Thursday Night Trivia Turned Us to Stone!
The first Thursday night of Season XVII featured the continuation of one of our best in-house rivalries. The game at Fish Market in Alexandria featured two of our top five teams from last weekend’s World Series (who apparently love to finish in a tie). Overall, we welcomed 102 teams across 13 venues:
ROUND 1:
Collectively, our teams rolled through the first round on Thursday night, as the game began with a question concerning this specialty license plate:
We continued with questions on the Buffalo Bills and three “Dark” titles. With very few surprises in the opening stanza, a whopping 18 teams notched perfect scores.
ROUND 2:
Thursday’s audio question featured hip hop lyrics that name-drop alcoholic brands, so our teams heard Snoop Dogg rapping about Tanqueray in “Gin and Juice”, 50 Cent sipping Bacardi in “In Da Club”, and Drake… uh… singing maybe? about Hennessey in “One Dance”. Later, our nightly Three Clues question dealt with the upcoming “Tomb Raider” film reboot. We discussed the Quasi-War that the U.S. fought against France in the late 18th century, before closing with the most difficult bonus question of the first half:
–> From 2003 through 2016, this Brazilian was ranked by Forbes as the highest-earning model in the world. For your wager, you can either name this model or name the 22-year old who broke that streak in 2017.
Nearly every team earned their wager by knowing that Mrs. Tom Brady (Gisele Bündchen) had topped this list for more than a decade, but only nine teams also earned the two-point bonus with Kendall Jenner:
Five of the nine teams that earned these two bonus points closed out the second round with a perfect score.
HALFTIME:
The visual portion of Thursday’s halftime round depicted items which contain the initials “T.S.”, such as this throwback to the 1980s:
Falling a bit on the easier side, the overall average score came in at 18.1 points, with 19% of our teams earning a perfect score. Here are Thursday’s top scores after the first half:
- Brother of Menelaus (Fish Market): 92
- Lowered Expectations (Quincy’s): 91
- Smarty Pants (Beef O’ Brady’s): 90
- Just Good Enough (Champion Billiards): 90
- Thoroughly Screwed (Bunker Sports Cafe): 90
ROUND 3:
The second half began with a rather difficult question on the film work of Frank Langella, before moving on to questions about the invention of television and the Italian city of Padua. Next, we posed this query on the subject of Current Politicians:
–> In about three months, Tammy Duckworth will become the first sitting U.S. Senator in American history to accomplish what feat?
Even if our players had not heard this recent news, many were able to figure out that Senator Duckworth will become the first sitting U.S. Senator to give birth. Finally, we looked at three different uses for this word:
After about half of our teams knew that Blondie’s last name was Bumstead, we saw seven teams notch perfect third round scores.
6-4-2 QUESTION:
Thursday’s six-point clue led to some hard-earned points for a few of our teams:
–> What is the most recent series to win the Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series with the word “THE” in its official title?
With so many possible guesses (“The Cosby Show”, “The Wonder Years”, “Orange is the New Black”), it was not surprising that only four teams earned the full six points with this correct response:
ROUND 4:
The final stanza included questions on the albums of Radiohead and the holy Jewish text the Talmud. The most difficult bonus question of the night was also asked in the final round:
–> Among the cities which have hosted the Winter Olympics, there are two which are currently national capitals. Oddly, one of these cities was NOT a national capital when it hosted the Games.
Most teams were able to clue in on the second part of the question, by remembering that the 1984 host Sarajevo is the current capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina, but was NOT the capital of Yugoslavia. Only six teams earned two bonus points by also remembering that the 1952 host of the Winter Games was the Norwegian capital of Oslo. As a result, only one team notched 36 points in the final round, but it needed extra players in order to do so: Washington Foreskins (Bunker Sports Cafe) was playing ‘over the limit’ tonight, but nonetheless answered all three bonus questions correctly in impressive fashion. Here are Thursday’s top scores after the fourth round:
- Clever Team Name (Quincy’s): 163
- Brother of Menelaus (Fish Market): 163
- PC Principals (Fish Market): 163
- Cranius Maximus (Bunker Sports Cafe): 161
- Just Good Enough (Champion Billiards): 160
FINAL QUESTION (50.0% success rate):
–> Despite its association with beauty, the logo for the Versace fashion house depicts which ugly creature?
Exactly half of our teams gave us this correct answer:
That is the Gorgon Medusa. Congratulations to Power Vacuum (Champion Billiards) and Clever Team Name (Quincy’s), as the only teams to record the Perfect 21 with correct answers on all wagering questions. Here are your top overall scores from Thursday:
- Brother of Menelaus (Fish Market): 175
- Clever Team Name (Quincy’s): 171
- Power Vacuum (Champion Billiards): 170
- Brady’s Deflated Balls (Bunker Sports Cafe): 168
- Your Mom (Bunker Sports Cafe): 167
- Cyberdine Systems (Smoketown Brewing): 166
- Villa People (Smoketown Brewing): 165
- Smarty Pants (Beef O’ Brady’s): 164
- Thoroughly Screweed (Bunker Sports Cafe): 163
- My Harry Potter Has Hogwarts (Smoketown Brewing): 160
An honorable mention goes out to the Washington Foreskins (Bunker Sports Cafe), who notched 168 points while playing ‘over the limit’.
TONIGHT’S WINNERS:
Quincy’s Bar and Grille in Gaithersburg, MD: Clever Team Name (Next week’s first category: The War of 1812)
Champion Billiards in Frederick, MD: Power Vacuum (Next week’s first category: All-Female Rock Bands)
Bunker Sports Cafe in Leesburg, VA: Brady’s Deflated Balls (Next week’s first category: Philadelphia Eagles)
Smoketown Brewing Station in Brunswick, MD: Cyberdine Systems (Next week’s first category: Arnold Schwarzenegger Films)
Beef O’ Brady’s in Frederick, MD: Smarty Pants (Next week’s first category: “The Office”)
Belly Love Brewing in Purcellville, VA: Poochie’s Posse (Next week’s first category: “Game of Thrones”)
Cushwa Brewing in Williamsport, MD: No Brainers (Next week’s first category: Singers Who Fronted Multiple Bands)
Olde Mother Brewing in Frederick, MD: Enemy Anemones (Next week’s first category: “That ’70s Show”)
The Grille at Flower Hill in Gaithersburg, MD: Second to Last Team Standing (Next week’s first category: “Monday Night Wars”)
Black Walnut Brewery in Leesburg, VA: C.O.T. (Next week’s first category: Heroes of the Alamo)
Right Around the Corner in St. Petersburg, FL: Best Friends (Next week’s first category: Tampa Bay Times Reporters)
Fish Market Restaurant in Alexandria, VA: Brother of Menelaus (Next week’s first category: European Geography)
Guido’s in Frederick, MD: Tuna Noodle Casserole (Next week’s first category: Jon Sings Bjork)