Past Games

May 11

Music Bingo returned with songs from this century. Leave the Door Open by Silk Sonic, the new collaboration from Bruno Mars & Anderson .Paak, was the winning song for Martini Legend and Stephanie from Karlsgood was a split second faster than her teammate dorrit and Nita from Nita and Matt to take second place on U2's Beautiful Day.

In the trivia contest, Homebound Hos and Bros and Jazzmatics were able to survive the challenging Scattergories round and tie for first place, which then led to not one, but two tie-breakers (and a second round on the second tie-breaker) that was eventual won by the Hos and Bros.

In that Scattergories round, Burnt Sienna was chosen by 4 different teams for a color starting with B and for an article of clothing 3 teams blocked each other by answering with Banana Hammock, but not one single team was gutsy enough to answer with Banana for a fruit or vegetable. Speaking of 5 letter words starting with G, in the Entertainment round we covered the word that is substituted in the clean version of Cardi B's hit song that turns WAP into WAG.

And in one of my biggest blunders in quite some time, I presented the following question in the picture round, yet somehow overlooked the two uses of the answer in the left column, including the one in the header.

May 4

It's looking like I may need to raise the bar a bit after this game in which we not only had a perfect game from the Kauai Chickens, there were also 4 teams tied for second place having missed only a single question each. BARFLYZZ won that tie-breaker over Karlsgood, Martini Legend, and Dude, Will Trivia Reach Me on the Jersey Shore?

The Mother's Day round ran the gamut from Fountains of Wayne (Stacy's Mom) to Carol Burnett spin-offs (Mama's Family), borders were crossed in the Geography round, and the Fictional Places and Things round revealed that the love is still strong for Breaking Bad (Los Pollos Hermanos) and Gilmore Girls (Chilton Preparatory School).

It had also been a year since the most controversial question in the history of our Zoom contests and the point at which we realized the lockdown was driving us all a bit bonkers, so it seemed appropriate to end with the following...

April 27

Controversy erupted in the picture round when Nita & Matt protested that Beaker should be accepted in addition to Ehrlenmeyer for the name of the flask pictured above. They even sent me a link to a website that would prove there was a person named Beaker who had invented a similar flask. I had my doubts but the website looked legit and as I continued to read it wasn’t until the third paragraph that the name Dr. Bunsen Honeydew appeared and I realized they had successfully pulled my leg.

Homebound Hos & Bro made their triumphant return to the winner’s circle with a single point victory over three other teams: The Jazzmatics, Kauai Chickens, and the Muppet (and boy band) fans n(KOTB)ita & matt. My favorite question was in the Siblings round when what appeared to be an entertainment question about the acting sisters Kate Mara and Rooney Mara turned into a question about football because their family has a history with two NFL teams. The trickiest questions dealt with the origin of the grapefruit in the Food round and fitness guru Joseph Pilates in the Sports & Leisure round.

Music Bingo featured the long awaited playlist of boy bands, teen heartthrobs, and artists who have had girls chasing them and ladies tossing their panties on stage at them. One member of Martini Legends took 1st on Love Me Do by The Beatles and Nita took 2nd on Marvin Gaye’s Let’s Get It On, but only after another member of Martini Legends got *NSYNC out of sync with Backstreet Boys… understandable to some of us but sacrilege to others.

April 20

I cannot believe that in all these years of scouring the internet for interesting trivia questions it took me this long to discover Mike the Headless Chicken, survivor of a botched beheading in 1945. It’s a remarkable story that I highly encourage you to check out (Mike has a Wikipedia entry) and has led to a vigorous debate about whether Mike would become a viral sensation in today’s social media environment considering how popular Mike became on the sideshow circuit back in his day.

As for the contest itself, I guess it was only fitting that Kauai Chickens won the tie-breaker over Homebound Hos and Bro by being a single year closer in their guess for how long Mike lived after losing his head. Karlsgood was 3rd and Martini Legend and Very Stable Geniuses tied for 4th as rounds of questions celebrated 4/20, actors who have never won an Oscar, and the European soccer clubs in the Super League that was crumbling as we played our game.

