Weekend Trivia Tours the Americas!

Eight weekend venues played host to Pour House Trivia, welcoming 84 total teams for a trivia showdown.

FIRST ROUND:

Friday’s first round included the two hardest bonus questions of that game. First, five teams were able to get bonus points on a question about Billy Joel by naming Just the Way You Are as his first top-ten single. After that, we discussed the 88 keys on a modern piano, but only four teams added two bonus points for knowing those pianos have 36 black keys. As for wagering questions, the toughest one in the weekend opening rounds came next on Friday:

• Formed by a 1955 merger, the AFL-CIO is a conglomerate of 56 organizations.  For your wager, what does the L stand for the abbreviated name of this group?

That L stands for Labor, which 56% of our teams got right. Saturday topics included top-selling hot dog brands Ball Park and Oscar Mayer, the dual definition of the word fret, and long-running TV shows The Simpsons and Law & Order: SVU. Seven weekend teams earned perfect scores in this round.

SECOND ROUND:

Audio questions over the weekend involved Ben Affleck and Matt Damon‘s Good Will Hunting Oscar acceptance speech on Friday, then a trio of songs with the word Don’t in the title on Saturday. The hardest first-half question came in Friday’s game:

• After taking a dip in the Red River, you head to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and see where Ho Chi Minh signed his Declaration of Independence in 1945.  For your wager, what large Asian capital city are you in?

About 36% of the field named Hanoi for wagering points. The hardest bonus chance in this round appeared on Saturday, where only two teams were able to correctly name Johann David Wyss as the author of the famous novel Swiss Family Robinson. Otherwise, we discussed Three Clues about the word goodbye, sci-fi novel-turned-film Ender’s Game, the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism, and golf‘s Stableford scoring system. This was the only round over the weekend where no team recorded a perfect score.

HALFTIME:

On Friday, teams had to identify celebrities with three names, then match objects to their weight in ounces. Saturday’s halftime page involved 2000s album covers and Disney sidekicks. The average score was 15.1 points and while no teams got a perfect 20 points on Friday, eleven Saturday squads did so. Heading into the halftime break, these were the teams on top:

• Lone Strangers (Mason Social): 90
• Beer Pressure (Doc Waters): 87
• Alcoholics Unanimous (Belles’): 86
• Mean Girls (Mason Social): 86
• Biscuit Snatchers (Belles’): 85

THIRD ROUND:

The most difficult wagering question in Friday’s third round started it off, and was one for the early-90s kids:

• Airing simultaneously on ABC in the early 1990s, which two family shows each featured cover versions of Beatles songs as their themes?

A little less than half the field were able to name one of The Wonder Years and Life Goes On, while 15% got both correct answers for the bonus. We went on to questions about Wounded Knee, South Dakota, as well as the musical slang term earworm and a three-parter on famous actors by their first and most recent film credits. Saturday’s second half opened with classic kids TV character Captain Kangaroo and former computer company Compaq before reaching that game’s most difficult wagering question:

• Martin is the first name of the title doctor in which Sinclair Lewis novel? The title is both Martin’s last name and a homophone of the name of the best-selling American hard rock band of all time.

That novel, Arrowsmith, was named by 19% of Saturday’s teams. The final question regarded filmmaker Jennifer Lee’s historic feat of being the first woman ever to direct a billion-dollar film; a pair of teams named that film, Frozen, before a multiple-choice section for bonus points. Perfect third rounds were played by Slightly Agitated (Springfield Manor) and Sugarloafers (Belles’).

FOURTH ROUND:

Weekend 6-4-2 questions on the moose and Mississippi had six-point boosts earned by eight and nine teams, respectively. The fourth round contained Friday’s toughest wagering opportunity, as an A+B=C question saw 29% of teams get it exactly right. Saturday’s hardest wagering question came on a trip to the magazine rack:

• Which former print sports magazine introduced its Body Issue in 2009, featuring many top-name athletes in artistic nude photography?

Just over one-third of the field got points for ESPN the Magazine, while two teams earned bonus points for guessing that the most recent print Body Issue featured a photoshoot with the Philadelphia Eagles offensive line. Other topics in this round over the weekend included Axe body spray, English food blood pudding, and Teddy Roosevelt’s 1912 Bull Moose or Progressive Party. The lone perfect score in this round was reached by Catoctin Clueless (Springfield Manor). With just the final question to go, the top of the leaderboard looked like this:

• Catoctin Clueless (Springfield Manor): 156
• Lone Strangers (Mason Social): 155
• Beer Pressure (Doc Waters): 154
• Little Brains, Big Egos (Springfield Manor): 153
• Your Mother Should Know (Belles’): 152

FRIDAY’S FINAL QUESTION (46.6% success rate):

• Located in the Western Hemisphere, what is the world’s largest city (by population) that is named for a person?

SATURDAY’S FINAL QUESTION (80.8% success rate):

• In 1986, 19 different advertisers, including Coke and Kodak, spent over $66 million total for the rights to use images of which American landmark in their ads that year?

Almost half of Friday’s teams were correct with answers of Sao Paulo, Brazil; four-fifths of Saturday’s field named the Statue of Liberty. Once again, no Perfect 21 honors were earned since no team correctly answered all 21 wagering questions. Final standings were led by these teams:

• Little Brains, Big Egos (Springfield Manor): 165
• Your Mother Should Know (Belles’): 161
• Lone Strangers (Mason Social): 161
• Alcoholics Unanimous (Belles’): 160
• Mean Girls (Mason Social): 160
• Beer Pressure (Doc Waters): 160
• Biscuit Snatchers (Belles’): 157
• Murph’s Masters (Belles’): 157
• Meridian Misfits (Mason Social): 157
• Dr. Badger, DDS (Doc Waters): 157

Honorable mention goes out to Shady Deductions (Springfield Manor), which played over the limit with more than seven team members and scored 163 points in the process.

WEEKEND WINNERS:

Springfield Manor Winery in Thurmont, MD: Little Brains, Big Egos  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: The City of Springfield (The Simpsons))

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

Dragon Distillery in Frederick, MD: Whatever Comes to Mind  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles)

Doc Waters Cidery in Germantown. MD: Beer Pressure  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Channing Tatum)

Flying Ace Farm in Lovettsville, VA: Shark Fin Pizza  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Nacho Libre)

South Mountain Creamery in Frederick, MD: Villa People  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Folk Music (audio))

Belles’ Sports Bar in Frederick, MD: Your Mother Should Know  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia)

Pretzel and Pizza Creations in Hagerstown, MD: Jar Jar Thinks  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Back to the Future Part II)

Mason Social in Alexandria, VA: Lone Strangers  (NEXT WEEK’S FIRST CATEGORY: Scientific Units of Measurement)