Thursday Night Trivia Was in an Empire State of Mind…
Thursday night’s blog entry is being delivered from fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada, where several members of the Pour House Trivia clan are taking in the sights and sounds of the Trivia Championships of North America. For those of you that have not participated in this event, it’s three days jam-packed with over a dozen different trivia events. With that shameless plug out of the way, let’s get to Thursday’s recap, which pitted 101 teams at 12 different venues:
ROUND 1:
As usual, our first round was the easiest round of the night, with a large majority of our teams answering correctly on topics such as “Modern Family”, the opossum, and the advertising slogans of Head & Shoulders. Perfect scores would have quite plentiful, were it not for a wicked bonus question that asked which 14th century Italian writer penned “The Decameron”, a landmark work in the realm of medieval literature. Of course, the most popular wrong answer was Dante (Alighieri), but only THREE teams earned a strong two-point bonus here with the correct response of Giovanni Boccaccio. Needless to say, the perfect scores for the first round hinged on that question as only two teams managed to pull of that feat: Power Vacuum (Champion Billiards) and Cranius Maximus (Bunker Sports).
ROUND 2:
Our nightly audio question featured three songs for the open road, as about one-third of our teams earned bonus points by recognizing “Radar Love” (Golden Earring), “Fast Car” (Tracy Chapman), and “Ridin’” (Chamillionaire). We continued the round by asking about the Oscar-winning film set (and filmed) in an Oregon mental hospital, with most of our teams arriving at this correct response:
Only 16% of our teams earned a two-point bonus by knowing that Louise Fletcher earned an Academy Award for portrayal of the menacing Nurse Ratched. We finished the round with a sports question, as most teams figured out that the 2017 event which featured a winning time of 86 hours and 20 minutes was the Tour de France. Once again, only 16% of our teams earned a bonus here by knowing that Chris Froome won his fourth overall title last month. Only one team swept the second round: PC Principals (Fish Market).
HALFTIME:
Tonight’s half time round featured photographs of international landmarks, which proved to be an easy ten points for most teams. The bottom half was significantly more difficult, as teams had to name the ten highest-grossing films at the domestic box office AFTER adjusting for inflation. Even with the years of the films included as hints our field averaged about seven out of ten here, leading to an overall average of 16.2 points. Only two teams managed to land a perfect score of 20 points: Breadsticks (Quincy’s) and Slapsgiving (Cushwa Brewing). Here are Thursday’s top overall scores after the first half:
- Cranius Maximus (Bunker Sports): 88
- Power Vacuum (Champion Billiards): 87
- North Country (Quincy’s): 86
- Breadsticks (Quincy’s): 85
- Brother of Menelaus (Fish Market): 85
ROUND 3:
The second half began with the most difficult bonus question of the third round. While most teams knew that Anton Chekov penned the theatrical dramas “Three Sisters”, “Uncle Vanya”, and “The Cherry Orchard”., only seven teams knew that “The Seagull” is currently in production as a feature film adaption. The third round continued with this question in the category of Children’s Retailers:
–> Filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection earlier this year, which children’s clothing retailer operates the Janie & Jack and Crazy 8 chains?
After a crossword-style hint, about half of our teams arrived at the correct response of Gymboree, though host Caitlin at Right Around the Corner in Florida noted that she had two teams turn in an answer reading “We Don’t Have Kids”. We concluded the third round asking about the “political hip hop” artist who once attempting to run for President in his native Haiti. Only 35% of our teams knew it was this former Fugee:
No, not The Rock… it’s Wyclef Jean. Most of the teams that earned points here also earned a two-point bonus by knowing that Wyclef’s most recent appearance atop the Billboard Hot 100 Chart was as a featured artist on Shakira’s “Hips Don’t Lie”. Only one team swept the third round with a perfect score: Turtles All the Way Down took the lead at Quincy’s after racking up 36 points in the third stanza.