Music Bingo featured songs from the 80’s and 90’s with dorritkarl winning on Just Can't Get Enough by Depeche Mode. 

April 13

Our newest team, Martini Legend*, had one heck of a night. Not only did Christian and Larissa take 1st and 3rd in Movie & TV Music Bingo, with Beth from Karlsgood in 2nd, but they were also tied with Kauai Chickens at halftime with a perfect game to that point. The pressure, and some tricky questions, got to them in the 2nd half but it was their best showing so far. The Chickens were able to complete the perfecto for 1st. Another team on a roll as of late, Jazzmatics, were a volcanic Caribbean island away from matching them to take 2nd and Dude, That Second Shot Did Me WRONG was another point behind in 3rd.

Tricky questions included the Spanish Inquisition (which NOBODY expects), the interjection Meh, Sir Walter Releigh’s lost colony and lost head, Appaloosa horses, and the first black deputy U.S. marshal west of the Mississippi River and possible inspiration for the Lone Ranger, Bass Reeves.

And in one of my favorite rounds, more than half the teams were able to identify both of the artists in the following Mashups to receive the bonus, which surprised me because I thought a couple of them would be difficult to identify.

Bee Gees vs. Eminem
https://youtu.be/_XS-ucrVzuw

Huey Lewis vs. Metallica
https://youtu.be/3MRx4LpYbQ4

Barry White vs. Pat Benatar
https://youtu.be/lCMMfUrAJco

Massive Attack vs. Fleetwood Mac (Stevie Nicks)
https://www.bratproductions.com/mixes/mashups/brat_rhiannons_teardrop.html

Carly Rae Jepsen vs. DMX
https://youtu.be/Fegs-XVKgnM


* Formerly Bend It Like Beckham

April 6

Scattergories returned as the final round and with only two teams getting blocked by both answering DARPA for an acronym that starts with D, it seems as if y’all are either getting too good at this or I’m giving you too much time. The trickiest rounds included countries claiming ownership of disputed land and the top cash crops grown in America, of the legal variety. The Jazzmatics had one of their best games ever to tie with Nita and Matt but over estimated the popularity of American religious participation in the tie-breaker.

Nita was also the winner of 70’s & 60’s & 50’s Music Bingo on Lou Reed’s Walk on the Wild Side, despite getting her Animals songs confused, and Stephanie from Karlsgood took 2nd on Jolene by Dolly Parton.

March 30

It isn’t often that somebody can wear the answer to a trivia question, and even rarer that the article of clothing is of historical interest, but that’s what happened during the Number Answers round. On the cusp of a new baseball season I included the question: What is the only uniform number retired by every MLB team? The Karlsgood team called me into their breakout room where one of the team members was wearing a Milwaukee Brewers jersey. I have a Red Sox jersey so I thought he might have been extra excited about baseball season. Then he turned around and I saw the number 42 under the name Karl on the back. Wow, must be a big fan of the Brewers who had a personalized jersey made, I thought, still not grasping the magnitude of this trivial twist of fate. Turns out that Scott Karl, one of our regulars, not only made it to the show, pitching in the majors for six seasons, he was one of the final three players to wear the number 42 after MLB retired it in honor of Jackie Robinson.

The actual competition ended in a three way tie between Kauai Chickens, Very Stable Geniuses, and Dude, Now WE Should Be the Captain! with the Chickens guessing closest to the number of most babies birthed by one woman for the win. The trickiest question by far, with only three teams answering correctly, was the planet that has most of its moons named for Shakespearean characters. There was some confusion about sardines and kippers and how many pairs of ribs there are in our skeleton and whether a Phillips head is an essential ingredient in a screwdriver and we also had some fun with the annual April Fools Fake Trivia round.

