Quiz recap: A farewell dance party

Woo hoo! Last night was a truly inspiring evening of live quiz delights in Cambridge, MA, as a packed house at Oberon took to dancing in the aisles during B-Cutie Katie's final night as my excellent stage sidekick. In case you were wondering, Katie is the real reason the Big Quiz Thing is in Boston in the first place; she moved there from NYC, she was my girlfriend (at the time), and I figured if I was making the trip all the time anyway, I might as well bring the show along. Boom—a couple years later, we're the city's favorite quiz experience, naturally. Katie's relocating to Chicago to find her future—and to head up the show's Chicago edition, hence her donning of my spangling jacket during Round 3 and reading some of the questions (practice makes perfect). Her absence will be acutely felt. (Got connections in Chicago? Hit us up on Facebook if you can suggest the perfect Windy City venue, and make sure to tell your friends once we get up and running, hopefully in the fall.)

Back in the proverbial day

So last night was a rare experience, as we presented a fresh batch of the BQT's all-time favorite video puzzle, the Bipolar Movie Challenge. Laffs all around, and lots of you folks very nearly aced it (How to Stuff a Wild Bikini was a good guess for Beach Blanket Bingo, BTW). The audio round was considerably more challenging, as State the Capital tested your knowledge of both well-known and semi-obscure pop music (yeah, I'm not crazy about Tom Waits either), and your knowledge of state capitals. I know, I know, you knew them all cold back in sixth grade, but such information fades over time. Along the way, we had Dictionary Sandwich, Classic Video Games, the Text Message Challenge, and a whole mess of Smart-Ass Points. My favorites: They thought the clip from Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards was from Eliot Spitzer: The Video Game; they identified Daniel Plainview's milkshake speech as coming from Kelis: The Movie; and they couldn't identify Tom Waits, they just wrote "NICKELBACK SUCKS!" Interestingly, all of those answers (and more funny ones) came from the same team, Prestige Worldwide, who racked up more Smart-Ass Points than anyone in a long while. Bra-vo.

Sadly, the finale was somewhat anticlimactic, as it featured BQT Boston's three longtime dominating squads—returning champs Richard Dawson Kicks Ass!!!, frequent winners Totally Quips of the Heart, and perennial runners-up the Monstrous Humanoids. It looked like a real battle at first, as both the Quips and the Humanoids buzzed in with wrong answers for "What NBC show shares its name with a nickname for Frank Sinatra?," but RDKA then rang in with the correct answer and never looked back, taking it in two straight questions.

Don't mind the thumb. The standings:

1. Richard Dawson Kicks Ass!!: I still prefer Bob Barker, though.
2. Totally Quips of the Heart: Good one.
3. The Monstrous Humanoids
4. Trivia and Relative Dorkiness in…Something (TARDIS)
5. Fro-Yo Ma/Liquor in the Rear (tie)
7. Roger and the Sterlings
8. Neepsters
9. The Necrophiliac Penguins
10. Space Jamiroquai

NEXT: We're back in July, at the end of the month, on the 30th, sans B-Cutie Katie, though. Then it's August 27. In the meantime, we're making it happen in Los Angeles, with our next show this Sunday, the 17th; please spread the gospel, my friends.