Trivia Bowl is this area’s ultimate bar trivia championship. Teams from all over the Capital District join for an afternoon of killer trivia action and entertainment. Answer as many questions correctly as possible, and you could win the coveted Trivia Bowl.
Back when I played, my Street Academy trivia team won the trophy twice. Trust me, there’s bragging rights and there’s gamesmanship, and there’s moments when you nail that perfect question.
And this time … I didn’t have to play.
As I’ve moved from trivia player to trivia host, I’m now ineligible to play in Trivia Bowl. But that doesn’t mean I can’t help out at the Saturday get-together. Which I did. I became one of the tournament’s official “proctors” – go around and check everybody’s tables to make sure no one is cheating or having problems with the trivia answer software.
Plus … I was even able to add a few questions of my own to the Trivia Bowl assemblage.
Such as this triple bonus question.
First … to understand what the triple bonus question is, it has one question and three correct answers. Each answer is worth eight points; so if you run the table you can get 24 points to the good.
And for this triple bonus question … one must first know this song.
Okay. Now for the triple bonus … name the only three individuals mentioned in this song that are still alive today.
Yeah, that’s a toughie. There were at least a few teams trying to sound out the lyrics on this one.
And honestly, only a few teams even nabbed two of the three correct answers. Some teams wrote “Paul McCartney” as a mondegreen of “Joe McCarthy,” but I digress.
It’s actually Chubby Checker, Bob Dylan, and Bernhard Goetz. Yeah, those are the last three people alive today that are mentioned by name in that song. Wow.
And at the end of the night, the trivia host used one of my suggested questions as the final stumper.
“What British rock musician donated hundreds of historic items from his personal collection to the Alamo History Museum?”
Now I’ve been to San Antonio and I’ve seen this museum. And when I saw the name credited to the museum, I thought, “Oh, that guy must be teased a lot because his name is the same as …” And then someone told me, “Oh, no, that’s actually him.”
And he narrates a video in the museum. And that’s definitely his voice.
Specifically … HIS voice.
And although several teams thought it might be Ozzy Osbourne or Mick Jagger or David Bowie … the donor is Phil Collins.
Wow.
Out of 24 teams, only about half a dozen got the correct answer, including the winning team – the Hall Monitors, and they claimed the Trivia Bowl trophy and a fat cash prize.
How cool is that?
Take care of that trophy, Hall Monitors. Any dents or dings in it are from twenty-plus years of tournament love and lore.
Which, in the end, are all that matters. 😀
Chuck The Writer 