequin or Something Corporate?)