Music Bingo featured songs from the 21st century with Nita taking the crown on We Are Young by Fun.. We were already 21 songs into the playlist so there was no time for second place.

March 23

In what turned out to be the most controversial question since the Devoted Duvet Debate last May, we spent a lot of time trying to figure out the rules of counting syllables in words. Many teams went with anthropomorphism as their answer for a 6 syllable word meaning: Giving animals & objects human characteristics. The safe answer of personification clearly has 6 syllables but so does anthropomorphism, right? Not so fast. Apparently, there must be a vowel present in each counted syllable which means that the suffix -ism only counts as 1 syllable even though it is pronounced as if it has 2. Oh, the joys of the English language. All I know for sure is that I will try and take Beth’s advice and avoid any syllable related questions from here on out.


In the end, anthropomorphism did not alter the standings in any way except it prevented Nita and Matt from securing a perfect game in what turned out to be a very impressive victory over Karlsgood in 2nd and Kauai Chickens in 3rd. Other tricky questions included the recent rise in popularity of chess on gaming platforms like Twitch; America’s favorite variety of grapes; the West Nile Virus; and a pizza turnover that shares its name with an Italian island, Ingrid Bergman movie, and Disney villain.


Music Bingo celebrated Women’s History Month with an entire playlist of songs by female artists. Matt had a super quick bingo after only 10 songs with Kelly Clarkson’s Stronger. BAR FLYZZ took 2nd on You're So Vain by Carly Simon and Beth was 3rd with Heart’s Barracuda.

March 16

Pioneering journalist Nellie Bly was the trickiest question of the night while others that tripped up multiple teams included the Irish sweepstakes, Unilever removing the word Normal from its packaging, countries that controlled the Philippines, and a picture of the fans of the Wichita State Shockers, who sadly lost their opening round March Madness game on Thursday.


Karlsgood pitched a perfect game for the win with Homebound Hos and Bro a point behind for second place and Jazzmatics with a strong 2nd half to leap into third.


Two different requests were combined into the Music Bingo contest of One Hit Wonders with song titles on the cards instead of the names of the artists. Barflyzz were the winners with Bad Day by Daniel Powter and dorritkarl took 2nd and Beth a close 3rd when they both got Bingo on Stuck in the Middle with You by Stealers Wheel.

March 9

The contest included this round of alternative movie posters with the tic tac one causing the most trouble (answers below). Bears was a popular answer in the round on high school sports names but was not in the Top 14 that has Eagles soaring above the rest. Other tricky questions included the cartoon characters identified by pseudo-scientific latin names of Hot-roddicus supersonicus and Eatibus anythingus, a word in the name of National Parks in AZ, CA, CO, & UT, and the name for a young salmon on its first migration to the sea.


very stable geniuses were a point away from dethroning Kauai Chickens with a massive tie for 3rd between nita & matt, Homebound Hos and Bro, Karlsgood, and Dolly Parton is too the last Targaryen who were the closest to getting all of the celebrity ages correct missing only Michael Phelps by a single year.


Music Bingo featured songs from the 80’s & 90’s. Beth was the winner with Freedom by George Michael and dorritkarl took second on Belly’s Feed the Tree.


Answers to Alternative Movie Posters: E.T. • Psycho • Juno • The Shawshank Redemption • Roman Holiday

March 2

Despite my best attempts to throw in a couple questions that would prevent a perfect game the Kauai Chickens could not be denied and won the contest by a point over nita & matt. In 3rd place, the Jazzmatics had a stronger than usual showing to tie with perennial powerhouse Karlsgood.


Tricky questions included the origin of the term United States of America, the most popular Native American last name, getting the wind knocked out of your solar plexus, and how the government of Canada is providing each of its 13.5 million citizens a free postage-paid postcard to mail to a loved one.


Note: There was no Music Bingo contest this week.

February 23

A final round of Scattergories returned last week and it proved to be treacherous with so many teams. Despite getting blocked on 3 of the 5 scattergories, Kauai Chickens held on for the victory over Karlsgood who were followed by a tie among nita & matt, Homebound Hos and Bro, and Dude, you picked the WRONG week to fly to Cancun.


