Happy Hour Trivia: 2/24

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Next trivia night: February 24. NOTE: This was rescheduled from 2/10 (blame the snow). We get out of the main showroom and back to the DC Improv Lounge for the February edition. You can probably expect a few questions about the Olympics, and oh yeah -- bring an art fan.

Admission is free. If you want to reserve a seat, e-mail trivia@dcstandup.com with a name and the number of people in your party. Just remember we have limited seating, so be cool about it (i.e., don't set aside 15 seats just because it's free and then hope you can find 14 amigos).

Also, this month we're trying out a new rule: teams will have a 1-point penalty for each member past the eighth. (So a 10-person team gets 2 points taken off their final score.) Large groups are totally welcome, but this should keep things a little more competitive.

Join the trivia mailing list: We'll send you reminders about the upcoming trivia night and any other trivia news you can use. We won't sell your e-mail address to shady international finance conglomerates or anyone claiming to be a Nigerian prince. We promise.

trivia (at) dcstandup.com

Welcome to the online home for Happy Hour Trivia -- a one-hour bar trivia quiz held once a month at the DC Improv Lounge (1140 Connecticut Ave. NW, Washington, DC). Teams of hopeful brainiacs square off for glory and prizes, in one of the finest comedy venues in the country.

Trivia is hosted by Chris White, a leader of the 1994 Penncrest High School championship Scott's Hi-Q Team. As you can tell from this web site, we think he sucks. But even WE will admit, he runs a pretty damn good trivia night -- beyond standard q&a, there are video rounds, funny videos and a few other surprises every contest.

January 20 Recap

The Improv's main showroom was open (the show in there got canceled), so we headed into the bigger space for a supersized edition of trivia. 22 teams competed, with something like 150 total people. So -- not as cozy as usual, but way more competition! We started off with a music round (matching songs to movie soundtracks). "January Jones" had trivia about people, magazines and songs with the name "Jones" included. "20 10" alternated questions about the number 20 and the number 10. And "Your Name in Lights" was a worksheet that gave you the real name of a celebrity, leaving their stage name for your to provide.

By virtue of bringing about 300 people for their team, The Cosmo Centerfolds took first place (37 out of 45). Gym, Tan, Laundry put up a 33, as did the Golden Triangle Gun Club -- but the guidos won a dance-off to take the second spot. Here they are in order of finish:

December 17 Recap

Everybody knows that it's not the holidays without trivia, so we gathered together in the DC Improv lounge to complete 12 glorious months of competition. "Reindeer Games" had 9 questions, each inspired by one of Santa's cruelly mistreated pack animals (the vixen is the female of what animal species?). "Gift Exchange" had 9 questions about some famous presents (what's on the Statue of Liberty's tablet?). The video round had some random trivia filmed on location during my travels, and "Fifty/Fifty/Push" was a new variation on a classic. Thanks to everyone who made 2009 a great year for Happy Hour Trivia. Steven's Friends Who Did Not Help Him Move were at least kind enough to chip in for trivia night, as they managed 28 out of 40 for the win. The Conniving Knishes scored a 25, as did Cake Farts and Flan. But CFF begged off of a dance-off, yielding second place to the Knishes.

November 25 Recap

The night before Thanksgiving, we emulated the pilgrims and sat down for some pre-feasting trivia. We started out with "Full House" -- teams had to list the top 10 countries in terms of population. "Giving Thanks" had questions based on the holiday (what dance craze did Dee Dee Sharp start?) and "Kids' Table" focused on famous kids (who starred in the 1960s remake of "Kid Galahad"?). Then, the crowd was not thankful for "Bus School," which turned out to be the toughest video round EVER. It was rebus puzzles with a pop culture twist, and while I had a fine time putting it together, it was much tougher than I had guessed. The high score (out of 10) was 4, and the average score was a tick over 1. Live and learn! Schadenfraude managed a 30 out of 40 for a first-place finish. Let's Get Dangerous scored a 27 for second place, and the Menonites landed in third with a 21.

October 28 Recap

Thanks to everyone who dropped off Halloween presents for the kids at Children's Hospital! Familiar teams were at the top of the standings for our Halloween edition, which was only kinda sorta Halloweeny. We opened with "Singing the Blues," where you had to identifly the performers for a bunch of songs with "blue" in the title. "PF I Love You" featured questions about or inspired by P.F. Changs, Peter Fonda, SPF 15 and that sort of thing. "Fill in the Blanks," our video round, had a series of pictures with stuff removed. And "G-G-G-Ghost!" made our token effort at being in season, with great questions like: "What is Dennis Coles' stage name?" Sqizzle came in first with 34 out of 44, Golden Triangle Gun Club overcame illness in the ranks to get second with 31, and Free Salsa Bitches got free salsa with 27.

