REPORT FOR APRIL 2019
We had 98 persons playing for this event with pretty much the usual 27 teams registered. Two teams were no-shows and interestingly, this happens nearly every event. I appreciate the nearly full-house coming as we all have fun. There was a new team, “Kant Handlers”, whom we welcome. For the first question- the 3rd worst movie of all time, 19 teams got it right as 3 years on either side of 1972. Thirteen teams got Basel as the Swiss city on a triple border with France and Germany. EVERY team knew the identity of Jeff Bezos- if Trump harasses someone, we learn their name, not the least of which his fame is due to supposedly being the richest person on the planet. Most knew New Spain for the early name of Mexico. About half got the 44-pound lobster question and many knew that the huge lobster statue was in Shediac, N.B. by a verbal question to the House. Only one-third knew Johnny Cash’s song (Folsom Prison Blues) origin, which was California. In sum, the round scored a typical 58% with The Ministry of Truth and Positive Vibrations tied for first place with 9/10.
Round two was the best of the night with a 69% level of success. Boom Down Go Fudd delivered the only perfect round of the night and the same two teams that were in first place after round 1 maintained their position with another pair of 9s. Half the teams knew of Hermann Goering’s addiction. Twenty-one teams got the name “Popsicle” for the Mac Campus’ genetic discovery. Twelve teams knew that Catherine Parr was married 4 times. However, only 8 teams knew the trajectory of the screwball- for a right-handed pitcher making the baseball swerve from left to right. A total of 19 teams knew the odd, first bicycle name as Penny Farthing. Astonishingly, EVERY team got the drink Mojito and the Red Velvet cake. I guess my never having consumed either of them contributed to my selecting them as questions. Finally, all but two teams got the strangely named Creedence Clearwater Revival music question.
Round three scored a decent 61%. One contribution to this good score was that 22 teams knew the name of Sherlock Holmes’ brother as Mycroft. Pretty impressive; other suggestions were somewhat similar with Marcellius, Montague, Myron, Myles, and the not so close, Percy. Well more than half the teams knew the young age of Howie Morenz when he unexpectedly died of a hockey-induced injury. Eleven teams knew what I thought was a moderately obscure history item as that of Berserkers being the name of the Norsemen who refused protection during battle. Impressive again! All but two teams knew that Saskatchewan was the province which introduced universal health care; chalk up one for Tommy Douglas! However, only two teams got the approximate time of the origin of “Three Blind Mice” as a round and these were Simple Minds and Trivia Trailblazers. Similarly, only two teams knew the origin of 2 of the 3 countries that claim “French Fries” as the name of that famous product and these were the eventual winners and second-place finishers, (We Know Stuff and The Cheap Dates). Most of the teams said the USA and France. Finally, quite a few teams knew the approximate era of “Boogie Woogie” (late 1930s). At this point in the evening, Positive Vibrations were now in sole possession of first place.
Round 4 was the weakest scoring round of the night with 46% and this was the opening that the Hotel de Ville team needed to squeeze into a first-place tie with Positive Vibrations. The Hotel squad also appreciated the fact that 150 countries of the world have a US military presence. Three others also got this question and one of these was the eventual second-place winner, The Cheap Dates. The other two were Trivia Trailblazers and newcomer, Millennial Menace. Only 5 teams figured out that the first effective can opener came along so many years after the introduction of the can itself (46 years after its origin); so much for invention adaptation. The teams were Don’t Think Twice, Crusader Rabbit, We Know Stuff, Broken Record and the eventual co-leaders for this round, Hotel de Ville. About 2/3s of the House knew that over half of the world’s population is between 0 and 24 years old. The “Motown Sound” music question was split about 50/50 between the correct Four Tops and the Temptations.
The 5th Round came in at 49% and we found that Positive Vibrations were still in the lead over We Know Stuff by a point. Only a few teams got that England defeated Canada in hockey in the 1936 Olympics. Most all knew the “Casey at the Bat” poem and every team knew the Roger Rabbit question. Six teams knew John Cazale as the actor who was in 5 out of his 5 movies that gained an Oscar for Best Picture; one team suggested Jim Belushi. What about John? Only two teams knew that Alex Rodriguez was the youngest player to hit 600 homeruns and these were Positive Vibrations and Don’t Think Twice. Twelve teams knew Al Hirt for the music question; other choices were Herb Alpert, Chet Baker, Billy Vaughn, Dissy Gikpy? (Dizzy Gillespe), Sergio, Bob Smith?, Chuck Mangione, Robert Douglas?, John Smith?, Rolpf?, and Robert Delgado.
Round 6 came in at 50% and only two teams got the start of the oldest brewery as the year 1040. These were Don’t Think Twice (1000) and the Idaho Spuds nearly nailed it at 1050. Eleven teams got the question about the largest city in the US that does not have a major sports team (Austin, Texas). Most teams knew Churchill and the year of his advancing the now famous term “iron curtain”. Over 20 teams knew Calgary as Canada’s 4th largest city (for population) and Kon-Tiki as the raft that was used to travel the 4300 miles to Polynesia from Peru. Most teams knew there were at least 200 years of Roman presence in the British Isles and the Idaho Spuds, Make Trivia Great Again, the Ministry, Wasted Synapses, and Ex Machina getting the right response very close to the actual 367 years. Finally, almost every team knew just how young Michael Jackson was when he recorded “Thriller” (22).
The last round had a score of 57% but the first question was addressing the actual, first assembly line for cars that took place in 1901. Almost all teams knew about Henry Ford’s success but that famous event was not realized until 1908. Eight teams knew about Jean Harlow’s early demise and cover of Life magazine in 1937. Samuel de Champlain dominated as the choice for the founder of Quebec City although Cartier got a few votes. All but 5 teams knew that 1989 was when the Berlin Wall came down; two teams suggested 1993 but this was such an iconic situation there was no leeway of time in the question. Finally, all but a few teams knew the music piece “Woodstock”. At the end of the night, We Know Stuff came out on top by 3 points with The Cheap Dates in second at 51 and Cashew, the Hotel team, the Ministry and Positive Vibrations were tied for third at 48 with Crusader Rabbit and Space Cadets came in at 45. A consistent feature of Trivia Night has been the average score around 55% and it was again 55%.
For those who like to see the numbers of events over time may be interested in these last 20 Trivia events. There is a surprisingly consistent run of evening scores including what I think contains the highest and lowest anomalous evening scores in our 9 years (67 and 46). The rest of them show the consistency of the percent correct for the evening. Even the average of the highest and lowest evenings is the same as the overall 20-event average.
53, 58, 56, 59, 56, 56 ,61, 67, 61, 56, 56, 56, 60, 57, 50, 54, 54, 46, 59, 55 = 56.5%
Some research unearths that the highest single round is 76% while the lowest single round is 37% and here again even those two extremes average 56.5%- odd but interesting (at least to me).
As is customary, I want to thank the excellent scoring of Angela Guadagno and Meaghan Osborne and of course our manager, Nicolas Zrihen and our finance manager Kim Stephenson. I look forward to seeing you all on May 8.
