Boston quiz recap: Monday, April 1

 

The Beatles showed up at last night's Boston Big Quiz Thing, including John Lennon and George Harrison. Jimi Hendrix was sitting in on guitar, with Justin Bieber on triangle. An eccentric old billionaire was there, and he gave each person in attendance of burlap sack filled with gold coins. Then we all had spontaneous orgasms and discovered the meaning of universe. Also, someone brought some really delicious crème brûlée.

Now that we've got the April Fool's shenanigans out of the way (I've never been a big adherent to this holiday), let's talk about what really happened at Oberon last night, a BQT for the ages that wasn't so far removed from the scenario sketched out above. A packed house (but what else is new?) was in attendance for our second Boston show in less than a month, featuring the world's greatest multimedia trivia, with the $200 grand prize, plus passes to Oberon's Donkey Show and one of my personal favorite Harvard Square eateries, Tory Row (try the veggie burger, fellow meat-eater). Plus, free admission to the area's second-best quiz event of April, BAPHL 7.

Not just puzzle hunters—a league of puzzle hunters!

And we witnessed the return of one of my favorite video puzzles, "Public Zoo" (yeah, asking you to identify the streets of Lagos, Nigeria, was pretty devilish on my part), and a successful new audio round, "Deutsch/Nicht Deutsch" (actual German knowledge turned out to come more in handy than I'd anticipated, though being able to distinguish Patsy Cline from Patti Page was more useful).

But the best thing about last night was you—an especially enthusiastic crowd welcoming me back from my one-show hiatus (more props to Mr. Wes Hazard, holding down the fort without me in March, and teasing the audience by refusing to tell his prostate-exam story). A night rife with fun-tastic Smart-Ass Points, including…

—Justin Timberlake's new single is, naturally, "Dick in a Box."
—One of the two non–Naomi Campbell supermodel judges on The Face is Larry David. (Why did that solicit groans? Am I missing something?)
—"In the Street" by Big Star was used as the theme song for Sesame Street.
—According to a recent Us Weekly article: “Farting is a form of dancing that involves gyrating and shaking one’s bottom in a suggestive manner." 
—The company that makes Peeps is called "Just Diabetes."
—Legendary thief Willie Sutton claimed he robbed banks because "the rent is too damn high." (Delighted to learn this dude's fame has spread beyond NYC.)

That last one earned a prize for best Smart-Ass Point of the night (one of Wes's innovations), some delicious, delicious cookies (sorry, no crème brûlée).

When it all came down, we ended up with a lot of tie scores, necessitating a runoff for third place in the buzzertastic Three-Way Finale. And the upper echelons were devoid of the usual teams of brainiacs—returning champs the Monstrous Humanoids were at low strength, no Quips team in attendance, Richard Griffiths Kicks Ass! made it only to fifth place. The runoff pitted relative newcomers Demonic Stolen Cakes against perennial not-quite-finalists Ice Cream Antisocial. Some quick knowledge about epicanthic folds elevated DSC into the finale proper, alongside BAPHL Is April 27! (sometime winners with a timely self-promotional name) and more semi-newcomers, Trebekistan. Various parrying and thrusting ensued, with the latter winning on a question about KFC, of all places. Today tastes so good.

The standings.
1. Trebekistan: That would be an interesting country…

2. Demonic Stolen Cakes
3. BAPHL Is April 27!: Yes, it is.
4. Ice Cream Antisocial
5. Richard Griffiths Kicks Ass!
6. The Little Pig from the Ocean/We Have Glitter Down There (nice showing for the Oberon staff team) (tie)
8. Kevin Ware and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Broken Leg/We Have Noking, Buttcaesar! (tie)
10. 45

NEXT: Alas, we're skipping May at Oberon—the only available date is Memorial Day, and eff that, we're drinking lemonade and eating veggie dogs. But dates are set for the summer: June 17, July 22, and August 19; always free, always awesome. Plus, we're feverishly booking private events for the summer, and our TV show (yes!) premieres July 13. Keep up on the Facespace and the Twittbeast, why dontcha.