The Night Cam comes to Revolution Hall Trivia

It’s Monday night, and my Street Academy trivia team (myself, professor Jeremy and chem major Alexis) show up at Revolution Hall to win some more prizes.  At the same time, the Times Union’s Night Cam people showed up as well.  Apparently Rev Hall’s trivia crew was about to get the Times Union Night Cam treatment.

In the past three weeks since the trivia duo of Mark and Anthony took over the Wednesday night Brown’s Brewing trivia and relocated it next door to Revolution Hall (and moved the game to Monday nights), Street Academy has taken home its share of free tickets, free pint glasses, free drinks, and free other stuff.  But with the Times Union’s video cameras nearby, we had extra pressure on us.

The first batch of questions were on 1980’s fighting movies, a category that was chosen as a reward to the team with the fewest numer of cumulative points in the prior week.  Oh great, I thought.  I’ve probably seen two fighting movies in the 1980’s, and they both starred Sylvester Stallone.

Actually, we didn’t do THAT bad in the round, having nailed the three doctrines of Cobra Kai in the Karate Kid movie (there is no pain, there is no fear, there is no defeat), and who was the professional wrestler who fought Rocky in Rocky III (Hulk Hogan, but I put down “Thunderlips,” which got us points as well).  But we forgot why Mr. Miagyi first visited Daniel’s house in Karate Kid 1 (to fix the sink), and the Night Cam filmed other teams picking up the win.

By the second round, “Disney Princesses,” we had a good run, and the Night Cam (along with Times Union blogger Kristi Gustafson) came over to watch us and see how we scored.  In this round, Alexis really shined.  Among the questions she knew were the name of Princess Jasmine’s tiger in Aladdin (Rajah), and what kind of animal Maid Marian was in the Robin Hood cartoon (a fox – she said vixen, which again was an acceptable answer).  I had the correct answer for the proper name for Sleeping Beauty (Princess Aurora), at which time Kristi Gustafson lowered a boom mike in my face and asked me how I knew that.  I mentioned that I saw the Disney film as a child and remembered.

“How do you remember all that stuff?” she asked me.

I gave my standard snarky answer about having a USB port in my neck and having downloaded tons of info from my computer directly into my brain.  In reality, if you’re a fan of Disney films – especially those involving the classic full-length animated movies, it’s not that hard a question.

We didn’t take the round – we wrote down the wrong answer on what army Mulan fought against (Alexis said the Huns, I bungled it by changing the answer to the Mongols – apparently Mongols are Huns, but not all Huns were Mongols, so the mistake was on me).

After three rounds, Night Cam covered up its lens and moved on to other things.  We were two points behind the leading team.

But with Night Cam gone, Street Academy started tearing off answers left and right.

The three forms of rocks – Jeremy hit that one (igneous, sedementary, and metamorphic).

The type of android R2-D2 was – I got that one (astromech droid).

500 million years ago, the Earth was in what prehistoric period – give a point to Alexis (Cambrian period).

We also went nine-for-ten in famous quotations, and did quite well in the music round. After the final round, which were ten questions on movie robots, Street Academy was not only tied for first place in overall points, we were also tied for the final round.  The host asked for a team representative from each of the tied teams for a single tiebreaker question.

First was a tiebreaker to win the final round.

“What actor played C-3PO in all six Star Wars movies?”

“Anthony Daniels!” I shouted out.  Round 6 won by Street Academy.

Then came the overall tiebreaker for the night.  I stayed at the stage, while another team representative joined me at the point.

Tiebreaker question was on 80’s fighting movies.  Oh great.  May as well give up now.

“When the film Bloodsport was released, Hong Kong was under control by what foreign power?”

Or maybe not.

“England!” I called out, a micro-second ahead of my tiebreaker adversary.

Street Academy wins the overall night, the second week in a row.  Jeremy, Alexis and I each earned River Rats tickets for our efforts.

Kinda wish the Night Cam was still there to see us celebrate.  Oh well… maybe next time.