The Thrill of Trivia
There is a certain joy in acquiring knowledge through organic means — through conversations, consuming television and movies, or even exploring Wikipedia rabbit holes. While much of this gathered information remains latent within the confines of one’s cranium, at times it manifests itself with aplomb, akin to a magician drawing out a rabbit from their top hat. What I’m referring to, of course, is trivia!
I grew up on a healthy dose of Jeopardy!, slotted in on CBS 58 at the perfect time of 6 pm, with The Simpsons to follow for dessert. It was a magical hour of hodgepodge education, sometimes even supplanting any classroom lecture of the school day. I daresay these shows ingratiated within me an appetite for lifelong learning, even as my school days are now in the distant past.
So it was yesterday evening, on the so-called National Cheesburger Day, when, on a whim, my wife and I decided to test out our trivial knowledge at a bar in an adjoining local town. We were joined by two others – a co-worker and his wife – and the four of us rounded out a field of ten groups, ranging from college students still on the fair side of twenty and an elderly couple likely three or four times that age.
Short of dabbling in Trivial Pursuit on the Nintendo Switch, I had not partaken in any trivia events for the better part of a couple of years, so it was with some excitement (and even trepidation) that I found myself sitting at the table. That evening’s trivia consisted of seven rounds: themed rounds consisting of ten questions each for rounds 1, 3, and 5, then betting rounds of four questions each for rounds 2, 4, and 6, followed by a final round of two questions.
Round 1 was a set of questions, each with a two-word answer, with each wording beginning with “B.” Our team, the “Bonecrushers,” needed to shake off some initial rust, missing five out of the ten, including two that were straightforward misses:
1. A southern Brooklyn neighborhood that shares its first name with that of a Boston neighborhood, and also the name of a Neil Simon Play
2. A capital city and country that fit the theme (along the the following provided pictogram):
Answers, of course, are provided at the end of this little piece, but we put down “Bay Bridge” and “Bogota, Bolivia,” respectively, in two geographic oversights.
Round 2 was the first of the betting rounds, where teams would allocate one of four point values to the designated answer, not knowing what clues would come next; I had not seen a trivia format like this before, but it was well done by the organizers. We were able to answer three of the four questions, losing only one point on a music/songwriting one that stumped most in the bar. At this point, we had lost 10 points (10/20) from the first round and another from the second. The organizers made another good decision in not revealing scores of teams, at least not until after round 6, so that how well one was doing was very much in question.
Round 3 consisted of the Puzzle Round, in which there was a scrambled crossword that gave one clues to each of the ten questions relating to movies. What was tricky about the questions was that each only listed the subtitle and year of the sequel, and the aim was to find the two-word title of the first film in the series.
Examples of questions included the following:
3. Armed and Fabulous (2005)
4. Full Throttle (2003)
5. Golden Receiver (1998)
6. Red, White, and Blonde (2003)
We fared fine overall, though missed a big one in John Wick and put down a film in another spot by mistake, scoring 12/20 in the round.
I had done enough pub-style trivia in the past to have a gestalt on our position, in the absence of any formal announcement on the standings – we probably were sitting in the midpack at this point, with the top prizes likely slipping away.
Round 4 was another betting round of four questions in different categories, and this time we were able to nail them all. There were a couple of trickier ones, as paraphrased below:
7. Within the US military, what rank is between that of Captain and Lieutenant Colonel?
8. King Edward VIII of England caused quite a scandal when he decided to abdicate the throne in favor of marrying what socialite and divorcée?
Now renewed with confidence, the Bonecrushers headed into Round 5 – a Picture Round – in which teams were instructed to name common woodworking tools. We were able to get 10/10 on this round, with the most obscure objects being a random orbital sander, speed square, and a hand drill (brace and bit).
Round 6, once again, was a grab bag of four questions that involved betting one of our valued points on. Fortunately, we were able to answer them all to give ourselves a chance of entering the final round.
9. On this day, September 17th, 34 years ago, Linus Torvalds announced the development of this operating system.
It was high stakes as the trivia organizer announced the standings before the beginning of Round 7: “And tied for fourth, with 105 points, we have LL and Bonecrushers!,” followed by the scores of the second and first place teams with 110 and 117 points, respectively.
The final round was simply two questions, on which a team could bet up to 10 points on each question, with a wrong answer leading to a loss of half their allocated bet.
The first question went as follows:
10. Meghan Markle briefly worked on this game show, originally released in Dutch in 2000, with a top prize of 3.1 million.
Unsurprisingly, most, if not all teams answered this question correctly and bet the maximum of ten points, leading to one final question to determine the winner. As we were down 12 points to the leading team, the chances were now slim.
The question was then asked:
11. What two-word term, coined by the mathematician and meteorologist Edward Norton Lorenz in the 1960s, is often thought to have originated in the short story “A Sound of Thunder” by Ray Bradbury?
Two in our group had read the short story, including myself, but the answer just didn’t seem to come – what could they be referring to? Then it hit me, and I jotted down my response and brought it to the organizer’s table for submission.
After this question, the atmosphere was more subdued, and we all eagerly awaited the final scores. I wrote down a bet of 50 points as pure jest, in the faintest hope that somehow our team could pull out ahead.
“And tied for first, we have LL and Bonecrushers, with 125 points each – and a bonus question to decide the winner!”
To our amazement, it was the two teams tied for fourth who came out on top – the first and second place teams had not only provided incorrect answers, but also bet sufficient points that cost them. For example, if the top team did not place a bet at all, they would have won with a total of 127!
The tiebreaking question was a simple one:
12. In the 2025 season finale of Deal or No Deal Island, David Genat won the largest cash prize in American network television history. How much did he win?
Our team had sixty seconds to come up with our response. I threw out an answer of three million, while someone else mentioned nine million. We settled on a mid-range of seven million. As it turned out, the other team answered $3.8 million, and we had the closer number!
What a beautiful comeback and excellent teamwork on the final question. Not including the tiebreaker, our team answered the last twenty questions correctly! I must admit that the experience was the most fun I’ve had in pub trivia in a while… time to browse Wikipedia’s article on Deal or No Deal!
For those of you who only wanted to see the answers to the listed trivia questions, here you go:
1. Brighton Beach
2. Brussels, Belgium
3. Miss Congeniality
4. Charlie’s Angels
5. Air Bud
6. Legally Blonde
7. Major
8. Wallis Simpson
9. Linux
10. Deal or No Deal
11. Butterfly Effect
12. $5.8 million
Reflection
Here is a factlet for you, reader: did you know that the term “factoid” was originally coined to mean a trivial piece of information that appears to be true but isn’t? Now, in common parlance, it has been skewed towards the opposite – a small piece of information that actually is indeed true. How confusing, isn’t it?… and perhaps the opposite has started to occur with the term “fact” as well!