Weekend Trivia: Accepted to the Ivy League!

For this year’s Memorial Day weekend, five venues opened their doors to a combined 58 teams ready for some Pour House Trivia.

FIRST ROUND:

Opening rounds across the weekend spanned the world of trivia knowledge. On Friday, teams had a three-parter on hyphenated terms, non-mammal Chinese zodiac animals, and a glimpse of the opal birthstone before their trickiest question of the round:

• Founded by Shonda Rhimes, the TV production company ‘ShondaLand’ has produced 11 drama series, the first nine of which debuted on which network?

A little more than two-thirds of the field knew that Shondaland’s series started on ABC before moving to Netflix with Bridgerton; the latter answer provided bonus points to 36 percent of teams. Saturday’s crew cruised through topics like the Alpha-Bits breakfast cereal brand, the Sonic 2 film, and the Super Bowl futility of the Buffalo Bills. In all, 13 teams notched perfect first-round scores.

SECOND ROUND:

The weekend’s audio questions found varying degrees of success. While almost every team earned wagering points on Friday’s sports-related audio theme, only 47% did so on Saturday with a question on the versions of Crimson and Clover performed by original artists Tommy James and the Shondells and cover musicians Joan Jett and the Blackhearts. Friday’s hardest second-round wagering question was found in the candy aisle:

• Introduced in 1940 by the Just Born candy company, which rhyming brand name has nothing to do with the 34^th President of the United States?

While Jelly Belly would make sense, it was founded in 1976 (and Ronald Reagan was the 40th President); that answer instead was non-Eisenhower-endorsed Mike & Ike! About 53% of the field earned their wager on that one. Otherwise, weekend teams discussed 80s musical duo Wham!, a Three Clues question on Denver, Colorado, Michigan‘s bevy of lighthouses, and Julia Child’s time at Le Cordon Bleu culinary school. Through all of that, the only perfect score of this round all weekend was earned by That’s So Clavin (Pretzel and Pizza).

HALFTIME:

On Friday, halftime was all about foods that start with T and famous assassination victims throughout history; Saturday’s teams dealt with periodic table rebus puzzles and famous duos. Nice halftime efforts overall were had, with an average score of 16.9 out of 20, and 14 teams earning perfect scores. Speaking of which, there was a perfect team at the halftime break:

• That’s So Clavin (Pretzel and Pizza): 92
• Squircle Jerks (Flying Ace): 90
• Quality Guesswork (Pretzel and Pizza): 90
• Murph’s Masters (Belles’): 90
• Sexual Chocolate (Belles’): 89

THIRD ROUND:

Both nights of trivia this past week had its roughest go at a wagering question in the third round. On Friday, the question was short but the answer? Not so much:

• In addition to their alphanumeric codes, the Boeing B-29 and B-50 also include which 13-letter compound word in their full names?

Just over a quarter of the field correctly named the Superfortress as that designation. Saturday’s teams had to wait a little longer in the round for their turn:

• Sporting the slogan Different By Design, which cable network was launched in 2005 as the first advertiser-supported American network geared towards the LGBT community?

That network, Logo, was correctly named by 17% of Saturday’s squads. The third round on Friday also brought the hardest bonus chance of the game, as only one team recognized all three taglines for the films The Dark Knight, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and Quiz Show. The round also featured questions regarding philosopher John Locke, the South by Southwest festival series, a Three Clues question on the first name Penelope, and MLB’s Dodger Stadium. Due to those aforementioned difficult questions, a perfect score eluded all weekend teams in the third round.

FOURTH ROUND:

Weekend 6-4-2 questions on Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Aretha Franklin and the state of New Mexico preceded fourth-round trivia action. Here, teams on Friday revisited the year of 1997 and looked back on the book The Nine, which is about Supreme Court justices. A question about Mozart‘s Köchel catalogue proved to be the hardest of the round, with less than half the field getting wagering points. On Saturday, we had some Tabasco and followed some electron orbits before getting scandalous with a difficult wagering question:

• In the 1980s, which U.S. Senator from Colorado was one of the front-runners for the Democratic nomination for President, when a photograph of his yacht “Monkey Business” exposed an extra-marital affair with a young actress?

Gary Hart was that ill-fated politician, answered correctly by 41 percent of teams; only one, however, earned two bonus points for knowing Donna Rice was the woman in that notorious photo. Once again, there were no perfect scores in this round. Not for lack of trying, though, as the weekend leaderboard was full of points before the final question:

• That’s So Clavin (Pretzel and Pizza): 165
• Sexual Chocolate (Belles’): 159
• Squircle Jerks (Flying Ace): 156
• Murph’s Masters (Belles’): 155
• No MSG (Flying Ace): 153

FRIDAY’S FINAL QUESTION (70.7% success rate):

• Among the eight Ivy League universities, which is the only one located in a city whose name is identical to the school itself?

SATURDAY’S FINAL QUESTION (11.8% success rate):

• This 3-D computer program was introduced in 2001 by Keyhole, a software development company partially funded by the Central Intelligence Agency. The program took on a new name after Keyhole was acquired in a business acquisition three years later. What is the two-word name of this program?

While a majority of teams knew Friday’s final answer of Princeton University (found in Princeton, New Jersey), teams weren’t so lucky with Saturday’s question on what is now known as Google Earth. A solitary weekend Perfect 21 was had by Friday’s No MSG (Flying Ace), the only team to answer every wagering question correctly in their game. A Flying Ace party was seen at the top of the final standings:

• Squircle Jerks (Flying Ace): 166
• No MSG (Flying Ace): 165
• Flamboyance (Flying Ace): 164
• Areola 51 (Flying Ace): 164
• Biscuit Snatchers (Belles’): 163
• That’s So Clavin (Pretzel and Pizza): 163
• Slightly Agitated (Springfield Manor): 162
• Shady Deductions (Springfield Manor): 158
• Shipwrecked (Springfield Manor): 157
• Vandelay Industries (Springfield Manor): 155

WEEKEND WINNERS:

Springfield Manor Winery in Thurmont, MD: Slightly Agitated  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Bjork Albums)

P. B. Dye Golf Course in Ijamsville, MD: ON HIATUS (FIRST CATEGORY AFTER HIATUS: Cryptozoology)

Dragon Distillery in Frederick, MD: NO GAME  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY ON JUNE 3: Seinfeld)

Doc Waters Cidery in Germantown. MD: NO GAME  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Dynamic Duos)

Flying Ace Farm in Lovettsville, VA: Squircle Jerks  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: MLB Franchise History)

South Mountain Creamery in Frederick, MD: Cleanup on Aisle Four  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Super Smash Bros. Ultimate)

Belles’ Sports Bar in Frederick, MD: Biscuit Snatchers  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Triple 50/50: NHL Rulebook)

Pretzel and Pizza Creations in Hagerstown, MD: That’s So Clavin  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Non-Belgian Waffles)

Mason Social in Alexandria, VA: NO GAME  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY ON JUNE 5: Potent Potables)