Tricky questions in addition to Birds that start with P*** included music from the Nintendo Wii and Keyboard Cat, defense mechanisms of horny toads, the Living Single cast’s grudge with David Schwimmer, brands of breast pumps, and how the creator of the Green Book collected the travel info from his fellow postal workers.


Music Bingo featured songs from the 70’s, 60’s, and 50’s. Stephanie from Karlsgood had the first bingo on Cream’s Sunshine of Your Love and nita was second on What'd I Say by Ray Charles.


*** Pigeons, anyone?

February 16

The tie-breaker last week was more controversial than usual with a lengthy discussion afterwards about how many lines of dialogue Arnold Schwarzenegger speaks in the first Terminator movie. As you can see below, we all forgot about the scene in which The Terminator goes shopping for weapons which is where he is the most verbose. Karlsgood was closest to the number to claim the victory over Kauai Chickens. In third place, a point behind the leaders, were the Dudes. Tricky questions included lengths in horse races, Madonna’s first tattoo, Japan’s sun goddess Amaterasu, Sherlock Holmes’ pipe, the iconic photo of Brandi Chastain winning the World Cup, and the connection between the Pogo stick and punk “dancing”.

Music Bingo featured songs from this century. John Mayer’s Gravity sparked a flurry of Bingos with delaney from Karlsgood having the fastest fingers just ahead of Homebound Tari and BARFLYZZ.

=================================
THE TERMINATOR'S LINES OF DIALOGUE


To three punks he approaches after arriving unclothed from the future:

1) Nice night for a walk.

2) Nothing clean, right.

3) Your clothes, give them to me now.


To a gun salesman:

4) The 12-gauge autoloader.

5) The .45 long-slide with laser sighting.

6) Phased plasma rifle in 40-watt range.

7) The Uzi nine-millimeter.

8) All.

9) Wrong.


To a woman he’s about to kill:

10) Sarah Connor?


To a cop at a police station:

11) I’m a friend of Sarah Connor.

12) I was told that she’s here.

13) Could I see her, please?

14) Where is she?

15) I’ll be back.


To a boardinghouse janitor:

16) F*** you, a**hole.


To a trucker whose rig he hijacks:

17) Get out.

February 9

Coincidentally playing Pokemon with somebody who randomly hails from Clinton, NY, the Kauai Chickens were able to complete a perfect game last week, just ahead of Homebound Hos and Bros in 2nd, and Matt N Nita and Very Stable Geniuses in 3rd. Tricky questions besides the communities with a president’s name but not named for a president included deviled ham, the love life of Lori Harvey, the Borscht Belt, the composer of the Wedding March (Here Comes the Bride), and last year’s top selling cars and trucks. It was also good to see that after all these years teams have gotten much better at differentiating between the names of yoga positions and sex positions in what has become a Valentine’s week tradition.

Music Bingo featured a special playlist of Love songs intermixed with Breakup songs. BARFLYZZ were the winners on Song for the Dumped by Ben Folds Five and Nita took second with Percy Sledge’s When a Man Loves a Woman.

February 2

No perfect games last week on Groundhog Day but Karlsgood and Kauai Chickens took it to a tie-breaker with Karlsgood rising to the top. Finishing a point behind the leaders were Dude, You Can’t Try to Overthrow the Government and then Vacation in Mexico, nita & matt, and Homebound Hos and Bros who were not pleased with my choice of fashion photography. Tricky questions besides the popcorn/bubble shirt included interstate migration trends according to U-Haul, groundhogs being in the group of marmots, Brownie points, and the grateful deadheading of flowers.

Music Bingo featured songs from the 80’s and 90’s and the Homebounders were all over it with Homebound Fam getting the 1st bingo on The Offspring’s Pretty Fly (For a White Guy) while Homebound Trixy and Karlsgood took second on Situation by Yaz, a group that ev-er-y-one knows.

