The results of Trivia Bowl X

A decade of competitive team trivia championships.

Seven teams have won nine of those championships.

Now it’s time to see if any of those teams will win again – or if someone else will claim the championship of useless knowledge and minutiae.

Yep.  Trivia Bowl X.  Thirty-four teams at the ready.  Legacy squads.  Local tournament winners.  Past champions.

Wolf’s 1-11 is packed to the rafters.  This is going to be a great game.  And Jeremy, Katie and I are ready to represent as the Street Academy team.

Let’s play.  And for those of you who want to play at home, here are the questions.  Remember, you’re allowed to skip two times, and you can use your double-play option to write down two answers for any one question.  Ready?  Let’s go.

• FIRST QUARTER
• (2 pts) What was the first digit in the age of Albert Einstein when he died?
• (4 pts) What nickname is given to a fictional serial killer known as “The Lakeshore Stranger”?
• (6 pts) As seen on the red carpet before the Grammys, how old is Madonna’s son David?
• (8 pts – double bonus question) What band originally gave us the song found in what car company’s commercials called “Stacey’s Mom”?
• (10 pts) Since the category debuted in 2003, the best Realty-Competition Program Emmy Award has gone to “The Amazing Race” ten times, “Top Chef” one time, and to what other show in 2013?

Katie correctly formulated that Albert Einstein was in his 70’s when he died.  We got that.  Only a couple of teams knew that Chucky the Doll was the Lakeshore Strangler; we skipped it.  We had the wrong Madonna son, we were thinking of the kid who did those alcohol-holding Instagram pictures and said 16; apparently David is 8 years old.  We knew Fountains of Wayne was the band, but thought the car company was Nissan.  It was actually Cadillac.  And we correctly nailed “The Voice” as the TV show that won the reality show Emmy Award.  14 points after one round.

But that first category was so tough, the leading scorer after five questions was a squad called Deep Penetration in the Backfield.  Yeah, I know it’s a double-entendre team nickname.  But they only had 22 points out of a possible 38, so their penetration was superficial at best.

No time to waste.  Here’s the second quarter of questions.

• SECOND QUARTER
• (2 pts) at 47 years old, Alan Shepard was the oldest man to do what?
• (4 pts) What quarterback took the Denver Broncos to their first Super Bowl?
• (6 pts) Fought for 11 years in the 18th century, the Battle of Jenkins’ Ear was a war between Great Britain and what country?
• (8 pts – double bonus) What talk show host and what comic actor, early in their careers, provided the voices of the “Ambiguously Gay Duo” on Saturday Night Live?
• (10 pts) With albums like “First Base,” “Stealin’ Home” and “Grand Slam”, what 1970’s British rock band shared its name with a baseball legend?

Again… another tough round, but this time we were able to soldier through.  We knew that Alan Shepard was one of the oldest astronauts to walk on the moon; we skipped the Broncos question because we KNEW it wasn’t John Elway (it was some guy named Craig Morton).  The only thing I remembered about the Battle of Jenkins’ Ear was that it was a plotline from an old Partridge Family episode, we did not remember that it was a war fought between England and Spain.

But then things turned around.  I remembered that not only were the “Ambiguously Gay Duo” cartoons first aired on The Dana Carvey Show prior to their appearances on Saturday Night Live, I also knew that Ace and Gary were played by Stephen Colbert and Steve Carrell.  And as for that ten-point question…

Come on, this is straight K-Chuck Radio material.

At halftime, more than half the squads were below zero.  In fact, the team with the lowest score – about 44 below zero – was the most recent Summer Bowl champion team, Send It In Jerome.  They brought the Summer Bowl trophy with them to the tournament and put that trophy on the table. By halftime, that trophy was sitting on the floor UNDERNEATH the table.  Oops.

And, in fact, at halftime, we had 36 points – and, believe it or not… the lead.  That’s right, Jeremy Katie and I went from “middle of the pack” to “we’re now leading the pack.”

Third quarter.  Ready? Set?  Let’s go.

• THIRD QUARTER
• (2 pts) Airing for just the 2012-2013 season, what late night TV host was the creator of the sitcom “Guys With Kids”?
• (4 pts) What American musician gave us a 2013 album called “From Here To Now To You?”
• (6 pts) What National Hockey League team played in a building called the Olympia from the mid-1920’s until 1979?
• (8 pts – quadruple bonus question) In four of their last US concerts in 1966, the Beatles played in the ome baseball stadiums of what teams?
• (10 pts) What theme restaurant chain was founded in 1977 by Nolan Bushnell, the man who also invented the game “Pong”?

I should note that before the third quarter, the Street Academy team grew by two more members – Todd and April, two of Jeremy’s friends.  So now we’re in the lead and we’ve got reinforcements.