September 23 Recap

Last month, one attendee told me my questions favored "guy" topics. In her honor, we started off with "Girl Power," filled with empowering lady questions like: "Are bake times longer or shorter at higher altitudes?" We had a very tough worksheet, "Listless," which had teams trying to make an alphabetical list of G8 members, a west-east list of Candian provinces, the last five Best Picture winners and the last five Stanley Cup winners. "The Missing Link" (video) gave teams X and Z, then asked them for Y. And "It's All Your Fault" featured 10 questions about the blame game. Sqizzle got back to the top of the podium with a 26 of a possible 41. Golden Triangle Gun Club just missed a tie with 25. And the Pipers, though only three people deep, got a 21 and locked up third place.

August 19 Recap

Round one was "Caesar Augustus" -- questions on famous Caesars or the month of August. "Points for Clunkers" had teams trying to match car models to car makes (and it featured one goof by me -- I did not realize that the Spider is both a Fiat AND an Alfa Romeo, after Fiat bought Alfa Romeo). "Uhnalohgeez," our video round, had people completing sets of picture analogies: Kyra Sedgwick is to Kevin Bacon as Andrea Mitchell is to ... ? And we finished off with "Cool It," which was standard Q&A about cold things. And then everyone got free Butterfingers. The Four King Idiots (9 people) won the day, with 34 out of 44. The Boozers, The Dining Room Tables and First Line of Haiku were deadlocked at 27, so after a tie-breaker knocked out the Haikus, it was a dance-off. And an epic one at that! So good, in fact, that we made a 2nd-place tie and gave the Haikus third. If you want to see it, here's the Facebook link. Your teams in order of finish:

July 16 Recap

We had a short turnaround from the last trivia night, but another packed house! In honor of Bastille Day, we had a bunch of questions about prisons and prisoners; we also apologized for the nasty June games with "Easy Does It," a round of lightweight questions. On the video side, "On the Road Again" featured questions filmed in Charolottesville, Hyde Park, Detroit and more. And we closed things out with music: naming the singers of 12 different "summer" songs (Mungo Jerry, anyone?). After a rough start, the Wise Ass Latinas got a perfect score on the music round to earn a come-from-behind victory (31 out of 42). The Golden Triangle Gun Club and Sqizzle tied at 28, with the Gun Club taking second in maybe the most inspired dance-off yet (both teams were awesome).

June 24 Recap

This had to be, unintentionally, the toughest trivia night yet. Round one was a "Pop Quiz" -- questions about soda or anything that popped. The "Capital Idea" worksheet was feast or famine -- given a list of 30 cities, the teams had to circle the 10 national capitals. "Fantastic Fours 2" was our video round -- people had to identify the missing member of a famous foursome based on three visual clues. And "Summer Lovin'" was inspired by the start of the season. The members of Sqizzle arrived breathless, three questions into the first round ... and they still managed to pull out the win with 24 out of 40. Ed McMahon's Final Words (here's second place) scored a 23. And the Turtle Necks got a 20 and won the dance-off tiebreaker for third.

May 20 Recap

We made it through a year of trivia! And we celebrated by ... well, playing trivia. Why mess with a good thing. After a (brutal) worksheet round (matching captains to ships -- of a possible 20 points, the average score was 3.5), we got into the anniversary theme. "Give Till It Hurts" had questions based on the traditional annual anniversary gifts, "Happy Anniversary" (video) had people identifying the years of various famous events, and "Team Effort" was inspired by some of our favorite trivia team names over the last year. The Golden Triangle Gun Club came out in force and recaptured the magic that earned them three straight first-place finishes back in 2008 (32 out of 52). Three of the four members of Sqizzle were stuck in traffic at the start, but the guy with the beard held down the fort until their arrival, resulting in a very impressive second-place finish (29 points). And "Three Guys, a Jewish Republican and My Neighbor" filled out the podium (27 points). Oh, and as a special treat for the anniversary, all teams got a signed Chris White headshot. Swank, huh?

April 22 Recap

HHT perfection is unattainable, but one team made a run at it this month. "Peri Peri Disappointed" opened with perfect scores in the first round (naming movies based on soundtrack songs) and the second round ("April in Paris," about ... uh, April and Paris). They couldn't keep up that blistering pace for rounds three and four (a video round of naming "Great Depressions," then questions based on "Take Me Out to the Ballgame"), but their final score of 40 out of 47 was enough for first place. "Splinter Group" (one of our resident Yelp! teams) tallied a 37 for second, and "The Four King Idiots" came in third with 34.

March 25

Some new blood made it to the top this month. Hot Amoeba Action scored a 27 out of a possible 43, then took the dramatic tiebreaker over the Neo Fights (which had a few past champs among the ranks) to take home the crown. By "dramatic tiebreaker," I mean they sang their verse of a karaoke song ("My Girl") with a bit more pizzaz, and then in the ensuing dance break, they brought some serious heat. No disrespect to the Neo Fights, though ... representatives from both teams were starting to disrobe and throw garments in the quest for First Place. It was a fine display of sportsmanship all around. Red Beaver returned to the podium once again, scoring a 26 and then taking out Splinter Group in their 3rd-place tiebreaker (naming Shakespearean tragedies).