6-4-2 QUESTION:
Only 15% of our teams earned six points on tonight’s 6-4-2 question by knowing this answer:
–> Set to be released next month, the title of which feature film sometimes includes the phrase “Part 1 – The Losers’ Club”?
The updated version of the Stephen King work “It” won’t feature a performance by Tim Curry as this menacing being:
ROUND 4:
While most teams earned their wager with either Joe Frazier (left) and George Foreman (center), only six teams earned bonus points by naming both. The most difficult wagering question of the night arrived in the middle of the final round, with a three-part question in the category of “X” in history:
1) In 486 B.C., he succeeded his father Darius as ruler of the Persian Empire.
2) Bellamy, Hauteval, and Hottinguer were the last names of the men involved in this 1790’s U.S. diplomatic affair.
3) He was the de facto leader of China from the late 1970s to the early 1990s.
Only 16% of our teams earned their wager by knowing two of the three correct answers: Xerxes, the XYZ Affair, and Deng Xiaoping. Just as we saw on the boxing question, only six teams earned two bonus points by knowing all three correct answers. The final round did not feature any perfect scores. Here are Thursday’s top scores after the fourth round:
- Power Vacuum (Champion Billiards): 159
- Lowered Expectations (Quincy’s): 152
- PC Principals (Fish Market): 151
- Indians (Bunker Sports Cafe): 151
- Turtles All the Way Down (Quincy’s): 151
FINAL QUESTION (58.3% success rate):
–> which U.S. state recently announced the introduction of the Excelsior Scholarship, offering free tuition at over 80 public universities statewide for ALL families making less than $125,000 per year?
Just over half of our teams earned points here either by simply knowing the fact outright, or by remembering that Excelsior is the official motto of the state of New York. Congratulations to Your Mom (Bunker Sports Cafe), Three Fingers Worth (Olde Mother Brewing), Nasty Neutrons (Quincy’s), Lowered Expectations (Quincy’s), and Turtles All the Way Down (Quincy’s), who each scored the Perfect 21 tonight by answering all wagering questions correctly. Here are your top overall scores from Thursday:
- Power Vacuum (Champion Billiards): 165
- Turtles All the Way Down (Quincy’s): 163
- Indians (Bunker Sports Cafe): 162
- Your Mom (Bunker Sports Cafe): 161
- Nasty Neutrons (Quincy’s): 159
- Breadsticks (Quincy’s): 159
- PC Principals (Fish Market): 158
- Incognido’s (Beef O’ Brady’s): 157
- FIVE TEAMS TIED WITH 156 POINTS
TONIGHT’S WINNERS:
Olde Mother Brewing in Frederick, MD: Three Fingers Worth (Next week’s first category: Cary Grant Films)
Quincy’s Bar and Grille in Gaithersburg, MD: Turtles All the Way Down (Next week’s first category: Role-Playing Games)
Champion Billiards in Frederick, MD: Power Vacuum (Next week’s first category: “Achtung Baby”)
Bunker Sports Cafe in Leesburg, VA: Indians (Next week’s first category: “Evil Roy Slade”)
Smoketown Brewing Station in Brunswick, MD: Better Side of the River (Next week’s first category: Military Matters)
Beef O’ Brady’s in Frederick, MD: Incognido’s (Next week’s first category: Duckpin Bowling)
Jerry’s Sports Bar in Hagerstown, MD: Charging Our Fireballs (Next week’s first category: “Murder, She Wrote”)
Belly Love Brewing in Purcellville, VA: We Are Out (Next week’s first category: Guinea Pigs)
Cushwa Brewing in Williamsport, MD: Slapsgiving (Next week’s first category: “The Dark Tower”)
Right Around the Corner in St. Petersburg, FL: Three Stooges (Next week’s first category: “Dragonball Z”)
Fish Market Restaurant in Alexandria, VA: PC Principals (Next week’s first category: Alfred Hitchcock Films)
Guido’s in Frederick, MD: Tuna Noodle Casserole (Next week’s first category: Jon Sings Mel Brooks)