Recap: A whole bunch of Smart-Asses

Hoo boy, what a show. Thirty teams filled the chichi halls of (Le) Poisson Rouge for a most excellent Big Quiz Thing this evening. I was particularly impressed with the plethora of Smart-Ass Points tonight, the oh-so-wrong but oh-so-funny answers. Examples:

Q: When it closed in 1987, this Broadway musical was titled Drood, but when it opened in 1985, it was called what?

A: Drood, Where's My Car?

Q: According to a typographically inclined article on Slate last week, you should never, ever put two BLANKs after a BLANK.
A: LOLs after an OMG

Q: In the book 1984, the Party’s slogans are War Is Peace, Freedom Is Slavery, and BLANK Is BLANK.
A: Rhythm Is a Dancer

Ha-ha, hee-hee. EDP, Claudia and I were really hustling up there, because we had a strict 9pm curfew to make room for the next show at LPR, and with 30 teams…as I said, hoo-boy. But I think we kept things under control, through the hyperlocal video round "NYC, Up Close and Personal"—I'm a little disturbed that nearly all of you recognized the brass balls of the Wall Street bull statue—and the "Questions & Answers" audio round. (Why all the moans when I announced the gimmick? What, you don't like "Do You Wanna Touch Me?" followed by "I Touch Myself"?)

And the buzzerlicious finale: In honor of Martin Luther King Day, we focused on a different kind of kings, the British monarchy. Returning champs Jefferson Davis Starship vs. perennial champs Fantastic Fournicators vs. Rachel Kramer Bussel in Your Hedgerow (a conglomeration of several regular quizzers, including sometime–Gerard Depardoucher RKB herself and members of Team! The Musical). It was quick and clean (9pm was approaching), and Matt of the Fournicators clinched it by knowing that two—no more, no less—of Henry VIII's wives had their heads chopped off. Yay!

Sorry, no time for a winning-team photo. Instead, enjoy this again:
The standings:

1. The Fantastic Fournicators: The winningest team in BQT history. (Nerds! Nerds! Nerds!…)
2. Jefferson Davis Starship
3. Rachel Kramer Bussel in Your Hedgerow
4. Birds of Ill Omen/Gerard Depardouche (tie): Damn, we had a lot of ties tonight…
6. Sugah Titz
7. Strippers for Stephen Hawking/Houston George Bush Incontinental Airport (tie)
9. Fat at Last, Fat at Last/Oh Noah, You Didn't (tie)

NEXT: We're returning to Drom—the much smaller Drom, so, uh, a lot of you better not come back—in two weeks, on January 31. Then we're off three weeks, and we return to Crash Mansion, on February 21—Presidents' Day—for a very special Hail to the Trivial Presidential Quiz Spectacular. More about that in this space anon.

Recap: Philly made us an offer we couldn't refuse

Well then: The Big Quiz Thing made it back to Philadelphia last night for our first ever Movie Trivia Spectacular, which seemed a dodgy proposition in the days leading up to it: snow, transportation complications, etc., etc. But we made it (or, more accurately, I—Quizmaster Noah—made it; sidekick EDP was unexpectedly detained, and I owe a tremendous thanks to my last-minute Philly-local assistants, Amanda and Jen from Sazz Vintage in Old City, source for my newest quizmaster jacket. Plug well earned, but completed). Philly wasn't nearly as walloped by the snowpocalypse as NYC was, so it was pretty smooth sailing once I reached the Brotherly Love region (doesn't sound right).

However I got there, it was great to be back at World Cafe Live, rapidly becoming one of my favorite venues, this time in the beautiful big room downstairs. Thanks to what I gather was a very important rescheduled Eagles games (I was told that some bar trivia nights around Philly were canceled to make way for it, which boggles my sports-averse mind—don't let jocks bully you around, nerds!), the crowd was on the light side—ten teams. But it was quality over quantity, especially considering that absolute avalanche of Smart-Ass Points last night:

The future Oscar winner who appeared as the baby in the christening scene in The Godfather? This guy:

Mabel Simmons is the full name of what contemporary film character? Him:

In The Wizard of Oz, the two-word message does the Wicked Witch of the West skywrites above the Emerald City? This:

As part of the run-backwards "Movies Go Kaboom!" video round, which film is this scene from?

Groundhog Day was the extremely clever answer.

Although it must be said, several of these teams hardly needed the Smart-Ass boost: As I discovered in my previous sojourns to PA, Philly trivia geeks are among the sharpest I've encountered in my career (perhaps we dodged a bullet when a promised team of party-crashers didn't make it to the NYC Clash of the Trivia Champions). Several teams were scraping the upper limits of scoreability at last night's quiz (one squad—Don't Call Me Shirley—missed only half a point in the 20-point Bipolar Movie Challenge round, failing to specify which Kill Bill was being juxtaposed with Gone with the Wind). I'm sorry I couldn't challenge them more vigorously, but hey, I gotta please all types.

But then, of course, is the Three-Way Finale. Such is the nature of the Big Quiz Thing that no matter how high a point total you rack up, it comes down to the bells (or—now in New York—the annoyingly loud buzzer system). After a quick runoff for third place, we were left with one representative apiece from Don't Call Me Shirley (Koob was the man's name; in the heat of competition, I missed the details of his explanation, but I like to pretend it's a reference to this), Ask and Tell (Michelle), and Ron Paul Stiltskin (Mike), live onstage. Heavy, heavy contention: the score was tied one-all, but Mike of RPS clinched it with this question (a favorite of mine):

What fast food chain was named for a character in the 1971 film The French Connection?

