Answers in the comments…

“Get your butt back inside – we won cash!”

We were SO unsure about having any shot at winning prizes in the My Trivia Live finals Saturday – that one of our players started warming up the car BEFORE the winners were announced!

A trio of ‘Pods plus a “loaner” played in the MTL finals Saturday at the Library Pub in Novi with… fairly low expectations. Our team hadn’t won any MTL prize money in more than two years, we hadn’t won any tournament money at all since April, 2018…we were just happy that we made it to the “big dance” after having done very little work to qualify (we qualified for semifinals by playing just a handful of games at Tower Inn, a new MTL trivia spot). So…a trivia finals then? OK!

We wound up finishing in third with a $500 prize. But the whole thing was NOT without its drama as you already know from reading the first sentence (par for the course with our trivia team as any of our players and “guest stars” will attest)!

Other “cash” winners were One is the Loneliest Number (first place/$2,500), and the “Pants” team (second place/$750). The “Pants” team were our friendly rivals at the Wurst Bar when we played there from 2016 to around the end of 2017, and most of the individual players on the first place team have been our competitors for years. And quite a few of these players have even sat at the same trivia tables together before!

Without further ado, how about some game questions? Please assume these are all abbreviated, and have been – in some cases – “reverse engineered” based on the correct answers. Forgive me, I was focusing more on ANSWERING the questions than I was on writing every single one down word for word. I will still do my best to make sure these are all as accurate as possible…all of that said:

Round One

1. Transportation – What mode of transportation was originally known as the “iron horse?”

2. Seasonal Songs – What 1954 holiday song was popularized by Eartha Kitt and written as a message to Santa Claus?

3. Pizza – How  many slices are in a typical large Domino’s hand-tossed pizza? Miss.

Round Two

1. Literary Quotes – According to writer Victor Hugo in Les Miserables, “To love another person is to see the face of (blank)?”

2. Initialisms – What do the individual letters of PPM stand for when it comes to measurement?

3. Comedy TV – What comedy show, currently hosted by Tiffany Haddish, has its roots in the interview portion of the 1950s variety show Art Linkletter’s House Party? Nope…

Round Three

1. Nursery Rhymes – Who is being described in this nursery rhyme –

Born on a Monday,
Christened on Tuesday,
Married on Wednesday,
Took ill on Thursday,
Grew worse on Friday,
Died on Saturday,
Buried on Sunday?

My first “solo” contribution to this game…

2. Musicians – What musician, born McKinley Morganfield, got his nickname because he loved to perform in Mississippi’s Deer Creek? A “solo” hit for Brad…

3. Organizations – Founded in 1958, what organization’s original intention was to provide support for retired teachers? A solo “hit” for our “loaner…”

Halftime – “The Evolution of Trivia”

H1 – The Latin word “volvere”  translates into what four-letter word?

H2 – What company’s “evolution engine” logo was a turning point for them in the 1980s?

H3 – A 2018 WWE event called “Evolution” included matches featuring what kinds of wrestlers?

H4 – What Motown group’s last album was called “Evolution,” which included a track called “A Song For Mama?”

By this point, we weren’t too hopeful about doing anything in this game –  but keeping our seats warm! We missed two of these halftime questions, and two regular round questions – which put us in a four-way tie for sixth heading into the second half with about 16 teams ahead of us. Moving on!

Round Four

1. Sports Movies – Based on a George Plimpton novel, what 1968 movie’s plot was based on the writer’s tryout with the Detroit Lions? Brad and Phil were thankfully both all over this…

2. Breakfast Time – What Kellogg cereal is made of barley, whole grain oats and wheat and also contains raisins, dates and almonds? A lot of discussion here…thank the gods I was able to get the wrong cereal (a similar General Mills cereal) out of my head and come up with what would be the correct answer. Whew!

3. Hip Hop  – Rapper Meek Mill and what other rapper worked out their differences in a 2019 live performance called “Dreams and Nightmares?” No hip hop folks at our table – though strangely enough, one of the two “modern” rappers I brainstormed on my scrap paper was correct – but it wasn’t the one we put down on our slip…bet we weren’t the only team missing this one!