January 27

This week’s contest had to include a Bernie picture round in order to meet the requirements of the National Trivia Association and a question also related to the battle between the internet trolls and hedge funds over Gamestop. Trickier questions included the NBA and NHL teams that share the name of an Old Testament book, the Pixar movie that shares a name with a Kia car, Stevie Wonder’s run of Best Albums in the 70’s, and the recent popularity of sea shanties on Tik Tok.

Homebound Hos and Bros pitched another perfecto for the win. The four teams finishing a point behind included Dude, When the Monsoon Hits Just Grab a Rock and Hold, BAR FLYZZ, Nita & Matt, and Mitch McConnell's Childhood Polio with the Dudes winning the tie-breaker for second place.

Music Bingo featured songs from Movies and TV Shows with Karlsgood getting the bingo on Getting to Know You from The King and I.

January 19

And with this picture round question it appears that I am responsible for the loss of yet another celebrity. RIP to Larry King and his suspenders. Other tricky questions included changes to the javelin, the egg tooth, the number of Triple Word Score squares in Scrabble, highest rated TV series finales, and athletic trailblazer Althea Gibson.

Homebound Hos and a Bro dodged all these bullets for a perfect game win followed closely by BAR FLYZZ and Karlsgood who each missed only a single question for second place.

Music Bingo featured songs from the 70’s and 60’s and even a few from the 50’s with Homebound Trixy getting the bingo on River Deep Mountain High by Ike & Tina Turner.

January 12 & 13

Last week included one of my biggest screw-ups ever in the Rhyming round when I included Bolivia Trivia as an answer that was supposed to have two 2-syllable words. I was so excited to include Trivia as a rhyme I didn’t even think about the syllable count. Even worse, after the Tuesday teams gave me a well deserved thrashing, I told the teams on Wednesday that each word had 3 syllables. My family thanks you all because I replaced that question with another for their game at the end of the week.

Tricky and difficult, but not miscounted, questions included the origin of the word Cartoon, spoolie brushes, ant lion doodlebugs, sewing machine treadles, the Monte Cristo sandwich, and journalist Ida B. Wells. Also good to know that every single team this week is familiar with Bridgerton’s Duke of Hastings.

On Tuesday, there was a tie between Kauai Chickens and Karlsgood with the Chickens taking the tie-breaker, while on Wednesday it was the Homebound Hos and a Bro over Dolly Parton is the Last Targaryen.

Music Bingo featured songs from the last 20+ years. Judy from BARFLYZZ was the winner on Tuesday with Drive by Incubus and Homebound Kiki won on Wednesday with Sam Hunt’s Body Like a Back Road.

January 5 & 6

We started the new year with our annual Stephen Hawking birthday week round of audio questions using the online Hawking Voice Generator to perform tributes to those we lost in the past year with songs by Charlie Daniels and Bill Withers, scenes by Sean Connery and Diana Rigg, and a speech from John Lewis.

We also tried using Breakout Rooms for the first time in the weekly games and the consensus seems to be that it slowed things down too much. If we include them again they will probably be used only at the end of each half for final team discussions.

There was a three way tie for first in the Tuesday game with Kauai Chickens, Gaza Strippers, and Karlsgood all posting perfect scores and finishing in that order after the tie-breaker question. Karlsgood was the winner of the 80’s & 90’s Music Bingo contest with Bruce Springsteen’s Dancing in the Dark.

On Wednesday, the teams that did participate were either looking for an escape from the news that day or still had one eye on the continuing coverage. Homebound Hos and a Bro and Nita and Matt also went to a tie-breaker with HH&B going over the actual retail price by less for the win. Nita was the winner of Music Bingo with Olivia Newton John’s Physical.

Tricky questions this week included the Luxo lamp, the creation of the Vail ski resort, Justin Bieber’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull tattoo, the countries that surround Lake Victoria, and the connection between the Proboscidea order and elephants.