Trivia Recap: 2/29 - Leap Day Edition

Players: Mary, Hannah, Ben, Darren, Marc

Hint of the Day: USC Trojan

Welcome back, trivia blog fan!  My experiment with AI last week was fun and all, but it didn’t generate the buzz that we were hoping for.  Even Hannah’s begging and pleading for attention didn’t seem to get much feedback from you readers (including the “Educated Moms” as I have started calling them), so tonight I will try a different approach.  For reasons that I will let her write about, Hannah was cranky tonight and she plans to write some angry posts that will go viral because “Everyone likes it when you criticize people,” so tonight the kid gloves are off and I’m going to unleash on the world.  Starting with the person who recently told me they are called ‘kid gloves’ because they are made from the hide of baby goats and not because you are treating someone with the care you would treat a child.  That person gave me nightmares, dammit.

Adam was not hosting again tonight – we believe his wife may have had her baby – but it also wasn’t the way-too-fast host Michael from last week.  Instead it was Andrew, who Mary remembered hosting in a previous week and she was not happy about it because she thought he was waaaaayyy too uptight.  He actually added a lot more breaks but was pretty strict about the rules and definitely over-explained things.  I thought last week’s host was worse, but others thought this week’s was and we all agreed that we missed Adam.  Hannah also had a whole theory about how Michaels are always better than Andrews, although Michael Jackson may not have been better than Andrew Johnson.

As you might recall, we won last week!  And the final question was about Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, so we chose that movie as our opening category for this week.  Only it turns out that we were not unique among Pour House teams, as another location’s winner chose ‘Pee Wee Herman’.  We were a little confused when the opening question was very explicitly about the TV show Pee Wee’s Playhouse and not the movie, which several of us had rewatched to prepare.  We were probably willing to just eat the question but the Street Sharks complained and it turns out that our host had just read the wrong question.  The correct question was “In addition to a small role as a reporter, this future SNL star co-wrote Pee Wee's Big Adventure.”  We had prepared for that exact question and easily knew it was Phil Hartman.

The rest of the first round went well, mostly because it was pretty easy.  We knew that OBX is short for Outer Banks, which one was the third Lord of the Rings film, that Gordie Howe scored a lot, and which Jane Austen novel features Mr. Darcy.  The only mistake we made was that Marc got DMX and Ja Rule mixed up like a fool (not that I know who either of those people are).  The round ended by asking who played Brenda Walsh on Beverly Hills 90210 and what her first TV role was.  Hannah clearly doesn’t pay attention to the opening credits because she thought the answer was “Shannon Dougherty.”  Yeesh.

In a blog where we are doing lots of criticizing, it seems fitting to feature Shando.

As always, we chose the audio clue for our bonus in round two, which featured three bands singing about Mexico.  I recognized James Taylor because I’m old and Mary recognized Toby Keith because she knows all that hick music.  We thought ZZ Top was the Allman Brothers which does make us all seem like a bunch of doofuses, but we got our wagering points.  Mostly it made me continue to try to figure out if I can get to Mexico on vacation at some point before my sabbatical ends.   The next question asked us what college Mark McGwire went to which we figured out was University of Southern California because of the hint of the day.  The next question was about the Airplane movies and it included asking for which pair of brothers directed it.  We were sitting at a table next to a group of marines who were very loud and often said their answers so they could be heard, which might have been more of an issue except that…well….they weren’t the brightest group.  And they were sure that the Coen Brothers directed Airplane, which would surely have been a very different movie.  And don’t call me Shirley.

We all knew about Isaac Newton’s third law of motion and that King Gillette was the founder of the company that invented the first disposable razor.  Marc even knew that Gillette Stadium is in Foxboro, because he’s the kind of lunkhead that knows that stuff.  You know, this whole thing where I am supposed to be criticizing everyone feels really stilted and isn’t a lot of fun.  Do you think I’ve created enough controversy to go viral, Hannah? 

As I said, Hannah was in a cranky mood because of a bad experience she had with a medical professional earlier today.  You can tell she was upset by reading her marginalia on the score sheet.  Although in another corner she wrote “Converse -> Hair” and I have no idea what that means.

