Wednesday Night was the Ultimate… in Trivia!
The first Wednesday of Spring featured over a dozen games of Pour House Trivia, as we learned that William Shatner is a lot older than most people think, and that there are quite a lot of you who did not catch BeatleMania. On to the recaps:
WEDNESDAY’S STATS AND FACTS (89 teams across 13 venues):
–> Highest Overall Score: Fat Kid Dance Party (Belles’) with 173
–> Highest Score after Round 4: Dusty Baker School of Management (Bennigan’s – Clarksburg) with 168
–> Highest First Half Score: Dusty Baker School of Management with 90
–> Perfect 21 (correct on all wagers and final): Southpaw Fish (Valley Grill), Fat Kids are Hard to Kidnap (Valley Grill)Momentary Lapse of Reason (Bennigan’s – Frederick, Dusty Baker School of Management,
–> The world flags and stand-up comedy albums featured on our halftime page played to an average score of 17.1, with about 30% of our teams picking up 20 points.
–> Our 6-4-2 question was more difficult, with only 12% of our teams picking up six points by knowing that yesterday was the 86th birthday for screen legend William Shatner.
TONIGHT’S FINAL QUESTION (52.2% success rate):
–> What product was originally called the “Pluto Platter”, before being renamed in honor of a New England pie company? (you’ll find the answer later in this blog)
Valley Grill in Middletown, MD
I took this gig at the last minute for poor sick Ronnie, and I’m glad I did! There are a lot of very smart teams here in Middletown, as a majority of the teams rocked the questions all night with no question stumping our field. In a hotly contested first half, Southpaw Fish jumped out to early first half lead thanks to several crucial points on bonus questions. Though they led the field with 87 points, there were NINE teams situated less than six points out of the lead, but as everybody knows, the second half always separates the field.
Tonight was no different, as our third round tested our teams in such varying topics as March Madness, 18th Century explorers, and contemporary authors. Only a few teams were able to earn all five of their wagering values in this round. Despite being behind the pack, the Zebra Girls get a shout out as the ONLY team to pick up six points on the 6-4-2 question!
In the final round, the leaders dropped a few points, meaning that the scores were close enough that the final would truly decide it all. About half of the 15 teams knew that we were looking for the Frisbee (not the Moon Pie), and that meant our final standings looked like this:
First Place: Fat Kids are Hard to Kidnap
Second Place: Southpaw Fish
Third Place: Stupider, Sexier Flanders
Next week’s first category: 1980s Orioles Baseball
Hope to see you all very soon, Ronnie will be back next week.
~ Zach
The Tavern in Olney, MD
We witnessed an extremely competitive game at The Tavern in Olney on Wednesday! The game included ties among the top three spots after almost every round, as four different teams occupied first place at least once during the game, and of COURSE we needed to use the tie breaker after the final question! Once the tie was broken and the dust cleared, this is how this epic night of trivia ended…
Winning the tie break to finish third place was It’s Not A Toomah! Having a real up and down game for the first time in a while but STILL pulling out second place on the night was the Jon Jeffries Fan Club! Moving into a tie for first place after the 6-4-2 question, then pulling ahead in the final round and ROCKING the final to secure their “King of the Mountain” status in first place was our victorious team tonight… Olney The Lonely!
Our winner’s have selected the Amazon T.V. original series”Bosch” for our opening category next week. Study up, and make sure to join us for another epic battle this Wednesday at The Tavern!
~ Jon J
Belles’ Sports Bar in Frederick, MD
KITT! That means “Kill, Intimidate, Torture and Tickle”, yes? No? No… Knight Industries Two Thousand. Oh well, that’s significantly less fun. It’s a good thing that the folks here at Belles’ Sports Bar in Frederick found lots of other ways to have some fun on this Wednesday night. Just Good Enough were the only ones to pick up the actual correct answer on the KITT question, earning a two-point bonus, but it may not have been enough to keep them in first place. Our first round may not have involved ninjas or “art films”, but it was still a damn good way to start hump day trivia.
We had a good audio question, thanks to the Boys of Summer, and quite a few Mike Tyson Punch Out memories. We rounded out the round (See what I did there??) with some rather creative answers of what state Mike Pence is really in… Ha. Belles’, you’re inappropriate but you’re funny! Speaking of which… there’s a “CHiPs” movie?!
