Trivia Recap: 9/21

The players (in order of arrival): Darren, Hannah, Alex, Mary, Landon, Brock, Alex, Ben

The hint of the day: A pocket

The opening category: Saved By The Bell (original series)

The sucker who gets to write the blog: Darren

The Educated Friends, with Danielle being Ben’s stunt double

Yes, it's me, Darren, here to write the trivia recap blog. The first of a new season at Pour House Trivia, so we wanted to make sure we got off on the right foot. Before I start, I will mention that last week Hannah referred to me as “a good father,” which really just meant that I was only willing to leave my teenage son abandoned at the rec park for 15 minutes after dark while I drank with my friends, showing that she sets the bar pretty low. In any event, I showed the blog to my son and said, “See, now you have to appreciate me because my trivia team lost due to me being a good dad!” He merely grunted because, again, he is a teenage boy.

As I said above, the opening category was the original series of Saved By The Bell, which should not be confused with the revival on Peacock which I have to say is really far smarter and funnier than it has any right to be and I wholeheartedly recommend it. Earlier in the week, Hannah and I were texting about this category and I thought that the answer would be “Good Morning Miss Bliss” while she thought it would be Miss Bliss herself, Hayley Mills, but neither of us was right and the question was about the name of the band that the gang formed for the battle of the bands. We knew the answer was Zack Attack because too much of my brain is filled with silly pop culture knowledge.

Ben’s brain is filled with something that is allegedly more useful which is why he knew that Mormi was the angel that visited Joseph Smith according to the Mormon religion and also knew what the referees are all called in football. One question asked us to name words that rhyme with ‘hinge’ and we knew that binge drinking is when you drink too much and that the surrey in Oklahoma has a fringe on top and that the medical device is called a syringe although to me that didn’t feel like a true rhyme, but Hannah shut me down and said, “I trust you to do the math, so you shouldn’t doubt me about rhymes!” I won’t make that mistake again.

As always, the second round started with an audio clue and, as almost always, we chose it as our bonus category. Luckily, we easily recognized “Brass in Pocket” by the Pretenders and “Hand in my Pocket” by Alanis Morisette and “Pocket Full of Sunshine” although I don’t remember who that is by. Dear readers, you have probably figured out that this is where the hint of the day came in as all of the songs shared a certain word in their title. There was a question about giving up a habit abruptly that everyone in the bar thought was about giving up broccoli because Adam mumbled but we still knew the answer was “cold turkey,” and we also knew that avocados get most of their nutrients in the fat. One question asked which US state is located completely in the Appalachian region, and we were on the fence between a couple but eventually we settled on West Virginia which was correct!

The first part of the halftime round had us identify photos of celebrities, five of whom were born in a given year and five of whom died in that same year (and then we had to name the year). The year was 1994 which I knew as I remember exactly where I was when I heard that Kurt Cobain died (in my friend Aaron’s dorm room and he then came up with a very tasteless joke which I do not want committed to the internet), not to mention Jackie Kennedy, John Candy, and Telly Savalas, but we did not recognize Jessica Tandy. I did not do as well on the celebrities who were born that year because I am old, but luckily we have others on the team who were able to recognize Ansel Elgort and tell the Fannings apart. I did recognize Harry Styles, though, so I’m not totally out of touch. The bottom half involved identifying movies with professions in the title from a few of the stars, such as The Bodyguard and Taxi Driver. I was really proud of myself for knowing Nurse Betty, but I also could have sworn that the 2005 Nicole Kidman/Sean Penn movie was called The Translator when it is not.

The Translator would have been a better title

After halftime I believe we were tied for first, although I am not entirely sure as I was having to debate points with Adam who had made mistakes on our halftime sheet. This was not the only time tonight that Adam made mistakes, as a number of teams went up to question his scorekeeping throughout the evening and all three times we did we were right. Everyone has off nights, though, and we love you anyways Adam! In fact, Hannah made you a new logo:

The third round started with a question about the Angela Bassett movie where she goes to Jamaica and we all knew that it was How Stella Got Her Groove Back but we could not pull who the author of the book was for the bonus, even though Hannah knows they had it when she worked at the bookstore. The next question asked about the quality that soap bubbles have that makes them change colors and whose name comes from the Greek God of Rainbows, and we really weren’t sure but at the last second Mary suggested “Irridescence” and we wrote it down because it seemed better than “Prismatic” and Mary was right! Hooray! There was a question about people with K in their initials that we almost had chosen as our bonus question (because K is in the top half of the letters according to Hannah even if it isn’t top ten, but she doesn’t know if it is in 11th, 12th, or 13th place) and we knew about KD Lang and about some Korean golfer but we had no idea that fifteen(!) separate movies have been made based on Phillip K Dick stories. I even read the list an hour ago after hearing the answer and I still don’t think I could name more than a half dozen. The round ended with us knowing things about Quiet Riot and Unsolved Mysteries, and it was a good round.

The first clue in the 6-4-2 round asked for the most recent US President to have facial hair. Ben thought it was probably William Howard Taft, and that we should be bold so we turned it in. After we did, Ben correctly predicted that the 4 point clue would be that he is the only person to be both president and chief justice. Way to go, Ben!

Just to be clear, this is Taft. Not Ben.

In the final round, we knew that Cal and Stanford had jumped ship to the ACC, but in a rare sports misstep Landon thought it was also Washington State so we lost our bonus points. The only wagering question we got wrong all night came in this round when we could not think of what the opposite of a dorsal fin was. I had guessed Versal but Hannah convinced us it was Basal but in fact it was Ventral. This is why we need Victoria to come back to our team! Help us, Skoogmaster Flex, you’re our only hope! Luckily, Mary knew about Lucy Hale’s album (and even who Lucy Hale is. I think she is in that show that’s not Big Little Lies but I’m not clear if she is related to Tony Hale) and we knew about Paris and Little Jack Horner, so we ended on a good note.

We were in first place going into the final question, but only by two points so we wagered it all. The question asked for the largest two cities that are on I-15. We knew Las Vegas, but we weren’t sure about the other one. We ended up putting Phoenix, which was not correct, and of all the cities that we thought were possibilities for the other one we did not even consider San Diego which is unfortunate because it was the right answer. Alas. This meant we ended the night in second place, which isn’t too shabby all things considered.

I think I have covered most of the highlights of the night, other than Mary’s Apple Cider Margarita which she said was pretty good, and Ben trash talking me about the Phillies-Braves series. I imagine there will be more of that (although hopefully I will be the talker rather than the talkee) in the coming weeks of the baseball postseason, so stay tuned for that fun. Until next time!