Recap: It's working!

Happy holidays, happy winter solstice, happy palindrome day, happy happy happy. The Hotter Newer Format of the Big Quiz Thing—featuring the big Three-Way Finale—is working, folks: Two shows down, and two shows in which one of the longtime regular teams that seldom scores a victory came out on top (Incontinental Congress last time, Sugah Titz this time). Apologies, Fantastic Fournicators and Gerard Depardouche, but you had a pretty sweet deal there for quite a while there.

Despite some borderline-tasteless jokes about Brittany Murphy, last night was a cozy, joy-filled Big Quiz Thing. We had a healthy number of Smart-Ass Points (Dame Judi Dench played Sherlock Holmes 14 times in the 1940s?!?), we made good use of the Not-So-Secret Secret Clue and its new audio sting on the question "In 1967, a comedic actor named Leo Gorcey was the only person who refused to allow a picture of himself to appear on what?"

And the video round: "Trivial Palindromes Semordnilap Laivirt." I loved this, and had a few audience compliments saying the same. As you might be aware, I love word games, so this is hardly unusual BQT terrain, and I had a lot of fun with it, even though I cribbed the palindromes themselves from another source. (Link to YouTube soon.) Thanks for the hearty laugh on "Lisa Bonet ate no basil." And audio-round action: Songs of 2008. The Jonas Brothers really are too easy to make fun of, you're right.

And the standings…

1. Sugah Titz (Rerun-dancing Jonathan claimed victory in the Three-Way Finale)
2. Gerard Depardouche/Sarah Palin's Death Panel (tie)
4. Fantastic Fournicators/Tattoos for the Elderly (tie)

NEXT TIME: We're back at (Le) Poisson Rouge! Yay! January 4, 7:30pm. "Rebus in Peace," plus "The Big Ending" for the audio round. My arm hairs are tingling. Happy New Year, all.