Wednesday Trivia is Alive!

Pour House Trivia was hosted at 16 locations on Wednesday evening, with 172 total squads attending.

FIRST ROUND:

The game kicked off with a question about psychic term (and former TV show) Medium, followed by a question on the origin of the IKEA brand name. However, the latter question ended up carrying the most difficult bonus chance of the first half, as only seven teams knew that company is currently headquartered in the Netherlands. After that came the hardest wagering question of the first half:

• In a recent remake of the horror film Hellraiser, actress Jamie Clayton took on the role of the Hell Priest, a sinister character known by which seven-letter nickname?

Just under 60% of the field had the right nickname of Pinhead. Things finished with Three Clues about the name Lilith, and there were only two perfect teams in the opening round: Stinkfist (Idiom) and DC Swampers (Grape Escape).

SECOND ROUND:

We played a trio of songs by musical groups with the word Girls in the name for the audio question. While a round-low 63% of teams knew at least two of the acts, 36% earned the bonus for getting all three: Spice Girls, Indigo Girls, and Weather Girls. Later on, we had this literary question:

• Which attorney turned author penned legal thrillers such as The Client, The Pelican Brief, and The Firm?

John Grisham was correctly named by approximately 73% of our teams, with about a fifth knowing his debut novel, A Time to Kill, for two extra points. We finished with questions about the scientific process of fermentation and the Wonderlic test given to potential NFL draftees. This round had the most perfect scores, with 14.

HALFTIME:

You could say Wednesday’s halftime page was pretty sweet, as it asked teams to name brand name candy bars and give answers formed only by the letters in the word Halloween. On average, teams scored 17.4 points and there were 58 perfect scores. One team made it slightly ahead of a four-way tie for second at the halftime break:

• Carpet Stretchers (T.J. Stone’s): 91
• Stinkfist (Idiom): 90
• Comfortably Dumb (Axes and O’s): 87
• Power Vacuum (Belles’): 86
• Stink Floyd (Belles’): 85

THIRD ROUND:

Two particularly nasty bonus chances got to our teams in this round. After a three-parter on mythical monsters and a handful of candy corn, we encountered this question:

• The 1960s horror classic Night of the Living Dead was the first of several zombie films directed by which man who later created a 1980s anthology horror television series?

For wagering points, teams only had to name either George Romero or his show, Tales from the Darkside. There were a lot of incorrect answers for the later (especially the similarly-named Tales from the Crypt) so while 53% of teams received their wager for one correct answer out of two, a game-low six teams had both answers for extra credit. The last question in this round was the hardest of the night:

• Which female mystery author wrote the novel Hallowe’en Party, concerning a girl who drowns in an apple-bobbing tub?

Exactly half the field had the right answer, Agatha Christie, but just nine squads earned extra points for naming that work’s main character, detective Hercule Poirot. Unsurprisingly, there were no perfect scores in the third round.

FOURTH ROUND:

It makes almost too much sense that the 6-4-2 about the word ghost had 13 teams get it for all six points. We began the final round with this query:

• Though neither team has won the Fall Classic since at least 1990, which two National League teams have won exactly five World Series titles?

The Cincinnati Reds swept Oakland to win in 1990 for their fifth championship, while the Pittsburgh Pirates rounded out its current quintet with a comeback World Series win over the Orioles in 1979. A round-low 61% of teams named at least one of those baseball teams, while 18% had both correct answers. Other topics in this round included the Ouija board, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg (with a bonus going to teams who could spell his last name correctly), and the term Albanian used for natives of both the appropriate European country and New York state capital. We were back to having perfect teams here, as nine teams got all 36 points. There was some movement in the standings from halftime:

• Stink Floyd (Belles’): 162
• Comfortably Dumb (Axes and O’s): 161
• Carpet Stretchers (T.J. Stone’s): 160
• Lindsey and the Boys (Axes and O’s): 160
• FOUR TEAMS TIED WITH 157 POINTS

FINAL QUESTION (63.4% success rate):

• Italian scientist Luigi Galvani is thought to be one of the inspirations for which 19^th century literary character, who studied chemistry at the University of Ingolstadt in Bavaria?

Dr. Victor Frankenstein was our final answer on Wednesday night. With that, there were six teams that recorded a Perfect 21 on Wednesday night by correctly answering every wagering question in the game. Here is the evening’s final leaderboard:

• Carpet Stretchers (T.J. Stone’s): 172
• Stink Floyd (Belles’): 170
• Power Vacuum (Belles’): 169
• I Don’t Know (T.J. Stone’s): 169
• Jeopardy Rejects (Belles’): 168
• Titanic Was An Inside Job (Hops N Shine): 168
• Archived! (GearHouse): 165
• Accio Answers (Hops N Shine): 164
• Lindsey and the Boys (Axes and O’s): 164
• Five Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Barstool): 163
• Joe Buck’s Forehead (Idiom): 163

WEDNESDAY’S WINNERS:

Moe’s Peyton Place in Springfield, VA: Inconcievables  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Heavy Metal Band Mascots)

Valley Sports Grill in Middletown, MD: NO GAME  (FIRST CATEGORY UPON RETURN: Pittsburgh Steelers)

PLEASE NOTE: Valley Sports Grill is on an indefinite hiatus.  Please check back for updates.

Belles’ Sports Bar in Frederick, MD: Stink Floyd  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Famous Captains)

Memories Charcoal House in Mount Airy, MD: NO GAME  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: 1960s Bodybuilders)

Quinn’s on the Corner in Arlington, VA: Mannion’s Men  (NEW WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: 1990s Music)

GearHouse Brewing in Chambersburg, PA: Archived!  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: 1990s Grunge Music)

TGI Fridays in Hagerstown, MD: What the Fork  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: R.E.M. (band))

Idiom Brewing in Frederick, MD: Joe Buck’s Forehead  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Bryce Harper)

Axes and O’s in Sterling, VA: Lindsey and the Boys  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: 1990s Home Video Games)

Hops N Shine in Alexandria, VA: Titanic Was an Inside Job  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Native American History)

Sully’s Pour House in Herndon, VA: Two-Wheel Tricycle  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: NHL Mascots)

Falling Branch Brewery in Street, MD: Take a Hike  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Human Skeleton)

T. J. Stone’s in Alexandria, VA: Carpet Stretchers  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Serena Williams)

Craftworx Taproom in Gainesville, VA: 

Barstool Sportsbook in Charles Town, WV: Five Horsemen of the Apocalypse  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Edgar Allan Poe)

Grape Escape in Gaithersburg, MD: Black October  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Men’s Golf Major Winners)

Shipgarten in McLean, VA: Rat Funk  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Sonic the Hedgehog)

Elysium Axe Bar in Purcellville, VA: Axe and Tiddies  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Air Traffic Control)

Thick-N-Thin Brewing in Hagerstown, MD: Second Breakfast Club  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: What We Do in the Shadows)

Celtic House in Arlington, VA: We’re Trying Our Best  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: DC Area High School Rowing)

Mark’s Pub in Falls Church, VA: F. U. COVID  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Afghan Political Figures)