Isn't that interesting? My favorite kind of question: Somewhat figureoutable, fascinating to discover the answer whether you're correct or incorrect. Behold your winning team, seemingly happy in their cups:

Thanks to everyone who was there. We are most definitely hoping to come back early in 2011, perhaps for another movie quiz, maybe general knowledge, perchance an entirely new gimmick. Keep track like the kids do, with Twitter and Facebook, and buy a shovel, already.

Creepy, crawly, trivia-y

Thank you, gods of baseball, for letting the Yankees win on Sunday night. Oh, I don't particularly care which teams play in the World Series (could you guess, based on the rarity of sports questions at the BQT?), but I'm so, so glad there wasn't a game seven to conflict with last night's quiz. Although, I do know you all would've picked me over A-Rod. Of course.

Great fun last night—"Crawling with Real Live Insects!" was exciting, and creepy, and fairly easy, but I knew that would happen (although I'm still bummed that Crash Mansion's video system failed to reveal the lovely detail in my insect designs; check YouTube for the full picture). I came up with this game while riding the 1 train, as reported here. Inspiration is everywhere; truly we live in a trivial world.

Last night was brutal on the Smart-Ass Point front, though despite your curmudgeonly booing, I maintain that "Kool and the Gang" is a funny answer for "Coulrophobia refers to the very common fear of what very strange people?" I also think "Dan Aykroyd" is a clever response to "Who replaced John Belushi as the rotund brother in Blues Brothers 2000?"

But it didn't matter, because that team won the game anyway. Yes, the Fantastic Fournicators (this time with two women) returned to the top spot, edging out Jefferson Davis Starship, perennial fifth-placers who are so due for a victory (DJ GB—or "Gizz Bizz"—even protested JDS's near loss by refusing to play the traditional victory music postshow. You can't get more honest.)

The standings:

1. Fantastic Fournicators
2. Jefferson Davis Starship
3. Gerard Depardouche
4. Birds of Ill Omen
5. Betty Draper Thighs

And yes, the Saw question was poorly phrased. Apologies.

NEXT TIME: November 9, the return of "Three Degrees of Musical Separation," plus something called "The Geography Junk Bin." Wacky.

And don't forget: You can win free admission to the BQT throughout 2010! Refer us for your office holiday party. If we book the event, you win, plus I give you a hearty slap on the back, or a pleasing pat on the head, whichever you prefer.

The crowds! The heat!

It was appropriate that we began the video round, "More '80s Music-Video Mash-Ups," with the clip for "Hungry Like the Wolf" (juxtaposed with this song); it was filmed in the sweltering cities of Sri Lanka. And last night, Crash Mansion felt a little Sri Lanka–esque: very crowded and very steamy. And by steamy, I mean literally of an unpleasantly high temperature, not sexual (I've been doing the trivia thing long enough to know that element is rarely in the cards, despite last night's giveaway of this book).

But you were a large, happy, wonderful crowd, my friends; supportive of other teams' Smart-Ass Points, which I always like to see. Two delightfully tacky ones: Q: What's the very Irish name of the traditional wooden walking stick or cudgel, sure to be brandished aplenty at tomorrow’s parade? Someone said, "A bottle opener." Then of course, Q: In 1991, 3 Musketeers adopted its current shiny silver wrapper. What color was it before?, gave us: "Don't you know that all rappers are black?" Funny, but as EDP said, a little offensive, too. (But you can't have one without the other…)

"More '80s Music-Video Mash-Ups" was great, but I was particularly proud of the audio round, "It's Actually Rather Easy Being Green," in honor of St. Patrick's Day. I think I swerved a lot of you by forgoing musical clips (for the most part) and opting for "Green" entities in our culture of pop. Apologies to Strippers for Stephen Hawking for not including Natalie Green (from The Facts of Life), and yes, Alan Greenspan would have been a nice touch (no, that wasn't Alan Greenspan talking about Iraq; it was Rajiv Chandrasekaran, former Baghdad bureau chief for The Washington Post, and probably less than half the age of Greenspan; very interesting conversation here).

As for prizes…let me know how ROOMS a rock romance is, or the 92YTribeca comedy show, for that matter. We're planning (hoping?) to have ongoing relationships with both sets of marketing folks, bringing you a better prize experience.

And DJ GB was back! So wonderful to have her, too—the team is complete once again as we move boldly forward into our best year yet, I swear to fucking God!

Now, the standings. Lots of excitement last night…

1. Cash Cab for Cutie: First victory after many months of heated competition. Yes, yes, they had a lot of people; guess that rule has fallen by the wayside.
2. Sugah Titz: Only a half point away. I assume they will never forget that Mount Everest is on the border of China, not India.
3. Gerard Depardouche: A former dynasty, now perpetually a bridesmaid (if I may mix a metaphor)
4. Jefferson Davis Starship (augmented by returning door queen Sherry)
5. Fantastic Fournicators (a-HA!)

We're back on the 30th with "Soda Pop Haiku." Plenty more on this blog before then…