No, not the part about fish.  That’s a story that very much amused Hannah but I have now heard her tell it seventeen times in 24 hours so you will have to ask her yourself.

The halftime sheet was pretty straightforward.  On the bottom we had to fill in the numbers that had been removed from certain book titles like _____ Years a Slave, Fahrenheit ____,  and ____ Little Pieces.  On the top half we had to recognize various celebrities whose initials are R.G.  Most were pretty straightforward like Ricky Gervais and Ruth Ginsburg, but a couple were tricky and we did not recognize Robin Givens even though I watched a lot of Head of the Class in my youth, and I still don’t know who the last guy is even after hearing the answer. But we were in first place after halftime, even if only by one point.

The third round was, as Ben put it, “Golden.”  Ben seemed to be in a particularly good mood tonight, at least up until the point when we pointed it out and said he is more fun when he is in a good mood to which he asked, “Isn’t everyone?”  Anyways, it was a good round.  It did take us all three clues to figure out they were talking about Auburn University, partly because even though I just read a book about the history of American Higher Education I could not name the first land grant university in the south.  (Even reading about it now I am not sure they are right, but no need to fight about that.)  We knew that the largest earthquake was in Chile and that Chile has five letters.  We also knew that Nancy Reagan started the ‘Just Say No’ campaign, as well as which two directors have directed Tom Hanks the most. 

The world don’t move to the beat of just one drum, but Just Say No.

The 6-4-2 question started with the hint that it was a basketball team that shared its name with a male ballet dancer.  Ben really wanted to put ‘Knickerbocker’ and I was tempted to put ‘Maverick’ and Hannah probably couldn’t name an NBA team to save her life.  (Hannah here! I did suggest "The Bulls," fyi.) As soon as Marc suggested ‘Cavalier’ we all knew that was probably right, but decided to play it safe since we were in the lead.  The four point clue confirmed this answer, though.   

The fourth round started by asking us to complete the phrase “To Err is Human, to forgive ______” and I correctly thought it was “Divine” but was surprised that nobody else knew that saying even though Mary somehow knew it was by Alexander Pope.  She also immediately knew the name of the musical solo act who sang that song ‘Fireflies’ even though we did not know who duetted on their other big song – Ben had me put K€$ha, which I did but it turned out to be wrong. 

Another question asked which animated tv show had the characters drinking Alamo Beer and we just assumed it had to be King of the Hill and we were right, which is good because we had a lot of points riding on it.  We also correctly identified three things with the word ‘Lonely’ in their title.  (Lonely Island, Only the Lonely, and Lonely Planet)  Going into the final question the scores worked out so that we could wager four and guarantee ourselves a victory if we got it right and no worse than third if we got it wrong, so that’s what we did even though the category was Board Games, which we felt pretty good about even though Hannah has made it very clear that she hates Scrabble.  Luckily, the question was not about Scrabble but asked what the minimum number of questions you would need to answer correctly to win Trivial Pursuit is.  Hannah is planning to play Trivial Pursuit at her birthday party next month, and coincidentally we knew that the answer was seven.  So we won for the second week in a row!  And for next week we chose Beverly Hills 90210 as our first round question and I will have to pretend like I don’t know as much about it as I do if I want to look respectable. Hopefully by then Hannah will have calmed down although she keeps sending me angry venting texts hours later, so I’m not going to hold my breath.  I will close tonight with a few AI generated knock knock jokes about the highlights of our evening. 

Knock, knock.

Who's there?

Pee Wee.

Pee Wee who?

Pee Wee Herman, hoping this joke doesn't end up in the playhouse's secret word jar!

Knock, knock.

Who’s there?

Mediocre.

Mediocre who?

Mediocre doctor, reporting for duty! You won’t feel better, but hey, at least you'll get some subpar bedside manner!

Knock, knock.

Who's there?

Brenda.

Brenda who?

Brenda Walsh! Oops, wrong character, but hey, at least it's still 9021-oh so funny!

Knock, knock.

Who's there?

Eggplant.

Eggplant who?

Eggplant wants to know if the uptight trivia host will crack a smile or if they're too busy checking their rulebook for vegetable-related infractions!