Trivia Recap: 9/7

The Players: Hannah (English teacher and aspiring author), Mary (English teacher and aspiring editor), Landon (English teacher and aspiring NBA star), Ben (not a mechanic and not an aspiring cartographer... even though he's really good at maps), Darren (math professor and aspiring Pour House Trivia Champion of the Galaxy), Brock (marketing/design expert and aspiring Knower of all Things Marvel), and Danielle (bartender and aspiring #1 Fan of Mr. G's Ice Cream)

(We forgot to take a picture last week, so this week Ben took extras!)

Opening Category: Dave Matthews Band (audio clue)

Hint of the Day: Snake

(I drew this snake.)

Round One:

Because Danielle saved the day last week in the final round, we let her choose the opening category. She of course knew all the answers... as did Brock! It was a no-brainer and we easily earned nine points plus a two-point bonus. Woohoo! The second category was our bonus category and it was a fun one: Triple 50/50: Children's Character or Wine Brand. Seeing as I drink wine on the regular and my mother was a children's librarian, this was relatively simplistic. Brand Name Hodgepodge had us determining what the RC stands for in RC Cola (Royal Crown -- thank you, Brock!) and Name That Actor earned us the points, but not the two-point bonus. Want to know why? Because Danielle didn't tell us the answer. Ben immediately knew that Kevin Costner was the actor who appeared in movies about baseball, golf, and cross country -- and he was able to name the movies as well... except for the cross country one... which was the bonus. And then Danielle, standing behind the bar, looked over at us after the fact and was like, "You got that, right?" And we were like, "Not the bonus." And she made a face. And then I believe it was Ben who said, "Did you know it?" And she was all like, "I mean, yeah," with a shrug. So that was a bummer for us. And then International Celebrities was fine (Oscar de la Renta and Oscar de la Hoya -- thank you, Ben!) and we got those bonus points.

Round Two:

This week's audio clue was One More Trip to the Beach. I was slightly worried that there would be a song by The Beach Boys OR Jan and Dean -- or both! -- and we wouldn't be able to tell them apart because they sound exactly the same. However, the songs were about the beach and the answers were Counting Crows, Blake Shelton, and Lana del Rey. Danielle came to the rescue again with this last artist. I had suggested Billie Eilish, but Danielle knew the correct response and it worked in our favor! Yay, Danielle, for being hip with the modern music world! This next clue was kind of funny because I was giving Ben a hard time about how he rarely draws maps anymore (I love his maps!) and Mary was assisting in stressing the great loss we suffered as a result of his lackluster map sketches, and so he started drawing a map that depicted the country's rivers because the category was U.S. Rivers. I was thinking the answer might be the Missouri River, but then Ben said, "Nah... I wanna say it's the Snake River," and I was like, "Snake is the clue of the day!" And it was right!

(This piece is titled U.S. Rivers, by Ben)

Here's another really great thing that happened during the second round: When we originally got the answer sheet with the categories filled in ahead of time, Landon saw that NFL Not-So-Memorable Moments was among the selection. He said, "I have a feeling it's going to be Jim Marshall. He ran the wrong way on the field in 1964 and I just have a feeling..." So I wrote it down on our sheet off to the side and lo and behold... that answer was there when the clue was given! And the answer was indeed Jim Marshall! In addition to all that, Landon also knew that he was playing against the 49ers at the time it happened, so that earned us another two-point bonus. Go, Landon! Sadly, Landon was not quite as useful in the next category, What Do I Measure?, even though he used to teach about the tool that measured wind. It is not an endometer, in case you were wondering. Mary knew the tagline for Gossip Girl, though, which came in handy for the next question and she knew the network it aired on: the CW. That got us two more bonus points! Yay, Mary!