Round Five

(WARNING: this round is going to be a rough one…you might want to skip ahead a bit if you don’t want to read about disastrous flubs)! I’m just kidding…of COURSE you all want to read about our mistakes (and that’s OK I totally get it)!

1. Old Words – An “ironmonger” most closely resembles what modern day business? Phil had the right instincts here…

2. Insects – In total, how many eyes does a typical honeybee have? Miss…FOR SIX. Should we just go home now?

3. Bad Disney – With a 37 percent “fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes, what 2005 Disney film based on a folk tale has been described as the worst Disney Animated Studios film since 1986? Close…(the movie we put down was released in 2003) – but no cigar.

Round Six

1. Imports – The U.S. imports 2/5 of its petroleum from what other country? Brad and Phil teamed up with success yet again (nice work guys)!

2. Mr. Rogers – What brand of navy colored shoes did Mr. Rogers wear – in addition to Sperry Top Siders – according to the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh? Obviously we had no idea this mild-mannered, cardigan-wearing children’s show host wore such “hip” footwear (this flub was totally on me…allow me to hang my head in shame)! We went with a different footwear brand that also has a lot of colored canvas styles, but isn’t typically worn by “hipsters.”

3. Civil Rights History – What city’s bus system was the focal point of the first large scale civil rights protest? Yay an answer we knew right away!

So as you can  guess, we weren’t feeling terribly confident at  this point! But apparently, plenty of other teams must’ve had a rough go of things in the second half, too! We were in a four-way tie for fourth with 53 points; third place teams were in a three-way tie with 54 points; two teams were tied for second with 56 points and “Wise Guys” were on top of the heap with 58 points.

Well…it all comes down to the final question, doesn’t it? We’ll see about that!

Final category – Fictional Characters

What mascot – created in 1981 – has been used in different media –  including its own franchise and other franchises with a “misleading” two word name – with one of the words meaning “idiot” and the other describing what kind of creature it is?

Whenever Mike starts writing down an  answer right away…I get a little giddy! This is a guy who said earlier in the game, “You guys don’t even need me,” and “I’m the weakest link on the team.”

As “The Wolf” so colorfully said in Pulp Fiction -“Let’s not start suckin’ each other’s d—s quite yet!” Those same words definitely applied to us during this game…

The trivia person on the mic was calling for some team representatives to go do tiebreaker battle – including someone from our team. For reasons I can’t explain – even after hearing the category “motorcycles,” I decided I’d go up and try my luck…

Here was the question:

What is the starting price of a Harley Davidson 2020 Street Rod motorcycle?

As some of you trivia “regulars” already know, you don’t get much time to answer tiebreaker questions…but I managed to produce a dollar amount. Would it be closer to the correct amount than the other players standing up there with me? Would it go over the correct amount? Read on!

Then – there was more suspense than in a Hitchcock movie as we waited to hear the correct answer (OK maybe a M. Night Shyamalan movie) – which made a couple of us look at each other and say “Hey…maybe we didn’t do too badly!” And there was even more finger crossing and suspense as we heard the scores being read…we figured we’d find out soon enough whether we won some shot glasses, mugs, shirts, or other swag…but wait…we weren’t hearing our team name! Huh…then they revealed which team got fourth (which was a team in our tiebreaker battle). That’s when it got REALLY exciting! We knew we had to finish in the top three to be able to walk away with checks…

YES! We got third place! Three of our four players were present for the celebration! A fourth was out warming up the car (yes that would be “Mr. Confidence,” aka “Mr. I’m the Weakest Link”). So after breaking the good news to him and fetching him from the car, we took care of “business” (posing with oversized novelty check and having real checks made out to us).

And that’s the story of the MTL finals as we witnessed it!

Special thanks to MTL and to the Library Pub for putting on/hosting a good trivia show!

Our next trivia battle will be Wednesday at Tower Inn. As always, Go Pods, and stay classy, Mr. Rogers (that shouldn’t be too difficult)!