Scroll down for the answers…

We brought a trio of players –  a married couple – and a mom of one of them – to the Sawmill Saloon in Big Rapids, MI for a bout of trivia on a mild spring night.

The bar was more packed than we expected it to be on a holiday weekend – in an area with a good deal of Ferris State students. Boy were we wrong! There were nine teams packed into the very “cozy” bar area – a couple of the teams were smallish like ours, but a few were quite sizeable –  with as many as 10-12 players.

We managed to post our highest score of the season so far with 62 points. Hey –  it’s only the sixth week – we’ll still do our best to log a 70-plus points game at least once –  or more times if we can manage it! And maybe – just maybe – just maybe – we’ll get a final question right sometime too! 😂

Only one team got the final question correct, and they were underdogs heading into the final. Who doesn’t love it when things like this happen in trivia games? And in life? 💕

The only thing I liked better about this game was hearing a trivia player get into it with a non-player who was being too loud during the halftime questions. He yelled at her to “get a hearing aid,” but she had the last word by telling the guy to basically STFU. And she had the support of the trivia crowd (I high-fived her for her public service)!

The questions were all posted on a TV screen – but not all teams were able to see it. Thankfully we could see it well! This was a treat for us, we have never played a MTL game with visual questions at any place besides this one.

As for the game, we won a $15/second place prize. We’re good with not being the top dogs when we were just visiting a bar we don’t come to very often.

Here were our questions:

R1

At the Gym – What piece of exercise equipment allows athletes to run as fast as they can while staying in one place?

Extreme Hobbies – What specialized largely made of lightweight fabric safely slows the descent of a skydiver?

Food Spreads – An alternative to preserves or jelly, what type of fruit spread can be made in 45 minutes per a recipe on Martha Stewart dot com? Miss, we mistakenly thought the correct answer was already in the question (brain farts occasionally happen in trivia).

R2

Poetry – How many total syllables are in a traditional haiku poem?

Occupations – In the title of people you might turn to for help filing your taxes, what does CPA stand for?

What country uses .nl for its top level domain for URL designations?

R3

Political Divisions – The Republic of Ireland is composed of 26 what? I gave a joke answer of “sober people” but we put in the correct one.

Bodies of Water – The Tigris and Euphrates join before emptying into what gulf? A bit of discussion, but we picked the right one.

Musical Theater – What musical penned by the creators of “South Park” opened at the Prince of Wales Theatre in 2013? Now that’s a show I’d want to see!

Who knows the name of the 1998 film where where Trey Parker played a prudish and devoutly religious man who wound up working in the adult film industry?

Halftime –  Film Franchises

Name each film franchise from the genre and release year of the first and fourth entries of the franchise:

H1 horror – 1975 and 1987

H2 comedy sci-fi – 1997 and 2019

H3 action sci-fi – 1979 and 2015

H4 comedy – 1999 and 2012

Missed #3 – this was tricky because another sci Fi franchise had its first installment in 1979 too 😢

We were in first at the half with 32 points – Kwest was in second with 31, McClain Tigers and Sad Bois for Life were time for third with 29; Flores was in fourth with 27; Tequila Mockingbird and Resisters were in fifth with 26, Tom 1 was in sixth with 25 and Ball Busters were in seventh with 17.

R4

Celebrity Sponsors – After being mocked by Dwayne Johnson about his wardrobe, what cereal did John Cena officially sponsor? Miss.

Pet Sculptures – What sort of animal is Greyfriars Bobby, immortalized in 1873 adjacent to a granite fountain in Scotland?

Word Origins – Formed from the Greek roots meaning “dung” and “stone,” what 9-letter word is the archaeological term for fossilized feces? I don’t know how Mike knew this, but he did! 💩

R5

Fruit – Typically, what color are the seeds of a papaya? Miss.

Hockey – In April 2025, what team took the Detroit Red Wings out of playoff contention – for the ninth consecutive season – upon earning a point against the Toronto Maple Leafs? We didn’t have any sporty players, so we used our “answer of the day” option here, which created confusion for our host in training (more about that in a bit).

Star Trek – On Star Trek, what iconic 3-word phrase bluntly reporting the death of a patient did Dr. Leonard McCoy actually only utter four times on screen?

R6 

Wild Animals – According to National Geographic, Australia is being overrun by a feral population of what creatures, with one solution being to turn them into burgers? All teams missed this one. I hear that all of the teams at McShane’s missed this, too.

Holy Books – Loyola Marymount University’s Hannon Library has in its collection a 1541 edition of the Bible attributed to what important reformation figure?

Buried Items – What 2-word term refers to a trove of goods and information intentionally buried for a future generation to retrieve?

We had 62 points going into the final and were in first – but our trainee host didn’t count our answer of the day as correct. After we straightened that out, we were in good shape to f— up by not knowing the final question answer!

About that…

Final Question – What shared song title did two different artists see rise into the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 19 years apart , the earlier a female rapper who hit #3 in 2005 and the later a male performer who hit #1 in 2024?

I think the only team that got this had the woman who yelled for quiet during halftime! Poetic justice? 🤔

We “should” be back in town for a regularly scheduled game at McShane’s next week. Happy Memorial Day weekend, everyone!

Also…Go Pods, and stay classy, Furiosa!

R1

Treadmill, parachute, jam

R2 17, certified public accountant, Netherlands

R3

Counties, Persian Gulf, book of Mormon

H jaws, men in black, mad Max, American pie

R4 fruity pebbles, dog, coprolite

R5 black, Canadiens, he’s dead Jim

R6 camels, Martin Luther, time capsule

F lose control