QUIZ RECAP

Another Tuesday, another night of Wikipedia detours into the history of random factoids. We had four teams competing in this quirky fifth Tuesday of January: Vortex Schmortex, Bipolar Vortex, LGBTBBQ, and Cunning Stunts. But would our contestant's brains prove to be as sharp as the temperature was cold? Well throw on a blanket, curl up by the fire, and crack open this nice Recap to see how Trivia at Petoskey's went down.

Although I normally describe our General Knowledge Round 1 as a warm-up, you needn't worry; no one was being asked to run laps or do push-ups to get themselves loose. It just means that the questions are usually a little easier than the rest of the Rounds, for example, could you have identified the New England Patriots and the Los Angeles Rams as the two teams going to the Superbowl? But just because the questions are straightforward doesn't mean that there's no strategy. Cunning Stunts wisely chose to Double or Nothing in this Round, while the rest of the teams may have overthought the potential for wrong answers and chose to play it safe. This led to an early lead for Cunning Stunts at 12 points, followed by LGBTBBQ in second at 8 points, Vortex Shmortex in third at 6 points, and Bipolar Vortex in last place at 4 points.

In our Picture Round 2, we had teams trying to identify famous rappers based purely on pictures of things relating to their names. For example, a picture of a ostentatiously colored duck meant the associated rapper was Drake (as a male duck is called a "drake", and ducks have sexual dimorphism where males have more brightly colored and ornate plumage). If you're thinking "hey, that's too complicated", well, you could have scored a minimum of 3 easy points by simply writing down the literal objects being shown: A picture of two chains was 2 Chainz, a picture of Q-Tips was Q-Tips, and a picture of five dimes was 50 Cent.

In our Themed Round 3 involving 'silent letters' (example: pterodactyl), teams began to learn the importance of having a balanced composition of subject matter expertise. You'll need to have a bit of sports, literature, and pop culture knowledge if you want to crush every round you go up against it. We had questions regarding a Kenny Rogers duet named for a Hemingway novel (Islands in the Stream) and the NBA franchise that Dave DeBusschere and Willis Reed belonged to (New York Knicks).

Going into Round 4 our overall standings were the same but the point differentials had gone down to a mere 2 points. Cunning Stunts was still in first with 22 points, but LGBTBBQ was inches away at 20 points, who were themselves inches away from Vortex Shmortex at 18 points. Bipolar Vortex were having a more difficult night, stuck back at 9 points. In our Guess Who? Round the teams were tasked with guessing the identity of a famous fictional character. After two extremely vague clues concerning the character's personality and traits ("able to imitate voices....some violent tendencies...raised himself"), the 6-point clue that revealed his favorite pasttime of battling pirates allowed our teams to zero in on Never Land's famous Peter Pan. Bipolar Vortex ended up taking off for the night and we wished them a fond farewell. Our remaining three teams then turned their attention towards the battle for the more elevated position on the winners' podium.

Our classic Find the Connection Round 5 had teams working to figure out the connective tissue between answers like Michael Jordan, Marmaduke, and Charlotte Bronte. And although your host is more of an Emily fanboy (Wuthering Heights anyone?), my distracting literature references didn't stop our teams from correctly identifying the Carolinas as the Connection between the answers. With 10 points worth of questions it's no surprise that the standings had shifted a bit; Cunning Stunts had reopened their first place lead at 36 points, while Vortex Shmortex and LGBTBBQ followed in second and third respectively at 32 and 31 points.

But unfortunately for those teams who were hoping the night's tests of book-learning had come to an end, the literature train still had one major stop left in Handout Round 6. Our contestants were asked to match missing prepositions with their associated book titles in a contest of grammar and culture ("____ a Painted Sky --> "Under a Painted Sky"). And while I commend Vortex Shmortex for their daring Double or Nothing, they tragically missed their come-from-behind victory by just one answer ("it was Between Shades of Gray not Without").

The night's festivities ended with our Final Round where there's only one question but 10 different answers. Tuesday's question was:

What are 10 of the licensed properties (movies, books, TV shows) that Lego has made into video games?

Although there were a few technical squabbles here and there, any disputes about whether the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit were separate franchises were moot as the point-differences between the teams were too large for those rulings to make a difference. That said, our participants did provide a answer that my rule-book failed to capture! Our list of 10 licensed properties was crucially missing the Pirates of the Carribean franchise, which was indeed made into a Lego game back in the 2000s.

In the end, Cunning Stunts held onto their lead and a first place finish by making it to the notable 50 point margin. LGBTBBQ kept it close all the way through, ending up just behind them in second place and 47 points. Vortex Shmortex could only curse their misfortune over their failed Double or Nothing, as they ended the night in third place at 39 points. Had they captured 9 points in the previous round, they would have taken second at 48 points.

Hopefully we'll see them again in a future week where they can bring to bear their new experience. Thanks to everyone for coming out and I'll see you all next month as we celebrate love, presidents, and groundhogs.