That puzzle page had me acting a bit like Oprah.. minus the fan club, money and good business sense.. OK, not like Oprah, but we had quite a few 20’s. I also had a very happy audience as every single puzzle page was in COLOR! Merry Christmas! At the halftime score check, we had everyone’s favorite – a three-way! Let the drama and suspense (not to mention jealousy) roll!
The third round brought us Chef / Chief / Cook chuckles, some serious fandom love on the Bones multiple choice question, and a heated debate on contemporary authors versus trash. I think we can all at least agree that Nora Roberts is American! Also, if you haven’t heard of “Windtalkers” yet, educate yourself. So cool. Seriously. Our last round tonight went quickly, as once people got over the challenging 6-4-2 question, they were ready to do this, full steam until the very end. They also put on the brawlin’ boots and more than half of the teams didn’t miss a single question in that last round. That’s commendable.
The final question was awesome tonight, and as much as I loved it, I didn’t love it as much as the Ultimate Frisbee players of Formal Protest. They would have made it in to the top three, but played it safe and missed the mark. Our top three teams were as follows: Comfortably Dum finished in third place, impressive as they tried the new strategy of sitting in sixth place all game tonight. Sitting back and letting the others battle it out. Second place went to Flight Level Awesome, which is not where they wanted to be, but there’s no shame in it. Our winners tonight were just a duo! #Fatkiddanceparty! For the Win! Nice pull. Next week we will start with a question on the Champagne of Beers. Drink up 😉
~ Sam
Bennigan’s in Frederick, MD
Wednesday night is here again, which means it’s Pour House Trivia night here at Bennigan’s in Frederick!
Highlights of the Night:
In “That’s-Not-What-I-Asked”: On our HOT question tonight, after the answers were read, one team expressed their displeasure at the Hot Pockets question, purely over the “savory” part. To which I had to explain that savory and delicious are two different things. “They’re still not good!” That’s not what I asked boys and girls!
In “Listen-It’s-A-Good-Cover-Damnit!”: Listen, you don’t have to be happy about not knowing the Ataris were the band covering Boys of Summer. Some of you didn’t even know Don Henley was the original artist, so I don’t wanna hear no more griping! It also doesn’t make it a bad song; it’s very good! Leave the Ataris alone you haters!
In “No-More-Impersonations-For-Me”: With the two-point clue tonight on the 6-4-2, I thought I’d try my hand at a “Star Trek” William Shatner impression. As I was asked quite pointedly “Was that supposed to be a Shatner impression?” I guess I won’t be doing that again! Point taken people!
After a train wreck of a fourth round and a doozy of a final, our podium was set.
In third place tonight, Many Bothans!
In second place tonight, Simple Minds!
In first place tonight, Momentary Lapse of Reason!
Great game tonight! Next week we’ll kick things off with some early Three Stooges (so no Joe or Curly Joe!) Study up, and we’ll see you next time!
Until then,
~ Ian
Woodside Deli in Germantown, MD
A great game from start to finish, this was a three-team race for first place at Woodside Deli. We featured two, count them, two audio clues on tap at Woodside. The first audio clue did not seem to be a problem with The Fellowship handing in their answer prior to the audio clip being played! Contribution took a two-point lead into the end of the first round with The Fellowship regaining the lead off the strength of two point bonuses in the 2nd round. The top three teams were hitting at about 90% in the first half, with just a few one-point wagers being missed. The puzzle page was not a challenge with the low being an 18 and the high being 19. Cyprus was the only flag missed by all three teams during the half time puzzle page.
Round three brought some trivia heat as Contribution missed their nine-point wager right off the bat, but did not falter too far as The Fellowship missed a five-point wager, while Kickin’ Cancer also missed a question. Contribution regained two points worth of ground on the 6-4-2 question. Going into the final round, The Fellowship held a slim two point lead over Contribution and Kickin’ Cancer!
The Beatles were not kind to the teams at Woodside Deli in Round 4 with all of the teams missing the question. While The Fellowship missed the fewest points in Round 4, they also had the misfortune of missing a bonus question thus giving Contribution a single point lead going into the final question.
The final question brought out logical answers of Moon Pies (which was my guess) but a single member of contribution swayed the entire team to go with his answer of Frisbee – thus winning Contribution the game! Contribution took the gold, The Fellowship grabbed 2nd place, while Kickin’ Cancer rounded out the top 3. Next week’s first category is the web series: Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. This was highly recommended to me by all of my teams!
