Wednesday Trivia Hits the Ranch, Dude!
Wednesday evening’s edition of Pour House Trivia was played by 169 total teams across 17 area locations, including a 27-team outing at Idiom Brewing in Frederick, MD.
FIRST ROUND:
Believe it or not, the game began with the hardest first-half wagering question:
- Once known as the Hippie Wagon, the Volkswagen Type 2 vehicle was featured in both a 1980s time traveling film and an ABC drama series of the 2000s. What are those onscreen works?
Teams only had to get one of the two correct answers for wagering credit; 48% of them remembered at least one of Back to the Future and Lost, but a round-low 7.6% got both for two extra points. After playtime with rubber ducks, another tricky bonus chance appeared at the end of the round:
- Which two college football bowl games played in Texas have been played since the 1930s?
Just as with the aforementioned question, teams could earn extra points for getting both correct answers, and 10% did so by naming both the Cotton Bowl held in Dallas and the Sun Bowl from El Paso. Those two tough bonus tries made it so that no team escaped the first round with a perfect score!
SECOND ROUND:
Wednesday’s game provided three songs with colorful one-word titles (Black by Pearl Jam, Yellow by Coldplay, and Blue by Beyonce); a third of our teams named all three songs for extra credit. The first half’s most difficult bonus question came midway through this round on a question about actress Maggie Gyllenhaal, in which only eight teams knew she received a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for the film Crazy Heart. The hardest wagering query of the round came next:
- What is the more common name of the American woman from Colonial times who took on the name Rebecca Rolfe after getting married?
Pocahontas was correctly named by 64% of the field. The only perfect team in this round was I Don’t Know (Hops N Shine).
HALFTIME:
Teams were asked to identify countries by their flag maps, then figure out a special mystery theme (which ended up being that each answer in the section was also the name of a Stephen King work). Seven teams got all 20 points on the halftime sheet, with the average score being 13.7 points. A bit of a tough first half meant no team reached the 90-point plateau by the halftime break, but these teams were on top of the early leaderboard:
- Black October (Grape Escape): 88
- I Don’t Know (Hops N Shine): 87
- Tokyo Sex Whale (Idiom): 86
- What the Fork (TGI Fridays): 86
- Carpet Stretchers (T. J. Stone’s): 86
THIRD ROUND:
Round 3 reared its ugly head on Wednesday, featuring not only the two toughest wagering question, but the most difficult way to earn bonus points. On the opening question of the round, we asked this:
- Closely related to Taoism, which school of Mahayana Buddhism is also associated with former basketball coach Phil Jackson and a 1974 book about a motorcycle journey?
Zen was identified by 62% of teams, but the author of the aforementioned book (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance), Robert Pirsig, was only named by seven trivia squads. A Three Clues set about Oklahoma saw just 11% of teams get the answer early for bonus points. This English Premier League question came next:
- Nicknamed the Eagles, which English Premier League team is officially named for a structure built to house the Great Exhibition of 1851?
Roughly 37% of the field correctly named the Crystal Palace EPL team for points. Not to be outdone, the last question of the round played the toughest:
- Prior to serving in Woodrow Wilson’s cabinet, who earned 493 electoral votes across three Presidential elections, the most among those who never became U. S. President?
William Jennings Bryan was successfully answered by 27% of teams, while 7.6% got bonus points for knowing Bryan lost to eventual Presidents William McKinley and William Howard Taft. And where there were three Wills, there was no way any team was able to earn a perfect score in the third round.
FOURTH ROUND:
Vietnam was quickly identified by 24 teams at the start of the 6-4-2 for full credit. We snapped back into shape overall in Wednesday’s final round of regulation, beginning with this film question:
- The plot of which 1982 film revolves around a convict named Reggie Hammond, who is given a two-day prison furlough to help a San Francisco detective solve a murder?