February 25

History repeats itself! We had a lot of new teams on board (welcome!), but the winners circle was a carbon copy of January. Red Beaver (hey, they choose their own names) scored 29 out of 42 to nail down first place for the second straight month. Our most tenured team, the Golden Triangle Gun Club, had their usual strong showing with 27, which matched the score of up-and-coming Sqizzle. The Gun Club won second place honors by naming a "Razzie" winner in the tiebreaker. As for the questions? We did four rounds. "Black History" covered almost anything black: African-Americans, piano keys, black holes, and the Black Death. Our audio/video round had teams naming the originators of 10 cover songs. For the first time ever we did worksheet round, daring people to identify 10 Best Supporting Actor winners out a list of 33 nomineees. And finally, "Bailout!" dealt with all kins of bailouts ... financial, nautical, airplane-related, jail ... The worksheet ended up being the bastard round, with most people scoring five or lower. Always nice to have one excruciating game in there.

January 21

The post-inauguration special had four rounds: "Two Face," in honor of the Roman God Janus; "We Are the Champions," in honor of great sports franchises; "Fill in the Blank," in honor of doctored photographs; and "Billy / Bob," in honor of ... uh, Billys and Bobs. Red Beaver came up with 33 out of 44 for the win; Golden Triangle Gun Club finished second and Sqizzle took third. We had our second straight month of tiebreaker hilarity; there was a tie for third place, and I had a list of 20th Century first ladies in hand. The team that got to go first confidently went with Laura Bush, so we were able to use the same tiebreaker to break the deadlock for the top two spots. This was a virtual repeat of December, when one team, with 15 Soviet Socialist Republics to choose from, went with Yugoslavia out of the box. Tiebreakers are awesome.

December 3

The biggest ever Happy Hour Trivia night saw "You Had Me at Free," win one of TWO games. Second went to the honestly named "Couples Staying Together Because of the Poor Economy," and after a dramatic tiebreaker which involved naming Mariah Carey's No. 1 hits, "You have been awarded no points and may god have mercy on your soul" locked up third place. Most people stuck around for game two, which saw "Sqizzle" take the top spot after winning a dance-off with the "Golden Triangle Gun Club B-Team"; both managed 26 out of 33, but Sqizzle had the moves. That's how they roll. The Couples Staying Together snagged third with a 25.

October 1

There was a shake-up at the top, as we have new champions: Pink Eye and the Brain. These young swains scored 22 out of a possible 30 questions with an October theme -- one round of monster questions in honor of Halloween, one round of questions from cemeteries (also in honor of Halloween) and a special "Octoberfest" round. Average scores were down a bit ... the questions might have been a little TOO hard. Maybe.

September 3

The Golden Triangle Gun Club did their Chicago Bulls impression and won their third consecutive trivia night by getting 22 out of a possible 31. They're like Michael Jordan, but less bald, less black and for trivia. We also had a tie for second. The Einsteins Plus 1 (no indication of who the plus is) and 2 Reds and 3 Browns both scored 18. The Einsteins narrowly earned second place by naming more general election losers in a dramatic tiebreaker. The first round was all election-related trivia (what won the Mars Candy election of 1995?) -- people did pretty well with that. The second round was a video where you had to match famous faces to their colleges, and results were once again decent. The final round had questions tangentially related to Chile (headliner Pablo Francisco is Chilean-American, I think), and people did AWFUL. The average score (out of 9) was something like 2.5. I would have guessed that the video round would be the stumper, but I was way, way off. But that's why you play the game!

August 6

The Golden Triangle Gun Club smoked the competition once again, scoring a 21 out of a possible 30. Coming in second was Team Redundancy Team (19) and rounding out the winners' circle was the Dewey Ducks (18). Round one was movie trivia -- teams had to list the top 10 U.S. box office hits of all time (inflation-adjusted, of course). Not as easy as you might think. Round two was a video of "Fantastic Fours." And round three was standard Q&A. Since the show in the main showroom was improv, we had three improvisers, Katie, Katie and Dan, help us out ... they worked the right answers into a couple of classic improv games. Thanks, guys!

July 1

In honor of the Fourth, the theme was "Red, White and Blue" -- and the Golden Triangle Gun Club proved to be the most patriotic team of all, scoring 24 out of a possible 33. There was a tie for runner-up between Their Small is Pretty Large and The Conspiracy. The Conspiracy earned second place in a sudden death playoff, which involved naming Smurfs until one team blanked. Yes, it's that kind of night. The last place team had the best name: The Ringo Death Stars. Major points for creativity, guys. Karma will reward you.

May 21

The tastefully named "Ted Kennedy's Brain Tumor" came out on top (scoring 22 out of a possible 32) in the inaugural trivia night. Congratulations to Chris, Elizabeth, Rich, Ben, Rob and Courtney, who mastered questions on Maine, domes and more.

Why Chris Sucks: In a 97-0 vote, Chris White refused to ratify the Kyoto treaty, thereby ensuring a future not entirely unlike Kevin Costner's "Waterworld."

Legal Stuff: If you have questions about this Web site, why? You should spend your time questioning the moral nature of any god who would let Chris White exist. But anyhow ... copyright 2009, Chris White Sucks Inc.