~ Scott
Nido’s Ristorante in Frederick, MD
Coming soon…
Next week’s first category: “Batman: The Animated Series”
Bennigan’s in Clarksburg, MD
Dusty Baker School of Management is the hot commodity this season. They’ve been on fire, winning week in and week out. They do have one loss this season, a second place finish to Rhymes with Orange, when they missed the final question and weren’t up enough for a lock game. That was also a game where 1/3 of their team was missing. It wasn’t them at their best, and still, they were leading going into the final and probably could’ve come away with a win. It’s been fun to watch what these guys can do, even if they’ve marked themselves as the enemy to the rest of the field hehe. All in good fun though! (I hope..)
Tonight was no different; Dusty Baker was very good and EVERYONE wanted to take them down! Well, it was not looking good early, as Dusty Baker led the game at 90 points, missing only a two-point bonus on the CHiPS movie bonus (apparently, not only STARRING Dax Shepherd BUT written by/directed by him too! Who knew!). With that, we went into the second half, hoping that something could stop them.
Well, that wish did not come true. Dusty Baker was even more impressive as the game went on. How do you become more impressive than only missing a two-point bonus? Well, they did not miss another point the rest of the night. That’s just unheard of on any normal night. A strong performance, a strong team, and just a dangerous contender to win this season’s World Series. They don’t have any weaknesses and they never seem to miss!
Even though they didn’t miss anything in the 2nd half, going into the final Dusty Baker led by only 12 points, not quite a lockout. They bet the one point for the win, assuming they’d have a good chance to get the final correct. Sure enough, they had it, one team of about the 75% who picked it up. Another amazing performance by Dusty Baker. I believe Dusty Baker is taking a few weeks off for vacation and such so we’ll see if a new team can hold the reign down while they’re away! Thanks for coming out guys! Starting next week with GAME OF THRONES, courtesy of your winners! Thanks a ton, I’ll see you in 7!
~ Bill
Memories in Mount Airy, MD
Another week at Memories that brought our teams closer together… before tearing them apart when the scores started to climb. We saw some genuine guesswork, some wrong answers that were better than the right answers, and a final that really broke some hearts. Sexual Chocolate jumped out to an early lead with a nearly perfect first half, missing just a couple of two-point bonuses (Dax Sheaprd is a director?) en route to a score of 88 at the break. In the second half, LOWL gained four points on the entire field by snagging six points on the 6-4-2 question. Intimate knowledge of William Shatner finally pays off!
On the subject of Loonies and Toonies (or “Looners and Tooners” or “Loons and Toons” or whatever regional version you’re familiar with), we can all agree that “Goose and a Deuce” is a MUCH better nickname for them. It was also pretty clear that Beatlemania pretty much missed Mt. Airy. To be fair, I have some unpopular opinions on the Beatles, so I’m right there with you on that tough question. In the end, the top of the leaderboard remained after a split final. I totally get why you’d think of “Moon Pie” and not be able to rule it out in your head.
Third Place: LOWL
Second Place: Satan’s School For Girls
First Place: Sexual Chocolate
Sexy C took it down for their second win in a row, and selected 1985’s “Return of the Living Dead” as next week’s first category. Sorry WD fans, we’re going old school!
See you next week!
~ Nick
Furnace Bar and Grill in Thurmont, MD
Tonight at the Furnace Bar and Grill in Thurmont, we featured some tough competition as teams tried to knock Breakfast For Dinner off of their winning streak, as BFD went for seven in a row! Thing started well for our perennial powerhouse, as they notched the top score of 18 on the halftime page, which secured a lead of eight points on second place. Our other teams battled hard through the first half, as the entire field was separated by just 20 points.
Insie Tinsie Newforts gave Breakfast For Dinner a run for their money by pulling within three points heading into the final round! Breakfast For Dinner increased their lead when they answered the Beatlemania question correct as Insie Tinsie Newforts went for it all, wagering nine and missing the correct answer. Going into the final question of the night, the difference was 13 points between Breakfast For Dinner and Insie Tinsie Newforts, meaning that they had the game locked up and their seven game winning streak remained intact. Oh, that missed nine-point wager will sting! Insie Tinsie Newforts was the only team to get the final question correct, but had to settle for second place tonight. Taking third place tonight was Member Berries.