But the first two questions hurt us.   We thought that the sitcom creator was Jimmy Kimmel; it was Jimmy Fallon.  And despite Katie, J-Mac and their friends holding tickets to his upcoming local concert, none of us remembered that the performer was Jack Johnson.

But then we rebounded.  I knew that the Red Wings played at the Detroit Olympia.  Six points to us.  We sussed out that the Beatles definitely played at Shea Stadium and Candlestick Park – and by extension, they also played at Dodger Stadium.  We thought that they also played in Philadelphia; in fact, the other stadium that hosted the Beatles that year was Busch Stadium, home of the St. Louis Cardinals.  The 10-pointer, though, we nailed it – the guy who invented Pong also invented the Chuck E. Cheese restaurants.

Hmm… Two questions with the answer having some variation of the nickname Chuck.  This might be a sign.

And we’re in the lead and our lead is growing.

Fourth round.

• FOURTH QUARTER
• (4 pts) What birthday tradition was started in Germany in the 18th century?
• (6 pts) Based on a 1992 novel, what 2006 Clive Owen sci-fi film details a society grinding to extinction due to two decades of human infertility?
• (8 pts – triple bonus) What numbers are in the titles of three of the top ten highest-grossing films in the US in 2013?
• (10 pts) What is the only city to host back-to-back Super Bowls?

Last year, the fourth quarter killed us.  This time… we killed the fourth quarter.  Say it with me.  Candles on the cake.  Children of Men.  Iron Man 3.  Despicable Me 2.  Fast and Furious 6.  Miami.

And the final tally before the 20th and final question.   We have 114 points, a 24-point lead over the two “Side Bush” teams – well, one of them renamed themselves as “Plan B Is My Plan A” to avoid confusion.

The final category… U.S. Presidents.

Hmm…. The last time the final category at a Trivia Bowl was U.S. Presidents, we won the game and the bowl.  This might be a sign.

The problem is… there was really only one bet we could make.  With 30+ teams breathing down our collars, we could only bet enough points to lock out our closest competitors – so long as we got the final answer right.

Okay.  67 points on the bet.

Here’s the final question.

“After several elections that lasted a month or longer, who won the first U.S. Presidential election to be held in a single day?”

Oh no.

The five of us looked around the table at each other.

Okay.  We have to figure this out.  We took an educated guess.  There had to be something that would have bound the nation together to allow election results to arrive quickly.  Thus… maybe the telegraph.  But the telegraph would have to be strung to the west.  That might take a while.  And in the end, after much discussion, we wrote down Abraham Lincoln as the first president whose election was achieved on a single day.

Now we wait.  And my mind is jumping in 40 different directions.  We’re so close.  So close to that trophy.

And then the answers were read.  Several teams wrote down Martin Van Buren as the single-day-elected president.  A few teams went with Grover Cleveland, some other teams went with Abraham Lincoln.

And the answer – was Zachary Taylor.

NOBODY GOT THE ANSWER RIGHT.

Oh my God.  A murder question on Trivia Bowl Day.

So wait, we still have a chance to win this.  We had some points in reserve.  All we need to do is –

Wait.  In the back of my mind, I’m remembering.  This has happened before.

And then I checked my handwritten notes – I always keep notes on the game score and the questions and whatnot.  Stern Fans had 84 points.  They are not a team that bets it all on the final question.  In fact, they won Trivia Bowl IV by betting a safe bet and watching every other team get the answer wrong…

Wait… every other team got the answer wrong this time.

Which means… STERN FANS WINS TRIVIA BOWL X, and they become a two-time, two-time Trivia Bowl championship team!!

I immediately went over and congratulated Sim Morrell, the captain of the Stern Fans team, and congratulated his team for winning Trivia Bowl.  That’s what you do.  Sim had ice water in his veins; he bet a safe bet and hoped that the five teams above him and nearly 20 below him got the question wrong.

And for those of you who say, “Oh yeah, Stern Fans won with a weenie bet, that’s how they won it back in Trivia Bowl 4.  They didn’t get the answer right, they just survived when everybody else got it wrong.”

To which I say… “Hey, there were several teams ahead of Stern Fans.  And there were plenty of teams behind Stern Fans.  If any one of them got that answer correct… we’d be having a different conversation.  But nobody got it right.  Nobody.  And with that in mind, the strategy of the Stern Fans paid off in spades.”

So it happens.  And because of that, the winning team was Stern Fans.

So once again, congratulations to the Stern Fans on their victory.  Seven teams with ten championships, three of them as two-time champions.

We came close.  Damn close.  In the final tally, we finished in second place overall.

Much thanks to Kevin Baker and the Trivia Nights Live team for an excellent and challenging Trivia Bowl.  Thanks also to Wolf’s 1-11 for hosting the event, and congratulations to all teams who participated in the tournament.

And now we mark the calendar for Trivia Bowl XI in 2015.

Get ready.