Bonus Sheet:

Spoiler Alert: We won for the second week in a row last night, but if we hadn't, I'd be emailing Denny Grizzle today to complain about the half-time sheet. The top half had us identifying celebrities with something in common (they all had Presidential last names), but the bottom required us to come up with an answer the included part of the human body in its answer. For example, "A 1972 thriller film starring Burt Reynolds, Jon Voight, and Ronny Cox." Ben knew it was Deliverance, even though he wouldn't refer to the genre as a thriller, but he was originally stumped because he didn't think of Deliverance including a component of the human body. Except human bodies have livers, so it worked. Anyway... What would you come up with for the following clue? "A term used to describe someone who is arrogant, presumptive, or cocky." We went with smart ass, even though we thought the answer might be heel. Can it not be argued, however, that other possible responses are asshole, butthole, d*ck, or f*ckhead, just to name a few? Want to know what the answer was? Cheeky. Cheeky. I'm still annoyed about this because the definition of cheeky is as follows: impudent or irreverent, typically in an endearing or amusing way. This doesn't, in my opinion (or anyone else's opinion on The Educated Friends) fit the bill. But whatever.

Round Three:

Alter Egos was tricky, and even though Darren thought the answer to the second name, Don Diego de la Vega, was Zorro, and even though I agreed with Darren, Mary and Ben were convinced the answer was Don Quixote and they were wrong. So we didn't get those points. Military Matters was easy enough because tanks weigh a lot, Fruity Titles was fun because it referenced a Dr. Seuss book and Darren got it right away (And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street), Mathematics was OBVIOUSLY going to be gotten by Darren because he is a mathematical genius, and Presidential Elections was fine because Ben knows all of his Presidents, easily.

6-4-2:

We got this for four points. I forget the clues, but the answer was Trinidad and Tobago.

Round Four:

NASA Stuff was another one that Landon would have known last year if we'd had him on our team while he was teaching science, but he'd forgotten the answer because he's getting old and his memory is going. Arts and Crafts was fun because arts and crafts are always fun! Three Clues / One Celebrity could have been gotten by Darren with a two-point bonus, but he wasn't 100% confident that the answer was Lucille Ball. It was, though! It was Lucille Ball! And Darren knew that she had connections to the Three Stooges and Star Trek! That Darren is such a wealth of information! Tennis Time was up next, and with their powers combined, Ben and Landon figured this out. Then we got into a conversation about different playing courts (grass, clay, and hard) because I am reading Carrie Soto is Back! by Taylor Jenkins Reid and it is very heavy on the tennis terminology. And you will never believe this, but I, Hannah, knew the answer to a movie question! The category was Films of the 1990s and it was our bonus. Phil would have never allowed such a thing because it was the fifth category in the round and he doesn't like it when we make the fifth category our bonus category, but it worked in our favor last night. We needed to name Matt Damon's three biggest films in the '90s. Everyone knew Good Will Hunting and I think it was Danielle who came up with Saving Private Ryan (which everyone them kicked themselves for not immediately knowing), but I was the one who said The Talented Mr. Ripley. I remember watching that movie and being completely repulsed by Matt Damon. I have since grown to really like and respect Matt Damon -- his mother is in education and so he does a lot for public education as a result, plus he's a good actor -- but he used to gross me out so much that I'd want to take a shower after looking at him. Legit. And it's all because of his role in The Talented Mr. Ripley, which he played very well.

Final Round:

Going into the final round, we were ahead by plenty and therefore only wagered one point. Brock wanted us to wager no points because he thought it had never been done before, but it had been done before and we needed to explain this to Brock several times before he believed us. Ben was super excited to only wager one point, though, and marched right up to Adam to deliver the news. He tried to march up and share the news with Adam before Adam was ready for wagers, and then Ben stuck his finger in the air in a sort of one-fingered fist bump ☝️ to announce to the other teams that we were only wagering one point. The clue was something about how this restaurant used to have the name of Top Hat, but then changed it to a speed-of-sound-related name, and the answer was Sonic and Darren and I both wrote it down at the same time and we won and next week's opening category is an REM audio clue because REM is Darren's favorite band. And that's a wrap for this week.