Until next time…
~ Devan
Next week’s first category: Oak Ridge Boys (AUDIO QUESTION)
Barefoot Bernie’s in Hagerstown, MD
What happens when three of Barefoot Bernie’s best trivia teams go head to head in a royal rumble for trivia domination? You get a very, very, very close game where every bonus counts, and answers come in quickly! It was a crazy fast game of Pour House Trivia here in Hagerstown, as our top teams were on the ball. For the rest of the field, it was going to be difficult to crack the top three tonight!
After the first round, our top three teams were tied for first. Again, after the second round, we still had a dead heat between all three of those teams. A few bonus questions did elude our teams, as no one knew what “KITT” stood for, or in what year Mike Tyson lost to Buster Douglas. The half time puzzle page also produced some very close scores, so it was up to the second half to spread the field. By the end of the third round, we had opened up to a six-point spread between first and third, but round four circled the wagons and brought the difference down to three points.
The final was quite tense. After much debate, only one team was able to come up with the correct answer on this ultimate showdown. The Sad Fat Dragons fell to third with an incorrect guess. Pen Island dropped from first to second after they missed as well. Then, out of nowhere, Alternative Answers gave us the right answer of ‘Frisbee’ and brought home a first prize! Great game everyone!
Speaking of Frisbees, next week’s winner’s choice will be the movie “Back to the Future III“.
~ Sean
Applebee’s in Waynesboro, PA
What. A. Game. We featured six teams battling it out until the very end tonight at Applebee’s in Waynesboro, and man was it a close one. Here are your highlights:
Round One started off very strong, with all of our teams coming out swinging. Only four points separated first place from last place, but thanks to being the only team to know that KITT stood for “Knight Industries Two Thousand”, JuJu and Friends jumped out on top. JuJu and Friends continued their run with a very strong Round Two, and a perfect puzzle page, to extend their lead at the half. In honor of March Madness, Round Three started off with a college basketball question, with only Bees? correctly guessing that the former basketball arena at the University of Maryland – College Park was named Cole Field House. However, JuJu and Friends had a near perfect round, and was also able to get the 6-4-2 question on the six point clue, which extended their lead to nine.
Alternative Facts had something to say about that, and turned in an incredible Round Four to close the gap, and narrow JuJu and Friends’ lead to one point going into the final. JuJu and Friends got creative, and handed me a slip as if they were changing their wager from the default 12, but didn’t actually change it. Alternative Facts also used strategy in their final wager, changing it to seven so that in the event that both they and Mischief Managed got the final correct they would still come out on top by one point. Our final threw some teams off, but most teams were able to identify that a Frisbee used to be called a “Pluto Platter” (I’m an Ultimate Frisbee guy and had nooo idea) and one of the teams was JuJu and Friends so they held on and ended up victorious. Here are your top three:
First Place: JuJu and Friends
Second Place: Alternative Facts
Third Place: Wingin’ It
Next week’s first category: “M*A*S*H” (the TV version)
Study up and we’ll see you then!
~ Kyle
Clover Theater in Cloverdale, CA
Fourteen teams competed in a very close match here at Clover Theater on Wednesday night. In our first round, the Dear Vampire Diaries were the only team that knew what the acronym “KITT” stood for on the classic series “Knight Rider”. Meanwhile, the Unfrozen Caveman Lawyers were the only team to know all eight of the flags on the halftime page. Overall, the first half featured a stellar performance by Southern Comfort, who earned all of their wagers, topped the field with 19 points on the halftime page, and held a commanding lead with 85 points at the end of the first half.
ADE was near the top of the leaderboard all night, but in round three, their correct answer and bonus on the “Bones” question vaulted them to the top. The fourth round gave us our favorite wrong answer of the night. It came from The Amigos, with their guesses of “Goosebit” and “Geesebit” for nicknames of the $1 and $2 Canadian coins.
ADE continued their impressive second half, as correct answers on two more bonus questions allowed them to increase their lead to five points by the time we reached the final question. However, ADE missed the final question, which put that lead in serious Jeopardy. Would any of our contenders be able to take advantage of the mistake? The tension was immense, as we only had three correct answers of ‘Frisbee’ on tonight’s final question. Yes, it’s one of those answers that seems obvious once you see it. All of the teams to correct answer our final question were too far out of the lead to make any noise, and so ADE held on for a win. The Amigos did jump SEVEN SPOTS on the last question, moving from 9th to 2nd thanks to their correct response. Here are your top three teams:
First Place: ADE
Second Place: Amigos
Third Place: Laughy Taffeez
Next week’s first category: English Premiere League Soccer
~ Ryan