This question was the hardest of the round, with 54% of teams getting it right with an answer of 48 Hrs. The only bonus try that gave our teams any real grief was attached to a question about guitarist Dave Mustaine forming the band Megadeth after being fired from Metallica; about 18% of the field knew Mustaine was replaced by Kirk Hammett. In this round, eight teams earned all 36 points each. With our trivia faith restored, we reached the final question with these teams ahead of the rest:
- I Don’t Know (Hops N Shine): 161
- Black October (Grape Escape): 156
- Power Vacuum (Belles’): 155
- Carpet Stretchers (T. J. Stone’s): 155
- Alcoholics Unanimous (Belles’): 153
FINAL QUESTION (88.2% success rate):
- During the 1950s, Steven Hanson introduced the modern version of ranch dressing at a California dude ranch bearing which name?
We ended the night was this final question, about the origins of what we know as ranch dressing at the Hidden Valley ranch. Once again, you oughta know that the Wednesday Perfect 21 was earned by I Don’t Know (Hops N Shine). At the end of the night, these were the top scores:
- Power Vacuum (Belles’): 167
- Alcoholics Unanimous (Belles’): 165
- Carpet Stretchers (T. J. Stone’s): 163
- Tokyo Sex Whale (Idiom): 163
- Stinkfist (Idiom): 162
- I Don’t Know (Hops N Shine): 162
- Putin It Where It Don’t Belong (Hops N Shine): 161
- Three Clues, One Cup (Idiom): 159
- Black October (Grape Escape): 158
- Shipwrecked (Idiom): 158
We also want to congratulate the Washington Trivia Team (T. J. Stone’s) for their honorable mention finish, scoring 162 points playing over the limit with more than the maximum seven players.
PLEASE CHECK THE LIST BELOW TO SEE IF YOUR VENUE IS RUNNING A GAME NEXT WEEK ON THANKSGIVING EVE (NOV. 23)!
WEDNESDAY’S WINNERS:
Belles’ Sports Bar in Frederick, MD: Power Vacuum (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: The Walking Dead)
Memories Charcoal House in Mount Airy, MD: NO GAME (NO GAME NEXT WEEK – FIRST CATEGORY ON NOV. 30: Con Air (film))
Quinn’s on the Corner in Arlington, VA: Mannion’s Men (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Famous Runners-Up)
GearHouse Brewing in Chambersburg, PA: Archived! (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Walt Disney World Rides)
TGI Fridays in Hagerstown, MD: What the Fork (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Portmanteaus)
Idiom Brewing in Frederick, MD: Tokyo Sex Whale (NO GAME NEXT WEEK – FIRST CATEGORY ON NOV. 30: The Human Heart)
Axes and O’s in Sterling, VA: The Legend of Taylor Heinicke (NO GAME NEXT WEEK – FIRST CATEGORY ON NOV. 30: Naruto)
Hops N Shine in Alexandria, VA: I Don’t Know (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina)
Sully’s Pour House in Herndon, VA: Overthinkers Anonymous (NO GAME NEXT WEEK – FIRST CATEGORY ON NOV. 30: Calculus)
Falling Branch Brewery in Street, MD: NO GAME (NO GAME NEXT WEEK – FIRST CATEGORY ON NOV. 30: Poland)
T.J. Stone’s in Alexandria, VA: Carpet Stretchers (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: D.C. Monuments)
Craftworx Taproom in Gainesville, VA: Bad Misty (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: World of Warcraft)
Barstool Sportsbook in Charles Town, WV: Five Horsemen of the Apocalypse (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade Balloons)
Grape Escape in Gaithersburg, MD: Black October (NO GAME NEXT WEEK – FIRST CATEGORY ON NOV. 30: College Basketball Mid-Major Conferences)
Shipgarten in McLean, VA: Beefcakes (NO GAME NEXT WEEK – FIRST CATEGORY ON NOV. 30: Liam Neeson)
Elysium Axe Bar in Purcellville, VA: Closed on Sunday (NO GAME NEXT WEEK – FIRST CATEGORY ON NOV. 30: Fast Casual Restaurants)
Thick-N-Thin Brewing in Hagerstown, MD: Here For the Beer (NO GAME NEXT WEEK – FIRST CATEGORY ON NOV. 30: National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation)
Celtic House in Arlington, VA: Arrowski (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Mythbusters)
Mark’s Pub in Falls Church, VA: The House Never Wins (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Keanu Reeves Films)